News

With the job market in the tank, some crooks are finding times have never been better, only this time a few are scamming the unemployed.
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A special education teacher faces her seventh lawsuit:

A new lawsuit filed against a Sumner County teacher charged with abusing her pre-school-aged special needs students alleges abuse as far back as 2005.


Donna Weidenbenner, 47, is already facing six lawsuits alleging abuse of students during her time as a teacher. She is also facing multiple criminal charges stemming from incidents alleged to have occurred during the 2008-09 school year.

The latest lawsuit accuses Weidenbenner of abusing a young male student between 2005-07 at Beech Elementary School, where Weidenbenner worked before her transfer to Station Camp Elementary School.


According to the lawsuit, Weidenbenner is accused of “hitting and grabbing [the boy] with such force as to cause bruising, and grabbing his head with both hands and shaking violently.”

I get wrongfully shitcanned for what amounted to a clerical error.

Here is more information:

The lawsuit claims the teacher shoved, kicked, stood on top of students and even strapped them to a toilet.

One attorney said his clients brought the problem to the attention of school officials three years ago in a meeting that was recorded on tape and paper.

"He said that she grabbed his head and he just showed grabbing it and shaking it," said mother Jamie Minnis.

Jamie and Terry Minnis said they were concerned by the story their autistic 5-year-old son came home telling them in April 2007. Their child was a student in Weidenbenner's special-education class at Beech Elementary School, so they went to school administrators.

In an audio tape of the meeting, Weidenbenner can be heard explaining her teaching techniques.

"I did not shake his head. I did touch his head. I will admit to that because I was trying to get him to look at me,” said Weidenbenner on the recording.

Principal Brenda Green defended Weidenbenner's teaching style during the meeting.

"She has a program, and she totally goes about it in a way that an onlooker might say, 'That's a little bit too strict,'" said Green on the recording.

A video report from last October:

Miscellaneous News

The LGBT community is all up in arms over Michigan's Blue Cross Blue Shield declining to pay anymore for "sex reassignment surgery."

Well, no insurance company should be paying for it anyway since it is elective surgery.

I have long stated on this blog my objections to this kind of mutilation and believe any doctor who performs it is acting unethically.

Call me a reactionary, but tough shit.
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It's "cry me a river" time now that an executive who resigned AIG published a letter outlining his cruel fate.

Whatever DeSantis's role at AIG, there is a crucial difference between the work of the plumber and that of the finance executive—besides the enormous disparity in pay. The plumber performs a socially useful labor. The financiers have played a socially destructive role, as the collapse of AIG and the larger economic crisis have made clear. Their entire raison d'etre is to enrich themselves and their cronies.

The difference is plumbing is an honest profession while being a robber baron is not.

I like this response.
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Unfortunately for Lawrence B. Salander, there is no government bailout for him.
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I hope the planetarium doesn't close.
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Nadya Suleman doesn't care one bit about her kids, according to a nurse.
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The former DNC chair has a petition on health care reform for people to sign. The idea of dual health care systems is virtually identical to what John Edwards proposed in his last presidential campaign.
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