Video of Boy Shocked 31 Times For Not Removing Coat Finally Released

April 16, 2012

Activist Post

By Heather Callaghan

“The video is graphic and should make you angry. How could anyone think this was a good treatment option?  When you give people power, this is what they often do.” –KTRN

“I never signed up for him to be tortured, terrorized and abused,” Cheryl McCollins told a jury on Tuesday. “I had no idea, no idea, that they tortured the children in the school.”

In February, we reported Ms. McCollins’ plight and her calling for the public viewing of startling footage of her then 18 year-old son, Andre, receiving 31 electroshocks at Judge Rotenburg Center for the disabled (JRC) for not removing his jacket.

In 2002, Andre, now 27, had been zapped, restrained, sprawled out face down with a helmet, and shocked another 30 times anytime he flinched or screamed out in pain. The aversive shock “treatment” continued all day with no food, water, or bathroom breaks.

When Cheryl visited her son, he was unresponsive and later rushed to the hospital where he was diagnosed with acute stress response.

McCollins is suing Canton, MA-based JRC and calling the treatment torture. Cheryl wanted the public to see this “therapy” as an unacceptable act of torture.

Of course, JRC fought vigorously to block the video release. A new Superior Court Judge on the case, Judge Barbara Dortch-Okara, refused JRC’s repeated request allowing public-court viewing for the first time.

Cheryl also testified that the staff members were laughing as Andre was shocked.

Click here for the report and video.

Over 40% of California Public School Suspensions Are For ‘Willful Defiance’ Or Disruption

April 10, 2012

End The Lie

By Madison Ruppert

“Kids aren’t even allowed to kids in school anymore. Quick – get them on Ritalin.” –KTRN

One might think that school suspensions are reserved for serious student offenses like bringing drugs or weapons to school or perhaps fighting.

Unfortunately, that is far from the case nowadays in our society which increasingly criminalizes students for engaging in childish behavior, which obviously should be expected, to a certain degree, from children.

Students are now just as likely to get suspended from school for so-called “willful defiance” or any other activity which could be considered disruptive, like rolling eyes, coming to class late, or talking back to a teacher.

According to some critics, these tactics are disproportionately used against black and Latino males, thus alienating the people who most need to stay in school. They also charge that it is actually a catch-all term which can be applied to even the most trivial of offenses.

“It’s so broad it’s not useful” Marqueece Harris-Dawson, the president and chief executive of the non-profit South Los Angeles Community Coalition, said to CBS.

“You can’t quite define what it means, [and] what it doesn’t mean,” Harris-Dawson added. Indeed this is quite accurate and unfortunately has become a hallmark of how our government operates in the modern day.

Click here for the full report.

Kids All Over America Are Being Put On Buses And Sent To Alternate Locations During School Terror Drills

March 28, 2012

The American Dream

By TAD

“Would it surprise if someday they drive your kids off to some detention camp and then never return them?” –KTRN

All over the United States, school children are being taken out of their classrooms, put on buses and sent to “alternate locations” during terror drills. These exercises are often called “evacuation drills” or “relocation drills” and they are more than a little disturbing. Sometimes parents are notified in advance where the kids are being taken and sometimes they are only told that the children are being taken to an “undisclosed location”. In the years since 9/11 and the Columbine school shootings, there has been a concerted effort to make school emergency drills much more “realistic” and much more intense. Unfortunately, the fact that many of these drills are deeply traumatizing many children does not seem to bother too many people. Do we really need to have “active shooter” drills where men point guns at our kids and fire blanks at them? Do we really need to have “relocation drills” where kids are rapidly herded on to buses and told that they must surrender their cell phones because they will not be allowed to call anyone? Our schools more closely resemble prison camps every single day, and it is our children that are suffering because of it.

It is also important to keep in mind that much of the time these drills are not the fault of local school administrators. Often, these drills are being mandated at the state level. Our politicians have become obsessed with “school safety” in recent years, and apparently their idea of “school safety” involves deeply traumatizing our kids.

Earlier today I was doing some research and I came across a forum where a parent was describing a relocation drill that would soon be happening at a school in Oklahoma. Well, I went to public schools all my life and nothing like this ever happened when I was growing up, so I wanted to do a little digging to see if this was actually happening around the country or if it was just an Internet rumor.

Unfortunately, what I found out was quite disturbing.

It turns out that “relocation drills” are being conducted at schools from coast to coast.

Click here for the full report.

12-Year-Old Girl Sues School For Spying On Her Facebook Account

March 12, 2012

Activist Post

By AP

“Be careful – you might want to just post funny, goofy, and mindless drivel on your social media pages just in case they want to come after you.” –KTRN

The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of a 12-year-old middle school student who was detained and interrogated by Minnesota school officials who demanded her Facebook and email passwords.

According to CNN, the girl claims she was “‘intimidated, frightened, humiliated and sobbing while she was detained in the small school room’ as she watched a counselor, a deputy, and another school employee pore over her private communications.”

The “interrogation” of the student stemmed from an incident where the girl wrote on her Facebook wall that hall monitors in the school were being “mean” to her and that she hated them, which the school determined was enough justification to demand a review of all her private communications.

Click here for the full report.

Troops Used For Crowd Control At Texas Kite Festival

March 5th, 2012

Info Wars

By: Paul Joseph Watson

Uniformed troops from the Texas State Guard were used for the purposes of crowd control during the Zilker Kite Festival in Austin this past weekend, with video showing the troops ordering parents and children to board school buses at the end of the event.

Disturbing footage of the troops controlling the movement of attendees was filmed by Infowars reporters, in addition to a police helicopter circling above. However, the website of the Zilker Kite Festival attempted to downplay the Guard’s involvement as if it was completely normal.

Under the headline What are Soldiers doing at the Kite Festival!?, the website states that the troops were there to “help to manage the crowds during bus loading and unloading, at parking lots, and around the event.”

According to the Texas State Guard’s website, “The Texas State Guard (TXSG) mission as a branch of the Texas Military Forces is to provide mission-ready military forces to assist State and local authorities in times of state emergencies, with homeland security and community service through Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA).”

No information concerning the TXSG being present at the Kite Festival appears on the website.

The use of the military to oversee domestic roles normally ascribed to police officers is a sign of America’s deepening decline into a state of de facto martial law.

In 2008 it was announced that U.S. troops returning from duty in Iraq would be carrying out homeland patrols in America for the purposes of helping with “civil unrest and crowd control”. In recent years, budget cuts have also contributed to the increasing use of military assets to conduct routine law enforcement actions.

Military police were used to detain people at the Kentucky Derby horse race in 2009. In April of the same year, 400 Massachusetts National Guardsmen from the 126th Combat Support Battalion were deployed at the Boston Marathon to “maintain order”.

We have documented innumerable examples of Posse Comitatus being violated with uniformed troops increasingly being used to conduct routine traffic stops and provide security at public events across the nation.

The process of loading children onto buses for the purposes of forced relocation is also a scenario that has cropped up time and time again during exercises focused around responding to terror attacks and national emergencies.

During the Operation Mountain Guardian terrorism exercise undertaken in Denver last year, Colorado authorities issued a news advisory that detailed how children would be “processed” in the event of a terror attack by being taken to Denver’s Mile High Stadium.

Infowars reporters Aaron Dykes and Darrin McBreen, who were covering the drill, confirmed that buses marked “special” were used for that purpose.

As part of the same drill, a SWAT team raided a Denver school, terrorizing children as young as first grade with a traumatic and frighteningly realistic school shooter scenario.

Federal exercises have specifically targeted children on a number of occasions, most infamously in Muskegon, Michigan. In 2004, a Michigan county concocted a scenario in which public school children were threatened by a fictitious radical group that believed everyone should be home-schooled, WorldNetDaily reported. The exercise was funded by homeland security grants to area school districts and Muskegon county.

A 2003 Washington Post article revealed how school administrators in the Washington area had told parents they would be “prevented, or strongly discouraged, from picking up their children” in the event of a terrorist attack.

Under the plan, schools would be locked down and parents would not be able to retrieve their children.

For The Full Story Go To Info Wars

12 Preparedness Tips for Families with Children

February 24, 2012

Activist Post

By Gaye Levy

“Is you’re getting prepared for what is to come, here is a great article on some ideas of how to prepare with children.” –KTRN

Something I have not given much thought to is how to deal with survival and preparedness matters when there are young children in the household. Perhaps it was watching the children on Doomsday Preppers that set me on this path, or perhaps it was just something I started thinking about on my own.

Whatever the reason, I have always treated young children as mini-adults, able to rationalize and understand and feel the emotions and body language of the adults around them. And I love kids. Even though I don’t have any of my own, I recognize and love that they are fresh and unspoiled by life and its failures. For no other reason, I wish to share my thoughts on preparedness for families with little ones under the roof.

A Dozen Preparedness Tips for Families

1. Include children in family preparedness discussions. Explain what you are talking about in a calm, assured manner and answer questions honestly and simply. Focus the conversation on the safety issues that will ensure their survival.

2. Regardless of their age, teach young children to memorize their basic personal information such as full name, address, telephone number, and the names of their parents or guardians. This will be invaluable in the event they become separated from their family following a disaster.

3. Learn the disaster response policies of you child’s school or daycare center. Be sure to establish a backup plan so that someone is available to pick them up and/or care for them if you are unable to do so. A good idea would be to have the backup person check on them, regardless, just to be sure. (After all, you may be hurt and unable to call the backup person yourself.)

Click here for the full report.

Unvaccinated Kids Banned From Indiana School Due To Measles ‘Outbreak’

February 22, 2012

Natural News

By Ethan A. Huff

“If vaccinations work, then why would anyone be alarmed at kids who aren’t vaccinated? How could the kids who got the vaccine get measles to begin with?–KTRN

Mass hysteria over a measles outbreak in Hamilton County, Indiana, has led county health officials there to irrationally prohibit all unvaccinated children from attending two public schools. According to reports, 21 preschool-age students, seven elementary-age students, and 26 intermediate-age students in the Noblesville Schools District will not be allowed to attend either White River Elementary School or Noblesville Intermediate School, the two schools where there have been confirmed cases of measles, unless they either get the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, or wait until 21 days after the last confirmed case of the disease is remediated.

Officials believe the outbreak first began as a result of two infected individuals who attended the recent Super Bowl in Indianapolis. It has since spread to 13 people in the Hoosier state, all of whom reportedly live in either Boone or Hamilton counties. And the two confirmed cases in schoolchildren has led to drastic measures that unfairly discriminate against students who have not been vaccinated for measles, some of whom are allergic to the vaccine.

“One confirmed case in a school setting constitutes an outbreak and will trigger outbreak procedures as designated by the state and local health department,” read a memo from Carmel Clay Schools, a nearby school district that plans to ban unvaccinated students from its schools as well, should there be a confirmed measles case in the district. As of this writing, however, there have been no confirmed cases outside the two Noblesville schools.

Click here for the full report.

5 Biggest Misconceptions About Unschooling

February 21, 2012

Activist Post

By Bohemian Mom

“Here is a nice follow up article about home schooling regarding the video we posted yesterday about school in America and how it’s a huge propaganda machine. If you want to home school your kids and teach them what they actually need to know, you should read this article.” –KTRN

Since we decided to homeschool and eventually unschool our boys, I get asked a lot of questions. It’s understandable, as the lifestyle we have chosen definitely goes against the grain of societal norms. Even I had a lot of trepidation at first, and found myself asking some of the very same questions.

It took me over five years to fully reconcile the ideas and, truth be told, I still question myself at least once a year.

Over the eight years plus since we started to homeschool, my perspective through research and experience has grown considerably. This perspective has allowed me to address the most commonly asked questions.

What about college?

This is probably the most commonly asked question. The short answer is yes, homeschoolers can go to college. So can unschoolers. And they do! Millions of them in fact. With the advent of online college courses one can simply continue with a homeschool model even in college. Otherwise a student can take tests like GED and SATs, put together a transcript or examples of their work and apply — same as anyone else does. Prestigious universities such as Yale, Stanford, and Harvard accept and even seek out homeschoolers. Oftentimes they are more prepared then conventionally schooled children to tackle the pressures of a higher education.

The longer answer to this question will be covered in the next installment of this series, so check back next Monday for my rather unconventional (but gaining more momentum) ideas regarding college, and if it really is the best path anymore.

How do children socialize and learn to work with others?

Some conformists actually argue that our kids won’t be prepared for the real world because they aren’t socialized in school. Pardon me for any typos from here on out, but I can’t help but laugh out loud at this common misconception. As if herd pressure to look, dress, or behave a certain way is required to function in the world. Or that facing daily bullies is necessary to toughen somebody up for the “real” world. Or that learning about sex or relationships is better taught by confused pubescent middle-school peers who claim to be experts because they’ve gotten to second base. It’s nonsense.

And just because we homeschool doesn’t mean we stay home like hermits. Even before adopting a travel lifestyle we were on what seemed like a permanent field trip. Hikes, waterfalls, skiing, surf lessons, science centers, museums, and play dates of all kinds, etc. Most homeschoolers use the world as their classroom and spend lots of time exploring and engaging with people.

Click here for the full report.

School Sucks – The American Way

By William Kitner

(KTRN Exclusive) I came across this video today on-line and it really hit home. I have said for the longest time that if I ever have children, I would absolutely home school them. While a lot of people think this is a fringe idea – or something only weirdos do – it’s something I think is crucial in our current American educational system. And if they think I’m a weirdo, awesome. It’s fun being weird.

I would have no problem with my kids going to school to learn math and science, but history? No way. School is just a way to indoctrinate the children – to teach them about the greatness of America and how we are always the “good guys.” The American history that is thought in school is pure propaganda. We are teaching our children constant lies – not just about history either. Take health for example. We teach the food pyramid which has been created with help from lobbyists from the meat and dairy industries. The food pyramid being taught in schools is horribly wrong, yet we do nothing about it. My children would be taught the truth – then again the truth would probably scare the crap out of them. It scares me every day.

Digital DNA for SAT and ACT testing

January 23, 2012

CBS New York

Since the SAT and ACT cheating scandals broke wide open on Long Island, lawmakers have pledged to come up with unique cutting edge ways to combat identity theft.

On Monday, CBS 2’s Jennifer McLogan got the exclusive first look at what politicians will see first hand in Albany on Tuesday afternoon, and what could soon be implemented at a high school near you.

Inside the applied DNA sciences lab at Stony Brook University researchers are hard at work inventing and perfecting a system that can prevent cheating on SAT and ACT exams.

“A novel system that’s absolutely unbreakable for securing the identity of a student taking the SAT exam,” said Dr. James Hayward.

Click here for the full report.

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