Florida public school teacher had secret life as an online white supremacist provocateur.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Dayanna Volitich, a 25-year-old social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle School in Florida, has been secretly hosting the white nationalist podcast “Unapologetic” under the pseudonym “Tiana Dalichov” and bragging about teaching her views in a public school, HuffPost has discovered. 

In her most recent podcast on Feb. 26, a guest railed against diversity in schools, dismissing the idea that “a kid from Nigeria and a kid who came from Sweden are supposed to learn exactly the same” and have the “same IQ.” Volitich enthusiastically agreed with the guest, and went on to argue that “science” has proven that certain races are smarter than others. 

In the same episode, Volitich boasted about bringing her white nationalist beliefs into the classroom and hiding her ideology from administrators. She said that when parents complained to the school’s principal about how she is injecting political bias into the classroom, Volitich lied to the principal and said it was not true. 

“She believed me and backed off,” she said. 

Volitich also agreed with her guest’s assertion that more white supremacists need to infiltrate public schools and become teachers. “They don’t have to be vocal about their views, but get in there!” her guest said. “Be more covert and just start taking over those places.” 

“Right,” Volitich said. “I’m absolutely one of them.” 

Huffington Post did a pretty admirable job of linking this "Tiana Dalichov" character to public school teacher Dayanna Volitich.

Heavy.com also found where Volitich, as "Tiana Dalichov," criticized the victims of the Florida school shooting, and even confronted them online.

They also featured part of her podcast which leaves no doubt that these two people are one and the same.

Thankfully, partly due to their efforts, she has now been removed from the classroom where she can no longer poison the minds of her students:

“The teacher has been removed from the classroom and the investigation is ongoing. Pursuant to Florida Statute an open investigation and materials related to it are exempt from public record and cannot be discussed until the investigation is complete,” the statement from Citrus County schools said.

Remember how we talked about the election of Donald Trump empowering these cowards and making them feel bold enough to come out of the woodwork?

Well this is yet another example of that very thing.

We almost had another mass school shooting the other day, but the young man decided only to take one life. His own.

Since Parkland, there have been two school shootings. One, a teacher had a gun. Two, a 7th grader had an assault rifle. The teacher hit no one, the 7th grader, at the last second, killed himself instead. Just FYI @Emma4Change, @davidhogg111 Words of the 7th grader below: pic.twitter.com/nRiuysiwUt

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) March 2, 2018

Courtesy of the AP: 

A seventh-grader who shot and killed himself inside an Ohio middle school restroom last week was planning to shoot others at the school before changing his mind at the last second, a police chief said Thursday. 

The boy, 13-year-old Keith Simons, came out of the bathroom holding a semi-automatic rifle just before classes began and then abruptly went back inside and shot himself in the head, said Jackson Township Police Chief Mark Brink. 

Police don’t know why Simons didn’t carry out the attack and probably never will, the police chief said. “We should thank God every day, whatever made him change his mind,” Brink said. 

Investigators found messages on his cellphone that showed the teen had been planning an attack for at least a week at Jackson Middle School, near Massillon. He also showed admiration for the two students who carried out the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado nearly 19 years ago. 

“I’d hurt and destroy something bigger but my schools an easy target,” Simons wrote in one message found on his phone. 

“I want to leave a lasting impression on the world,” he said in another message written days before he took the.22-caliber gun to school on Feb. 20. “I’m going to die doing it.” 

The messages indicating he was planning a school shooting began a week earlier, the same day that 17 people died in the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Brink said.

That tweet up above is beyond chilling, and it reminds us that these school shooters often have no expectation of surviving their attack, so the idea of having armed teachers, or even more police, on site does not indicate that it would deter any of them.

I think it is hard for any of us of a certain age to remember what it was like to be an adolescent, but since I work with them all of the time I can tell you that they experience EVERY emotion more profoundly then we do as adults.

So crushes can quickly turn to obsessions. Depressions feel like the end of the world. And anger is all encompassing.

Most of us will navigate these emotional extremes without doing anything too disruptive to our lives.

But provided access to a deadly firearm, and suddenly a momentary emotional crisis can metastasize to an explosion of violence which can end multiple lives.

I hate when people call these shooters "evil" or "crazy."

No, they were likely mentally unstable or emotionally upset. Or a combination of the two.

In other words they are treatable just so long as you do not have to navigate a hail of bullets to reach them.

Colorado middle school teacher on paid leave after being accused of assaulting a student for sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Courtesy of the Times-Call:

A Lafayette middle school teacher is on paid leave pending the outcome of a police investigation into allegations that she assaulted a student who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance on Thursday. 

Boulder Valley School District spokesman Randy Barber said that Angevine Middle School physical education teacher Karen Smith, who he called a 20-year veteran of the school district, is on paid administrative leave.

Beating students into showing respect for their country, gee that's a good idea. 

Having grown up in the 60's and 70's I know that approach to behavior modification quite well.

As it turns out the Boulder Valley School District has a policy which allows students to sit during the Pledge, but apparently physical education teacher Eva Braun did not get the memo.

Clearly Donald Trump's poison is spreading through the country.

100 eighth graders boycott picture with Paul Ryan during Washington field trip.

Courtesy of Common Dreams: 

One hundred eighth grade students refused to be photographed with Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan during a field trip to the nation's capital because they "didn't want to be associated with a person who puts his party before his country," as one student put it. 

According to reporting, roughly half of the 200 students who traveled from South Orange Middle School in New Jersey protested the photo-op on Thursday, watching instead from a parking lot across the street. 

"It's not just a picture," eighth grade student Matthew Malespina told the local ABC News affiliate. "It's being associated with a person who puts his party before his country." 

Most recently, Ryan has come under fire for forcing through legislation that would strip healthcare from 23 million Americans.

Well look at that, we now live in a country where eighth grade students have more integrity than the entire Republican party. 

Looks like the future might be in good hands after all.

Being non-white and attending school in Donald Trump's America.

Yesterday during lunch at Royal Oak Middle School in Royal Oak Michigan, white students loudly chanted BUILD THE WALL, BUILD THE WALL. pic.twitter.com/dfqU2xnMvZ

— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) November 10, 2016

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

During lunch at Royal Oak Middle School in Royal Oak, Michigan, a group of students chanted “Build the wall! Build the wall!”

But that is not all.

Even past secondary school this kind of thing is happening.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, York NAACP President Sandra Thompson revealed that she had been receiving reports of students at York Vo-Tech "being spit on, attacked, and called names because of their race or perceived Immigrant status."

One concerned parent provided video of students at the school holding a Donald Trump campaign sign while shouting "white power." 

The group "Parents of York County School of Technology Students" said on Facebook that members had received reports that "Trump's presidential win was announced at school today amidst chants of 'white power.' That white students referred to other races as their slaves, and at some points even spit on those students." 

And of course you know that if this is happening in other states that Texas will not allow themselves to be left out.

This is what happens when you put a xenophobic racist in the White House.

Hope has been replaced with fear.

Tolerance has been replaced with distrust.

And love has been replaced with hate.

#Notmypresident

14 year old Tennessee boy takes gun to school in order to kill students and teachers. School counselor talks hm down with no loss of life and no shots fired.

Molly Hudgens

Courtesy of WKRN: 

It happened Wednesday at Sycamore Middle School. According to Sheriff Mike Breedlove, the 14-year-old approached school counselor Molly Hudgens after first period.

During the course of the conversation, the teen said he was having some “issues.” Hudgens then asked him if he had a gun based off statements he had made. 

He responded yes, and said that he was going to kill some teachers and a police officer. The teen also indicated she would be the only person who could talk him out of it. 

Hudgens then spoke with the teen for 45 minutes, ultimately diffusing the situation. “She was able to diffuse the whole situation before we even knew what was going on,” Sheriff Breedlove said. 

“She did something that probably the most experienced law enforcement officer couldn’t do. It could have ended up tragically.”

Ms. Hudgens credited her training with giving her the tools to defuse the situation, which ended with the 14 year old taken into custody and charged with possession of a gun on school property and making threats.

But he is unharmed and not facing murder or attempted murder charges which could easily have been the outcome here.

Now just imagine if this were one of those school which had armed teachers walking the hallways.

Do we think that this young man would have been met with patience from a well trained professional who wanted to ensure the safety not just of the other students and faculty, but the boy himself, or would he have been met with a gun pointed at this chest by a poorly trained adult with his finger on the trigger?

This woman is a hero, and despite what we might hear from the conservatives our public schools are full of them.

You have heard of being arrested for "Driving while black?" Yeah well in Texas you can get arrested for "Learning while Muslim."

Courtesy of CNN: 

When Ahmed Mohamed went to his high school in Irving, Texas, Monday, he was so excited. A teenager with dreams of becoming an engineer, he wanted to show his teacher the digital clock he'd made from a pencil case. 

The 14-year-old's day ended not with praise, but punishment, after the school called police and he was arrested. A photo shows Ahmed, wearing a NASA t-shirt, looking confused and upset as he's being led out of school in handcuffs. 

"They arrested me and they told me that I committed the crime of a hoax bomb, a fake bomb," the freshman later explained to WFAA after authorities released him. 

Irving Police spokesman Officer James McLellan told the station, "We attempted to question the juvenile about what it was and he would simply only tell us that it was a clock." 

The teenager did that because, well, it was a clock, he said. 

On Wednesday, police announced that the teen will not be charged.

"Will not be charged." Well that's mighty white of them.

One guy on Twitter pointed out just how incredibly unfair this was.

#IStandWithAhmed When a white kid builds nuclear fusion reactor it's cool but when a Muslim builds a clock it's not pic.twitter.com/TFwfg1lUf4

— wiss.➶ (@BUCKVBVRNES) September 16, 2015

Ahh Texas. Will you ever NOT be a hot bed of racism and Islamophobia?

Well at least the kid has the President on his side.

Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.

— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015

Of course in Texas that will only make him seem more suspicious.

This seems like a good place for this.

Science VS Evolution.

From an eighth grade "science" book used in a Christian middle school:

"Since the publication of Charles Darwin's famous book 'Origin of Species' in 1859 a great controversy has raged between evolutionists and people who believe in God as the creator and Sustainer of all things. The controversy has been characterized by many as an argument between science and the Bible, but the opposite is true: the real argument is between science and evolution."

(Say what?)

"Evolution interests almost everyone because of its impact upon spiritual matters. If evolution were true, the Christian concepts of sin, eternity, the atoning work of Jesus Christ, and the truthfulness of the Bible would be open to question. (And we can't have that!) If man is nothing more than a highly developed animal then he is to be congratulated for his struggle upward and is to be excused when he acts like an animal; but if man is the divinely created being the Bible tells us he is, then man is a creature made in the image of God and a sinner in need of divine grace."

Modern Science has a Biblical foundation: Most of the early scientists--great men like Newton, Galileo, Kepler, and Boyle--believed in God. Many wrote about God's infinite wisdom and design in creation. They believed that God created an orderly universe that He governs through laws that men may discover and use. "

And that folks is how evolution is introduced to impressionable young children who are expected to live among their more educated, and less indoctrinated, brethren who have stopped gazing at the shadows on the cave wall and walked toward the truth. (H/T to Plato.) 

(Here is a link to more pages of this pseudo scientific, religiously infused, mumbo jumbo.

The politicians of Wasilla, Alaska, making people around the world happy they don't have to live there.

I found this quote the other day from an Alaska state senator who hails from Wasilla, over at Crooks and Liars who posted it under the headline "What In The Hell Is In Wasilla Water, Anyway?"

Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla, offered what he called a “completely seat of the pants” observation at a Senate State Affairs Committee meeting during the introduction of a criminal justice reform bill. 

“With some degree of confidence, I think that by the time particularly young men, but maybe young men and women, are in middle school, we can already predict the ones we need to get their DNA samples,” Huggins told a room that included the state’s corrections commissioner, Ron Taylor. “Because they’re going to go see Mr. Taylor in a few years. That’s unfortunate but it’s all too true.” 

It appeared that he thought DNA samples from the suspect middle school students should be taken so that they can be compared later with samples taken at crime scenes or from crime victims.

Yeah nothing like rounding up a bunch of Middle School kids and taking a sample of their DNA, without permission from their parents, and stomping all over their constitution rights in order to save a little legwork if they someday become a suspect in a crime, right?

Of course this is not at all surprising for those of us familiar with the people of Wasilla. After all Sarah Palin is certainly not the only moron to emerge from that batshit crazy environment.

I particalry like the title of this article as it reminds of something that Dennis Zaki used to say when he lived with his son out in that area.

Dennis was convinced that there was something in the water that was making people stupid and decided to uproot his family and leave before his son, who tests at the genius level, became too dumbed down to tie his own shoes.

Looks like he might have been on to something. 

Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal from Ohio teacher fired for teaching Creationism in public school classroom

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of an Ohio science teacher who was fired for teaching creationism instead of evolution, Americans United for Separation of Church and State announced. 

John Freshwater taught eighth-grade science at Mount Vernon Middle School until 2011, when the Board of Education removed him after it was revealed that he decorated his science classroom with Bible verses, attacked the theory of evolution, and gave extra credit for attending creationist films. 

In 2008, he allegedly used a high-voltage Tesla coil to burn a cross into a student’s arm. 

Freshwater sued the school district shortly after his firing, claiming that it had violated his First Amendment rights. The lawsuit was dismissed, but Freshwater appealed all the way to the Ohio Supreme Court, which upheld the firing. 

In its decision, the majority wrote that “we recognize that this case is driven by a far more powerful debate over the teaching of creationism and intelligent design alongside evolution, [but] here, we need not decide whether Freshwater acted with a permissible or impermissible intent because we hold that he was insubordinate, and his termination can be justified on that basis alone.” 

The Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the case means that the lower court’s decision will stand.

Damn the Supreme Court is on a roll this week.

First refusing to accept petitions challenging the constitutionality of same sex marriage, and now supporting the decision to fire this "teacher" for teaching superstitious nonsense to his students.

Is it possible that the Supreme Court suddenly got reasonable, or are they lulling us into a false sense of security before making terrible decisions on abortion and Obamacare?

I don't trust them, they look shifty.

Especially those two in the front row left side.