Free Republic

Part III. “Fake News?” – No Way! The story about the Parkland shooting, though tragic, has resulted in several positive outcomes. It has spawned journalists into action to do more investigative reporting. This three-part story covered in the past several days was investigated and is verifiable. The University of South Florida failed to report the incidents involving foreigner Abdul Quddos Hussein, who allegedly burglarized two buildings at the USF location in Tampa – the Registrar’s Office and the College of Engineering. However, the Department of Education allowed USF to get away with lying to them, thereby failing to uphold the...

USF MO #2: Disclosing the Incident to the Public With the undisclosed burglaries that took place at the University of South Florida's Registrar and College of Engineering Offices back in June of 2015, FloridaÂ’s Sunshine law took a major hit. USF was not at all transparent with its most important constituency, its students, but also orchestrated a cover-up to keep the general public from knowing, and to prevent the media from covering a newsworthy story. Surprisingly, it was the ProvostÂ’s office and not President Judy GenshaftÂ’s office, that was first notified of the burglaries. After learning of the burglaries, Provost...

Part II: Missed Opportunities As the investigation continues into the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, we are learning about missed opportunities to save 17 lives. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, accused of "incompetence and neglect of duty", has been asked to step down. Resource Officer Scot Peterson, whose job it was to provide security and crime prevention services to the school, was accused of “hiding” while innocents who did not have his officer training were gunned down. The truth of the matter is that the tragedy at Parkland was facilitated by the omissions of others. This is how we begin...

Part II: Missed Opportunities As the investigation continues into the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, we are learning about missed opportunities to save 17 lives. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, accused of "incompetence and neglect of duty", has been asked to step down. Resource Officer Scot Peterson, whose job it was to provide security and crime prevention services to the school, was accused of “hiding” while innocents who did not have his officer training were gunned down. The truth of the matter is that the tragedy at Parkland was facilitated by the omissions of others. This is how we begin...

In the aftermath of 17 students and teachers being gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, schools, colleges, and universities are reevaluating campus safety and taking a closer look at their active-shooter protocols. There are questions about how this could have happened when there were so many signs for earlier detection. In a three-part series, we will examine a local well-publicized case involving the University of South Florida where an incident was detected at the Tampa campus but went unreported by the USF police department and how the failure to take appropriate action could have just...

The Obama administration was notable for its disregard of the rule of law in its avid pursuit of politically desirable outcomes. Law professor David Bernstein’s book on that subject, Lawless examined many such instances (see my review here) including the demand by Department of Education officials that colleges and universities scrap due process for accused male students in pursuit of high numbers of punishments for sexual assault. Now some of the schools that eagerly complied with the Department’s abuse of Title IX (the 1972 law that was written to keep schools that received federal funds from discriminating against women applicants)...

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration is threatening to scrap a major Obama-era agreement that sought to protect millions of acres of the California desert by placing sensitive areas off-limits to major solar- and wind-energy installations. The Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan covers more than 10.8 million acres and was designed to guide energy facilities to parcels where they are least likely to cause environmental damage. {snip}...The Bureau of Land Management says it was moved to consider changing the plan "in response to President Trump's order to review regulations that unnecessarily impede energy development." It points out that under the conservation...

With a teacher’s encouragement, seventh-graders in a social-studies class at JHS 80 used their city-issued laptops last week to e-mail letters to The Post to protest a report about their school that cited discipline problems, hazardous conditions, and administrators who try to cover up violent incidents.

Speaking at the National Press Club Wednesday, outgoing Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced a new “scientific integrity” policy for an agency recently wracked by concerns about how an administration led by President-elect Donald Trump will treat employees who worked on climate change and other sensitive energy-related issues. “It’s part of establishing the environment that allows scientist to do their work, to stay with us, and to recruit new people,” Moniz said in announcing the new policy. Moniz, a physicist, gave an example of his own role in negotiating the Iran nuclear deal. “Seven of our laboratories were providing near real-time...

The Trump administration is further delaying Obama-era protections for students defrauded by for-profit colleges, saying it needs more time to write new regulations. Tuesday’s announcement renewed criticism by Democrats and advocacy groups that the administration favors the interests of for-profit universities over students. The Education Department posted a notice in the Federal Register saying it wants to delay the borrower defense rule until July 1, 2019, while a new rule is being written. The department estimated that postponing the rule will save taxpayers $46 million. The regulation allows students to have their loans forgiven if their schools deceived them about...

The Trump administration on Friday scrapped Obama-era guidance on investigating campus sexual assault, replacing it with new instructions that allow universities to require higher standards of evidence when handling complaints. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has said that President Barack Obama’s policy had been unfairly skewed against those accused of assault and had “weaponized” the Education Department to “work against schools and against students.” The change is the latest in Trump’s broader effort to roll back Obama policies. Women’s rights groups slammed Friday’s decision, saying it will discourage students from reporting assault. The guidance released in 2011 and then updated in...

Thanks to a recent speech by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, more people are discussing the real world repercussions of the eight-year war on due process waged by the Obama Department of Education. Out of that discussion, there is a consensus emerging, which recognizes that basic due process protections must be restored on our university campuses. These changes are particularly needed in the context of campus sexual harassment and sexual assault tribunals. But once due process is restored, we need to vigorously pursue campus prosecutions against those who knowingly and maliciously accuse others of sexual assault and/or sexual harassment. Proactive...

For most people, even those paying attention, the seemingly endless expansion of government spending and its accompanying debt is a mystery. A timely parallel might be a tropical storm out in the middle of nowhere developing into a Cat 5 hurricane. So it is with public budgets—a modest program almost unnoticed balloons into a tax-eating monster and while we can track it, who really knows how it got that way? Happily, the mechanics of this budget-bloating are occasionally exposed to public view and it is not a pleasant sight (here and here). Perhaps the disagreeable nature of this exposure explains...

EXCLUSIVE: Tech company which maintained Hillary's secret server was sued for 'illegally accessing' database and 'stealing White House military advisers' phone numbers' The Internet company used by Hillary Clinton to maintain her private server was sued for stealing dozens of phone lines including some which were used by the White House. Platte River Networks is said to have illegally accessed the master database for all US phone numbers. It also seized 390 lines in a move that created chaos across the US government. Among the phone numbers which the company took - which all suddenly stopped working - were lines...

President Donald Trump’s effort to boost U.S. energy is facing push back from manufacturers who say exporting more natural gas may undercut his “America First” jobs focus. The Industrial Energy Consumers of America asked the administration Wednesday for a moratorium on U.S. approvals for liquefied natural gas projects. The trade association, which represents U.S. manufacturers that depend on cheap energy to fuel their factories, sent a letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry Wednesday.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s (DOE/NNSA) will conduct a low-altitude helicopter flight over portions of the Arlington, Va., area July 22 to measure naturally occurring background radiation. Officials from NNSA announced that the radiation assessment will cover approximately three square miles. A twin-engine Bell 412 helicopter, operated by the Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measuring System from Joint Base Andrews, will be equipped with radiation sensing technology. The helicopter will fly in a grid pattern over the area at 150 feet (or higher) above the ground surface, at a speed of approximately 80 miles...

He may be retiring from public life but Prince Philip has shown he has no intention of holding back on his trademark honesty in the meantime. During a visit to a primary school in east London the Duke of Edinburgh left one teacher feeling a little flustered as he criticised the state of pupils' handwriting. He and the Queen were at Upper North Street School, in Poplar, to mark 100 years since innocent children were killed when a WWI bomb hit the site.

Legislation to shut down the controversial and unconstitutional U.S. Department of Education was introduced in Congress this week by Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a leading constitutional conservative. The bill, H.R. 899, would help President Donald Trump follow through on his campaign statements suggesting a desire to abolish the department as well as the Obama-backed “Common Core” school standards. The legislation was introduced on the same day U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was confirmed by the Senate.If and when the bill is passed into law, the one-sentence measure would give the powerful U.S. Education Department until the end of 2018 to wind down...

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Monday that he will fight to keep jobs and boost funding for research facilities like Oak Ridge National Laboratory. {snip} Perry, who once called for the abolition of the Energy Department, has since become an outspoken proponent of the department's importance, particularly of the cutting-edge research conducted at the national labs. Perry acknowledged he has "not been in the job long enough to go through the budget line item by line item" but said he is "doing my homework every day." Perry was joined on the tour by U.S. Sen....

Fifty eight years back, railcar loads of extremely hazardous equipment laden with finely divided particulate Plutonium dust were shoved by remote-control, into a 360' 10’ X 10’ repository, made of thick, treated wood beams. The box was later covered; top and sides with about ten feet of dirt. When it filled up, an additional an 1,700 feet of “concrete reinforced with metal” housing was added and “Pretty much” loaded. http://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/hanford/article149475209.html#emlnl=Breaking_News_Alerts