STOP what you're doing and let's HELP THIS KID by MAKING NOISE. He's a licensed EMT and volunteer firefighter - and Fremont, Nebraska just told him he can't have a paid fire job BECAUSE HE WAS HOMESCHOOLED!
Coates is 22. He already rides with Cedar Bluffs Fire as a volunteer and holds a Nebraska EMT license.
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"Make a career out of it would be the goal, to get paid to do what you love," he told WOWT.
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The April posting he applied under asked for "graduation from high school." The city said his diploma did not count because Nebraska treats homeschool as unaccredited.
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Fremont later rewrote the description to "graduation from an accredited high school." HR director Jennifer McDuffee said accreditation was already implied.
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"I would say it's a standard understanding that when someone requests a high school diploma or GED that they're asking for an accredited diploma," McDuffee said.
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Homeschools in Nebraska operate as Rule 13 exempt schools. Parents file annually and meet hour rules without state accreditation.
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"We understood that our homeschool operated legally under Nebraska's Rule 13," his father, Seth Coates, told the Omaha World-Herald. "What we never imagined was that the City of Fremont would treat the absence of accreditation as a basis for disqualifying Andrew from public employment."
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JoAnn Coates taught Andrew and his five siblings at home. About 30 homeschool families packed the Civil Service Commission hearing.
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Cedar Bluffs Fire Chief Chris Lichtenberg told the board the city is passing on a firefighter he already trusts. "I feel the city of Fremont's really missing out here, and in my mind, because of his home schooling, you guys are discriminating against him."
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Commissioner Doug Backens rejected that word. "I don't think there was any discrimination against him, and when they use that word, I don't care to hear that word out there."
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Chairman Steve Tellatin noted the original posting's ambiguity. The commission took no action and said city policy is not theirs to rewrite.
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Seth Coates said the family now has 30 days to file in court. Andrew said the fight is no longer only about his application.
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"We're not mad about one applicant, my application. I think now it's turned into we want to make sure that every homeschooler has an equal opportunity."
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#Nebraska #Fremont
@HarmeetKDhillon is this something @CivilRights can look into? @jbinnall and @AndrewOllis - the @TheKashFdn ??
According to an informed federal official, in the coming months the Trump administration plans to send a total of 40,000 Mark 84 and Blu-117 bombs to the government of Israel. Each bomb weighs 2,000 pounds. This appears to be the largest transfer of conventional explosive ordnance from the United States in modern history.
How big is this shipment? It amounts to 40,000 tons of bombs. For perspective, the largest American air raid of World War Two was the Eighth Air Force’s attack on Berlin in March of 1945. Combined, the 2,023 Allied aircraft involved dropped about 3,000 tons of bombs. That’s 7.5 percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. That same month, March of 1945, the US Army Air Forces began the single most destructive bombing raid in human history, Operation Meetinghouse over Tokyo. More than 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed. By the end of that operation, the US had dropped 1,600 tons of bombs. That’s four percent of what Trump is sending to Israel. World War Two ended five months later, when the US dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima. The shipment Trump is sending to Israel amounts to more than three times the destructive power of that nuclear explosion. There is no precedent for what the Trump administration is doing.
Nor is there a justification. The government of Israel is not fighting World War Two, or even a war. It is engaged in periodic skirmishes with a guerrilla force in Lebanon, and it is working to exterminate an unarmed civilian population in Gaza. Neither front requires modern 2,000-pound bombs.
An American-made Mark 84 has a destruction radius of half a mile. It releases a thermal wave the temperature of the surface of the sun. Within 100 feet of the explosion, rock melts and human flesh turns to vapor. The bomb collapses apartment buildings and leaves craters thirty-five feet deep. Until the war with Iran, the US military generally avoided using the Mark 84 in urban areas. It kills too many civilians.
For the Netanyahu government, that’s been the upside. In the weeks after October 7, the IDF dropped nearly six hundred 2,000-pound bombs on densely populated areas in Gaza, including on more than 100 officially designated civilian evacuation zones. The slaughter was so grotesque and embarrassing that for a moment the Biden administration paused a shipment of Mark 84s. Those shipments quickly resumed under Trump. Now they’ve accelerated.
It’s hard to overstate the scale of the crime the Israeli government is committing in Gaza. Over the last three years, more than a quarter-million Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces there. The majority of them have been noncombatants: women, the elderly and tens of thousands of children. Many thousands more remain missing, presumably entombed under the rubble of 200,000 collapsed buildings. So far the Israelis have destroyed 92 percent of all homes in Gaza, and 34 of the 36 hospitals. By comparison, the 1945 Allied bombings of Dresden, now acknowledged as a war crime, destroyed about half of the city’s inhabited buildings.
By any definition, what the Netanyahu government has done in Gaza is genocide. The 40,000 new bombs the Trump administration is sending will be used to do the same in Lebanon, and likely in other countries in the region. If you wanted to extend the Iran war into the indefinite future, this is exactly what you’d do.
So far none of this has received public scrutiny. At some point, inevitably, it will be described in media accounts as an “arms sale.” It is not an arms sale. It is a gift, funded by American taxpayers through the Foreign Military Financing program, an arrangement designed to disguise welfare as capitalism: Congress appropriates money to the executive branch, which transfers the cash to Israel to “buy” American-made weapons, in this case from General Dynamics. Politicians claim this is a win for America. Most voters have no idea they paid for it. The bill in this case is about $3 billion. Add that to the $352 billion the US Treasury has transferred to Israel since 1951.
How did this happen? The request for 40,000 new high-explosive civilian-killing bombs originated at the US Embassy in Jerusalem, which is run by Christian Zionist Ambassador Mike Huckabee and his aide David Milstein, who is the stepson of Fox News host Mark Levin. From there it moved to the State Department, where Marco Rubio enthusiastically approved it.
At this point, only four more people need to sign off before the bombs ship to Israel: Senators Jim Risch and Jeanne Shaheen, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Congressmen Brian Mast and Gregory Meeks, the top two members of the equivalent House committee. All four are committed neocons. Collectively they’ve taken millions from the Israel lobby. In 2015, Brian Mast traveled to Israel to volunteer for the Israeli military. In 2023, Mast showed up in the House of Representatives wearing an IDF uniform.
It’s hard to imagine any of them hesitating before sending more free bombs to Israel. Only public outrage can stop this.
SAVE WEST BANK CHRISTIANS: Jason Jones, Founder Of The Vulnerable People Project, Spotlights Christian Villages Like Taybeh That Are Under Attack By The IDF and Israeli Settlers
He Has A Network Of Local Correspondence In Gaza, West Bank, And Lebanon To Report and Deter Attacks In Real Time
@JasonJonesVPP@HarrisonHSmith
🔴 https://t.co/L0IbAmBXuR
REPORT: How Small Is Nano?
Investigative Journalist Jesse Beltran Breaks Down The Reality Of Nanotech & Reveals How Self-Assembling Nanoparticles Can Move & Reorganize Themselves Into Networks Under The Influence Of An Electric Field
"The Final Revolution Is To Take Over Our Bodies, And We Know This Is Growing Inside Everybody!"
STAY SHARP. STAY DANGEROUS. STAY DISCIPLINED.
Christian masculinity isn’t porn, promiscuity or chasing sexual conquest. Drop it. It’s sin.
Pray. Read your Bible. Train your body. Build strength. Develop the self control to master it.
Strong enough to protect. Disciplined enough to show restraint. Christ above everything.
EXCLUSIVE: The CCP infiltrated the EPA.
A scientist advising America’s drinking-water system had been recruited by the Chinese Communist Party.
Chinese records say he was serving the U.S. EPA and Beijing’s water program “simultaneously.”
His name is Yuefeng Xie.
A man dressed like Captain America who calls himself “Chrisp LikeTheChicken” believes me to be a hypocrite. He writes…
"Mike - People don’t accuse you of hypocrisy because you don’t offer scholarships to four-year schools. You’re a hypocrite because you preach to be for the working-class while being funded by anti-union Koch bros. and regurgitate Republicans talking points while they’ve systematically dismantled the working class for the past 40+ years."
Hello there, Chrisp. Nice outfit! As a rule, I don’t debate with grown men who dress like super-heroes and hide behind a pseudonym, but since you’ve been so candid with your criticism, and since I’m trapped on another plane for the next few hours, I’ll bite.
First of all, let me assure you that many people do in fact, accuse me of hypocrisy because I have a four-year degree, but don't offer scholarships to four-year universities. I hear from these people every day, and they are very clear about the extent of their disappointment. Interestingly, many of those same people, also call me a hypocrite because I had a long and varied career in the entertainment industry before I launched mikeroweWORKS. They use the fact that I used to work as an actor, narrator, singer, and writer, to undermine any opinion I might have about education and workforce that they don't share. (He's just an actor! He sang in the Opera! What does he know?) These ad hominem attacks are very popular among those with no actual arguments to make, and easy to identify once you start looking for them. Consider those who tried to dismiss Ronald Reagan's ideas because he used to be an actor, or more recently, Markwayne Mullen's nomination to Secretary of Homeland Security, because he used to be a plumber. (I'm talking to you, Jimmy Kimmel.)
To your second point, I've never preached or claimed to speak for the "working class," especially as you define them. Like many others who favor the term, you imply that the "working class" is limited to those workers who are represented by unions. I don't share that view. Although I've been critical of some union policies in the past, and argued that not all unions are created equal, I have no issue with organized labor. In fact, I've worked closely with dozens of them, and featured them prominently on Dirty Jobs, Somebody's Gotta Do It, Returning the Favor, and other shows over the years. Most tellingly, many of the 3,500 people my foundation has assisted are members of a trade union today, and I’m very happy for them. But, like the workforce overall, most of my scholarship recipients do not join unions, for all kinds of reasons.
Fact is, Chrisp, the sum total of all workers in America who belong to a union – public and private sector combined - is barely 10%. Begging the obvious question...why would a guy who dresses up like Captain America want me to ignore 90% of the American workforce? And why for that matter, would a super-hero like you want me to reject financial assistance from companies, foundations, or individuals who employ so many hard working, highly skilled, well-compensated Americans? Does Captain America really want everyone to be in a union? If so, he should maybe consider changing his name.
As for Republican talking points, again, I would invite you to prove the accusation. Just because I happen to say something that might coincide with a conservative position, doesn’t mean I’m “regurgitating” anyone else’s talking points. I’ve been a registered Independent my whole life, and I’ve tried to limit my public comments to issues pertaining to workforce and education. But if you really find my opinions inconsistent with your own, and feel compelled to tell six million people why you think I’m a hypocrite with no actual proof, you might want to at least consider the possibility that your disappointment has less to do with me, and more to do with the narrowness of your own worldview. Is that possible, Chrisp? Is it possible that you think I’m a hypocrite simply because I don’t share your priorities?
I'll tell you what I think. (I know you didn't ask for my opinion, but I didn't ask for yours either, right?) I think your worldview is largely shaped by the eternal struggle between labor and management. I think you see one as the oppressor, and the other as the oppressed, and I think that perspective has made your world a very small place. Thus, my view of organized labor is just too nuanced for a super hero like you. Anything short of total fealty is a threat to your belief system. Because I don’t focus entirely on the 10% of the workforce that matters most to you, you see me as a threat. Because I might not vote the way you vote, you see me as a threat. Because I accept support from people you don't like, you see me as a threat. And because I have a large public platform, you see me as an even bigger threat.
The unfortunate part, is that you don't seem to care at all about the 3,500 hundred people my foundation has assisted, most of whom are making a pretty great living outside a union. And because you’re not alone in your apathy, fear, and paranoia, you’ve whipped up the courage to hide behind a pseudonym, dress up like an imaginary Avenger, and criticize anyone who falls short of your own beliefs and expectations. With respect, "Mr. LikeTheChicken," I think your name says it all...
Mike
FEMA Worker Tom Kenney slips and lets it out that FEMA arrived in New York MONDAY night. -WTF?!
September 11th was a Tuesday.
Why on earth was FEMA deployed to New York BEFORE the attacks?!
FLASHBACK: Former FBI Chief Ted Gunderson Exposes Child Trafficking Rings – Plus Major Update on Wayfair Human Trafficking Scandal With Surprising Links To Jeffrey Epstein!
Watch the livestream here! ⏬
https://t.co/UDsB1kyw7X
When Jesus came into this world as a baby, Herod used the power of government to slaughter innocent children in an attempt to destroy Him.
Different ruler. Different century. Same enemy.
But Satan failed then, and he will fail again.
Because Jesus Christ isn’t returning to Bethlehem as a helpless baby. He’s returning in glory as the conquering KING OF KINGS and LORD OF LORDS.
Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess.
Jesus wins.
Amen.
So this article & others like it are precisely why @datarepublican is being targeted. Everyone should study this piece & share as widely as possible. So important to understand these networks of treason & betrayal.
And to learn more about Jennica first hand, watch this:
https://t.co/dHyKgeiH11
In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.
She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.
The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.
She handed out the checks herself.
In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.
When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.
You've probably heard that part.
Here's the part you haven't:
The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.
Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.
She built her county an entire hospital.
She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.
In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.
Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.
In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.
And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.
She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.
She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.
Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸
They said this cow was worthless.
$400. That’s what they paid for a black-and-white that most folks at the sale barn had already written off. Too weak, too far gone, not worth the feed or the trouble.
Two weeks later DJ is standing on his own, following the guys around the yard like he owns the place. They named him DJ because he perked up every time they played music in the barn while they were nursing him back.
That’s the part that gets me.
In farming you see it all the time — the ones that look like they won’t make it are the ones that end up surprising you the most. The ones everyone else walks past. A little extra care, a little patience, and suddenly you’ve got something that was never supposed to be there.
It’s a good reminder that value isn’t always sitting there in the obvious places. Sometimes you have to look past what’s on paper and give something a real chance.
Anybody else ever bought something “worthless” that turned out to be one of the best calls you ever made?