TOPIC: Yet Another Teacher Caught Were Her Pants Down
Teacher accused of sexually abusing students

Source: FOX Carolina.com

An upstate middle school teacher is accused of sexually abusing several students. Allenna Williams Ward was a teacher at Bell Street Middle School in Laurens County, South Carolina. Administrators became aware of Ward's alleged activities when notes between her and students surfaced at the school. On and off for the past year, Clinton police say Allenna Ward has been having sexual relations with five young boys.
Ward was an English teacher at Bell Street Middle School in Clinton, and all of her alleged victims are students. One eighth grader we spoke to told us this was the first he had heard about it. Marctavious Hill said, "It was shocking to me that a teacher would do that at our school, it's very surprising."
In a press conference Wednesday, Chief of Clinton Police John Thomas told reporters he is also shocked and dismayed. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and the families. It's very disturbing that this kind of thing is going on," said Thomas. According to police, Ward sexually abused the boys in various places throughout Clinton, SC:

• the Bell Street Middle School
• in a parked car
• the Clinton Motel
• behind the Clock Restaurant
• the Laurens City Park

Chief Thomas said, "There could be more victims, more arrests, right now we don't know." We went to Ward's home to hear what her husband has to say about his wife's alleged actions. There we were met by her father-in-law who seemed very upset. FOX Carolina's Lidia St. Mark asked him, "Are you shocked about all of this?" He replied, "I'd like for you to leave please."
In an emergency school board meeting, board members voted unanimously to fire Ward. Superintendent Dr. Laura Koskela said, "It's overwhelming for all of us, it's just so sad so many regrets that we have for our community."
Ward has 11 charges against her ranging from criminal sexual conduct with a minor to performing a lewd act on a minor (IOW, she performed oral sex at least six times on one or more of the boys). If convicted and she receives the maximum sentence, she could spend the rest of her life behind bars. Ward is being held on a $110,000 bond. [End of article]

This story is being reported everywhere from CNN to Kansas City Crime blogs, to the Boston Herald. Warrants show Ward is charged with five counts of second degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor and six counts of lewd acts on a minor. The incidents occurred between December and earlier this month. Ward's attorney, Donald Hocker, didn't want to talk about the case Thursday, according to a woman who answered the phone at his office.
The ordeal started for Mrs. Ward when a note was found (last week) by several students who felt it was inappropriate and turned it over to Bell Street Middle School principal Maureen Tiller.
Tiller turned the note over to the school district office, where officials contacted police, Koskela said. Clinton Public Safety Director John Thomas, who was involved in the local investigation, decided to contact SLED. "Teachers are supposed to be role models as well as being those people who take care of and protect our children," Thomas said. Ward was placed on administrative leave with pay last week and fired after an emergency school board meeting Wednesday, officials said. At the onset of the investigation, Ward sent a text message to one of her victims' cell phone (though we do not know the content of that message).
Last year, an elementary school teacher in school district neighboring Clinton was charged with having sex with an 11-year-old male student. A trial date for Wendie A. Schweikert has not yet been scheduled.
Clinton, SC, a town of about 10,000 people, is about 60 miles northwest of the state capital, Columbia. Allenna Ward's teacher webpage on the Laurens County School System's website has been removed, as her phone extension (#4010). Her picture is also gone from the site. I was able to dig a little and found the following information:
Allenna Williams Ward is a 2001 graduate of Clinton High School and a 2005 graduate of Presbyterian College with a Bachelor of Science in Middle School Education . She taught 7th grade Language Arts. Allena's school email address was ajward@laurens56.k12.sc.us. I seriously doubt any email sent to this address will be answered, but they will likely be read by the police. ;-) BTW, she and her husband live on Compton Road in Clinton -- very near other Ward family members.

TOPIC: Liberal Bias in the Media -- PROVEN
I'm not a big John Gibson fan, but his latest My Word notes something The Sope-Bocks has been saying since Day One (post regarding this bias are here, this one and one other). Here is the transcript from Gibson's MyWord:

"I have long thought the mainstream media is decidedly left wing. Now there's proof. The Center for Media and Public Affairs did an accounting of the network newscasts from September 5 thru October 22 and found an overwhelming liberal bias. On the "Big Three" network newscasts, the audit showed a clear jihad against the Republican Party. Only 12 percent of election stories that aired on NBC, ABC, or CBS could be regarded as remotely "favorable" to Republicans.
In contrast, as The Washington Times put it this morning, "Democrats basked in glory." The study showed that 77 percent of news accounts in the six-week period offered favorable evaluations of Democratic candidates and lawmakers. Robert Lichter, director of the CMPA, said: "The numbers are pretty striking. The coverage has become a referendum on Republican leadership."The killer stat from this study: Midterm elections in 2002 warranted only 35 stories from the "Big Three." Midterms in 2006 got 167 stories, and 77 percent were pro-Democrat.
Now, we've known for many years that reporters, editors and news executives are overwhelmingly liberal or Democrat. There really isn't much point debating that anymore. But what's changed here — this time around — is the willingness to come out of the closet. Instead of just tilting left in the story while pretending to be objective, the mask is now off.
The mainstream media, typified by the "Big Three," is rooting for the Democrats to win, and slant coverage to make it happen. They want to make sure the conservative argument is shouted down, buried and made entirely disreputable. They do it with coverage: story selection, interview selection, sound bite selection and snarky scripts, and lead the viewers to their network conclusions that were set in stone at the 9:00 a.m. meeting.
These are people who think so little of their own vaunted tradition of objectivity that they are willing to throw it all away just to see their favorites win an election. And why is that? It all comes down to Bush. It all comes down to the huge number of elites in this country who think it is their duty to bring the Bush era to an end, to bury it, and marginalize anyone who says Bush was really right all along.
Stand by. More of this is coming, especially if the Democrats win and they get subpoena power. This is what they have been living for.
That's My Word." -- John Gibson

What EVERYONE needs to key on from the transcript is this: "The mainstream media, typified by the "Big Three," is rooting for the Democrats to win, and slant coverage to make it happen. They want to make sure the conservative argument is shouted down, buried and made entirely disreputable." Bernard Goldberg was an award winning reporter for CBS -- and has written a book about the left leaning bias of the mainstream media. It's a very good read for anyone questioning the validity of bias claims.
This morning, Jennifer Harper, of The Washington Times, penned an article regarding the same study. Here are a couple of good quotes:

• CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric (aka Katie Communist), for example, said yesterday that 2006 would prove a "wave election, where public dissatisfaction changes the political environment" and "incumbents are washed away."

• On NBC, Brian Williams led a report from Ohio with the phrase, "Could this red state end up going blue?"

• ABC News' Jake Tapper also showcased Ohio voters, saying they showed "an extra layer of disillusion with the Republican Party."

Like negative campaign ads, negative news reports may have a destructive rebound effect on a fickle viewing public. "For the past week, the mainstream media has run story after story about the nastiness of this year's campaign ads -- perhaps as a way to distract our attention from their own dirty tricks," observed Stephen Spruiell of National Review Online yesterday.
"Viewers can get sick of negative TV coverage. They consistently rate the news coverage as one of the worst parts of a campaign, specifically citing negative content," Robert Lichter (Director of the CMPA) said.