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A Northern California judge ruled Wednesday against a Silicon Valley billionaire who had shut down public access to a beach beloved by surfers and swimmers, ordering him to reopen his private road to the beach. San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Barbara Mallach ruled that venture capitalist Vinod Khosla would have to obtain permission from the California Coastal Commission if he wished to close off Martin's Beach, a secluded stretch of coast south of Half Moon Bay. The case, brought by the surfer and environmental group Surfrider Foundation, had been seen as a test of 1970s laws ensuring public access...

WCNC: NC Small Business Will Be "Hit Especially Hard" By ObamaCare, May Drop Insurance For Workers (June 4, 2014)

Noemi Álvarez Quillay took the first steps of the 6,500-mile journey to New York City from the southern highlands of Ecuador on Tuesday, Feb. 4, after darkness fell. A bashful, studious girl, Noemi walked 10 minutes across dirt roads that cut through corn and potato fields, reaching the highway to Quito. She carried a small suitcase. Her grandfather Cipriano Quillay flagged down a bus and watched her board. She was 12.

Critics of the SAT and other standardized testing are disregarding the data. The College Board—the standardized testing behemoth that develops and administers the SAT and other tests—has redesigned its flagship product again. Beginning in spring 2016, the writing section will be optional, the reading section will no longer test “obscure” vocabulary words, and the math section will put more emphasis on solving problems with real-world relevance. Overall, as the College Board explains on its website, “The redesigned SAT will more closely reflect the real work of college and career, where a flexible command of evidence—whether found in text or graphic...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (WJBK) -- Detroit high school student Brooke Kimbrough, along with the pro-affirmative action group By Any Means Necessary, staged a protest Tuesday to demand more diversity at the University of Michigan. BAMN is demanding an immediate appeal on behalf of Kimbrough and Birmingham Seaholm student Daisha Martin. Both applied to the university school and were denied admission. Kimbrough, who is black, says she carries a 3.6 GPA, scored a 23 (out of 36) on the ACT test and is a leader of University Prep High School's winning debate team. Martin's is president of Seaholm's Black Student Union,...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: North Carolina still has a higher than average unemployment rate so this is important to this state. Folks aren't looking for a handout, they're not looking for special treatment. There are a lot of people who are sending out resumes every single day, but the market, the job market is still tough in pockets around the country. And people need support, a little help so they can look after their families while they're looking for a new job. So Congress should do the right thing and extend this vital lifeline for millions of Americans. Of course, that's just...

Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) announced today that next week he will file legislation that will allow Americans to keep their previous health-insurance plans, as President Obama promised. The proposed bill, entitled the “If you Like Your Health Plan, You Can Keep It Act,” would, according to Johnson’s statement amend the Affordable Care Act “to make Obamacare live up to the promises of the politicians who sold the plan to the American public.” From the press release: One of the most important promises made by President Obama and Democrat congressional leadership to promote the Affordable Care Act was that Americans...

In an interesting twist of irony, one of the Congressman most instrumental in the destruction of civil liberties in these United States due to his authorship of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), is now leading the charge to rein in NSA abuses. His disgust with the NSA became clear back in early June when he wrote an impassioned letter to Attorney General Eric Holder criticizing the illegal NSA activity happening behind the scenes. The key point here is that Mr. Sensenbrenner strongly believes that these guys are misinterpreting the legislation he wrote to justify everything they are doing. As...

ACT Inc. announced today that it is developing a new series of assessments for every grade level, from 3rd through 10th, to measure skills needed in college and careers. The tests, which would be administered digitally and provide instant feedback to teachers, will be piloted in states this fall and scheduled to be launched in 2014, says Jon Erickson, the president of education for ACT, the Iowa City, Iowa-based nonprofit testing company. The "next generation" assessment will be pegged to the Common Core State Standards and cover the four areas now on the ACT: English, reading, math, and science. "It...

Reuters) - The United States would only take action on Syria in concert with the international community and with legal justification in response to the alleged chemical weapons attacks in Damascus, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on Monday. snip "We are analyzing the intelligence. And we will get the facts. And if there is any action taken, it will be concert with the international community and within the framework of legal justification."

A landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act has set up a stand-off between Republican-led states and the Obama administration over controversial voting laws that until now had been stalled. The 5-4 ruling on Tuesday addressed a 1960s-era provision that largely singled out states and districts in the South -- those with a history of discrimination -- and required them to seek federal permission to change their voting laws. The court ruled that the formula determining which states are affected was unconstitutional. ********************** Attorney General Eric Holder warned states against going too...

Attorney General Eric Holder spoke to reporters following the Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder in which the court ruled that the preclearance provisions of the Voting Rights Act could not be enforced until Congress established new guidelines for review.

Per Drudge - FLASH: Section 4 of Voting Rights Act unconstitutional...

The FBI has dramatically increased its use of a controversial provision of the Patriot Act to secretly obtain a vast store of business records of U.S. citizens under President Barack Obama, according to recent Justice Department reports to Congress. The bureau filed 212 requests for such data to a national security court last year – a 1,000-percent increase from the number of such requests four years earlier, the reports show. The FBI’s increased use of the Patriot Act’s “business records” provision — and the wide ranging scope of its requests -- is getting new

Almost a third of Illinois' high school Class of 2012 scored too low on the ACT college-entrance exam to be considered ready for key college classes, according to data released Wednesday. Despite some improvements, the results were troubling to some educators, while others considered the information a flawed method for judging how well students will fare if they go to college. [Snip] Former state schools Superintendent Glenn "Max" McGee, now president of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, is troubled by the low college-readiness figures, particularly in science and math. Only 30 percent of Illinois' 2012 graduates met...

This is very scary! It appears that Americans approve by a 2 to 1 majority to allow the president to enforce his own law regarding immigration policy! See: Poll Shows 2-1 Support of Immigration Policy “By more than a 2-to-1 ratio, Americans favor the Obama administration’s new immigration policy, according to a Bloomberg poll released on Tuesday.” But Article VI of our Constitution states This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof… shall be the supreme Law of the Land … The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the...

Obama on the DREAM Act: "I just have to continue to say this notion that somehow I can just change the laws unilaterally is just not true. We are doing everything we can administratively. But the fact of the matter is there are laws on the books that I have to enforce. And I think there's been a great disservice done to the cause of getting the DREAM Act passed and getting comprehensive immigration passed by perpetrating the notion that somehow, by myself, I can go and do these things. It's just not true." THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the...

Focus Act testimony of Rand Paul on the Gibson Guitar raid.

The companies that administer two key college entrance exams have adopted new measures arguably designed to decrease participation in the tests - and, ultimately, enrollment in colleges in university - by minority and elderly students. The two companies that administer the tests, the College Board and ACT Inc., which administer the SAT and ACT tests, have announced that students taking the tests will be required to present photo IDs. The new requirement is being called a "key security upgrade" and comes in response to an alleged cheating scandal in which students allegedly paid someone else to take the tests for...

Voting Rights Act under siegeBy JOSH GERSTEIN | 2/19/12 7:06 AM EST In a political system where even the most trivial issues trigger partisan rancor, the Voting Rights Act has stood for several decades as a rare point of bipartisan consensus. Until now. An intensifying conservative legal assault on the Voting Rights Act could precipitate what many civil rights advocates regard as the nuclear option: a court ruling striking down one of the core elements of the landmark 1965 law guaranteeing African Americans and other minorities access to the ballot box. At the same time, the view that states should...