Category Archives: Failed schools education college corruption

K -14 Free Education? Not so Much

Posted on by

Obama to propose $2.5 billion community college tax credit

TheHill: President Obama on Tuesday will propose a $2.5 billion tax credit over five years for businesses that invest in local community colleges and hire their graduates, administration officials told Reuters.
The Community College Partnership Tax Credit, which will be formally proposed in the president’s fiscal 2017 budget, would give employers who invest in schools and hire students from such programs a one-time $5,000 tax credit per individual.
“Employers can define those skills and help colleges develop the curriculum that teaches them,” James Kvaal, White House deputy director of domestic policy, told Reuters.
The administration estimated the initiative would help train 500,000 highly skilled workers over five years.
Ted Mitchell, under secretary at the Department of Education, said the proposal would receive bipartisan support.
“The idea of … bringing together community colleges and the local employer base is a very powerful one and really doesn’t break along party lines,” he said.
Under the president’s proposal, states would get a portion of the tax credit and be responsible for choosing which businesses and community colleges participate in the program.
The administration believes the program will spur employers to propose curriculums uniquely tailored to their labor needs.

FACT SHEET – White House Unveils America’s College Promise Proposal: Tuition-Free Community College for Responsible Students

Nearly a century ago, a movement that made high school widely available helped lead to rapid growth in the education and skills training of Americans, driving decades of economic growth and prosperity. America thrived in the 20th century in large part because we had the most educated workforce in the world.  But other nations have matched or exceeded the secret to our success. Today, more than ever, Americans need more knowledge and skills to meet the demands of a growing global economy without having to take on decades of debt before they even embark on their career.

Today the President is unveiling the America’s College Promise proposal to make two years of community college free for responsible students, letting students earn the first half of a bachelor’s degree and earn skills needed in the workforce at no cost. This proposal will require everyone to do their part: community colleges must strengthen their programs and increase the number of students who graduate, states must invest more in higher education and training, and students must take responsibility for their education, earn good grades, and stay on track to graduate. The program would be undertaken in partnership with states and is inspired by new programs in Tennessee and Chicago. If all states participate, an estimated 9 million students could benefit. A full-time community college student could save an average of $3,800 in tuition per year.

In addition, today the President will propose a new American Technical Training Fund to expand innovative, high-quality technical training programs similar to Tennessee Tech Centers that meet employer needs and help prepare more Americans for better paying jobs. These proposals build on a number of historic investments the President has made in college affordability and quality since taking office, including a $1,000 increase in the maximum Pell Grant award to help working and middle class families, the creation of the $2,500 American Opportunity Tax Credit, reforming student loans to eliminate subsidies to banks to invest in making college more affordable and keeping student debt manageable, and making available over $2 billion in grants to connect community colleges with employers to develop programs that are designed to get hard-working students good jobs.

The President’s Plan: Make Two Years of College as Free and Universal as High School

By 2020, an estimated 35 percent of job openings will require at least a bachelor’s degree and 30 percent will require some college or an associate’s degree. Forty percent of college students are enrolled at one of America’s more than 1,100 community colleges, which offer students affordable tuition, open admission policies, and convenient locations.  They are particularly important for students who are older, working, need remedial classes, or can only take classes part-time. For many students, they offer academic programs and an affordable route to a four-year college degree. They are also uniquely positioned to partner with employers to create tailored training programs to meet economic needs within their communities such as nursing, health information technology, and advanced manufacturing.

The America’s College Promise proposal would create a new partnership with states to help them waive tuition in high-quality programs for responsible students, while promoting key reforms to help more students complete at least two years of college. Restructuring the community college experience, coupled with free tuition, can lead to gains in student enrollment, persistence, and completion transfer, and employment. Specifically, here is what the initiative will mean:

Enhancing Student Responsibility and Cutting the Cost of College for All Americans: Students who attend at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA while in college, and make steady progress toward completing their program will have their tuition eliminated. These students will be able to earn half of the academic credit they need for a four-year degree or earn a certificate or two-year degree to prepare them for a good job.

Building High-Quality Community Colleges: Community colleges will be expected to offer programs that either (1) are academic programs that fully transfer to local public four-year colleges and universities, giving students a chance to earn half of the credit they need for a four-year degree, or (2) are occupational training programs with high graduation rates and that lead to degrees and certificates that are in demand among employers.  Other types of programs will not be eligible for free tuition.  Colleges must also adopt promising and evidence-based institutional reforms to improve student outcomes, such as the effective Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) programs at the City University of New York which waive tuition, help students pay for books and transit costs, and provide academic advising and supportive scheduling programs to better meet the needs of participating students, resulting in greater gains in college persistence and degree completion.

Ensuring Shared Responsibility with States: Federal funding will cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college. States that choose to participate will be expected to contribute the remaining funds necessary to eliminate community college tuition for eligible students. States that already invest more and charge students less can make smaller contributions, though all participating states will be required to put up some matching funds. States must also commit to continue existing investments in higher education; coordinate high schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions to reduce the need for remediation and repeated courses; and allocate a significant portion of funding based on performance, not enrollment alone. States will have flexibility to use some resources to expand quality community college offerings, improve affordability at four-year public universities, and improve college readiness, through outreach and early intervention.

Expanding Technical Training for Middle Class Jobs. Additionally, in order to spread the availability of high-quality and innovative programs like those in Tennessee and Texas, which achieve better than average completion and employment outcomes, the President is also proposing the American Technical Training Fund. This fund will award programs that have strong employer partnerships and include work-based learning opportunities, provide accelerated training, and are scheduled to accommodate part-time work. Programs could be created within current community colleges or other training institutions. The focus of the discretionary budget proposal would be to help high-potential, low-wage workers gain the skills to work into growing fields with significant numbers of middle-class jobs that local employers are trying to fill such as energy, IT, and advanced manufacturing. This program will fund the start-up of 100 centers and scale those efforts in succeeding years. Smaller grants would help to bring together partners and start a pilot program. Larger grants would be used for expanding programs based on evidence of effectiveness, which could include past performance on graduation rates, job placement rates and placement wages. Building on the President’s community college initiative, known as the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grants and for which 2014 was the final year of funding, these funds will help community colleges become more job-driven.

Building on State and Local Programs.  In the past year, Tennessee and the City of Chicago initiated free community college programs.  In the first year of the Tennessee program, 57,000 students representing almost 90 percent of the state’s high school graduating class applied for the program. The scholarship is coupled with college counseling, mentorship, and community service that early evidence suggests supports greater enrollment, persistence and college completion.  This is coupled with efforts to spur innovation and improvement by funding colleges using performance outcomes based on student success and an innovative approach to career and technical education through the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology.  These Tennessee Tech Centers have a graduation rate of 80 percent and a job placement rate of 85 percent.

Building on a Record of Progress. Since taking office, President Obama has taken steps to expand federal support to help more students afford college, while calling for a shared responsibility in tackling rising college costs. Key achievements include:

  • Doubling the Investment in Pell Grants: The President has raised the maximum Pell Grant award to $5,730 for the 2014-15 award year — a nearly $1,000 increase since 2008. The number of Pell Grant recipients has expanded by 50 percent over that same time.
  • Expanding Education Tax Credits: President Obama established the American Opportunity Tax Credit in 2009 to assist families with the costs of college, providing up to $10,000 for four years of college tuition.
  • Pay-As-You-Earn Loans: All new borrowers can now cap loan payments at 10 percent of their incomes. The Department of Education has begun the process to amend its regulations and will make the new plan available on all direct loans by December 2015. We expect it to benefit up to 5 million borrowers.
  • First in the World Grants: In September, the Department of Education awarded $75 million to 24 colleges and universities under the new First in the World grant program to expand college access and improve student learning while reducing costs.
  • College Ratings Program: The Department of Education continues to develop a college ratings system by the 2015-2015 school year that will recognize institutions that excel at enrolling students from all backgrounds; focus on maintaining affordability; and succeed at helping all students graduate with a degree or certificate of value.
  • Job-Driven Training Grants: Through the Trade Adjustment Community College and Career Training program more than 1,000 institutions have received $2 billion in federal funding to design education and training programs, working closely with employers and industry that prepare workers for jobs in-demand in their regional economies, such as health care, information technology and energy. These programs have shown early success — through the end of FY2013, among the nearly 164,000 individuals who had enrolled in these programs 88 percent either completed a program or continued the program into a second year.
  • White House Summit on Community Colleges: In October 2010, the President convened community college leaders, faculty and students; business leaders; philanthropic organizations; and other workforce development experts for the first White House summit dedicated to the role that community colleges play in our efforts to increase the number of college graduates and prepare those graduates to lead the 21st century workforce.
  • Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness: Last August, the Department of Education launched a new $10 million Institute for Education Sciences-funded Center for the Analysis of Postsecondary Readiness (CAPR) that is working to strengthen the research, evaluation, and support of college readiness efforts across the nation. CAPR is documenting current practices in developmental English and math education to identify innovative instructional practices that improve student success.
  • Call to Action on College Opportunity: Last December, the President, Vice President, and First Lady joined college presidents and leaders of non-profits, foundations, and other organizations to announce over 600 new commitments to produce more college graduates. Community colleges made commitments individually, and in partnership with neighboring school districts and four-year institutions, to build seamless transitions among institutions, develop clear educational and career pathways, implement strategies to increase student completion of STEM programs, and establish more accurate measures of student progress and success.

Terror Ties Vetting Prison Chaplains

Posted on by

Federal Prisons Using Groups With Terror Ties To Vet Islamic Chaplains

DailyCaller: As Fox News and other news organizations have reported, America’s federal prisons are a “breeding ground” for potential Islamic terrorists — and have been so for years. Despite this disturbing trend, the Obama administration has enlisted Islamic organizations with known terror ties to review and endorse chaplains to work in federal prisons.

In response to an inquiry from Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Federal Bureau of Prisons provided a list of Islamic Chaplaincy Endorsers, which Grassley has since posted online. Included on the list is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which has long-standing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing case.

In an open letter to the director of the Bureau of Prisons Thomas Kane, Grassley pointed out that “A 2009 federal district court ruling concluded that ample evidence exists showing the Islamic Society of North America’s ties to Hamas, which is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.”

Writing about ISNA, Grassley noted: “It appears, therefore, that the BOP is relying on an organization with associations to terrorist organizations and one that the DOJ named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case to confirm credentials of those attempting to provide religious services to federal inmates. If accurate, this information is deeply troubling.”

And ISNA isn’t even the only organization with radical ties on the list of chaplaincy endorsers. The Islamic Education Center, located in Walnut, Calif., also has ties to terror organizations through its founder, Dr. Ahmad H. Sakr.

In addition to founding the Islamic Education Center, Sakr — originally from Lebanon — was a founding member of both ISNA and the World Council of Mosques, the latter of which has “a long history of providing financial support to terrorist groups,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. Sakr, who passed away just a few months ago, is listed as the contact person on the BOP’s list of chaplaincy endorsers.

“It is imperative that the BOP take every measure possible to ensure the safety of its personnel within federal prisons and take all reasonable measures to ensure that Islamic extremism is stopped at the gates of each prison,” Grassley noted in his letter to Director Kane. “Currently, it is not clear whether the BOP is doing so.”

As a result of the apparent shortcomings, Grassley is asking the Bureau of Prisons to provide further information about “the process by which someone becomes a religious endorsing organization,” in addition to an explanation for why the BOP chose ISNA as a chaplaincy endorser.
Grassley is also seeking the number of currently employed religious contractors from the 2014-15 year with still incomplete background checks.

According to a 2013 article from the Huffington Post, anywhere between 35,000-40,000 inmates convert to Islam every year, presumably with the assistance of the chaplains provided by the prisons. In a 2014 op-ed in The Daily Caller, author Joy Brighton argued that the nation’s prisons have been churning out thousands of radicalized inmates every year. Brighton’s calls were echoed in a Fox News article just last month that cited experts on the subject who called federal prisons a “breeding ground” for potential terrorists.

*** 

In 2003 for the Inspector General:  On March 10, 2003, Senator Charles Schumer wrote a letter to the OIG requesting that we examine the BOP’s process for selecting Muslim chaplains based on concerns that the BOP relies solely on two Islamic groups to endorse its Muslim chaplains, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS). Schumer noted that the ISNA and the GSISS allegedly are connected to terrorism and promote Wahhabism, which some consider an exclusionary and extreme form of Islam. In addition to Senator Schumer, Senators Jon Kyl and Dianne Feinstein expressed similar concerns and asked the OIG to examine these issues as they relate to the BOP.

In response to these requests, we reviewed the recruitment, endorsement, selection, and supervision of Muslim chaplains and other Muslim religious services providers who work with BOP inmates. We also examined the roles the ISNA, the GSISS, and other organizations have in the endorsement of chaplain candidates.

During this review, the OIG interviewed the BOP’s ten Muslim chaplains, the BOP detailee to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF), and officials at BOP Headquarters who are responsible for religious services providers, including the Chief of the Chaplaincy Services Branch and the Senior Deputy Assistant Director (SDAD) of the Correctional Programs Division. We also interviewed FBI counterterrorism officials and representatives of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom at the U.S. Department of State (Commission). Full report here.

From GatesStone: The number of Muslim prisoners in Britain has doubled in the last decade to nearly 12,000. Many of these prisoners, the media reports, are at “significant risk” of radicalization. The solution, authorities claim, lies with the Islamic prison chaplains. Or are they, in fact, part of the problem? Where do these chaplains come from? What sort of Islam are they espousing?

On May 12, the BBC broadcast its own investigation into the radicalization of prison inmates. The documentary featured interviews with former inmates such as Michael Coe, who “went into prison as a gangster and left as Mikaeel Ibrahim, a convert to Islam.” Coe attributes his conversion to his friendship in jail with al-Qaeda terrorist Dhiren Barot, jailed for life by a British court in 2004 for plotting to blow up limousines by packing them with gas canisters. Full article here.

For more facts on the matter: Why Extremist Chaplains Have Access to U.S. Prisons

 

Obama Greased the System for Big Lobby/Money

Posted on by

Government Drags Us Back in Time – Because Cronies and Ideology Tell It To

Motley/RS: Government by ideological fantasy – at the expense of actual facts – is a terrible idea. So too is government of, by and for the donors. Far too often government regulators and bureaucrats ignore Reality – to tilt at ideological windmills. And WAY too often government becomes one giant stenographer for contributors – writing laws and regulations to accommodate their check-cutters’ every whim and wildest dream.

Thus does equal protection before the law – become special treatment for Friends of Government (FOG, if you will). Donors and dumb ideas are favored – at inordinate expense to the rest of us.

To wit: “green” “energy” (wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, ethanol) is neither green nor energy. It’s far worse for the environment than traditional energy sources – that actually produce, you know, affordable energy. Governments here and all around the world have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this phony energy. It’s been a titanic failure – for decades.

Why has government continued to throw this copious coin out the window – to keep us locked into an uber-failed yesterday? Because their ideological fantasies trump Reality. Why else? Because donors get government money at dollars-on-the-pennies they donated. To wit: President Barack Obama and his Democrats threw $80 billion more at the fake “green energy” industry in the 2009 “Stimulus.” 80% of that money – went to Obama donors.

The more government gets involved – the less the private sector can advance. The more rapidly a sector is advancing – the bigger an impediment government is. Likely no sector is advancing more quickly than the Tech sector. Enter government.

The Obama Administration’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has already done egregious damage there. To appease their ridiculous fantasies – and huge donors. About a year ago the Commission’s three unelected Democrat bureaucrats decided to go all the way back in time to1934 landline telephone law – and unilaterally impose it on the Internet. Behold Internet Reclassification – so as to impose the ridiculous Network Neutrality.

The Obama Administration did it – because donors asked for it. Donors like Google. No one did more to get President Obama elected and reelected – than Google. Just about no company swapped staff with the Obama Administration at such prodigious numbers – than did Google.

And after Google greased the skids for Obama – Obama greased the skids for Google. Google spent nearly the entirety of the 2000s trying and failing to get Net Neutrality passed in Congress. Because it is government forcing Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to give uber-bandwidth-hogs like Google – unlimited free bandwidth. We the People didn’t want it – Congress couldn’t pass it. So Obama just issued a fiat – and gave it to them.

But the problem with buying support – is that the “supporters” rarely stay bought. Google is now channeling West Wing President Josiah Bartlet – “What’s next?” And most unfortunately, President Obama’s government stenographers have many, many responses to that request.

Here’s one: FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has penned a defense of the next backwards-looking power grab – huge new backdoor mandates via television set-top-boxes. Which they have attempted to obfuscate – as a deregulation of set-top-boxes.

Set-top-boxes are the devices we lease from cable companies – to watch their television packages. Which we are doing to a lesser and lesser degree – as the marketplace has already created myriad ways for us to “cut the cord.” Meaning give up cable television – and the set-top-boxes – altogether.

The future (and increasingly the present) of television – isn’t boxes. It’s apps (and alternate hardware like Apple TV and Amazon Firestick). Netflix, Amazon Prime, Roku, Hulu and a host of other companies deliver you (via their apps) unlimited streaming TV and movie content – using only an Internet connection. No cable TV subscription required. And unlike programmed TV, you can watch whenever you want, wherever you want. So more and more people are cutting their cords.

Meanwhile, the government is yet again stuck in the past. The FCC is dubiously invoking a twenty-year-old law (and seriously, how unbelievably different was how we watched TV twenty-years ago?) – to “open” to competitors the collapsing set-top-box market. This is a terrible idea for a number of reasons.

It is just stupid from an evolutionary standpoint. This is like the government issuing mandates to “open” the horse-buggy industry – as Model T Fords are rolling with ever increasing frequency into our driveways and hearts. If you’re “helping” prop up yesterday’s technology – you aren’t helping.

This mandate forces cable companies to spend a LOT of money totally reconfiguring their networks – to accommodate the new boxes. A new configuration for each new box, most likely – because each box will most likely connect uniquely to each network. And cable companies have a LOT of proprietary information and content to protect – so they will have to spend EVEN MORE time and money reconfiguring so as to ensure its protection. For which we will inexorably pay in higher fees – on TV, and the other services cable companies provide (like Internet). All to make room for more devices – of which people want less.

And you will be trading the box lease – for the box purchase. Which requires more coin upfront. And unlike with the lease, when the next upgraded model comes out – you won’t get it for free. You will pay all over again. And given the rapid technological advancement – how often will that purchase have to happen again, and again, and…?

Think how quick is the smart phone tech turnover (which is a MUCH more intensive product). Where you just purchased the “latest” Google Android – only to almost immediately watch Google roll out the next Android. Does Google give you that next version for free? Of course not. Google won’t give you their latest set-top-box either.

Wait – Google wants to get into the going-out-of-business set-top-box business? You bet they do. So the Obama Administration is prepping to issue yet another fiat – to make Google’s wishes come true. Again.

Crony-infested and ideologically-blinded is no way to go through life, Son. It is also absolutely no way to run a government.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

Posted on by

As survivors of the Holocaust dwindle, 71 years later, memorials are taking place across Europe.

FNC: Commemoration of the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered, is always a somber event, but on the 71st anniversary current events have cast a new and dark shadow. Waves of refugees from countries where hatred of Jews is taught and practiced have flooded Germany, prompting some of the nation’s 100,000-strong community to fear for their future. More on the story is here.

Eichmann refused to admit any guilt during last minute pleas.

Embedded image permalink

In 1962:

Berlin mulls uses for Goebbels’ abandoned love nest

Wandlitz (Germany) (AFP) – History weighs heavily on the German property market, no more so than at a sprawling lakeside villa that once served as a love nest for Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

 

Berlin has been trying to sell the — in theory — prime slab of real estate north of the German capital for 15 years.

But rather than a gem that the cash-strapped city, which is scrambling to pay for a record refugee influx, can liquidate, Berlin has admitted it sees the asset as little more than a millstone around its neck.

Berlin Immobilienmanagement GmbH (BIM), the city’s wholly owned real estate agency, has in effect given up on the sale and expressed concerns it could fall into “the wrong hands”.

“I am really afraid that this could become a shrine for Nazis and I don’t think we should take that risk,” the executive director of the BIM, Birgit Moehring, said.

Instead, it hopes to lease the property, whose idyllic setting is nestled in a wood and perched on the small Bogen lake.

The squat, sprawling house was used by the top Nazi as “country retreat” perfect for trysts with a revolving cast of budding actresses and paramours.

“It was refuge from the busy city” 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the south, BIM spokesman Christian Breitkreutz told AFP.

Berlin itself bought the land complete with a small cabin in 1936 for Goebbels, Hitler’s nefariously skilled spin doctor, in honour of his 39th birthday.

Goebbels was taken with its secluded setting and subsequently had a much larger villa built on the site bankrolled by UFA, the movie production house he ran with an iron fist.

The luxury facilities included a private cinema and spacious living quarters overlooking the lake.

 

View of the villa built for Nazi propaganda chief Joseph …

View of the villa built for Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels between 1936-39, near the Bogensee …

– Attacked by damp cold –

Today, the original generous picture windows, rich wood panelling and marble fixtures can still be seen, said Roberto Mueller, who has worked as a guard at the site since 1984.

But the house, ravaged by moisture and biting cold in the isolated and abandoned site, has begun to rapidly crumble.

The city had repeatedly tried to sell the house in recent years and a last attempt, via a public tender, came up dry in December, Moehring said, confirming that BIM had finally given up.

Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide in Hitler’s bunker as Berlin was overrun by Soviet Army troops in May 1945, after she murdered their six children.

 

Entrance to the main building of the Communist Free …

Entrance to the main building of the Communist Free German Youth (FDJ-Freie Deutsche Jugend) school  …

Dealing with the Goebbels villa has been all the more complicated because it is on the same slice of land as another vestige of the country’s tumultuous past.

In the post-war years, East Germany built a vast complex on the land in the Stalinist style of the early 1950s to house a training centre for the FDJ, the communist party’s youth indoctrination organisation.

The regime also used it to put up visiting party cadres from “brother states” such as Vietnam, Cuba and Angola.

At the time, the neighbouring Goebbels villa was converted into a supermarket for FDJ students and a children’s nursery, Mueller said.

In total, the four main post-war buildings cover some 1,400 square metres (15,000 square feet) of bedrooms, conference halls, reception and banquet space.

 

Villa built for Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels …

Villa built for Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels between 1936-39, seen near the Bogensee lake n …

Day by day, they are falling apart.

– Phantom village –

“At present there is no heating, no running water, there is serious damage to the facades, the roofs are falling apart and inside there is a lot to do too,” Moehring admits, saying renovation costs would be “considerable”.

Currently the only viable use for the phantom village has been as a unique, evocative film set, most recently for the adaptation of the international wartime bestseller “Alone in Berlin” starring Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson.

“What would really appeal to us would be if someone arrived with an intelligent concept to use this place which is so steeped in history,” Moehring said, suggesting a continuing education campus or a hotel as other possible options.

She said BIM had been in touch with potential investors. But a major stumbling block remains the fact that the Goebbels villa is a listed building.

Because that prevents any major change to the structure, Moehring would like to see it stripped of its protected status.

“I am someone who absolutely defends the importance in this city of always being able to feel the presence of history,” she said.

“But you also have to ask the question whether it is sensible to maintain certain buildings under the protection a historic monument grants.”

If it were lifted, Moehring said the best thing might be the most radical measure: razing it to the ground.

Germany has often been confronted with questions over how to deal with the toxic legacy of sites linked to its bitter 20th century history.

Hitler’s own “Eagle’s Nest” mountain-top lodge now has a restaurant, a cafe and shops selling books with titles such as “Hitler’s Mountain” that draws thousands of tourists each year.

Many of Germany’s ministries pitched up in the Nazis’ former official buildings when the government moved to Berlin from Bonn in 1999.

And the hangars of the former airport Tempelhof, a prime example of the Nazis’ architectural gigantism, and the erstwhile headquarters of communist East Germany’s feared Stasi secret police are both being used to house tens of thousands of asylum seekers.

Lowell, the Stupid City in Massachusetts

Posted on by

What font point, how many words, who reads it? How long in committee? Trigger words? Ah ha ha

Would any criminal do this? Cursive or print?

Who thinks of this crap and then votes with it?

Critics blast Massachusetts city’s new ‘essay’ rule for gun-carry applicants

FNC: Critics are blasting a Massachusetts city’s new law that they claim requires residents applying for a license to carry handguns to write “an essay” and pay upwards of $1,100 for training.

The new laws take effect this week in Lowell, a city of 110,000 that lies 35 miles north of Boston. Pushed by Police Superintendent William Taylor and passed by the City Council, they require applicants for unrestricted handgun licenses to state in writing why they should receive such a license. Taylor, who was unavailable for comment on Monday, has sole discretion for approving or denying the applications.

“It is absurd that people should have to write an essay to the town to explain why they should be able to exercise their constitutional rights,” said Jim Wallace, executive director of Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts. “We already have a very strict set of gun laws in the state, but this is way over the top.”

“It is absurd that people should have to write an essay to the town to explain why they should be able to exercise their Constitutional rights.”

– Jim Wallace, Gun Owners Action League of Massachusetts.

State law sets guidelines and requirements, but gives local chiefs of police broad discretion in implementation. While other cities and towns in Massachusetts have tough licensing regulations, Lowell’s new requirements, which also include taking a gun safety course over and above one already required by the state, prompted complaints at a public hearing last week.

“I will never write an essay to get my rights as an American citizen,” resident Dan Gannon told the City Council.

The new policy was prompted in part by a year-old federal lawsuit brought by Commonwealth Second Amendment, a Bay State gun-rights group. Attorney David Jensen said the suit stems from Lowell’s history of denying qualified applicants permits to carry handguns without what the plaintiffs consider a legitimate rationale.

lowellpic1

Lowell Police Superintendent William Taylor will review the written applications and determine who gets a license and who does not. (City of Lowell)

Jensen said the jury is still out on whether the new policy will prove a remedy or just a more formal system for rejecting applications.

“The question right now is what they actually do,” Jensen said. “Our initial response to that would be that the Second Amendment secures the right to keep and bear arms. You really shouldn’t be required to write an essay explaining why you would like to exercise this fundamental right.”

Lowell Police spokesman Capt. Timothy Crowley said characterizing the written requirement as an “essay” is not accurate.

“If you want a license to carry a firearm unrestricted wherever you want and whenever you want, the superintendent is just looking for some documentation as to why,” Crowley said. “That is not unreasonable to most people.”

Despite the criticism, the new rules were adopted unanimously and are set to take effect this week.

“We’re no longer taking a cookie-cutter approach to issuing firearms licenses,” City Manager Kevin Murphy told the Lowell Sun, noting that the new policy will allow Taylor to look more closely at each applicant.

That’s exactly what concerns Wallace, who urged Lowell residents not to adhere to the new rules and to simply turn to the courts if and when their applications are denied.

“It’s like having a college professor say, ‘I’m going to read your essay and if I don’t like it, I’m going to give it back to you,’” Wallace said.

A 1998 state law known as the Gun Control Act included a raft of new regulations, fees and requirements that contributed to an 80 percent reduction in gun licenses over time, according to Wallace. The new law in Lowell, which Taylor said has about 6,000 gun owners with licenses to carry, will require a specialized training course.

A local firearms-safety instructor, Randy Breton, told the Sun the training requirement appeared designed to purposely make it cost-prohibitive to apply for a gun permit. He said one five-day course approved by the city costs $1,100.

“It’s beyond ridiculous,” Breton told the newspaper.