Buckle your seat belts, it’s gonna be a rough ride.
NPR reports that Governor Gregg Abbott has asked the Texas National Guard to monitor the activities of the U.S. military in Texas because there are a number of wing nuts who believe that President Obama plans to invade and take control of Texas.
Don’t be fooled! The training exercises by Green Berets, Special Forces, and Navy Seals is only the beginning of the long-planned invasion, they say.
“You see, there are these Wal-Marts in West Texas that supposedly closed for six months for “renovation.” That’s what they want you to believe. The truth is these Wal-Marts are going to be military guerrilla-warfare staging areas and FEMA processing camps for political prisoners. The prisoners are going to be transported by train cars that have already been equipped with shackles.
“Don’t take my word for it. That comes directly from a Texas Ranger, who seems pretty plugged in, if you ask me. You and I both know President Obama has been waiting a long time for this, and now it’s happening. It’s a classic false flag operation. Don’t pay any attention the mainstream media; all they’re going to do is lie and attack everyone who’s trying to tell you the truth.
“Did I mention the ISIS terrorists? They’ve come across the border and are going to hit soft targets all across the Southwest. They’ve set up camp a few miles outside of El Paso.
“That includes a Mexican army officer and Mexican federal police inspector. Not sure what they’re doing there, but probably nothing good. That’s why the Special Forces guys are here, get it? To wipe out ISIS and impose martial law. So now you know, whaddya say we get back to the party and grab another beer?
“It’s true that the paranoid world-view of right-wing militia types has remarkable stamina. But that’s not news.
What is news is that there seem to be enough of them in Texas to influence the governor of the state to react — some might use the word pander — to them.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Those are not mutually exclusive alternatives.
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Maybe he’s both.
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In either case, he’s dangerous. Maybe Obama needs to invade Texas.
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NPR corrected the report: NOT the TX National Guard but the TX STATE (!) Guard… presumably protects TX from the National Guard!!!!
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As a practical matter, does it matter whether or not he really believes it?
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Many of our foreign enemies are just waiting for us to destroy ourselves. Most great countries weaken and lose power in the long run and often it is because they become rotten on the inside. There is a history of democracies self destructing in a relatively short time and we are way over the usual time. We have all the appearance now of a plutocracy which is powered by the big money people.
Divide and conquer is the theme of those who are interested in power and whoever is pulling the strings to foment this kind of heresy described in this Texas thing is either abysmally ignorant or very smart. Whatever, the result is the same.
i get incredible e mails from especially one of my friends, hate mail, made up by someone and foisted on like believers who will not take time to do a tiny bit of rational examination, ergo, fall for the propaganda..
Like the Texas thing above it seems incredible that rational people, perhaps they are not that rational, but some people at least fall for this.
God help us.
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More proof that any fool can be elected to office. I want to compare the qualifications it takes to become a public school teacher to the qualification to run for a state or national office.
TEACHERS
Kindergarten and elementary school teachers must have at least a bachelor’s degree. In addition, public school teachers must have a state-issued certification or license.
The 2011–12 Schools and Staffing Survey: First Look
In 2011-12, on average, both public and private school teachers had about 14 years of experience. On average, teachers in traditional public schools had more teaching experience (14 years) than teachers in public charter schools (9 years).
The percentage of public school teachers with a master’s degree as their highest degree was larger in traditional public schools (48 percent) than in public charter schools (37 percent) and private schools (36 percent).
“As a group, teachers score relatively high in prose, document, and quantitative literacy; there are no significant differences in scores between male and female teachers or between elementary and secondary teachers. About half of teachers score at Levels 4 and 5 (the two highest levels) on the three literacy scales, compared to about 20 percent of other adults nationwide. … The NALS data present teachers as a labor market bargain, comparing favorably with other professionals in their literacy skills, yet earning less. We need to abandon stereotypes about teachers that have gained currency, such as that teachers are less able than others who go into professions commonly regarded as more prestigious. And we need to recognize that we pay teachers considerably less than other professionals with comparable capacities for dealing with prose, document, and quantitative literacy tasks.”
Click to access PICTEACHSKILLS.pdf
Now, let’s look at our elected representatives.
AGE of CANDIDACY – you might notice that there are no literacy or education qualifications to run for a public office.
In the United States, a person must be at least 35 to be President or Vice President, 30 to be a Senator, or 25 to be a Representative, as specified in the U.S. Constitution. Most states in the U.S. also have age requirements for the offices of Governor, State Senator, and State Representative. Some states have a minimum age requirement to hold any elected office (usually 21 or 18).
How Elected Officials Scored On American Civics Literacy
In each of the following areas, for example, officeholders do more poorly than non-officeholders:
79% of those who have been elected to government office do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.
30% do not know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.
27% cannot name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
43% do not know what the Electoral College does. One in five thinks it either “trains those aspiring for higher political office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.”
54% do not know the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. 39% think that power belongs to the president, and 10% think it belongs to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Only 32% can properly define the free enterprise system, and only 41% can identify business profit as “revenue minus expenses.”
http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2011/03/14/how-elected-officials-scored-on-american-civics-literacy/
And who is telling whom how to do their job?
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My superintendent was really excited that the Gov knows her by name and loves the choices that she is implementing in our district…*sigh*
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Shoot her! (metaphorically speakin-wouldn’t want the Texas National Guard to be coming after me).
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Aw, hell, probably the best thing the Obomber could do would be to give Texas back to Mexico, we stole it from them anyway.
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Duane,
:o)
Who lived on that land we call Texas first? Then who took that land from them after they had lived there for about 15,000 years, and then who took the land away from the first thief before the U.S. also took away that same land from the second thief? Was there a 3rd thief before the U.S. got that land? I forget.
How many land grabs have there been in Texas in the last 15,000 years?
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TAGO!, Lloyd!
Most folks have not a clue, unfortunately, or we might say because our education system has failed (yes, the F word) them in teaching them about what you have outlined,
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I don’t think it is that easy of fair—to blame the schools for what adults don’t know later in life or even what children remember a week after they were taught a lesson.
Blaming the schools is the easy way out and almost always wrong. Blaming the schools and teachers is wrong—its a witch hunt and whoever gets accused is guilty just because they were accused.
How the brain works to remember things and access specific memories is complicated and out of the control of most people. In fact, without our control, our brain is capable of both revising real memories and creating memories of events we never experienced. In addition, brain scans prove that when we don’t use what we learn, the links between the cells in our brains where those memories are stored shrivel up and disconnect us from those memories. I don’t remember all the technical terms but I’ve read more than my share of books and articles on how the brain works and specifically memory. While teaching I took workshops because I wanted to know how the brain learns and shape my lessons to increase the odds that a child might actually remember what I taught.
Then there is the fact that what happens to us during the day is stored in short term memory and it isn’t until we are asleep that some process we have little or no control over decides what is significant enough to save while deleting everything else.
I know for a fact that my teachers taught a lot of material in my classes when I was a child k-12 that I don’t remember because I either forgot what I was taught or I didn’t to the work that might have helped me remember. In fact, I have seen a lot of films and read a lot of books but can’t remember everything that I’ve seen or read. That might explain why I sometimes buy a book I read decades ago and don’t remember I already read it until I finished reading it a second time.
During my first two years of college, I took algebra, trig, geometry, calculus physics and probably don’t remember anything that I learned—and I did all of the work.
Do you have one of those memories that remembers what you ate for dinner on January 12, 2001.
And what about brain trauma caused by physical sports like football and soccer. A blow to the head can damage the brain and even cause memory loss—sometimes significantly so should we blame teachers for that too.
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I’ll raise you one& see you. Lloyd. My contention is that it is entirely to my [best] teachers’ credit that I became a life-long learner. Many instances in memory, but to share one: jr or sr yr college, I was taking a grad-level course for which I was underqualified [this was Fr Lit]: I was precocious at communicating in for lang & at analyzing lit– but had zero math brain; some good geography chops; reptilian command only of history/ economics. [should I add?: in my sophomoric know-it-allness, I had shunned all state-ed cert courses except the practicum in French so that I could indulge myself in the full spectrum of lit-crit].
I delivered myself to the small 500-level class of my oral paper on some Rabelais work (no doubt Gargantua & Pantagruel– too difficult for me by far; perhaps I found a narrow point & succeeded with logic & language, but probably left things at a cliffhanger for those w/a primitive grasp of history.) My prof’s only comment: was I aware that soon after, xyz happened & how did that relate? [me: crickets!!]
I credit that professor & other teachers with a lifetime of filling in the gaps historically & economically. [& keep trying at math]
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For me, I think it was the high school library. In 9th grade, I signed on as a student assistant for one period a day, and it counted as an elective so I kept coming back every year. I not only learned how to find books fast, I read hundreds off the shelf—-maybe more. When I was a senior cutting most of my classes, I made sure to always be there for that one period in the library. I’d climb over the wall to reach the library and then back over the wall to continue cutting the rest of my other classes on those days that I took off. Never missed that daily period in the library. I have wondered why no one called me to the office to ask why I wasn’t showing up to my other classes.
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Lloyd,
I agree that it is to easy to “blame” the schools, rather trite indeed.
My ability to show “tongue in cheek” in my writing leaves a lot to be desired. I would blame that lack of ability on the public school system but I went through the K12 Catholic system in St. Louis in the 60s and early 70s so I guess I’ll blame the nuns for that, eh!! 😉
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As a child, I was baptized a Catholic and started out in Catholic schools with real nuns wearing their habits to teach us. They were tough. Then when i was 12 my mother left the Church and joined the Jehovah Witnesses.
That’s the reason why I am not religious today.
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Boy from Catholic to Jehovah Witnesses. Talk about from the frying pan into the fires of damnation.
Not religious either, with much of it from the hypocrisy that even an early grade schooler could detect and the abuse both physical and even worse psychological that I saw those nuns (the lay teachers were never anywhere near as cruel, there was one a piece for each grade level and you got alternated between them each year) heap on students.
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In Catholic school, my print and cursive writing was perfect because if it wasn’t perfect, one of the nuns whacked you with a ruler across the knuckles and then you got to go to the corner and kneel to pray several hundreds times asking for forgiveness. Something like, “Mary, mother of God, forgive me for my sins.”
Boy, the Catholics have a bucket full of sins and you get to break them every week, go to confession and be forgiven so you can start breaking them again the next week.
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Hated that confessional thing. Especially after I confessed (was probably 8-9 years old) that I had “touched myself” and the priest kept asking for further details. No wonder the priest would come out of the confessional wiping the sweat off his brow. I seem to remember that was a three “Our Father” and five “Hail Mary” offense.
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LOL
My Catholic godparents had this piggy bank on the mantel above their fire place. Use any word that was considered profanity according to the Catholics, and you had to put in a quarter to avoid getting your mouth washed out with soap. I had my mouth washed out a couple of times and of course, I had to confess my sin of profanity to a priest before Sunday mass.
Then consider that my godfather had several extramarital affairs over the decades with other women he picked up in bars, and my godmother had an extramarital affair with my father during one of his drunken separations from my mother. By the time my mother told me this, my dad was dead and my mother was in her 80s. That explained why my mother and godmother stopped talking to each other when I was in my 20s. I thought they just had some sort of argument over the Jehovah Witnesses.
My dad never joined any religion so did he sin? He refused to be baptized but—to keep the peace at home with my mother—he went to mass each Sunday.
Do you have to be a Catholic to be forgiven your sins through confession?
I wonder how many Hail Marys my godfather had to say when he confessed his extramarital affairs with women he met in bars. I wonder how many times he had to confess that he kept falling off that wagon into the sin of sex.
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Wish we’d given TX back before W became governor.
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What the fudge…has common sense completely left the building? What parellel universe are these issues happening in? How did education get messed up in this Texas takeover? I have a feeling the networks are just looking for the next big story and are stiring this TX pot like nuts.
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What’s the gov worried about? All those Texans are armed already.
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Actually, Readers, I do wish the entire American military would invade every single Walmart and close each one down, lock, stock, and barrel. Then I wish they would invade and arrest the 5 members of the Walton family. They should do this in every state until every store and member are closed down and behind bars.
A man has dreams . . . . .
A man can dream, can’t he?
As for those cuckoo Texans, I too suspect Obama of so many nefarious things, but I’m afraid he’s NOT interested in taking over your state.
He’s a bit more universal.
He’s interested in destroying the American middle class.
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Opt Out WalMart Week the first week of June. Folks could make it the first week of every month!
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Nice try, but I think one should opt out every day at Walmart and cripple the company.
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I’ve boycotted Walmart for more than 40 years. LOL
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Boy, he reminds me of ex.Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara(a.k.a. an old Japanese racist bigot) of the year 2000.
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How does stuff like this happen? – specifically, how does a crackpot conspiracy get converted into a state military action supported by taxpayers, implemented by a real-life state governor?
1. Surely the teachers among us– most of us on this forum– recognize that there is a wide swath of adult American citizens who are relatively ignorant– that is, of average IQ but w/minimal educations who live in isolated, provincial communities, be they rural or inner-city neighborhoods– who feel inferior & buffeted about by powers greater than they are. Such folk are looking for a rationale to explain the forces that threaten their livelihoods & safety. They are vulnerable & will buy into authoritative-sounding ideas bandied about by their peers.
2. Add the first attack of war on mainland US — at the heart of urban US, NYC & simultaneously on the heart of US military (the Pentagon) & [unsuccessfully[ at the Presidency/ White House– 9/11/2001. The impact cannot not be underestimated. The infernal aspect: the enemy was no particular state [which could conceivably be physically crushed by US military].
An attack by a foreign nation-state would have had an enormous effect. But that the attack was made by a band of suicidal ideologues financially supported by a nation-state [Saudi Arabia] to which our nation is connected at the hip due to the need for oil? That that nation was not confronted nor sanctioned in any way, but rather covered for by attacking a nearby nation [for other reasons] while ignoring an enemy state harboring the head of the ideologue group?… The message to the nation was clearly ‘trust no one, & especially not your own country!’
3. Add the ensuing legislation & its aftermath: The Patriot Act, essentially an announcement of which civil liberties (in ‘the land of the free’) may be curtailed in order to combat the nebulous enemy. From this we citizens have learned that those committing any act which can be remotely conceived as ‘terrorist’ are subject to being held indefinitely w/o writ of habeus corpus & tortured. And that any citizen may be spied upon, & that all communications are subject to monitoring/ spying by our own govt. Message to US citizens? again ‘trust no one, especially not your own country.’
This is the platform of today’s politics. Is it any wonder that in the very state which is most ‘connected at the hip’ to Saudi Arabia is a hotbed of anti-fed-govt conspiracy?
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“Add the first attack of war on mainland US — at the heart of urban US, NYC & simultaneously on the heart of US military (the Pentagon). . . ”
Horse manure! That-9/11 was not an “attack of war”. Boy have you swallowed that hook and line by the MSM. Those attacks were done by deranged individuals (and I’m sure that it wasn’t the individuals named in the “official” 9/11 report) who should’ve have been hunted down, detained and put on trial, and if the law allowed to be subject to capital punishment.
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What the Governor is not noticing is that the real invasion will be coming from the South. The federal troops are a diversion so that Mexican and other alien forces can re-take Texas. They’ve been waiting for this opportunity since their leader had to retreat after the Alamo, and now they are poised to strike!
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There are two big flaws in Texas Governor Gregg Abbott calling out the state’s national guard to protect the state from foolish allegations of an invasion from U.S. special forces teams.
1. special forces operates in small teams usually less than ten to a team and most special forces are operating in combat zones in the middle east. Even if the allegations were true, without several divisions from the regular Army and Marine Corps there’s no way special forces teams could invade a state and take it over let alone hold on to it. Actually, the best job for special forces would be to fly in, take out the governor of the state and the rest of the tea party idiots who believe him, and then fly out like they did when they took down Ben Laden.
2. If President Obama did order U.S. special forces to invade Texas, the state’s national guard would NOT be in any shape to resist them—in fact, they wouldn’t know they were there until it was too late. I’d be willing to bet that the state’s national guard would be devastated by drone strikes and smart bombs called in by special forces spotting teams that would lighting up the national guard units from a mile or more away by using targeting lasers. Most of the casualties would not know they had been hit and were dead, because it would happen that fast without any warning.
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When even a conservative political hack like Rich Lowry admits that Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz are pandering, then they’re pandering. But it gets worse.
Abbott has problems with clear thinking. He’s virulently opposed to the 14th amendment’s “equal protection” clause, and he’s argued in a legal brief that Texas can and should ban same-sex marriages because such a ban prevents “out-of-wedlock births,” and virtually guarantees “the survival of the human race.” Go figure.
Abbott doesn’t think the EPA should enforce clean air and water standards, nor does he want minorities and low-income citizens to vote.
Ted Cruz says that Abbott “is a long-time friend and mentor of mine.” Mentor?
Sadly, there are plenty of people out there like Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott.
And a lot of them – obviously – live in Texas.
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Unfortunately this is carefully considered pandering. Let people get worked up over nothing so you can divert public funds to private and charter schools, give your buddies lucrative state contracts and enrich yourself while attention is diverted.
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I’m going to take what seems to be a very unpopular position.
The problem here is not that people are upset about illegal US military practices taking place on public and private land (in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act), but that it’s only Tea Party and other wing-nut types who are (rightly) concerned.
At one time, self-described progressives would have been upset that the US military, including Special Forces, was conducting widespread counterinsurgency exercises on US soil, but I guess since there’s now a so-called Black man and Democrat in the White House, that’s no longer possible.
I’ve got news for you, folks: those Green Berets and Navy Seals aren’t training to fight ISIS here, they’re training to keep down civil disturbances caused by the very same people who are taking over the schools, and planning these “exercises.”
ISIS is not the target: we are, and feeling superior to know-nothing Repugs doesn’t change that.
Jade Helm is about acclimating people to the fast-encroaching, bi-partisan police/permanent warfare state in this country, and judging from the reactions of people on this site, who should know better, it’s working.
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The 8 weeks of Special Ops Training…in 7 of the largest states in the US …IS a matter of concern for US citizens.
All the so called ” conspiracy theories” ( whether true,or not ) that are mentioned on news shows continues to increase.
However, they only DISTRACT Americans from this massive counterterrorism operation that WILL be happening from July 15 to September 15.
Mock invasions, mock manhunts, shoot outs, gathering up people for containment, and others operations for 2 months should be talked about.
———–
Why Are So Called Progressives Defending Special Ops Training?
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/11/why-are-so-called-progressives-defending-special-ops-training/
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Michael, just t give you the benefit of the doubt here., what “informs” your thinking on this?
Exactly what information do you have that leads you to believe these training exercises are somehow dangerous?
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“. . . that leads you to believe these training exercises are somehow dangerous?”
They are dangerous in the sense of the camel’s nose in the tent or foot in the door, psychologically speaking. And that most people will applaud those activities because, boy, aren’t those trained ASSASSINS/KILLERS like the Seals, Green Berets and many others just the manliest men, the greatest and most patriotic of Americans who should command our undying love and loyalty. “Hey, let me get a picture of you, Mr Seal, and me together to show how tough and patriotic I am.”
Make a little more sense now?
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Duane, I get that. But that understanding’s been around for quite some time. You know, how the song (Barry Sadler) and the John Wayne movie glorified the Green Berets, and indirectly, all the special ops they were involved in.
But Michael seems to have gone beyond that with his comment, suggesting that there really is something quite nefarious about the Jade Helm training exercises.
So I am curious, What exactly is the danger he perceives?
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democracy,
My concerns are simply as stated in the initial comment: I think these “exercises” have nothing to do with the (clearly preposterous) notion that some ISIS-like group is going to invade the US (especially since ISIS is a blowback mutation of US follies in the Middle East), but is instead intended as training for expected/possible civil disturbances here in the US, largely a reaction to the heedless rapacity of our Overclass, as well as to get us accustomed to ever-more militaristic intrusions into our lives.
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Here you are!
I was a beneficiary/victim of the Regent’s exams in the late 50s. Long live the Regents!
Ginny Atherton Musician/Educator in Los Angeles (sympathy and admiration, please)
Begin forwarded message:
From: Diane Ravitch’s blog Date: September 9, 2015 10:01:47 AM PDT To: nityaa@aol.com Subject: [New post] New York: Why the Regents Should Oppose the Governor’s Teacher Evaluation Plan Reply-To: “Diane Ravitch’s blog”
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