TWO Praises New York For Banning Conversion Therapy for Minors and Cracking Down on Insurance Providers | Truth Wins Out

Truth Wins Out praised New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo today for using his Executive Authority to prohibit the destructive practice of “conversion therapy,” a fraudulent and ineffective attempt to combine prayer and discredited psychobabble to change teenagers from gay to straight. According to CNN, “Saturday’s announcement bans public and private health care insurers from covering the practice in New York State. It also prohibits New York mental health facilities from conducting the practice on minors.”

From the NYTimes, a bit more detail,

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York on Saturday announced a series of measures intended to eliminate so-called conversion therapy, a practice that claims the ability to reverse same-sex attraction in some people but that has been widely discredited by scientists and criticized by gay-rights groups.

Mr. Cuomo’s plan relies on economic incentives meant to discourage conversion therapy’s use on young people. Insurers in New York, for instance, will now be prohibited from covering the cost of such therapy for anyone under 18.

That action — issued through the State Financial Services Department — would be combined with a new regulation from the State Health Department that would prohibit the use of Medicaid to pay for conversion therapy. Centers overseen by the State Office of Mental Health would also be barred from providing conversion therapy to minors, according to the governor’s office.

Taken as a whole, the new regulations would severely restrict conversion therapy, which Mr. Cuomo called “a hateful and fundamentally flawed practice” in a statement.

Why it has come to Executive Authority,

Last year, the New York State Assembly, which is controlled by Democrats, passed a bill that would have banned mental health practitioners from performing conversion therapy on minors, labeling the practice a form of professional misconduct that could put medical licenses at risk. The bill stalled in the State Senate, where Republicans hold a slim majority.

TWO Praises New York For Banning Conversion Therapy for Minors and Cracking Down on Insurance Providers | Truth Wins Out

Psychic sues New York for escaped inmate reward money | Fusion

A Texas psychic who claims to have “spiritual gifts from the almighty” is suing the state of New York for the reward money promised to anyone who helped find escaped inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said in June that the state would pay a $100,000 bounty to anyone who provided information leading to the capture of the escapees, whose three-week prison break captured the attention of cable news channels this summer.

Self-described psychic Eric Drake writes in a lawsuit filed earlier this month that he called Governor Andrew Cuomo’s office and gave them this key information,,,

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This isn’t the first time Drake says he’s assisted with a law enforcement action. He says he gave Washington, D.C. police details that would have helped them catch the snipers who killed 17 people in 2002, but that his advice was ignored.

Drake writes that he plans to use the New York reward money to publish a book of his prophecies. It doesn’t sound like it will be a pleasant read: “The Plaintiff’s future predictions regarding the United States of America, which is contained in his new book are 1000 times greater than the suffering of the great depression,” he writes.

Psychic sues New York for escaped inmate reward money | Fusion

Charter Schools and the Destruction of Public Education

Charter schools are a scam inflicted on black and Latino children and are meant to turn education into just another profit center. These schools take public money without being accountable to the public and they are funded by organizations like the Walton Family Foundation of WalMart fame and hedge fund chieftains. There is no data which proves that they provide superior education. They don’t have to accept children with special needs and often expel children who are struggling academically because they may bring down the all important test scores they use to justify their access to public dollars.

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Teachers at charter schools are akin to fast food workers. They are the least experienced and have a high rate of turnover, all of which happens by design. The hedge fund honchos and the Walton Family Foundation want to get rid of the teaching profession and make educators as insecure in their work lives as everyone else in the country.

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Cuomo is running for re-election in November 2014 and depends on campaign donations from people like Daniel Loeb, founder of Third Point hedge fund and chairman of Success Academies charter schools. Together they and others developed a lobbying effort which demolished any hope of the small reforms de Blasio proposed. A previously little known group, Families for Excellent Schools, appeared on the scene with more than three million dollars worth of advertising featured black and latino parents making the case for charters. Families for Excellent Schools is certainly not made up of any New York City families. Its offices share an address with the infamous Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst organization.

It was obvious very quickly that the mayor’s little nod to protecting public education was no match for big money and his nemesis in the governor’s office. When Success Academy charters closed all twenty of its schools for one day, and brought 7,000 parents and children to a rally in the state capital, it was clear that they had won the day.

Charter Schools and the Destruction of Public Education