An elementary teacher in Fayetteville, North Carolina is under attack after a video has surfaced where she appears to criticize John McCain and embarrass a student who supported her in her fifth-grade glass at Mary McArthur Elementary School. Diatha D. Harris also calls the Iraq war “senseless.”
Harris is shown on the tape denouncing the Iraq War “senseless” and telling one student whose father is a soldier that McCain would keep troops there for 100 years. When a girl says that she supports McCain, she says “And by the way,” Harris tells the girl, “the person that you’re picking for president said that our troops could stay in Iraq for another hundred years if they need to. So that means that your daddy could stay in the military for another hundred years.”
I think that it is a good thing to get kids engaged in the political season, but it has to be done extremely carefully. I was struck not only by the partisan content but by how inarticulate and clumsy the teacher appears. Harris, however, insists that the tape was doctored. Yet, what is on the tape is pretty damning and the school has declined to comment on how it will proceed in the controversy.
For the Swedish video, click here.
For the full story, click here.
Sorry, but that teacher is a bitch. If she had said that to my child, I’d be very angry. You don’t tell children things like that.
That teacher is lucky that she lives in America where comments like that don’t call for the death penalty or a public stoning.
Is she perhaps, related to the teacher that thought it was okay to have Kindergartners sign a “I’m not going to judge gays” card?
When are teachers going to stop pushing their political agenda onto young children? And I’m talking about both sides of the fence, not just one or the other.
I think that political discussions are better left to highschool aged students who have a better understanding of how a government works, not young elementary aged children.
Hey ISRAEL.
You aren’t a state. Technically speaking the United States of America owes you NOTHING. Got that? Zip. Zero. Nada. If you won’t deal with your enemies responsibly and diplomatically, it’s up to us to clean up your mess? Like ALWAYS? If that’s the case, where are Israel’s income and business taxes? In arrears.
Hmm?
Didn’t think so.
Take your Neocon Likhud nonsense elsewhere. If your country was RESPONSIBLE and DIPLOMATIC, oh, and LOGICAL, you wouldn’t have pissed off all your neighbors and continue doing so while expecting your lobbyists and graft money to bail you out by using OUR MILITARY, NOT YOURS. Israel, like ANY country, does not exist by divine sanction no matter how delusional you are. Statehood comes with responsibility. Blind Zionism ISN’T responsible and is part of what got you into this mess. If Israel cannot act like responsible state, it SHOULD fail. You wanted a country, you got it and you got it how and where you wanted it despite that your choice was poorly thought out. Statehood is not all sunshine and roses, you barely disguised Neocon GOP bigot troll. It comes with a price and the threat of destruction is part of that price. Time for you boys to man up or shut up on being a sovereign power and/or stop hiding behind OUR skirts. Unless you want to pay your taxes and stop acting unilaterally like a real state of this union. Until then, this remains the United States of AMERICA, not the United States of ISRAEL. Deal with it.
Lining Up to Chat
November 8, 2008
Word has gotten around that Barack Obama is willing to sit down with our enemies; the latest to volunteer for a chat is Hamas:
Khaled Mashaal said that Hamas is ready for dialogue with Obama and his new administration “on the basis that the American administration respects our rights and our options.”
“Our options?” I assume that means Hamas’s “option” to continue carrying out terrorist attacks.
“The American administration, if they want to deal with the region, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have no other option than deal with Hamas because we are a real force on the ground, effective,” Mashaal told Sky News from Damascus, Syria.
The exiled militant leader said that the election of a U.S. president with African roots was “a big change–political and psychological” and congratulated him on his victory.
Hamas endorsed Obama’s candidacy for President, but then withdrew its endorsement when Obama was reluctant to accept the endorsement. It appears, though, that the old excitement is back. A “big change” in America’s attitude toward terrorist groups is just what Hamas has been waiting for.
Fayetteville, NC, not Arkansas.
Mespo,
It looks like we can add another troll to the neocon whiners. The article is trying to claim that Hamas and President-Elect Obama are tied at the hip and makes it sound like the Obama people are afraid to respond to the press. The article tries to claim that the Bush policy of not talking to anyone has been the correct way of handling the situation.
12:08pm Saturday November 08, 2008
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, the leader of Hamas says he is ready to talk to Barack Obama
Speaking from his refuge in the Syrian capital Damascus, Khaled Meshaal gave his reaction to Mr Obama’s election.
“There is no doubt that the recent American election is a big change when you get an American president with African roots and no obligations to Israel,” he said.
“It’s a big change – political and psychological – and it is noteworthy and I congratulate President Obama.
The leader of the Palestinian militant movement picked up on Mr Obama’s offer to talk to those opposing America’s positions in the region and threw down this gauntlet for the new President-elect.
“Yes we are ready for dialogue with President Obama and with the new American administration since they have shown a new open mind on Israel. On that basis only that the American administration respects our rights and our options,” said Mr Meshaal.
Asked why America should talk to a movement whose charter is committed to the obliteration of Israel, Mr Meshaal insisted it had no choice.
“This new American administration, if they want to deal with the region, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have no other option than deal with Hamas because we are a real force on the ground, effective,” he said.
Under the Bush administration, America refused to talk to Hamas until it recognised Israel and renounced violence. It is unclear whether the Obama administration will soften that stance. Our questions to the Obama campaign went unanswered.
rafflaw:
Looks we’ve been hit by human spam. They’ll calm down once they figured out they lost because their party is intellectually bankrupt. Might take some time though.
I think a teacher’s role is to let students express their viewpoints. If the kids are saying things that aren’t true, expose them to actual facts and numbers. I think this teacher wasn’t helping to educate.
And I’m a lefty, so there you go.
What ever happened to discussing the article in question instead of just spewing the wounded neocon whining points? Mark, it would be good if you and TREE and Clunk would actually talk about something substantive. After 8 years of crimes against humanity and the Constitution, you would think the “neocon trolls” as Buddha correctly name them, would be in hiding for at least until after January.
Now, back to the subject at hand. This teacher should be disciplined for her actions. Her own political views are not appropriate for discussion in her class. I know the kids will ask the teacher and he/she can answer them honestly, but her views should not be the central focus of the class. And there is no place for actions that purposely embarass any students for any reason.
Obama has failed every test put to him since the election and has already been reduced to having to apologize for insulting an 89 year old widow with a statement he said that was totally false.
Nice start allright.
Obama might want to start carrying around flash cards with all his campaign promises on them because after buying the election with 650 million dollars a lot of people expect to see Obama reward them with taxpayer monies.
TREE,
TREE, you are as DUMB as a STUMP…
Wow, the quality of Neocon trolls is in rapid decline.
AQI wants Obama to keep his promise on Iraq
posted at 8:20 am on November 8, 2008
Young Voters weren’t the only people counting on Barack Obama to keep his campaign promises. Terrorists in Iraq want to see whether Obama will abide by his pledge to get American troops out of their way so that they can get back to the business of slaughtering Iraqis. That includes al-Qaeda in Iraq:
Two Iraqi insurgent groups called on President-elect Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq and abandon the war on terror, an Internet monitoring service reported Friday.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, self-styled head of the al-Qaida front group the Islamic State of Iraq, said in a speech posted on an extremist Web site that it would be better “for you and us” to “withdraw your forces,” according to the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors militant Web sites. …
In a separate statement, the Mujahedeen Army, a Sunni insurgent group, urged Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq or face “days that will be more difficult than the nightmare experienced by his predecessor.”
With casualties dropping to almost zero, Iraq is a war that Obama will ignore most of his term simply by not making any sudden shifts in strategy or personnel. AQI and the other insurgencies are all but destroyed; the only real damage being done by them now is to their own credibility.
The downside to a sudden pullout could be disastrous for Obama. If he did pull American forces out on a fast timetable, the security gains may not last with the still-developing Iraqi Army. A collapse in Iraq following a forced withdrawal by Obama would make him look incompetent and impetuous, and could force us to return to Iraq and take casualties we could have avoided by following the current Bush plan instead. He can’t risk starting his presidency with that kind of disaster.a major issue, and for good reason. Bush won the war, and we’ve finally won the peace.
This so called “teacher” is a product of the far left and was out to single out the child of a military family for humiliation.
That is what the left does; they hate the military, they hate the country, and they hate anybody that dares to have an opposing viewpoint.
Anybody that voted for Obama and his henchmen, the liberal Democrats, has to be held accountable for the mess we fell into under a Democratic congress for the last two years and the mess we will continue to fall into.
Remember, Republicans took over in 1994 because of the vast ineptness of Democrats and their attempts to socialize America then also. Since then Democrats have picked away at the electorate by promising kids & illegals more and more if they only vote them back into power.
Sadly, there will be no tax cuts, no free college, no end to the desire of our enemies to destroy us, and in two years America will throw the Democrats out again.
It isn’t FASCISM when the left practices it is it.
That being said, I think being 20 minutes late for your first Press Conference and then giving what amounted to a campaign speech was an extremely ridiculous start for Obama.
I think his approval rating, after just three days, has gone from 60% to 50%.
Three screw-ups in just three days:
Naming a man who lied about losing a finger defending Israel in the Israeli Defense Force when he lost it to a fast food machine, a man who sent a rotten fish in the mail to a detractor, and a man who was a Director of Freddie Mac for two years 2000 to 2001 and to date who voted to obstruct further regulation of them……yes I am talking about RAHM EMMANUAL, as your Chief of Staff is totally STUPID!
Not speaking up when Russia tested him on Wednesday by announcing they would be moving missiles to the Poland border.
Not renouncing immediately a letter from Achmadinajad asking Obama to eliminate the sanctions on his country.
I could go on, but hey, this is only his third day as President elect! I did notice he has his own “Office of the President Elect” seal already…..