Pennsylvanians Now Free to Gratuitously Drop ‘F-Bomb’

Hey, kids! The ACLU and Commonwealth of Penn. say it's okay to fire away, as long as it's "non-threatening!"

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) secured a victory Tuesday for Pennsylvanians who enjoy dropping the ‘F-bomb’ without fear of reprisal from law enforcement officials.

ACLU lawyer Mary Catherine Roper says Penn. state troopers issued “more than 700 disorderly conduct citations for cursing in a recent one-year span, and local police hundreds more.”

Roper claims citizens’ newfound freedom to use expletives in common “non-threatening” conversation will cut down on needless legal costs endured by violators and the court system.

How do you interpret this ‘victory’ for civil liberties if you’re a parent or teacher? Afterall, this is a victory for protecting freedom of speech as prescribed by the 1st Amendment.

Permission Slip Required for Kids to Recite Pledge of Allegiance

The principal of a public school in Rep. Barney Frank’s (D-Mass.) ultra-liberal district is “bringing back the Pledge of Allegiance” next month, but only those students whose parents sign their permission slips are allowed to honor America.

On Monday, Devotion Principal Gerardo J. Martinez sent a letter to parents telling them that the school in Brookline he would begin leading weekly recitations next month of the ‘controversial’ Pledge of Allegiance, reports WickedLocal.com.

“I urge you to have a conversation as a family to help your children understand why I will be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and to support them in feeling comfortable and confident in the decision on whether or not to participate,” Martinez said in the letter.

Parent Judi Puritz Cook said pledging allegiance to America and its flag is “uncomfortable” for herself and her two sons who have been taught to “think very carefully before making any promise.”

When Martinez begins to recite the Pledge of Allegiance next month, Cook said the school will no longer be “inclusive of everyone.”

“We’re celebrating diversity and including people… and then to be the one sitting there, waiting for the pledge to finish, [that] doesn’t feel inclusive,” she said. “Yeah, it’s weird. That’s the right word for it.”

Agree or disagree with providing children with the option of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom? Sound-off below.

Sunshine State Forbids Holiday Decorations at Toll Booths

Welcome to the People's Republic of Florida!

UPDATE: 12/08/2010 – Florida Official Responds to ‘Scrooge’ Accusations; Accuses Toll Collectors of Theft

Thanks to an unspecified “record” number of motorists who have grudges against all things Christmas, Florida transportation officials have forbidden toll booth operators from displaying decorations celebrating any religious or cultural holiday.

Christmas might have been the primary target of easily offended motorists (probably the same ones with bumper stickers proclaiming, “Embrace Diversity.”), but Muslims, Jews and African-Americans who operate toll booths are also feeling the effects of the state’s ban on Christmas decorations. In the name of ‘fairness,’ Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise outlawed all reminders of religious and cultural celebrations from display in toll booths.

“The state says it comes down to money,” reports ClickOrlando.com. “It has to be fair to all people of all beliefs and it can’t spend money to buy decorations for everybody’s holidays. The simplest thing was to get rid of decorations altogether.”

Toll booth operator Lana Fontanetta said if she’s not allowed to decorate her workplace — EVEN OUT OF HER OWN POCKET — she will turn herself in to a living Christmas ornament. She thinks the line is blurred between everyone else’s ‘rights’ and her own.

“Christmas is the biggest holiday and it means so much to me,” Fontanetta told KTAR.com. “You want to feel the joy and I feel like somebody’s trying to keep me down. I am a Christian and I’m not afraid to say it.”

Contact Fla. Secretary of Transportation Stephanie C. Kopelousos and Interim Executive Director of Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise Kevin Thibault if you think they deserve lumps of coal in their stockings:

Email Stephanie C. Kopelousos: fdot@dot.state.fl.us
Tel: 850-414-5205

Email Kevin Thibault: kevin.thibault@dot.state.fl.us
Tel: 407-264-3100

School District Forces Kindergartners to Embrace Homosexuality

“Now what you do in your home, that’s your home, but as far as me and mine, my children are not ready for this,” one parent told the Vallejo Board of Education. (Click image to watch video)

Children as young as five years old are being forced by one Calif. school district to watch propaganda movies touting the virtues of homosexuality. Vallejo Unified School District officials say the so-called “anti-bullying” curriculum is mandatory for grades K-5 and parents can not opt-out their impressionable youngsters.

“We do not feel that this is an area that students can opt-out and we feel that this is an area that we do not have to give prior notification,” Superintendent Floyd Gonella told KNTV-11 after a recent school board hearing.

Young students whose parents might not have breached the topic of homosexuality on the home front will find themselves forcefully subjected to three movies “portraying toleration behavior” towards their homosexual schoolmates. “Despite parents’ resistance, officials say the viewings are non-negotiable and court-ordered,” reports Afro.com, an online news publication serving black Americans.

The events leading up to the school district imposing its mandatory anti-bullying, pro-homosexuality curriculum on young students occurred in 2009 when a lesbian Vallejo student and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued the district for discrimination and won. As a result, the district was ordered by the court to incorporate “anti-gay harassment and discrimination training into the school system’s curriculum resulting in the films.”

How do you feel about parents being denied the right to determine when and where their impressionable young children are introduced to homosexuality? Should these school officials express tolerance towards parents whose moral, religious and ethical beliefs conflict with homosexuality and the agenda of its proponents?

Share your thoughts below and with Vallejo Unified School District Superintendent Floyd Gonella:

Floyd Gonella
Email: fgonella@vallejo.k12.ca.us
Tel: (707) 556-8921 x. 50002

Hey, ACLU! Barack Got Your Tongue?

Have the ACLU's once-rabid pitbulls been muzzled by the White House? Sound-off in the comment section below.

RightWingNews.com’s William Teach reveals that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has turned a deaf ear to nearly 1,000 complaints from citizens who say they’ve been violated by the Transportation Security Adminstration’s (TSA) new “enhanced” screening procedures:

The [ACLU press release] lists several stories of gropings, and you can read more stories here. Yet, for all that, the ACLU is mostly silent … Usually, one can count on the threat of a lawsuit, or even an actual lawsuit, from the ACLU. Or, they might be DEMANDING records and government information. Remember the so-called “domestic wiretapping” issue, which was anything but, and, of course, not actually intrusive? They went ballistic. Here? It’s all “just send us your groping stories.” Maybe the ACLU plans to submit them to Penthouse letters or something.

Agree or disagree with Teach’s opinion about “domestic wiretapping” not being intrusive, his point about the ACLU not going “ballistic” over the countless incidences of borderline sexual assault at the hands of creepy TSA agents boggles the mind. And, it sure makes you wonder if Barack’s got the ACLU’s tongue these days.

Contact the ACLU and let them know you’re concerned about why they’ve chosen to let these most egregious cases of civil liberties violations go unchallenged, leaving citizens victimized and violated from coast-to-coast:

Email: media@aclu.org
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/aclu.nationwide
Tel: (212) 549-2500

School’s Innocent Tradition Falls Victim to Anti-Bullying Policy

Click to watch Principal Syzmaniak's justifying his "proactive" decision to outlaw a longstanding tradition at his new school.

A Massachusetts high school has banned the annual tradition of freshmen boys and girls wearing pink t-shirts to distinguish them from upperclassmen at a pre-Thanksgiving football game pep rally. According to the school’s new principal, the color pink is a magnet for bullying.

“Officially, nobody’s come to me yet this year,” said Whitman Hanson Regional High School Principal Jeffrey Szymaniak, “but I’m trying to be proactive with that so that if one student feels inappropriate in this area, or one student doesn’t feel safe, that we’ve created an environment where all kids feel comfortable and safe.”

FOX-25 reporter Shannon Mulaire said students told her that in previous years, before their new principal arrived, “they weren’t forced to wear pink, but they did have the option, and some of them want that back.”

At this year’s pep rally, seniors will still wear their traditional black t-shirts, while juniors sport red and sophomores don their whites — but freshmen will be banned from wearing pink — no questions asked, Syzmaniak warns.

Szymaniak told Mulaire that any student who shows up to the pep rally wearing pink will be denied entrance and re-directed to the cafeteria where they can participate in “another activity.”

Michael Graham, a conservative talk show host in Boston, sums up the situation nicely: “Being picked on by a fellow student is too horrifying to bear, but being singled out by the principal and punished? It’s A-OK!”

Contact Principal Szymaniak if you are outraged by his arrogance. He has stigmatized the color pink and promoted it to his students as a sign of weakness that invites bullying — not vice-versa:

Email: jeffrey.szymaniak@whrsd.org
Tel: 781-618-7020
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000417334992

School Says Boy’s American Flag Causing ‘Racial Tensions’

FOX 40 News in Sacramento, Calif., reports that a 13-year-old boy has been told to remove the American flag he’s flown on his bicycle for the past two months in an effort to help ease racial tensions at his school:

A school official at Denair Middle School told Cody [Alicea] some students had been complaining about the flag and it was no longer allowed on school property.

“In this country we’re supposed to be free,” said Cody. “And I should be able to wave my flag wherever I want to. And they’re telling me I can’t.”

Cody’s grandfather says the school was concerned about racial tensions or uprisings because of the flag. He feels if there was really a problem it should have been brought up two months ago, not during Veterans week …

Email Principal Aaron Delworth (Note: Conveniently, Denair Middle School’s website is currently offline, so emails might require re-sending.)

For immediate results, try calling him: 209-632-2510

The Nanny State Has a Saggy Pants Fetish

"Let me help you pull-up your pants, son."

Last week, the mayor of Dublin, Ga., passed an ordinance prohibiting citizens from wearing pants or skirts “more than three inches below the top of the hips exposing the skin or undergarments.” This week, another bunch of Georgia bureaucrats are pondering a similar ban.

Dougherty County Commissioners on Monday raised the issue of a ‘saggy pants ban’ while addressing the potential legal ramifications of legislating how citizens choose to dress.

“Obviously, you don’t want to create some law that can’t be enforced,” Commission Chairman Jeff Sinyard told FOX 31, “but I know that it’s sickening to me to see folks walking around with baggy pants and having that kind of look.”

Hey, Jeff! It’s “sickening” to some people that others eat raw fish and seaweed, but nobody’s calling for a ban on sushi because they don’t agree with “that kind” of cuisine.

Plus, you weren’t elected to legislate your personal beefs with society. If the citizens you represent also support a saggy pants ban, let them prove it on the ballot in November.

We’ll be watching to see how you proceed on this delicate issue, Jeff. Perhaps, you will choose to adopt the cheap tactic of your fellow nanny state bureaucrats in Dublin, Ga., who equated saggy pants wearers with “public masturbators, fornicators and urinators” to scare citizens in to supporting your personal vendetta against urban youth fashionistas.

What’s next, Jeff? Will you ban bikinis and speedos at municipal swimming pools? It sounds like you’d prefer everyone wear burqas. Get back to us with your thoughts, buddy.

State’s Sheriffs Want Access to Citizens’ Private Health Records

If you live in North Carolina and take prescription pain killers, you could soon find yourself on a police watch list. A nanny state initiative is being promoted by the state sheriffs association that would provide law enforcement officials with access to patients’ confidential records in the name of bolstering efforts in the war on prescription drug abuse.

Currently, only doctors and pharmacists in North Carolina are privy to the state’s database of patients and their prescriptions. Patient advocacy groups say allowing police officers to dabble with the system in their crime fighting efforts would be detrimental to ensuring privacy of common citizens who have been legally prescribed medications by their licensed physicians.

Could granny end-up in the slammer if some overzealous police officers gain access to her prescription drug records?

“Nearly 30 percent of state residents received at least one prescription for a controlled substance, anything from Ambien to OxyContin, in the first six months of this year, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services,” reports the Charlotte News & Observer. “Nearly 2.5 million people filled prescriptions in that time for more than 375 million doses. The database has about 53.5 million prescriptions in it.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) objected to a similar effort by legislators in 2007 that would have granted law enforcement access to citizens’ confidential prescription drug records. Any new efforts by the states’ sheriffs will be met with the same opposition, the organization says.

“I am very concerned about the potential privacy issues for people with pain,” said Candy Pitcher of Cary, who volunteers for the nonprofit American Pain Foundation and takes medication for a broken back. “I don’t feel that I should have to sign away my privacy rights just because I take an opioid under doctor’s care.”

Eddie Caldwell, lobbyist for the N.C. Sheriff’s Association, told the News & Observer that his organization is willing to discuss the level of access to the data by law enforcement officials.

“There’s a middle ground where the sheriffs and their personnel working on these drug abuse cases get the information they need in a way that protects the privacy of that information,” Caldwell said. “No one wants every officer in the state to be able to log on and look it up.”

Do you support or oppose efforts by law enforcement officials to gain access to private medical information about citizens’ prescription drug usage? Is there a ‘middle ground,’ as Caldwell suggests, that would be acceptable? Share your thoughts below.

Eliminating School Bus “Habit” Will Help Fat Kids Shed Pounds Say Advocates

Let's hope kids know how to read before pushing them off of buses and on to the streets.

Glorifying the ‘good old days’ when kids walked or biked to school in the rain, sleet and snow, a conglomerate of anti-school bus advocates are encouraging school districts nationwide to drop bus service and make kids use their own two feet. The effort is being made in the name of sparing kids from falling victim to the plague we now refer to as “obesity.”

“[R]ecent data shows that during the last decade, both the increase in childhood obesity and the decline in biking and walking to school have leveled nationwide,” says Peopleforbikes.org. “Children who bike or walk to school are more likely (than kids who are driven) to be alert and engaged in classwork throughout the day.”

That may all be well and true, but let’s face the facts: There weren’t nearly as many perverts and pedophiles or even gangs targeting kids on the streets 40 years ago as there are today. Not to mention, traffic congestion due to urban sprawl is steadily rising, placing kids traveling to school by bike or on foot at increased risk for injury and death.

The pro-bike organization is urging Congress to increase funding for the Safe Routes to School program, a federal initiative that celebrates “a time when walking and bicycling to school was a part of everyday life” and expires in December. “[I]ncreased funding in the next transportation bill to expand these programs and get more children on bikes should be a top priority,” the group says.

Additionally, the anti-bus advocates are encouraging schools across the U.S. to adopt a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tracking program that monitors school kids for “calories burned and CO2 saved” while walking or biking to school. They claim the “Zap” device utilized in the “Boltage” program attached to kids will prove the effectiveness of biking or walking in combatting childhood obesity (and, saving the environment!) while helping make their case against providing bus service to kids that will foster a sedentary lifestyle and avoidable weight gains.

According to the Boltage website, the modern practice of parents driving kids to school or having them take buses is a “bad habit.” The company says its mission is to “make walking and biking to school a way of life.”

Do you support or oppose efforts by bureaucrats and special interests to eliminate bus service for kids as a vehicle for making them healthier? Would you support children being tagged with RFID devices to provide instant reports to parents and school officials on their vital health data? Sound-off below!