After allegations that she called her son Trig retarded, Levi drops another bombshell: he wants to take Sarah Palin to court.

Levi Johnston, 19, who had a son called Tripp with Mrs Palin’s eldest daughter Bristol, has been considering legal action for months but now says it is “inevitable” and that Mrs Palin is preventing him from seeing the boy.

A court case over Tripp, during which Mr Johnston may make damaging allegations about Mrs Palin, could hamper any hopes she harbours of running for the White House in 2012.

“I’m up to the point where I can’t see my kid again. I’m done. I’m sure we’ll end up in court,” Mr Johnston said in an interview with The Guardian today. “We’re definitely going to court. They started letting me see him and everything was fine. But everything got bad again. So I said screw them. Bristol listens to her mom. Sarah says something, Bristol is going to follow.”

Mr Johnston said there had been periods when he was able to see Tripp about once a week but at other times he has had almost no contact. He last saw his son several weeks ago, he said.

… In one withering assessment of the former Alaska Governor he claimed that she was selfish and, in contrast to her public image, did not fish or know how to use her own gun.

There was further embarrassment for Mrs Palin this month when the man who was nearly her son-in-law announced that he will be posing nude for Playgirl magazine.

Mrs Palin’s lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, said Mr Johnston was “always welcome” to visit his son.

Doesn’t know how to use a gun? I’m pretty sure this video shows otherwise:

I’d like to see Levi Johnston do that. In any case, it’s really irrelevant. The real question here is, should Levi Johnston be taking Sarah Palin to court? Does he have a case?

If he can prove that the Palins have been barring access to his son, then yes, he has a case. I, however, find that highly unlikely. Bristol has stayed home, in Alaska, raising their son. Levi Johnston, on the other hand, went out and got himself an agent and a manager and boyguards. He’s been jet-setting across the country to be on TV shows and give interviews with tabloid magazines. Perhaps if Levi spent a little bit more time focusing on his family, rather than his new Hollywood career, he wouldn’t be finding himself shut out of his son’s life. What does he expect Bristol to do? Fly Tripp out to Los Angeles or New York to have a custody visit with Levi every weekend?

Levi Johnston is Tripp’s father, and of course he should share custody with Bristol. He should be allowed to see his son, and if the Palins are not allowing him to see Tripp, then I would agree that they are in the wrong. I just don’t believe it, and even if they did, I’d kind of feel like they’d have a good reason for it anyway. It wouldn’t excuse it, but it’s understandable. Levi has made all kinds of damaging allegations against the Palins. He’s trashed them all over the country, on TV and in magazines and newspapers. And on top of that, he’s posing fully nude in Playgirl, for chrissakes. If they were keeping him from seeing Tripp, it would be understandable (albeit still wrong). I just personally think that it’s more likely that Levi hasn’t been trying to see his son as much as he probably should have been, and is using it as an excuse to try to hurt the Palins further.

As the article states, a nasty custody case would only hurt Sarah Palin’s chances in 2012. And even if she isn’t running for president in the next election, it still would trash the way the public sees her. Levi knows that. I bet he’s counting on it. He’s not doing this out of love for his son, he’s doing it for his own gain and because he’s got some stupid vendetta against the Palins.

I keep asking this every time I write about him, but honestly — can he sink any lower? I’m sure he can, and if we give it a few days I’ll bet we’ll see him sink a little bit lower yet again.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary or follow her on Twitter!

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Parents are being banned from playing with their children in council recreation areas because they have not been vetted by police.

Mothers and fathers are being forced to watch their children from outside perimeter fences because of fears they could be paedophiles.

Watford Council was branded a ‘disgrace’ yesterday after excluding parents from two fenced-off adventure playgrounds unless they first undergo criminal record checks.

Children as young as five will instead be supervised by council ‘play rangers’ who have been cleared by the Criminal Records Bureau. …

Parents already have to ‘register’ their child on arrival so staff have their contact details in the event of an accident. But now only those who have been selected for CRB vetting by the council can enter the sites.

Meanwhile, a story from Lithuania reminds us who is more likely to have children’s best interests at heart, their parents or The State:

A dad who shot dead a judge and a senior politician because they molested his three-year old daughter has become a national hero after going on the run in Lithuania.

Horrified Drasius Keyds, 37, gunned down the perverted pair on Monday after police turned a deaf ear to his pleas for justice for his tortured tot.

Now in hiding, Keyds has become a hero on YouTube and Facebook with hundreds of thousands of fans from all over the world pledging support. …

Keyds’ nightmare began a year ago when daughter Deimantela told him about a meeting set up by his then fiancee with judge Jonas Furmanavicziusa and the Speaker of Lithuania’s parliament, Andrius Us.

The pair allegedly raped and abused the youngster who reported her ordeal to her father.

But a year long campaign for a police investigation failed when detectives told Keyds there was not enough evidence to proceed with a case.

Too bad Keyds didn’t check to see if the bigwig bureaucrats were certified “play rangers” before he let them near his daughter.

On tips from mega and Janet. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX) says there’s an entire community of people across the world who say that their sexual orientation changed from gay to straight. But they’re not getting their message out, the group says, because libraries across the country refuse to carry literature that describes these experiences or any studies that support them.

So a book like “My Genes Made Me Do It!: A Scientific Look at Sexual Orientation” — which argues that sexuality is shaped by a variety of factors, not just biological — can’t get a spot on the school library shelf.

Neither can “You Don’t Have to Be Gay,” which describes author Jeff Konrad’s struggle to overcome his unwanted same-sex attractions.

If you want to see your book on school shelves, you have to take a very different point of view — i.e., you have to promote homosexuality to children.

“Baby Be-Bop,” the coming-out story of a gay teen, which includes descriptions of his sexual encounters in bathroom stalls with men he never talks to, makes the stacks.

So does “Love & Sex: Ten Stories of Truth,” which describes a gay teen’s relationship with his tutor with excerpts like: “Matt had one leg locked between mine, so that his d— was smashed between his stomach and my thigh. And as his hand jerked up and down on me his hips humped with the same rhythm.”

PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs turned to the American Library Association for help. After all, the ALA has been promoting its annual Banned Books Week, devoted to shining a light on “the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States” and advancing the Library Bill of Rights, according to which:

• Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.

• Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.

• Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

But these principles only apply to books that advance the degenerate agenda. Consequently, the liberal establishment’s ALA blew off Griggs, refusing even to issue a statement opposing bans on ex-gay books. When Fox News tried to learn more, the ALA blew it off too, no doubt pleasing The Anointed One immensely.

On a tip from Chad. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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In a locally unprecedented move, the School District of Philadelphia will hold principals accountable for the number of students eating breakfast in their schools.

Breakfast participation will be part of the report card that rates principals each year, along with categories such as attendance and math and reading performance.

All 165,000 students in Philadelphia public schools, regardless of income, are eligible for free breakfasts. But just 54,000 ate breakfast last year, district figures show. …

“This is the first accountability system for school meals in the history of the school system,” [activist lawyer Jonathan] Stein said. “It’s very exciting.”

Uh oh, here’s a wet blanket who’s not excited about forcing kids to eat free breakfasts at public expense.

“You’re doing a disservice to principals by holding them accountable without controlling for other variables,” said Michael Lerner, president of Teamsters Local 502, Commonwealth Association of School Administrators.

Should a principal be blamed for a student who ate breakfast at home and therefore doesn’t eat in school, asked Lerner, who was a principal for 22 years.

“Are we going to get to forced feedings?” he continued. “I think it’s wrong to assume no parent in Philadelphia is providing breakfast each day.”

And, Lerner added, many children wind up not eating, thereby wasting food.

That’s okay; somebody else pays for it. Besides:

Advocates point out that many Philadelphia children live in high-poverty areas, and thus are more likely to be without the kind of nutritious foods that mandatory breakfasts provide.

But the kids running wild in urban schools can’t even be prevented from assaulting teachers; how to get them to eat their mandatory breakfast?

Just how food will be served in Philadelphia schools is up to principals. Studies show, however, that more children eat when breakfast is served in the first class of the day. …

Typically, principals have resisted such service, saying it detracted from instructional time.

But in the spring, the Pennsylvania Department of Education ruled that if students throughout the state eat breakfast in their first class with a teacher present, it will be counted as instructional time.

Fresh from his triumph tying principal performance to breakfast, Stein added, “First-class service should be required throughout the school system.”

Steak and eggs for everybody! The taxpayer’s buying! If you already ate, just fling the food at your teacher.

All we need to do now is change the tests so that students are graded on eating breakfast instead of math and science. Then no child will be left behind, as surely as no child will get ahead with moonbats in charge of schools.

On a tip from SK. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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America’s kids are too fat. Right? Don’t we hear that all the time? Isn’t it a steady mantra from the left that America is suffering from an “epidemic” of obesity? So, shouldn’t we want to encourage kids to get outdoors? Wouldn’t it be a good thing if kids rode a bicycle to school?

Not to the nanny state in New York it wouldn’t. Seventh-grader Adam Marino and his mother Janette discovered this unusual situation when Adam’s school in Saratoga Springs threatened them with disciplinary action if the pair didn’t stop riding bikes to school.

Why did the school assume it had the power to compel a citizen of New York to stop accompanying her son to school on a bicycle each morning? Apparently the school imagined that it owned her son from the second he stepped out of his door to go to school until he returned home later in the day. The state decided, therefore, that it could determine what conveyance that child is “allowed” to use to get to school each day.

The District also prohibits kids to walk to school, as well.

Of course, it isn’t just the nanny state we are dealing with here. The truth is that lawyers are at fault, too. In some ways this school system is trying to protect itself from any lawsuit that might arise from a kid getting injured on his way to school, we must realize.

On top of that we have the school bus contractors that wouldn’t be too happy if fewer kids needed their busses, too.

But here is the main point and it is one of liberty. What we have here is just another jack-booted government entity (this time the school system) deciding that it somehow had the power to tell free citizens that they were not allowed to ride a bike to school.

This is America. If I want my kid to ride a bike to school, I should have that right to make that decision. Liberty demands that I be afforded the right to permit my child to ride his bike to school if I decide he is responsible enough and it is safe enough to do so.

If I want my kid to get to school on a pogo stick, the state should have no right to tell me other wise. Especially if he also enjoys the activity.

In the end, this report demonstrates some of what has gone wrong with this country. As Shakespeare’s Dick the Butcher said in Henry VI Part III, first “let’s kill all the lawyers.”

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I only wish I were kidding:

A West Michigan woman says the state is threatening her with fines and possibly jail time for babysitting her neighbors’ children.

Lisa Snyder of Middleville says her neighborhood school bus stop is right in front of her home. It arrives after her neighbors need to be at work, so she watches three of their children for 15-40 minutes until the bus comes.

The Department of Human Services received a complaint that Snyder was operating an illegal child care home. DHS contacted Snyder and told her to get licensed, stop watching her neighbors’ kids, or face the consequences.

“It’s ridiculous.” says Snyder. “We are friends helping friends!” She added that she accepts no money for babysitting. …

A DHS spokesperson would not comment on the specifics of the case but says they have no choice but to comply with state law, which is designed to protect Michigan children.

If the boot heel being ground into your face isn’t intended to save the polar bears, then it must be to protect the children.

Ms. Snyder could have saved herself some grief by succumbing to a union before agreeing to do any favors for her neighbors. Via The Blogprof, here’s some background on how Michigan Democrats have been forcing even babysitters to unionize and cough up dues that will then be used to elect more Democrats.

When Comrade Obama rams through card check as promised, the entire country will share Michigan’s dismal fate.

Hat tip: The Blogprof. On a tip from Greg. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

Related post: Michigan Authorities Attack Woman for Babysitting Neighbor Kids

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You read that headline right. A woman who was watching her neighbor’s kids each school morning for 40 minutes before the bus came is being accused of being a criminal by the State of Michigan.

It takes a village, right? Remember when you were a kid and the next door neighbor looked after you for an hour or so until your parents got back from shopping or work? Remember when your neighbor might even pick you up from school at one time or another? Remember that your parents returned the favor whenever it was necessary? Remember when neighbors felt a responsibility to each other? Well thank God we don’t have to rely on friends and neighbors any more. After all, we have the glorious state to take care of us now. We have our fathers and mothers in government to watch out for us. Who needs neighbors?

This is what has happened in the people’s state of Michigan where a kindly maternal woman is being ground under the iron boot heel of authorities from the State of Michigan because she dared to watch her neighbor’s children for about 40 minutes before school each weekday in violation of the state’s child daycare center registration laws.

Shockingly this poor woman is being threatened by the goosesteppers of the child welfare department of what should be the Badger State instead of Wolverine — that would be more apt in this case — because she did not get a childcare license for watching her neighbor’s kids for the 40 minutes before the bus arrives each morning.

Folks we have at last come to a decision point.

We have allowed our various governments from the smallest village all the way to the halls of the federal government to become an anti-family, anti-American despotism and here is just another disgusting example of that devolution from American republic to fascist state.

When we are prohibited by state law to even offer a little help to our friends and neighbors or face prosecution by the all powerful state, we have arrived at a time when our government is no longer on our side. Our governments, all of them, are fast becoming enemies to the common good, enemies to the rights and liberties of the people they are supposed to govern. Government is now only interested in its own power and its own needs.

When you can’t even help a neighbor for fear of the fascist state coming down on you like a ton of bricks we have arrived at a turning point for sure. It is time to take power away from government at every level. When any politician is running for office and telling us what he will “do” for us, tell him you only want one thing from him. Tell him you want him to LEAVE US ALONE!

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SMACKING, long used by parents to discipline naughty children, could cause more than tears. Research revealed it can also lower a child’s IQ, with those smacked up to three times a week having a lower IQ due to psychological stress.

US-based sociologist Professor Murray Straus, who studied the impact of smacking for 40 years, likened the effects of corporal punishment to post-traumatic stress, affecting a child’s mental development. He called on governments to outlaw corporal punishment.

After studying 800 toddlers aged between two and four over a four-year period, he found those who were subjected to smacking had an IQ five points lower than that of a child who wasn’t physically disciplined. “The results of this research have major implications for the well-being of children across the globe,” he said. “All parents want smart children. This research shows that avoiding smacking and correcting misbehaviour in other ways can help that.”

Children aged five to nine years who were smacked regularly had an IQ 2.8 points lower. Dr Straus said children who constantly faced physical punishment lived in fear and suffered stress, which was associated with poorer academic performance.

While not an advocate of smacking, Sydney psychologist Dr Judith Kennedy said parents who gave an occasional tap on the bottom should not fear damaging their child. “But a child who is suppressed through physical punishment regularly is going to behave differently,” Dr Kennedy said.

SOURCE

Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me (John Ray) here

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Here is the bottom line for me. Islam preaches mercy killings for Christian converts. Rifqa has converted to Christianity and is expressing a legitimate fear her parents would do Allah’s will if the government gave her back. Perhaps her fear is wrong, but is that possibility worth the chance? The bottom line for me is she is seventeen and would know her parent’s capability and devotion to Islam better than anyone. In a few months she has the legal right to live on her own anyway. Is giving her back to her parents really worth the risk? I don’t think so.

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A school in England called an emergency assembly to tell children that a 12-year-old male pupil was having a sex change.

The youngster arrived for his first term at secondary school wearing a dress and with long hair in ribboned pigtails after his parents changed his name to a female one by deed poll over the summer holidays.

However, the boy, who is preparing to undergo hormone treatment and sex change surgery, was immediately taunted by classmates who recognised him from primary school.

As a result, the 1,000-pupil school in south east England decided to call an emergency assembly ordering children to treat him as a girl and use his new name.

Parents were not informed in advance, so they had no way of preparing their kids for the grotesque revelation that the poor kid was being mutated into a crude simulacrum of a girl, which reportedly left some horrified children in tears.

On a tip from Antara.

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