Friday, December 20, 2013

Patti Anne Lodge Committed Voter Fraud Claims Wrap Sheet

Canyon County, Idaho

1.      Patti Anne Lodge willingly made her Sunnyslope residence unlivable before redistricting was finalized by donating it. However, there is no record of permits to move it or place it in residence someplace else in the county Development Services Department records.

2.      Patti Anne Lodge no longer had a residence at 18500 Symms Rd to reside in, thus was no longer an elector of Precinct 32, District 11. According to Idaho State Code (ISC) 34-107. "Residence" defined. (1) "Residence," for voting purposes, shall be the principal or primary home or place of abode of a person. Black’s Law Dictionary defines abode as legal residence and legal residence as the place a person spends most of his time and is the home that is recognized by law.

3.      Yet, Patti Anne Lodge claimed her Sunnyslope property as her residence on her declaration of candidacy and in documentation to the Idaho Secretary of State and the Canyon County Clerk to run as District 11 Senator and Precinct 32 Committeewoman.

4.      While she does own another house inside legislative district 11 under her Windridge LLC at 21251 Homedale Rd Caldwell, she purposefully chose to live outside her legislative district in her house on 703 E. Logan in District 10 that her husband, Federal Judge Edward Lodge inherited and remodeled recently. She chose not to rent any place within her district for a residence, live at her Homedale residence nor move in a temporary residence at 18500 Symms Rd.

5.      The lack of construction permits or applications for building permits demonstrates that Patti Anne Lodge has made no conscious effort to reclaim Sunnyslope as a residence. Furthermore, placing a mobile home on the property was only offered after the Press-Tribune exposed Senator Lodge was not living in the district she was elected to represent.

6.      Patti Anne Lodge lived outside legislative district 11 for at least 13 months before the 2012 election per proof in fact #1.
a.        ISC 18-2301. Official neglect or malfeasance. Every person charged with the performance of any duty, under the provisions of any law of this state relating to elections, who wilfully neglects or refuses to perform it, or who, in his official capacity, knowingly and fraudulently acts in contravention or violation of any of the provisions of such laws, is, unless a different punishment for such acts or omissions is prescribed by this Code, punishable by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the state prison not exceeding five (5) years, or by both and shall in addition thereto, and regardless of whether or not criminal prosecution is undertaken, be subject to removal from office as provided in title 19, chapter 41, Idaho Code.
b.      ISC 18-2302. False swearing as to qualifications as voter. Every person who, upon his right to vote being challenged at any election held under the laws of this state, willfully, corruptly and falsely swears touching his qualifications as a voter, is guilty of perjury.
c.       ISC 18-2304. Procuring illegal votes. Every person who procures, aids, assists, counsels or advises another to give or offer his vote at any election, knowing that the person is not qualified to vote, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
d.      ISC 18-2322. Illegal registration by voter. Any person who shall willfully cause, or endeavor to cause, his name to be registered in any other election district than that in which he resides, or will reside prior to the day of the next ensuing election, except as herein otherwise provided, and any person who shall cause, or endeavor to cause, his name to be registered, knowing that he is not a qualified elector, and will not be a qualified elector on or before the day of the next ensuing election, in the election district in which he causes or endeavors to cause such registry to be made, and any person who shall induce, aid or abet anyone in the commission of either of the acts in this section enumerated and described, shall be fined not less than fifty dollars ($50.00) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or be confined in the county jail for not less than one (1) month nor more than six (6) months, or both.
e.       ISC 34-107 can be justified by the State Constitution under Article VI, section 5 (Residences for voting purposes not lost or gained).
f.       ISC 34-413. Reregistration of elector who changes residence. An elector who moves to another county within the state or to another state within thirty (30) days prior to any election shall be permitted to vote in the ensuing election by absentee ballot. Obviously, Patti Anne Lodge was twelve months outside of this contingency.
g.      ISC 34-614. Election of state representatives and senators -- Qualifications. (2)  No person shall be elected to the office of representative or senator unless he shall have attained the age of twenty-one (21) years at the time of the general election, is a citizen of the United States and shall have resided within the legislative district one (1) year next preceding the general election at which he offers his candidacy.
h.      ISC 34-624. Election of precinct committeemen -- Qualifications. (2)  No person shall be elected to the office of precinct committeeman unless he has attained the age of eighteen (18) years at the time of his election, is a citizen of the United States, a registered elector of and shall have resided within the voting precinct for a period of six (6) months next preceding his election.
i.        ISC 34-2101. Grounds of contest. The election of any person to any legislative or state executive office may be contested:
2.  When the incumbent was not eligible to the office at the time of the election;
4.  When the incumbent has given or offered to any elector, or any judge, clerk, or canvasser of the election, any bribe or reward in money or property, for the purpose of procuring his election, or has committed any violation as set out in chapter 23, title 18, Idaho Code;
j.        ISC 6-602. Actions for usurpation of office. An action may be brought in the name of the people of the state against any person who usurps, intrudes into, holds or exercises any office or franchise, real or pretended, within this state, without authority of law. Such action shall be brought by the prosecuting attorney of the proper county, when the office or franchise relates to a county, precinct or city, and when such office or franchise relates to the state, by the attorney general; and it shall be the duty of the proper officer, upon proper showing, to bring such action whenever he has reason to believe that any such office or franchise has been usurped, intruded into, held or exercised without authority of law. Any person rightfully entitled to an office or franchise may bring an action in his own name against the person who has usurped, intruded into, or who holds or exercises the same.
k.      Article IV, Section 8 of the Idaho GOP Rules state, The County Central Committee shall appoint by election to fill all vacancies that occur or exist in the offices of Precinct Committeemen. Candidates shall be qualified electors of the precinct.
l.        Article III, Section 2 of the Canyon County By-Laws state, Qualifications: All members of the County Central Committee shall be qualified electors of the precinct in which they reside (ISC 34-402/104)

7.      Article III, section 6 of the Idaho Constitution states, “No person shall be a senator or representative who, at the time of his election, is not a citizen of the United States, and an elector of this state, nor anyone who has not been for one year next preceding his election an elector of the county or district whence he may be chosen.” Article III, section 11, states, Expulsion of members. Each house may, for good cause shown, with the concurrence of two-thirds of all the members, expel a member.
8.      Verbal inquiries involving the Sunnyslope property and Patti Anne Lodge not living in her legislative district were made early on by several people during the campaign season.  Maurice Clements chose to run a clean campaign and stick to the issues at hand, while hoping for Patti Anne Lodge to do the honorable thing.
9.      The Canyon County Assessor's Office took away Patti Anne Lodge’s homeowner's exemption for 18500 Symms Rd.  According to ISC 63-602G. PROPERTY EXEMPT FROM TAXATION -- HOMESTEAD. (2) The exemption allowed by this section may be granted only if:  (a) The homestead is owner-occupied and used as the primary dwelling place of the owner as of January 1, provided that in the event the homestead is owner-occupied after January 1, but before April 15, the owner of the property is entitled to the exemption. The homestead may consist of part of a multi-dwelling or multi-purpose building and shall include all of such dwelling or building except any portion used exclusively for anything other than the primary dwelling of the owner. 63-701. DEFINITIONS. As used in this chapter:
(2) "Homestead" means the dwelling, owner-occupied by the claimant as described in this chapter
and used as the primary dwelling place of the claimant and may be occupied by any members of the household as their home, and so much of the land surrounding it, not exceeding one (1) acre, as is reasonably necessary for the use of the dwelling as a home. It may consist of a part of a multi-dwelling or  multi-purpose building and part of the land upon which it is built. "Homestead" does not include personal property such as furniture, furnishings or appliances, but a manufactured home may be a homestead.
(6) "Occupied" means actual use and possession.
(8) (a) "Primary dwelling place" means the claimant's dwelling place on January 1 or before
April 15 of the year for which the claim is made. The primary dwelling place is the single place where a claimant has his true, fixed and permanent home and principal establishment, and to which whenever the individual is absent he has the intention of returning. A claimant must establish the dwelling to which the claim relates to be his primary dwelling place by clear and convincing evidence or by establishing that the dwelling is where the claimant resided on January 1 or before April 15 and:
1.      (i) At least six (6) months during the prior year;
      (Will attach homeowner’s exemption information that was just received from the Canyon County Assessor’s office.)

11.  This did not trigger any changes in the County Clerk’s office with respect to election status. However according to the Canyon County Clerk’s website http://www.canyonco.org/Elected-Officials/Clerk/Clerk-Elections/FAQ-s.aspx , it is the responsibility of the citizen to re-register if they move either inside or out of a county because a change of precinct, district, county or city change will change the races that the citizen can lawfully vote and/or run for. Voter registration is public knowledge according to ISC 34-4.

12.  Senate and House leadership usually inform their respective legislators that temporarily live outside their districts to immediately move back into their districts and give them a deadline to do such. Matters of this nature sometimes occur with marital problems and discretion is needed. Patti Anne Lodge is a senior legislator and should have known better.

13.  There has been intimidation for people wishing to collect information and press the matter that Patti Anne Lodge is not living within her district. Furthermore, the fear of retaliation is real. Governor Otter campaigned for Patti Anne Lodge in her last primary race; she is one of four people that have this honor. Patti Anne Lodge is married to an active well-established federal judge as well; Ed Lodge's judicial district is the entire state of Idaho.

14.  The Canyon County and the Legislative District 11 Republican Central Committees should pull Patti Anne Lodge's position as a precinct committeeman that she was not qualified to run for. However, they do not have the authority to cause Patti Anne Lodge to lose her Senate position. The Idaho Senate has that responsibility.

Analysis
A. Canyon County Clerk, Chris Yamamoto is the chief election officer of Canyon county. Ben Ysursa is the chief election officer of the state of Idaho and would be a resource Mr. Yamamoto would rely upon in this situation. The evidence shows that 18500 Symms is not Edward and Patti Anne Lodge's residence. Given political pressure and the fact Secretary of State Ben Ysursa has given his position on this matter, there are no assurances this process will be handled in a just or fair way. ISC 18-2304. Procuring illegal votes..

B. The lack of filing for a permit to demolish a house or a permit to move a house that could have potentially triggered internal county software involving election status shows either a disregard for county codes or an intentional deception. Is there a procedure in place for the Canyon County Assessor or Development Services Department to contact the County Clerk's Office when a candidates homeowner's exemption is revoked or a residence is no longer inhabitable? However, it is the responsibility of the candidate/citizen to NOT commit election and/or voter fraud. Officials in public trust positions should avoid the very appearance of fraud, deception and corruption. A senator that has served several terms has to know this by now!

C. The physical location of one's residence determines voting status. Patti Anne Lodge has recently used a Huston PO Box address as her mailing address; the mailing address has no bearing on the matter. If Patti Anne Lodge had moved to the Homedale Rd property and amended the record, the matter would have been moot with respect to her senate seat. However, she still would have had to give up her precinct committeeman seat run or run for the legal precinct in the Canyon County Republican party.
For example, in a neighboring county there is a legislator with a mailing address in a nearby town just over his county's border. During redistricting, the Idaho Statesman misreported the effects of some redistricting plans when they used the mailing address instead of the physical address.

D. The Secretary of State and Senate leadership has some major explaining to do. Protocol would be Secretary of State Ben Ysursa contacts the Senate Pro Tem (Senator Brent Hill) after being informed about the residence problem. It would then be the job of the Senate Pro Tem and the Majority Leader, Senator Bart Davis, to discuss matters with Senator Patti Anne Lodge to bring her in compliance with state laws and the state constitution as soon as possible. Did the following discussion occur and why or why not?

E. Senator Branden Durst recently resigned because he no longer resided in his district.

F. Redistricting caused some major headaches in Bannock, Bonner, Bonneville, Twin Falls, and, most importantly,
Canyon County when it came to drawing precinct and legislative district lines. With respect to the county clerks, many of them had major election-related work that overwhelmed their staff.
The October 2011 photograph proves there was no dwelling at 18500 Symms Road. This is more than a full year before the November 2012 general election and proves Patti Anne Lodge was not eligible to be on the ballot using the Sunnyslope property as her residence, according to the state constitution in Article III, section 6. Article III, section 2, part 5 would define the boundaries used.
Furthermore, claiming this property as a residence for election purposes constitutes fraud.
Filing deadlines for the May 2012 elections also made for some interesting politics as well. Using her residence on
Logan, Patti Anne Lodge would have had to run against Senator Jim Rice, the Governor’s recently appointed senator for district 10. The incumbent Senator in district 11 was Melinda Smyser. Did Patti Anne Lodge cost Melinda Smyser a state senate seat with an improper claiming of her residence?

G. As the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary & Rules committee, she would have been aware of the Bradbury case that went to the Idaho Supreme Court. The court case is only a few years old. Judge Bradbury had a primary residence in Lewiston and a secondary residence in Idaho county. Judge Bradbury wished to save the state of Idaho some money and stay in his second home when he had cases in Idaho county. The Idaho Supreme Court ruled Judge Bradbury could not do this; Judge Bradbury had to either rent a motel room and submit a bill or use his primary residence in Nez Perce county to stay as an eligible judge for that county. A similar standard could be applied to Patti Anne Lodge. At this point in time, it is the purview of the Idaho Senate to determine consequences for Senator Patti Anne Lodge.

H. How can Patti Ann Lodge claim a piece of property as her residence with the home owner's exemption being revoked for a lack of a house? March 2012 is the filing time for public office; yet, her filings claim this same property as her residence during her run for public office as a legislative district senator and a precinct committeewoman.

Republicans To Charge Patti Anne Lodge With Voter Fraud

A Resolution Involving Election Qualification
Sponsored By: Blaine County Republican State Committeeman Mitch Hoffman


WHEREAS, District 11 Senator and Precinct 32 Committeewoman Patti Anne Lodge’s residence was removed prior to October 25, 2011, before redistricting was finalized, and


WHEREAS, the homeowner's exemption for 18500 Symms Road, Caldwell, the declared residence of Patti Anne Lodge, was revoked for “no home on this site” on March 21, 2012, and


WHEREAS Patti Anne Lodge has been willfully living at her home at 701 E. Logan Street, Caldwell, which is outside legislative district 11, for over the last two years and has failed to correct the record, and


WHEREAS, Patti Anne Lodge is owner of a house at 21251 Homedale Rd, Caldwell, through her LLC Windridge and chose not to live in District 11, and


WHEREAS, State Senator Patti Anne Lodge violated Article III, section 6 of our state constitution, (“No person shall be a senator or representative who, at the time of his election, is not a citizen of the United States, and an elector of this state, nor anyone who has not been for one year next preceding his election an elector of the county or district whence he may be chosen.”) the Idaho State Republican Party Rules Article IV, Section 8  and Canyon County Bylaws Article III, Section 2, as well as Idaho State Code (ISC) 18:2302, 18-2322, 34-614(2), and 34-624(2), and


WHEREAS, Patti Anne Lodge committed voter fraud by violating ISC18-2322, and


WHEREAS, residence voting exemptions under ISC 34-107 (and under Article VI, section 5 of the State Constitution) do not apply, and


WHEREAS, revocation letters of homeowner exemption, county assessor pictures and records, county permit records  and county clerk records showing physical residences and if people voted in a particular election are public records, and


WHEREAS, the residence of Patti Anne can be challenged under ISC 34-431 where the homeowner's exemption being revoked is an admission by Canyon county of such, and


WHEREAS, Idaho State code under 34-2101(2)(4) and the state constitution disqualifies Patti Anne Lodge for the legislative district 11 senator, and


NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE IDAHO REPUBLICAN STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE:


Direct the Canyon County Chairman to immediately declare the Precinct 32 Committeeman Seat vacant and no longer recognize Patti Anne Lodge as a member of the Canyon County Central Committee.


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:


The Canyon County Assessor, Development Services Department (DSD), Canyon County Clerk and Secretary of State immediately make available all county assessor files and pictures, all DSD permit information and all election information and documents pertaining to Patti Anne Lodge to the Attorney General, the members of the Idaho Senate, any federal entity wishing to investigate the Lodges on voter fraud, the general public, and the press.


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:


The Attorney General under ISC 6-602 pursue prosecution for the usurpation of office of State Senator for Legislative District 11.


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:


The Attorney General and the Secretary of State investigate the practices of the Canyon County Clerk, especially under 18-2301 and 18-2304.


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT:

The Idaho Senate consider the preceding information for action under Article III section 11 (expulsion of members), since Patti Anne Lodge is disqualified for office.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Idaho Liberty Summit, Burley, ID

Idaho Liberty Summit, Burley, ID
Friday, August 16, 2013, 08:00am
To Saturday, August 17, 2013
The Third Annual Liberty Summit will be held at the Best Western Burley Inn and Convention Center and will feature these fantastic speakers:
Sheriff Mack, Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association
Larry Pratt, Executive Director, Gun Owners of America
Rep. Ken Ivory, American Land Council
Dr. Duke Pesta, Freedom Project Education
Wayne Hoffman, Executive Director, Idaho Freedom Foundation and more!
It is $50 for the Saturday, August 17th Summit, including a great lunch and $10 for the Meet and Greet Friday, August 16th evening. If two people register together, the Meet and Greet fee is waived. Send checks to Dorothy Moon, 525 F Street, Rupert, ID 83350 or call 208-436-3714 to get your reservation today. Or emailteaparty@custertel.net.
If you're attending the Michelle Malkin Idaho Freedom Foundation reception on July 26, the IFF will give you a discounted rate of $30 ($20 savings) per person or $50 ($30 savings) per couple.
Location Best Western Burley Inn & Convention Center
Contact Dorothy Moon, 208-436-3714, teaparty@custertel.net

Why Republicans Didn’t Win in 2012

by Phyllis Schlafly

At last Republicans can read a coherent explanation of why they didn’t win in 2012, despite high unemployment and a dismal economy, the unpopularity of ObamaCare, and many scandals such as Fast and Furious. Best-selling author Dr. Jerome Corsi, who spent three weeks traveling with the Mitt Romney campaign, listening to every stump speech, gives us an inside look at the cockiness and mistakes of Romney’s staff in a new book called What Went Wrong.
The official Republican Party’s analysis of the election was issued in March by RNC Chairman Reince Priebus. It was so self-serving and inadequate that it was dubbed an autopsy, i.e., the dissection of a dead body.
The Republican Party is not dead, but it is bleeding from the mistakes and prejudices of the high-dollar Establishment that shrinks from dealing with the social, moral and job-loss issues that concern the grassroots. The Establishment inflicted us with another centrist loser in the model of John McCain and Bob Dole.
Corsi quotes Romney’s chief campaign strategist, Stuart Stevens, as pontificating on the last plane fight of the 2012 campaign that he was confident Romney would win because “a positive campaign message trumps a good ground game every time.” Wrong. Obama’s first-rate ground game, facilitated by technology that actually worked, trumped whatever Romney had to offer.
Romney didn’t have a good campaign message anyway. His speech writers should have listened to the participants in their own focus groups, one of whom said: “I am sick and tired of giving bailouts to the folks at the top and handouts to the folks at the bottom.” And they could have gotten some advice from Rick Santorum, who said, “If all we do is focus on the job creators and not the job holders, we’re talking to a very small group of people.”
The Romney campaign’s attempt to use modern technology to get out the vote was totally outfoxed in the battle of the whales. Obama’s technology, named after the whale Narwhal, worked perfectly to get out the vote, but Romney’s, named for Orca, another whale, was not fully tested and crashed on election day.
Corsi shows how 2012 paralleled the Republican Establishment of the 1940s (then called the kingmakers), which inflicted us with presidential candidates like two-time loser Tom Dewey, whom the grassroots dubbed “me-too” candidates;i.e., whatever the Democrats said, the Republican candidates responded, “me too.” Voters like candidates who offer us a choice, not an echo.
Romney made no effort to reach out to various subgroups, some of whose members might have swelled his votes. He and his financial establishment had no desire to bring the Tea Parties and other independents into the Republican Party.
The major group that Romney failed to reach out to was the Reagan Democrats, who were essential to Ronald Reagan’s impressive victories in the 1980s but were no longer voting Republican because their manufacturing jobs had been outsourced overseas. Romney and the GOP muffed their big opportunity to develop a message that they would stop the hemorrhaging of U.S. jobs to China.
Then there was the way Romney insulted the libertarians. Ron Paul won 177 properly elected delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa in 2012. Although it was mathematically impossible for that handful of votes to have affected the outcome of the Convention, Romney’s people insulted them by not allowing their votes to be recorded and counted.
Corsi concluded that in two key battleground states, Ohio and Florida, the margin of votes by which Romney lost to Obama was less than the number of votes received by Ron Paul in that state’s primary, and in three states — Virginia, Connecticut, and New Hampshire — the margin was close. Not all, of course, but surely some libertarians might have voted the Romney-Ryan ticket, but the GOP never asked them.
The Democrats and union organizers have become very skilled at exploiting early voting. Obama’s ground game included sending out hundreds of field organizers and volunteers to “chase ballots,” locate possible Obama voters, and nag them until they actually went to the polls, a tactic that early voting makes easy.
The Republican Party and Romney spent hundreds of millions of big-donor dollars on television ads, but most of the candidates they supported were defeated. Corsi explains that the Obama strategists got lots more for their TV spending because they were more skillful in targeting issues and states.
Jerome Corsi, an astute political scientist, explains in his new book “What Went Wrong” how the Obama campaigns in 2008 and 2012 changed presidential politics forever. Republicans will keep losing if they don’t learn those lessons and take the Party’s decision-making away from the big-money crowd and return it to the grassroots.

Monday, August 5, 2013

DDT needed to fight malaria & West Nile Virus

Filer, Idaho

The ban on the insecticide DDT in 1972 by EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus, who had come from the World Wildlife Fund, despite being ruled safe by EPA judge Edmund Sweeney,  has cost millions of lives due to malaria and other insect transmitted diseases like West Nile Virus.  The ban also is causing the death of millions of acres of pine and hardwood trees due to insects previously controlled by DDT.

            The Environmental Defense Fund and its allies had pushed to have DDT banned. The book, “Silent Spring” with half-truths and lies was used to place DDT under investigation. J. Gordon Edwards, Ph.D. entomologist, defended the safety of DDT  in his publication, “DDT, A Case Study in Scientific Fraud.”

            There are three major lies still being repeated about DDT.  These are: DDT did NOT kill birds or cause egg shell thinning.  The initial test was conducted without necessary Calcium to produce normal shells.  This was published in Science Journal.  A second test with Calcium showed no difference, but Science editor  Philip Abelson  refused to publish the truth.

            DDT is NOT toxic to humans and is NOT a human carcinogen.  It is far safer than many replacement insecticides.  DDT does NOT persist in the environment and does NOT accumulate and concentrate in the food chain. 

            A documentary, “Three Billion and Counting.” By Dr. Rutledge Taylor is named for the number of malaria victims world-wide throughout history and exposes four decades of genocide due to the DDT ban.  Original EPA hearing transcripts (9,312 Pages) reveal that DDT is safe and effective. Visit the website, www.3billionandcounting.com.   Dr. Art Robinson, biochemist and president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine said, “The number of children slaughtered by the ban of DDT is greater than any other genocide in world history.” 
    
 The real goal of the ban of DDT was and still is population control not concern for the environment according to Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore and others.  India produces and uses DDT and has very little malaria and other insect related diseases. 

            Congress must pass a bill to bring back safe, effective and low cost DDT to not only fight malaria, but also West Nile Virus and tree killing insects to save our forests and reduce destructive fires.  Please contact your Senators and Congressman and request that hearings be established to reveal the original EPA okay on DDT and get a bill passed to approve it once again. 

A concerned citizen,

Adrian L. Arp, Ph.D.

Monday, July 29, 2013

Backlash Against Common Core

By Phyllis Schlafly
Common Core (CC) is the issue that is bringing out hundreds of citizens who never before attended political meetings. Common Core is the attempt of Barack Obama’s Department of Education to force all states and schools to adopt national education standards for each grade level that will dictate what all kids learn and don’t learn.
Common Core means federal control of school curriculum, i.e., control by Obama Administration leftwing bureaucrats. They plan on having the power to dictate and overrule all decisions by state and local school boards, state legislatures, parents, and even Congress.
Common CoreIt’s not only public schools that must obey the fed’s dictates. Common Core will control the curriculum of charter schools, private schools, religious schools, Catholic schools, and homeschooling. The control mechanism is the tests (called assessments). Kids must pass the tests in order to get a high school diploma or admittance to college. If they haven’t studied a curriculum based on Common Core standards, they won’t score well on the tests.
Common Core cannot be described as voluntary. Since CC is so costly to the states (estimated $15 billion for retraining teachers and purchase of computers for all kids to take the tests), CC is foisted on the locals by a combination of bribes, federal handouts, and as the price for getting a waiver to exempt a state from other obnoxious mandates such as No Child Left Behind.
Don’t be under any illusion that Common Core will make kids smarter. The Common Core academic level is lower than what many states use now, and the math standards are so inferior that the only real mathematician on the validation committee refused to sign off on the math standards. He said the CC standards are two years behind international expectations by the 8th grade, and fall further behind in grades 8 to 12. The CC math standards downgrade the years when algebra and geometry are to be taught.
CC advocates claim that the new standards will make students college ready. That depends on how you define college; students will be ready only to enter a two-year nonselective community college.
Common Core authorizes government agencies to gather and store all sorts of private information on every schoolchild into a longitudinal database from birth through all levels of schooling, and gives government the right to share and exchange this nosy information with other government and private agencies. This is a violation of federal law and is the type of surveillance and control of individuals that is the mark of a totalitarian government.
Common Core reminds us of how Communist China gathered nosy information on all its schoolchildren, stored it in manila folders called “dangans,” and then turned the file over to the kid’s employer when he left school. The New York Times once published a picture of a giant Chinese warehouse containing hundreds of thousands of these folders. That was in the pre-internet era when information was stored on paper. Now data collection and storage are efficiently managed on computers.
Common Core is encrusted with lies. It is not, as advertised, “state” written; it is a national project created in secret without any input from teachers or state legislatures. It is not “internationally benchmarked”; that never happened.
The CC English standards designate that the assigned readings should be 50% “informational” texts instead of great American and English literature and classics. The result is that CC readings can be very political. The appendix suggests “informational” readings such as a sales talk for government health care and propaganda for global warming (including a push for Agenda 21). Some of the fiction suggested is worthless and even pornographic. CC advocates protest that the standards include some American “classics” such asThe Grapes of Wrath. Citing that leftwing novel as an example of great literature shows how pathetic the English standards are.
CC advocates admit the standards cannot by changed or errors corrected because they are already printed and copyrighted. We should take a bit of advice from our neighbor to the north. Canada has no national standards (all standards are adopted locally) and does not even have any national Department of Education.

Common Core Will Not Make Kids Smarter

The overall Common Core strategy is to raise the students in the middle a point or two but do nothing to motivate or help the smarter kids or the dumber kids. CC’s goal is to achieve a result like Lake Wobegon, the fictional Minnesota town where “all kids are above average.”
Professor Sandra Stotsky explains this in academic language:
The mathematics coursework taken by our low-achieving high school students may indeed become stronger. But if such an alignment is not strategically altered, states may be unwittingly reducing other students’ participation in more demanding mathematics curricula and their academic eligibility for undergraduate STEM majors and internationally competitive jobs in mathematics-dependent areas.
Common Core has carefully disguised its road to equally low outcomes for all demographic groups, and many state boards of education may quickly follow up their unexamined adoption of Common Core’s K-12 standards . . . by lowering their high school graduation requirements in the name of alignment, thinking that, once again, they have strengthened their public schools. . . . When Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, and Vermont (high achieving states in grade 8 mathematics on the 2011 NAEP) end up in the “not aligned” category, one begins to wonder what matching might mean.
CC advocates continue to repeat that CC standards are not a curriculum but are merely standards. However, it’s clear that the curriculum will have to be aligned with the CC tests. Teachers will be compelled to “teach to the test,” and the curriculum must be in harmony with the standards and the tests.
The UCLA-based National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing Common Core report (January 2013) concluded that “educators will align curriculum and teaching to what is tested, and what is not assessed largely will be ignored.” Bill Gates, the largest individual financial contributor to Common Core, clarified the connection in a speech to the National Conference of State Legislators in July 2009: “We’ll know we’ve succeeded when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards.”
The Fordham Institute studied the science standards and concluded that they are inferior to existing standards in 12 states, superior to only 16 states, and the standards of 22 states are too close to call. It would have been better if more states simply adopted the better standards already successfully piloted in 12 states.

Common Core English Standards

Professor Sandra Stotsky, who developed Massachusetts’ highly regarded K-12 standards, said that the CC English standards “weaken the basis of literary and cultural knowledge needed for authentic college coursework.” She was a member of the Common Core validation Committee, but refused to approve the standards.
In a report released by the Pioneer Institute, Professor Stotsky gave an example of what Common Core advocates mean when they say “informational” texts will promote analytical thinking by students. She cited her grandson’s experience in a public school. The students were assigned to read selections on the fate of the Taino Indians and from a diary supposedly written by Christopher Columbus’s cabin boy. Then the students were told to write to a state official opining on whether Columbus should continue to be honored by a state holiday. Every student’s letter said Columbus should not be so honored. That’s the sort of assignment that CC educators think will increase students’ analytical thinking? And that’s how CC spreads its liberal propaganda.
Comic books and graphic novels used to be considered useful primarily for underachieving students and poor readers as a means to get them interested in books. But now Common Core is bringing picture books into the mainstream of education. The president of the Illinois Association of Teachers of English pointed out that graphic novels are specifically approved in Common Core standards, so they will surely have a larger role in classrooms.
At a National Teachers of English conference, the teachers of a senior Advanced Placement honors course presented an argument against having students read Beowulf and for substituting a comic book based on Beowulf. No doubt when parents complain about the omission of classic literature, Common Core advocates will cite this assignment of Beowulf.

Common Core Math Standards

Stanford Professor James Milgram, the only mathematician on the Common Core Validation Committee, concluded that the math standards don’t “even fully cover” the material in a solid geometry or second-year algebra course. After reviewing the Common Core standards, Milgram told the Texas state legislature that the CC standards are “in large measure a political document that . . . is written at a very low level and does not adequately reflect our current understanding of why the math programs in the high-achieving countries give dramatically better results.” He refused to sign off on the math standards.

Science Standards Rate a “C”

The new science standards are called “Next Generation Science Standards.” They were examined by nine scientists and mathematicians for content, rigor and clarity, after which the Thomas B. Fordham Institute gave them a grade of “C.” The criticisms advanced by these experts referred to the “ceiling on the content and skills that will be measured at each grade,” the excluding of content that more advanced students can learn, the failure “to include essential math content that is critical to science learning” in physics and chemistry, and the “confusing” wording of the standards.
Another problem found by Fordham reviewers is the focus on students “performing” rather than learning a base of knowledge and the storehouse of information that students must acquire in order to engage in scientific reasoning.
Proponents of evolution and manmade climate change are ecstatic about the new Common Core science standards. Education Week reports: “The standards make clear that evolution is fundamental to understanding the life sciences.”
It is misleading to claim that CC standards will make students “college-ready.” They will not be ready to major in STEM subjects at a four-year university.

Indiana Leads the Way

The battle against Common Core began with two mothers, Heather Crossin and Erin Tuttle, who became alarmed when their sixth grade children brought home their math textbooks. Like good parents, they inspected the books and immediately realized they were inferior to Indiana’s former textbooks and were based on Common Core standards. They alerted other parents, their state Senators, Eagle Forum, and Tea Party groups.
Common Core became a big issue in the 2012 elections. The State Superintendent of Schools, Tony Bennett, a Republican elected in a very Republican state, was a big supporter of Common Core. Bennett’s reelection was expected to be easy. The grassroots supported an anti-CC Democrat against him, made Common Core the big issue, and defeated Bennett, even though the Democrat, Glenda Ritz, was outspent 5 to 1.
Then Senator Scott Schneider sponsored an anti-Common Core bill, the Indiana State Legislature passed it, and it was signed into law by Governor Mike Pence.

Senator Grassley Supports Parents

Always a friend of parents’ rights, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is leading an effort to ask Senate appropriators to restore state-level decision-making about academic content in public schools in order to counter the way federal incentives have interfered to force states to adopt the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
Grassley said the Common Core program was initially billed as a voluntary effort, and that current federal law makes clear that the U.S. Department of Education may not be involved in setting specific content standards or determining the content of state assessments. Grassley explained:
The reality is that the U.S. Department of Education has made adoption of standards matching those in Common Core a requirement for getting waivers and funds. This violates the structure of our education system, where academic content decisions are made at the state level giving parents a direct line of accountability to those making the decisions. The federal government should not be allowed to coerce state education decision makers. . . .
We ask that the Fiscal Year 2014 Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Bill include language to restore state decision-making and accountability with respect to state academic content standards. The decision about what students should be taught and when it should be taught has enormous consequences for our children. Therefore, parents ought to have a straight line of accountability to those who are making such decisions. State legislatures, which are directly accountable to the citizens of their states, are the appropriate place for those decisions to be made, free from any pressure from the U.S. Department of Education.
While the Common Core State Standards Initiative was initially billed as a voluntary effort between states, federal incentives have clouded the picture. Current federal law makes clear that the U.S. Department of Education may not be involved in setting specific content standards or determining the content of state assessments. Nevertheless, the selection criteria designed by the U.S. Department of Education for the Race to the Top Program provided that for a state to have any chance to compete for funding, it must commit to adopting a “common set of K-12 standards” matching the description of the Common Core. The U.S. Department of Education also made adoption of “college- and career-ready standards” meeting the description of the Common Core a condition to receive a state waiver under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Senator Grassley asked other Senators to join him in making sure that federal funds are not used by the Secretary of Education —
(1) to directly develop, implement or evaluate multi-State or other specified standards (defined in this section as any set of academic content standards common to multiple States, including the Common Core State Standards developed by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers, or any other specified set or type of academic content standards selected by the Secretary) or assessments aligned with such standards;
(2) to award any grant, contract, or cooperative agreement that requires or specifically authorizes the development, implementation, or evaluation of multi-State or other specified standards, or assessments aligned with such standards.
There may be other goals behind Common Core. The outgoing president of the Missouri branch of the National Education Association (NEA) gave an exit interview about her eagerness to implement Common Core. She said CC would “prepare our kids for a global community, a global society. These are going to exactly take us there.”

Resolution Passed by the Republican National Committee

Whereas, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a set of academic standards promoted and supported by two private membership organizations, the National Governor’s Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) as a method for conforming American students to uniform (“one size fits all”) achievement goals to make them more competitive in a global marketplace; and
Whereas, the NGA and the CCSSO received tens of millions of dollars from private third parties to advocate for and develop the CCSS strategy, subsequently created the CCSS through a process that was not subject to any freedom of information acts or other sunshine laws, and never piloted; and
Whereas, even though Federal Law prohibits the federalizing of curriculum, the Obama Administration accepted the CCSS plan and used 2009 Stimulus Bill money to reward the states that were most committed to the president’s CCSS agenda; but they failed to give states, their legislatures and their citizens time to evaluate the CCSS before having to commit to them; and
Whereas, the NGA and CCSSO in concert with the same corporations developing the CCSS ‘assessments’ have created new textbooks, digital media and other teaching materials aligned to the standards which must be purchased and adopted by local school districts in order that students may effectively compete on CCSS ‘assessments’; and
Whereas, the CCSS program includes federally funded testing and the collection and sharing of massive amounts of personal student and teacher data; and
Whereas, the CCSS effectively removes educational choice and competition since all schools and all districts must use Common Core ‘assessments’ based on the Common Core standards to allow all students to advance in the school system and to advance to higher education pursuits; Therefore be it
Resolved, the Republican National Committee as stated in the 2012 Republican Party Platform, “do not believe in a one-size-fits all approach to education and support broad education choices to parents and children at the State and local level,” which is best based on a free market approach to education for students to achieve individual excellence; and be it further
Resolved, the Republican National Committee recognizes the CCSS for what it is — an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived “normal”; and be it further
Resolved, that the Republican National Committee rejects the collection of personal student data for any non-educational purpose without the prior written consent of an adult student or a child student’s parent and that it rejects the sharing of such personal data without the prior written consent of an adult student or a child student’s parent, with any person or entity other than schools or education agencies within the state; and be it finally
Resolved, the 2012 Republican Party Platform specifically states the need to repeal the numerous federal regulations which interfere with State and local control of public schools; and therefore, the Republican National Committee rejects this CCSS plan which creates and fits the country with a nationwide straitjacket on academic freedom and achievement.