Nevada Day 2009

Today was the annual Nevada Day parade held in Carson City, Nevada. This year's theme was "Nevada Salutes President Lincoln."

Miscellaneous

In celebration of Halloween, evangelist and family values czar James Dobson is calling it quits from his Focus on the Family radio program and organization, both of which he founded some 30 years ago.

He won't say he's retired, though.
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A new biography is out about screenwriter and philosophical nutjob Ayn Rand, complete with details of her messy relationship with "protege" Nathaniel Branden, in case anybody is interested.
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US Wages and Salaries

rose at their lowest levels in 27 years, but of course our congress won't do anything to reverse the trend.

Since the recession began in December 2007, 7.6 million jobs have been eliminated from the economy, and 3 million since Obama’s stimulus program was approved. Even if one were to accept the government’s estimates, a stimulus program that would address the unemployment crisis would need to be at least ten times the size of the one that has been passed. Instead, the Obama administration has rejected any further stimulus measures.

In fact, mass unemployment has been part of a deliberate policy, allowing for corporations to exploit workers’ fears over the poor labor market. The financial and corporate elite has used the economic crisis it created to carry out a massive redistribution of wealth. The bank bailouts will be paid for through attacks on the working class—including austerity measures, cuts in social programs and a continual attack on wages and benefits.

In short, we're screwed.

Miscellaneous

My nephew, Greg Kerr, has an independent film that's making the rounds. His film, Unremembered, has a review right here.

Independent film-maker Greg Kerr brings a striking debut full-length feature to the big screen. Kerr, who is by day a professor at Portland Community College teaching screen writing classes, wrote this screenplay, then self-funded its production in Oregon. A labor of love, it took over 5 years to come to fruition. This is a film made on a shoe-string budget of $31,000, and that is evident. But after the first 5 minutes, the story is strong enough to make us forget the film's limitations. Indeed, the screenplay won Award of Merit at The Indie Fest in California.

"If you had it to do over again, what would you do?" This opening line sets the stage for what is to come -- a sci-fi mystery with a non-linear narrative. There will be opportunities for the protagonist to "live over" his life and rediscover his past. In fact, the film is similar in many ways to Donnie Darko or Memento but in reverse. It takes us through 16 days in the life of John Outis (Tim Delaney), but these 16 days last a literal lifetime.

Obituaries

Michelle Triola Marvin, best known for her palimony suit against actor Lee Marvin back in the 1970s, as died of lung cancer. She was 76.

She lived with actor Dick Van Dyke for 30 years.
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The Senate Follies

Honest, the EUI extension is delayed for only "one more time."

Until the next time, of course:

Thursday night Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed for cloture on the bill extending unemployment benefits, together with a substitute amendment including expansion and extension of the home buyer tax credit and extension of tax loss carry back time periods. The cloture filing fills the tree on the substitute amendment, meaning that Republican amendments on the floor will be prohibited.

The need for floor votes today on the Interior – Environment appropriations bill including the continuing resolution through December 18, 2009, and the fact that the cloture petition will be voted on at 5:00 p.m. Monday, a Senate floor vote on the unemployment benefit extension could come later Monday evening, and the House is expected to pass the bill with the home buyer tax credit expansion and tax loss carry back extension later in the week. Passage will provide extended benefits to about 2 million Americans whose benefits have run out or are ending this month.

link


A vote is allegedly set for this coming Tuesday on EUI and the homeowner tax credit:

A breakthrough is expected Tuesday on a Senate bill to extend unemployment benefits and continue a tax break for first-time home buyers.

Democratic leaders set a vote to break a filibuster that has delayed the bill for weeks.

link

What is Happening in Vegas, Unfortunately,

isn't staying there.

Reno, for example, is increasingly turning into a ghost town. People are leaving here in droves.

In my neighborhood, which is considered more low income than many, "For Rent" signs are everywhere. Few people are moving in.

Jimbo Eruptions

Didn't the late Kathy Augustine commit a similar ethical breach, and wasn't she impeached, convicted, and paid a fine over it?

Polanski, Etc.

The Swiss have rejected Polanski's third request for bail.

How did Samantha Geimer's (then Samantha Gailey) words get lost in the hoopla surrounding Roman Polanski's case?

I don't think it even matters now. I have maintained all along that if she wants the matter dropped, who am I to say the freakshow should be allowed to continue?

The Education Wars

Why should ANYBODY be surprised a principal would go around and change grades?

This stuff, including forcing teachers to change grades or risk termination, goes on all the time:

Long considered to be one of the city's best remaining behemoth high schools, Lehman has had a checkered past. At the end of the 2007-08 school year, Lehman's veteran principal Leder resigned [3] after investigators found that he had paid two assistant football coaches overtime wages while they were at home.

Leder's replacement, Saraceno, arrived the next fall from the High School for Media and Communications, where she was principal. As part of a Department of Education program to lure principals to the city's most challenging schools, she was given a bonus and the title "executive principal." [4] At the time, this perplexed more than a few parents and teachers, who told the city's daily newspapers [5] that they couldn't understand why a school with a "B" on its latest report card needed to offer its new principal an extra $25,000 a year.

According to current and former teachers, Saraceno methodically set about increasing the school's 47 percent graduation rate by changing students' grades from failing to passing over the objections of their teachers and, in some instances, in violation of state regulations.

"Leder was not a perfect human. We had hoped that anybody would have been better," said a current teacher. "It turned out his replacement was much much worse. She has changed Lehman into a diploma mill."

Grade changing is not an entirely foreign phenomenon at Lehman. Teachers who worked under Leder said he sometimes asked them to change student athletes’ grades if their grade point average slipped below the minimum required for them to play, or if a student was mere points away from passing a class. But that process involved conversations with teachers in which Leder persuaded them to sign the paperwork, they said. Today, failing grades disappear from transcripts without warning, teachers said.

"Leder's corruption was at least confined to a cohort of 50 kids," said a former teacher who was one of eight math teachers to leave Lehman last year. Former and current math teachers said their department has borne the brunt of the grade changes, as it has the lowest pass rate within the school.

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Los Angeles Unified School District is looking at possibly shortening the school year in order to balance its budget.

More U.S. Senate Bullshit

Dick Durbin, senator from Illinois, says there won't be further action on extended UI this week.

What in the fuck is the matter with the Senate?

The U.S. Senate won't vote on legislation extending federal jobless benefits to long-term unemployed people, a top Democratic lawmaker said Thursday, as a fight between party leaders drags into its fourth week.

The measure would extend federal benefits by 20 weeks for jobless people living in the hardest-hit states, and for 14 weeks for out of work Americans in all 50 states.

Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) said lawmakers wouldn't vote on the legislation until next week.

link


The Republicans are stalling on purpose:

Almost two days after the H.R. 3548 survived its first cloture vote, there has been no major movement on the bill that would extend unemployment insurance for Americans who have exhausted their benefits. Why? Republicans keep throwing up new procedural barriers.

After reaching a bipartisan agreement to include an amendment extending the first-time homebuyer's tax credit, Senate Republicans agreed today to drop their efforts to weigh down the legislation with controversial amendments regarding ACORN and the E-Verify program. In exchange, they've turned to a new form of obstruction: demanding a vote on two new controversial amendments. The first would speed up the expiration date for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (a non-starter for Democrats who point out that a sunset date for the bank bailouts is already written into law). The second is yet another attempt to change to the way the extension is funded, by using "unspent" stimulus money, rather than the federal unemployment surtax, which amounts to 0.2 percent tax on the initial $7,000 of employees' wages.

They propose all of these stupid amendments because they REALLY don't want EUI to pass.

As is the Case When the Economy Goes in the Tank,

college enrollment goes up. People of all ages try and ride out the recession (or depression, in this case), hoping after spending tens of thousands of dollars or going in debt for tens of thousands of dollars there will be something by the time they graduate.

It's a Sign of the Times

A fight broke out during a swine flu clinic held today at the Washoe County Health District when someone tried to cut in line, Judy Davis, the health district’s spokeswoman said.

“I heard a couple of people were involved in a physical altercation when somebody tried to cut in line and someone was unhappy with that,” she said. “I don’t know the details but the fight did stop. I don’t know if people in the crowd stopped them or if they realized their behavior was inappropriate, but it was very limited.”

She said by 8:45 a.m., health district employees had passed out 1,200 wristbands to people standing in line to get H1N1 (swine) flu shots at the clinic, which is not scheduled to begin vaccinations until 1 p.m.

link
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The Education Wars

The New York Times once again spews nonsense about public schools of which it knows nothing.

I'd like to know how special education teachers, and teachers of "specials" such as music, art, PE, and home and careers are supposed to be evaluated, since "standardized test scores" are to be used in evaluations.

Nobody is going to go into those shitholes called public schools at the rate it is going. Of course, they are turning into shitholes by design.

Can This Senator's Career Be Saved?

Not SHOULD it, of course, but CAN it?

The question was asked, but Republican Sen. John Ensign is declining to say whether he has been contacted by federal authorities in a possible investigation into the lobbying activities of his former aide, Doug Hampton.

Ensign was friendly enough as he offered a few brief hallway comments before ducking into a Republican Party meeting in the Senate this week. Mostly, he referred questions about the investigation back to his previous statements. He looked tired.

The senator has said previously he did nothing wrong in helping to get a job for Hampton, whose wife, Cindy, is a former campaign staffer with whom the senator was having an affair. Hampton has admitted to violating the one-year ban on lobbying his former boss, and suggested in a New York Times story that Ensign was aware they were violating the ban.

The Education Wars

One of the worst school superintendents in the country, Michelle Rhee, who runs the D.C. school district like a dictator, wants to know just how to gain the district's teachers' trust.

Too late for that, Michelle.

"The Hitch Hiker"

was one of the all-time best Twilight Zone episodes:


Watch 16. The Twilight Zone - The Hitch Hiker in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Inger Stevens cheated death a number of times before she killed herself in 1970.

Senator Kyl is a Total Asshole

He, like many other Senate Republicans, is in no hurry to help the millions of unemployed workers out here in the real world:

Moments ago, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) took to the chamber floor with a strange claim about the urgency surrounding legislation to extend unemployment insurance.

“The benefits haven’t run out yet,” Kyl said. “We’re going to pass this before the benefits run out.”

It’s tough to decipher exactly what he means. Roughly 400,000 folks exhausted their federal unemployment benefits in September, with another 200,000 projected to do the same by the end of October, according to a recent study by the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group. By the end of the year, NELP estimates that 1.3 million Americans will have exhausted their benefits unless Congress steps in with an extension. Each day the Senate dallies, another 7,000 people go off the rolls.

Uh, the benefits HAVE run out for hundreds of thousands of people already. Others, like yours truly, are on state extended benefits, and they are a royal bitch because one has to MAIL the claim in. It takes TEN days to get the money, unlike two days with the federal, since one files online for it.

However, the Senate has moved just a little bit closer to making the EUI reality.

Of course in five months Congress will have to extend UI again.

One of My Favorites, "Eye of the Beholder"

Watch 6. The Twilight Zone - Eye of the Beholder in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Here is One of the Most Famous TZ Episodes

"Living Doll," one of the episodes which scared the daylights out of me:


The Twilight Zone - Living Doll

oɔɹɐɯ | MySpace Video

Speaking of The Twilight Zone,

Time has a list of what it calls the "top ten" episodes of the series, with the complete episodes.

View them here.

It's Been 50 Years Ago

since that classic series, The Twilight Zone, premiered on CBS television. Here is an article about this great show.

It's been called "sci-fi," but the show really wasn't; it was a fantasy series which dealt with many serious themes that could not have been handled during that era if they had been done in a realistic format.

War, aging, and especially death were some of the "heavy" themes the show explored.

Here is another recent article about TZ and Serling.

His widow, Carol Kramer Serling, keeps his memory alive. She met him when she was 17 and he was 21. They married in 1948. In this old article from 1987, she describes what it was like to live around somebody who was nothing short of a workaholic.

Rod smoked himself and worked himself to death.

Miscellaneous News

No wonder this guy has won big a number of times; he spends lots and lots of money each month buying scads of lottery tickets.

The more one plays, the greater chances of winning. There is no "rigging" at work here:

A Calgary-area man who has collected more than $2 million from four lotto wins in five years has been implicated in a convoluted court claim disputing his latest jackpot.

Seguro Ndabene told CBC News that he hit the jackpot a fifth time on Jan. 16, winning $17 million in the Super 7 draw. But he has not been able to collect that money because of a lottery probe, followed by an ongoing court proceeding.

Of course that's Canadian dollars.
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Elizabeth Edwards talked the other day about living with her cancer. She believes the cancer will win out in the end, but she is not concentrating on that.

More About EUI

The Senate has voted to take extended unemployment benefits up. The vote was 87-13 in favor of bringing it to the floor.

Could miracles happen?

Yours Truly Will Believe It

when she sees it:

Senate Democrats, emphasizing that 7,000 people a day are running out of unemployment insurance benefits, pushed Tuesday for action on legislation to extend those benefits for up to 20 weeks.

The Senate was to vote later in the day on whether to take up the measure that would provide up to 14 weeks in extra financial aid for everyone exhausting their benefits by the end of the year, and another six weeks for those living in the 27 states where the unemployment rate is at least 8.5 percent. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measure.

The House passed a less generous benefit extension more than a month ago, but Senate Republicans, at odds with Democrats over what amendments they can offer to the bill, have blocked Senate consideration.

Again, because the economy is in the shitter, they are going to have to keep extending the benefits for a couple of years.

So How Was It

after over 30 years of doing basically nothing, the U.S. and Swiss governments decided to go after director Roman Polanski?

A series of e-mails uncovered by the Associated Press reveal that prosecutors in Los Angeles were closely monitoring Polanski’s activities in late September while the director was in Austria for the opening of a musical based on one of his films.

Serious discussions took place as to whether Polanski should be taken into custody there. Los Angeles deputy district attorney Diana Carbajal had doubts about the cooperation of the local authorities, writing to her colleagues, “I don’t have experience with any Austrian extraditions so I don’t know how ‘friendly’ they would be to extradition on such a case.”

Polanski was so closely watched—by whom?—that Carbajal knew when the director had checked out of his hotel in Austria on the morning of September 23, and that he would be heading to a film festival in Zürich, Switzerland, ahead of schedule. Carbajal wrote to colleagues asking if it would be more favorable to “maintain our position to extradite from Switzerland.’’ She received confirmation, and Polanski was arrested upon his arrival in Zürich.

The Associated Press notes blandly: “It is unclear from the e-mails why Los Angeles officials were concerned about Austrian cooperation on a Polanski extradition request. There was no reference to Polanski’s history as a Jewish Holocaust survivor whose mother died in Auschwitz, or the sensitivities about having him pursued in the land of Adolf Hitler’s birth.”

The WSWS has a point about how much time has been wasted going after an old man whose victim has long since forgiven him, but Wall Street crooks are allowed to walk the streets free.

Speaking of the victim, Samantha Geimer is very worried her life is going to be ruined because of all of the circus atmosphere surrounding this matter.

That was why she and her mother didn't want a trial in the first place. But watch the pseudo-feminists say it's not Geimer's call whether or not Polanski be tried. Who gives a shit, after all, what the victim thinks, even if prosecutors couldn't really bring a case against Polanski other than the fact he fled the country? These pseudo-feminists want to make Polanski an example for whatever stupid cause they have.

Polanski has a number of legal options:

Legal experts, however, said Polanski has options beyond begging for leniency. There are a number of legal maneuvers, such as withdrawing his guilty plea, that could result in the case being dropped entirely or in a sentence of no prison time.

More:

The victim of Roman Polanski’s 1977 sex charge has asked an appellate court to drop the charge against the film director, saying the unceasing publicity has disrupted her family, job and health.

Since the director’s arrest last month, Samantha Geimer and her attorney have received close to 500 phone calls from media as far as Germany, Israel and Japan, attorney Lawrence Silver wrote in a statement filed Friday.

Larry King and Oprah have beckoned, and photographers have been camped outside her Hawaii home, trying to take photos or video through holes drilled in their cars and offering gifts to her children in exchange for information, Silver wrote.

“This statement makes one more demand, one more request, one more plea: Leave her alone,” Silver wrote in the filing.

Let her live her life, for crying out loud.

The Big Story Coming Out of the Senate,

which obviously isn't extended unemployment benefits, is health care "reform" with the "opt out" provision.

I guess it's better than nothing, but not much.

The Education Wars

Well, no shit, Sherlock. If a teacher is shitcanned or simply laid off, and he or she takes a "resignation" offered by the school district, he or she probably deserves what he or she got.

You NEVER, EVER, EVER resign from a school district if the district is planning to shitcan you. I wasn't given that option because the principal was a moron. I did, however, investigate the possibility of a settlement, and knew, after the district offered a pittance of $10,000, it would screw me out of unemployment compensation. Of course the union's executive director lied to me about my eligibility when I met with the union's attorney prior to asking about a settlement. She said the district would say I committed "misconduct" (WHAT fucking misconduct?) and they would "fight me." Well, I believed her shit for four months until the hearing, when the union lawyers thought I was crazy for not applying. Well, I did, and sent the state unemployment office a copy of the lawyers' opening brief, and they told me they get these kinds of cases "all the time." I was approved for UI after the district offered NO OBJECTION (they knew they wrongfully dismissed me anyway), and therefore I have received FAR more in UI than I would have in that settlement.

In fact, teachers, if offered to resign instead of terminated, should reject the idea out of hand. As the poster in the piece says, district applications (and state licensing boards) will ask if a teacher has have ever resigned in lieu of a dismissal, so there is no career benefit in taking a resignation. It's actually worse if a teacher resigns, for it signifies the teacher committed some sort of "misconduct." When a principal offers a teacher a resignation in lieu of a dismissal, it is all about the district wanting to screw a teacher out of unemployment benefits and save money. School districts should be legally barred from doing this. I believe California and Oregon, for example, actually bar districts from doing that.

Miscellaneous News

The world is full of outrageous cases.

This one reminds me a bit of the horrific Janet Chandler gang rape and murder case in 1979. It wasn't solved for close to thirty years because none of the numerous witnesses and participants would come forward.

More about the Chandler case is here.
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A coyote miraculously survived an impact with a car traveling 75 mph. The animal later escaped its cage.
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Another crackpot vegetarian tries to play Chicken Little and scare us out of eating meat because of the environment.

What a bunch of bullshit (no pun intended).
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Another twisted "ethicist" tries to put forward his anti-meat bullshit by proposing meat eaters pay taxes on it.

What a fucking idiot Peter Singer is.

Long-Term Unemployment is Increasing,

and nothing is being done to reverse it.

People like me who are too young to retire yet can't find jobs are really screwed:

IF WE assume that the recession ended in August, and that the unemployment rate evolves post-recession as it did after the 1990 and 2001 recessions, we will still have unemployment at 8 percent in 2014. If weakness in the labor market lasts so long, we'll have people who see a serious erosion of their skills.

If you're 55, and you've lost your job and the labor market is weak--you can't find something comparable for five years--you've just taken a big chunk out of what was going toward your retirement that you will never get back.

For young workers, it's the same story, but just on the early end. Those early jobs set up your career ladders, your networks and your mentors. If we have a weak labor market for five years, we have a cohort of kids that just have less access to that stuff for five years. That's going to have a huge and lasting impact.

Jimbo Eruptions

Jimbo was for sale the other day, and presumably somebody was dumb enough to buy him, even though he is not technically a "bachelor." The auction raised money for charity. (Sebastian Diaz, RGJ)

Again, I Will Believe It When I See It

We "could" see extended unemployment benefits--this week--or, of course we might not.

I Posted This on a Message Board

People on the outside cannot begin to FATHOM how absolutely distorted, twisted, and demented public school culture is.

There is NOTHING else in the entire labor market, whether public or private, profit or non-profit, that compares with the public school system culture in the utter filth that goes on.

What is called "public school law" is really LAWLESSNESS that would get outsiders thrown in prison if they do what administrators and their attorneys regularly do in hearings and even in regular courtrooms. Lying is the rule. Teachers you thought were friends suddenly become pods and push the heavily scripted line. These role models you thought would have consciences do not have consciences at all. And it's all because of fear of what would happen to their careers if they don't play "ball." Districts easily coerce employees with the threat of termination and hence blackballing throughout the entire public school system. Teachers who are fired never work in their chosen field again.

Of course Arne and his ilk, who have no conception of the public school culture, aren't interest in true reform.

Here is what I believe needs to be done in public schools, just for starters:

1. ALL hiring must be done in the same manner as the civil service system. All applicants would be required to take tests (and in the case of teachers and administrators, their licensure test scores could be used), and these scores, ALONG with experience, would be used to create an eligibility list just like the federal civil service. A statewide database could be used, and applicants could select the location where they want to work. The highest-scoring people would be selected for interview by a panel. Right now nepotism is the rule in public schools. Nepotism is nothing more than a form of corruption. There would NO justification whatsoever to see a mother and her two daughters working in the same building as teachers. That's what happened at the last school I worked. In my scheme, relatives would not be allowed to work at the same school, and in smaller districts, not even for the same district. Superintendent and school board relatives would NOT be allowed to work in the same districts where these officials work regardless of the size of the districts.

2. ALL termination and disciplinary meetings MUST be open to the public and to the media. NO secret tribunals. The taxpayers are financing these hearings, which can run up to $100,000 or more a pop, and they have the right to know what their administrators are doing to teachers. Very few teachers are fired for true misconduct or "incompetence"; terminations are often simply political tools or "business" decisions to save money. Most "charges" against teachers are trumped-up charges. Principals would think twice about pulling the garbage they pull if they knew their actions would be scrutinized by the public and the media.

3. "Tenure" should be automatic from day one for all new teachers. None of this revolving door nonsense NYC and other districts are pulling on newer teachers who are sacked in their third year. It takes many years for teachers to become masters at their craft; unfortunately, the trend now is to simply get rid of teachers administrators don't want around. However, firing is serious business, especially in education where children have the RIGHT to a stable learning environment, and teachers are RUINED when there is a termination or non-renewal. This cannot be allowed to continue. Employment at will is unacceptable in education because of the nature of the enterprise.

4. Because they are legal proceedings, termination hearings CANNOT be held on district property. The same rules applying in standard courtroom trials need to be applied in hearings. Subornation of perjury, destruction of evidence, perjury, forgery, and bribery of witnesses in hearings would be subject to criminal prosecution. None of this "rubber stamp" nonsense would be allowed; teachers who face termination MUST have the right to true "due process," which includes the full right to appeal decisions made against them by hearing officers. No denying of witnesses for teachers by union lawyers would be allowed.


That's just for starters.

It's a Hopeless Job Market Out There

for those who are forced to have to look for work:

IF JOBLESS workers have to make a second visit to the unemployment office on Chicago's West Lawrence Avenue, an already big problem must be getting worse.

With the unemployment system mostly automated, most laid-off workers simply show up once to file, then update their status online or by telephone. So even though Illinois' jobless rate is 10 percent--the 14th highest among states--even late on a rainy Friday afternoon in October, the number of people in the office wasn't big. But their problems were.

The workers at the center--formally known as the Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES)--are unfailingly polite, if a bit harried. "You have to wait until Obama extends the unemployment benefits," one told a client for the third--or maybe the fourth--time. But the claimant, an African American woman in her mid-thirties, lingered at the counter a moment further, in hope of some solution to the looming expiration of her benefits.

It is just absolutely hopeless.

I'll Believe It When I See It

link

Snip:

The cloture vote in the Senate on extending unemployment benefits for an additional 14 weeks in all states, and 20 weeks in states with more than 8.5% unemployment, set for last Friday didn’t happen. The vote is rescheduled for Tuesday afternoon, depending on whether or not Senators can agree on proposed amendments on extending and expanding the homebuyer tax credit in the stimulus package, and extending business loss tax carry back provisions an additional two or three years.

Present leadership plans are to pass whatever final package is approved in the Senate, and send it to the House without any conference committee, for action later this week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus are proposing a one year extension of the homebuyer tax credit, to begin phasing down from the $8,000 in the stimulus package in April, 2010. Real estate and housing construction interests oppose this version of the measure, citing April through June as the best home sales months of the year. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia proposes a seven month extension of the full $8,000 credit to carry through the summer selling season.

National Association of Realtors President Charles McMillan says the summer months are needed to bring down housing inventories to a normal six month level. “We can achieve a consistent six month supply if the $8,000 tax credit is extended without phase outs through mid 2010. Consumers, particularly first time buyers, need certainty about the amount of the credit so that they can plan their transaction without any worry that a timing problem would penalize them,” he said in a letter to Majority Leader Reid.

How many weeks have I heard the Senate was about to take action on EUI?

When It Comes to Public Education,

what you know is far less important than WHO you know. Better still if you have family members already in the district. School district jobs these days are like hereditary titles:

Nepotistic hiring practices are not just a problem in New York. Investigations into, as well as stories and complaints about, districts riddled with nepotism can also be found in many other states. In Oklahoma the state legislature has actually taken legislative action to deal with the nepotism problem in school employment practices by issuing House Bill 2479, which bans residents from holding board of education positions if their relative is employed by the school district and vice versa (Rousselot, 2006). Superintendent Dawson of Camden New Jersey was found to have had seven relatives on the district payroll when the state of New Jersey audited the district back in 1996 (Pristin, 1996). An article from February, 2003 in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette also revealed a significant nepotism problem in numerous school districts throughout the state of Pennsylvania (McKay). The presence of nepotism in school district hiring practices is a widespread problem and deserves the attention of the entire nation and, most certainly, the attention of the citizens that reside in districts with nepotistic hiring practices.

With nepotism being such a widespread problem people may wonder what they can possibly do to combat the issue. When it comes to the problem of nepotistic hiring practices in school districts the local public actually has much more power that it often recognizes. Education is controlled on a state level, which immediately eliminates the worry of having to combat federal bureaucracy to get the problem solved. Not only is education regulated by individual state governments, but education is often more closely regulated on a local level by school boards. The names of school employees are considered public information and are available to the community at any time. Concerned members of the public need only ask for the names of employees, compare similarities and ask informed questions. If it is found that nepotism is a problem in the district than pressure can be put on the board of education to address the unfair hiring practices. Many school districts have adopted new employment policies after prompts from the local community to eliminate nepotistic hiring practices. If a sufficient number of citizens complain to their elected state representatives it is possible to have statewide legislation enacted that addresses the nepotism problem as well, just as was seen in Oklahoma. Education is regulated on a state and local level and problems with district hiring practices can be dealt with by concerned member of the public seeking out their elected representatives and pressuring them to attend to the matter promptly.

There is something wrong with hiring practices where a mother and her two daughters are not just working for the same district but also in the same building--as teachers.

I'd say employ a civil service-style system on school districts. Prospective employees would take tests, and those scores plus experience would be on an eligibility list, just like the federal civil service system. It would apply to everybody--teachers, administrators, and classified staff. Teachers' and administrators' test scores on state licensing tests could be put on a centralized state pool, along with their years of experience. They, like federal civil service employees, could choose locations where they prefer to work.

The cronyism needs to stop. Again, this is real education reform that would actually do some good.

"What starts with an 'f' and ends with a 'k' and means screw your employees?"

If you guessed 401(k)s, you are absolutely correct.

These mostly unregulated and uninsured plans were marketed as "get rich" schemes, and millions upon millions of Americans fell for it. Of course, companies which pushed these were gutting their defined benefit plans, which guaranteed a set amount of money each month for the rest of the workers' lives (like Social Security and state pensions).

Now millions of workers have found their supposed wealth not worth the paper it was written on, and they are finding themselves unable to retire, unless, like me, they are forced out of the labor force.

It's worth looking at the April report of 60 Minutes about the 401(k) fallout:




Frontline did a documentary three years ago about the problems with 401(k)s. It is excellent.

Our Orwellian World

It ain't a "recovery" if few jobs are created:

Eight million jobs have been lost nationwide since the recession began two years ago, and by some measures workers face the worst job market since the Depression. The average laid-off worker has been without a job for 61/2 months, a post-World War II record. Many of those workers will never recover financially.

Obituaries

Shiloh Pepin, 10, a girl born with a rare disability called sirenomelia. She wasn't expected to live for a few days with it.

More:

Being born with "mermaid syndrome," also known as sirenomelia, meant that the Kennebunkport girl had only one partially working kidney, no lower colon or genital organs and legs fused from the waist down.

Some children who have survived sirenomelia have had surgery to separate their legs, but Shiloh did not because blood vessels crossing from side to side in her circulatory system would have been severed. She had received two kidney transplants, the last one in 2007.

If

John Ensign were to ditch public service to go back to being a horse doctor, there would likely a big scramble for his vacant seat.

Naturally Senator Blow Dry isn't going to leave the Senate without kicking and screaming.

A few cynics have joked that because Jimbo would have to appoint a successor for the seat, he would likely pick his soon-to-be ex-wife, Dawn, for the job just to get her out of Nevada.

The NYT Has Know-Nothings

writing columns about what is supposedly wrong with public education, which of course is anything except the REAL problem. David Brooks is no exception to the know-nothing rule.

Unions are "stonewalling." How hilarious. Unions are in BED with the districts. Every single time.

There is No "Recovery"

when more people are unemployed and few jobs are being created.

Obama is going to be compared with Herbert Hoover if he doesn't get on the stick.

Crap Like This

sticks in my craw. Marathons are not really competitive events; the goal is for the individual to FINISH.

Who cares about the times of marathons? Only a tiny number of snobs care who don't understand what the purpose of a marathon is supposed to be.

My Nephew, Greg Kerr,

is slowly making the rounds with his new movie, Unremembered. It will be playing at Rutgers University on Sunday.

Here's the preview:

The Education Wars

This post on Teachers.net shows I am not bullshitting about my case:

Many law firms both in Carson City/Reno and Las Vegas will NEVER go
up against entities like WCSD and CCSD. The reason is simple: both
of these school districts have "deep pockets" and because they can
intimidate these law firms and have also the ability to coerce
their employees. Yes, they both will make sure their witnesses will
lie. If you think that teachers will stand up to the school
district, you are absolutely naive. Even if you win, both
districts will appeal, and they will continue to do that until you
are worn out. Remember it's not their money ---- it's the money
they get from the state. After you are worn out, and your law firm
sees the handwriting on the wall, they will drop you and your
case. Both of these school districts know this game, and as result
they continue to win.

I know of a case with a teacher in CCSD who was terminated. The
principal stated unequivocally on the stand that she "violated his
civil rights." He won the case, but CCSD is still appealing the
monetary award. That was 8 years ago. He's still waiting for
compensation. BTW - the principal the following year was named
Administrator of the Year. She also received the Milliken award
for $25K. There is no justice in this world

_____

That's what is so bad. School districts get away with all sorts of criminality because they can, and because the public actually believes they are benevolent organizations, like churches.

For the Few Readers of This Blog,

bear with me for a couple of days. I am very, very, very worried I will be completely destitute; there is some kind of delay with my UI claim, and I am worried to death I will no longer get any money at all...I may end up living out of my car.

This was very thing I feared about this state UI, and that I would be stuck here for another 25 years, or else wind up on public assistance. That's going to do me no good on rent, the amount of which is outrageous.

What I am planning to do here on this blog is I want to publish all of the letters I have written to three separate law firms in northern Nevada concerning not only the fake lawsuit involving two of my former students plastered all over the place by Associated Press and other media outlets, with the Reno Gazette-Journal actually having published my name and that of the counselor accused in the case), but also the events leading up to and including the fake termination and hearing. I believe I need to get this out there; of course, I have to redact all of the names in these letters. To my knowledge, no settlement in the civil action has occurred; I was told by the district's claims adjuster it takes two to five years for a civil action of this sort to run its course.

I could have written a book on this. Every word of it is true to the best of my knowledge. People need to understand what really goes on in public education, and it is not pretty. They need to know where their tax money is going, and it is often going to things that would get people on the outside thrown in prison.

I want to get hold of the media in this; however, I have discovered very often they are afraid to report the truth. School districts have a LOT of power because they are not truly held accountable, and it helps greatly they have an unlimited amount of money which to bury peons like me in court.

I still have some time to find an attorney who would take this as a wrongful termination, but I lack the resources with which to pursue it.

Note: Comments are closed on these posts.

Obituaries

Author and advocate for public schools Gerald Bracey, 69, died suddenly.

This is a huge loss to those of us concerned with the wrongheaded trends going on in public education.
_____

Comedian Soupy Sales, born Milton Supman, 83, has died after suffering many health problems in recent years:

His greatest success came in New York with "The Soupy Sales Show" — an ostensible children's show that had little to do with Captain Kangaroo and other kiddie fare. Sales' manic, improvisational style also attracted an older audience that responded to his envelope-pushing antics.

Sales, who was typically clad in a black sweater and oversized bow-tie, was once suspended for a week after telling his legion of tiny listeners to empty their mothers' purse and mail him all the pieces of green paper bearing pictures of the presidents.

Senator Reid May Be "Leaning" Towards

putting a public option in the health care legislation, but that doesn't mean it will be a reality.

I like this:

The public plan is the most divisive issue in the health care debate, even though the Congressional Budget Office says than no more than 12 million people would end up signing up for such insurance. But critics say the public plan, backed by the government’s clout, would have inherent advantages and could eventually dominate the market, leaving hardly any role for private insurers.

That's the point of it.

The Education Wars II

Boy is this post from Teachers.net ever true:


On 10/22/09, joe wrote:
> I can agree with that sentiment to a point. I think that creativity
> is valued in education, but being opinionated is sort of a no-no
> nowadays.

No, creativity isn't valued in education. Acronyms and powerpoint
presentations are what are valued. Taking 4 hours of an in-service to say
nothing is what's valued. Using buzz words is what's important, from an
administrator's point of view. The kids... oh yeah, I think most
administrators have forgotten they are still in the building.

After all, what do kids know about CRAP? The new education initiative
sweeping the nation! This initiative will save education. If you just
teach CRAP... if you become a CRAP teacher... you will teach every
student. Yes, students who are non-verbal with traumatic brain injury
will score 36 on the ACT! All they need is CRAP! Tons of CRAP! CRAP is
an innovative set of strategies designed to teach every learner! The CRAP
subcommittee of the POOP building committee has designed this brilliant
powerpoint. Now, let's look at slide 76.

Does this CRAP sound familiar? Spending hours listening to administrators
and their suck-ups talk about some acronym-ed strategy and despite all the
time and hot air, they never taught one freaking strategy. If you're a
teacher, it does. I think it's all crap!
_____

And this, on the same topic:

Posted by ElemESOL on 10/22/09

At my school we get reprimanded for not sticking to the textbook. We
literally have to teach each and every page of the text to the letter, and
cannot substitute anything. It's really sad. Creative individuals get
placed on teaching improvement plans. That's what happens when you're at a
school that never achieves AYP. I sneak in fun when I can, but it's
dangerous! You know something's wrong in education when a kindergarten
teacher is afraid to let the kids use crayons to draw a picture.

_____

It used to be teachers would supplement from all kinds of varying sources in addition to the main textbooks, but this increasingly isn't the case anymore. It's teach to the test, creativity be damned.

Jimbo Eruptions

They couldn't GIVE this guy away:

A bachelor and bachelorette auction will take place Saturday night to benefit the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund, and Gov. Jim Gibbons is one of the prizes up for grabs.

If he doesn't do the grabbing first.

Those Worthless Sons of Bitches

in the United States Senate:

The House and Senate will vote next week on another continuing resolution to fund the government through mid-December, but Democratic leaders have not yet decided whether to move the bill separately or combine it with other legislation.

Only four of the 12 spending bills for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1 have made it to President Obama's desk for his signature. Action is necessary next week because the continuing resolution now in place expires Oct. 31. A senior House Republican aide said the new resolution is likely to fund the government until Dec. 15.

In addition to dealing with a continuing resolution, the Senate next week is likely to pass a bill that would extend the eligibility period for unemployment benefits. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed for cloture on the bill Wednesday night. While an earlier agreement was possible, GOP Senate aides suggested work on the package was not likely before Tuesday.

The bill would allow an additional 14 weeks of jobless pay in all states, with an additional six weeks in states with unemployment rates above 8.5 percent.

These people are totally worthless, completely and totally worthless. It is DIRE out here in realityland.

link

I'll believe passage when I see it.

The Education Wars

Two teacher's aides have been charged with abuse of special education students.

Thanks to our revolving door public education system, more and more of these mental misfits find jobs.

Fortunately, cases like this are still rare.

This comment hits it on the head (typos from original):

The teachers who wittnessed the acts of abuse and did not report them immediatly should be charged and fired. All school staff members are mandated child abuse reports in most states. This makes me sick. I don't think the aid who emailed the mother is much better. Why did she not go to a supervisor and get this to stop, why did she not call the department of human services. Sure she notified the mom, but she dropped the ball by not notifying the principal and police. I am a teacher and I have on more than one occassion in the last 15 years called others to task and reported the abuse to higher ups.

More Eli Broad Shit

Note this report from the Reno Gazette-Journal:

Pedro Martinez has been named to the new deputy of schools position and Jane Woodburn has been named to the new position of chief operating officer.

Martinez comes to the job from the Chicago Public Schools where he was an area superintendent. He was also a candidate for the job that eventually went to Morrison, according to Steve Mulvenon, the school district’s spokesman.

Woodburn was the director of human resources of Montgomery County Schools and
formerly a director of school performance.

Martinez is Eli Broad. Why in the HELL do you need a "COO" in a public enterprise, especially when that enterprise is created supposedly for the common good?

link

What is the Significance of the "Balloon Boy" Hoax?

In other words, why should we care about it?

It is just another of a series of events which help take people's minds off the reality of the mess our country is in.

Not only that, but the hoaxers are likely to get rich off of this, and in this day of fly-by-night "celebrity" fame, more and more people are pulling these stunts to get "rich."

If the Heenes committed a hoax and go to jail for it, what does it say about the media which capitalized on such an obviously phony event?

Not much.

Some Senate Majority Leader We've Got

He says he "hopes" the Senate will pass extended unemployment benefits today.

I'll believe it when I fucking see it.

The Hill has a related article, this one about Reid hoping for a cloture vote today on the issue.

"Cloture" is an archaic Senate procedure whereby a minority of the Senate can screw the American workers over with their stonewalling when there are not enough votes for cloture (preventing a filibuster).

If This Article is Anything Remotely True,

and I believe it is, people like me will NEVER work for anybody again:

She dropped significantly overqualified candidates right away, reasoning they would leave when the economy improved. Among them was a former IBM business analyst with 18 years experience; a former director of human resources; and someone with a master’s degree and 12 years at Deloitte & Touche, the accounting firm.

Over the course of four days, Ms. Ross forwarded 61 résumés to Mr. Kelsey, while rejecting 210 others. The remainder never even got a look. Many were, in fact, never uploaded to the company’s internal system because there were too many.

Welcome to the job market, 2009-style.

Their 2 1/2-Day Week is Just About Over,

and the Senate still hasn't done shit about extended unemployment benefits:

“We have wanted to do this for weeks and they won’t let us,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, told reporters yesterday. “We talk about doing something for economic recovery to stimulate the economy -- who is going to spend the money more quickly than somebody who is out of a job, doesn’t have income? That’s what the unemployment check’s about.”

Why won't the minority "let" you do anything, Harry?

The Education Wars

I have to ask if the New York Times enjoys bashing public education, for it now has printed two columns from overpaid ignoramuses (or is it ignorami) bitching about how shitty our schools are.

They ARE shitty, but it is by design, thanks to the "reformers" who want to privatize them.

As Unemployment Goes Up,

so does the incidence of poverty. Now one in six Americans is living in poverty:

The social catastrophe resulting from the financial collapse of 2008 does not yet register in any of these statistics. With official unemployment at nearly 10 percent, and the real rate far higher, the unemployment crisis is the worst the nation has experienced since the Great Depression. Hundreds of thousands of workers are exhausting their modest unemployment benefits.

Meanwhile, for those fortunate enough to have jobs, wages have fallen at a rate not seen in nearly two decades, and the workweek has shrunk to its shortest on records dating back to 1960. At the same time, productivity is increasing—by a 6.6 percent annualized rate in the second quarter. And working class Americans have seen the two largest sources of their personal wealth—home values and retirement plans—decline sharply.

For these reasons, there can be little doubt that when statistical analysis is carried out for 2009, it will reveal a sharp increase in poverty.

While Congress Farts Around

on extended unemployment benefits, unemployment rates in September went up in 23 states:

While layoffs have slowed, companies remain reluctant to hire. Forty-three states reported job losses in September, while only seven gained jobs, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

Some of the states that lost jobs still saw their unemployment rates decline, as discouraged workers gave up looking for work. People who are out of work but no longer looking for jobs aren’t counted as officially unemployed.

Men Who Catcall Women

have contempt for them, pure and simple. It's a point in the continuum of the rape culture.

While few men who catcall women would actually rape them, the attitude displayed by these men says women have no business whatsoever exercising their freedom of movement without male escorts. Typically women under 35 are the targets of this filthy behavior.

It's disgusting, rude behavior, and it has no place in our society. Any woman who thinks this is a form of flattery is an idiot.

Senator Dick Durbin

challenged Republicans to pass the EUI legislation:

For Those Interested,

PBS's Frontline has a documentary on how the hell this country ended up in the mess it is in. In large part, it has to do with derivatives.

60 Minutes covered some of the same territory.

Watch the video here. Or watch it here:

Miscellaneous News

Text messages between Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi during the last hours before the July 4 murder-suicide have been made public.
_____

The ad geniuses at Ralph Lauren and their ilk deserve every bit of criticism and more for those notorious photoshopped images of already grotesquely thin women looking even more freakish.

Talk about absolutely twisted:

A spokeswoman for Polo Ralph Lauren has apologized for the photo of the stick figure with the freakishly out-of-proportion head, albeit after the company tried and failed to suppress dissemination of this image on the Web. But the story has a final twist. Last week the company fired the model in the ad, Filippa Hamilton. She says she lost her job because the company thought she had grown too fat. She’s a size 4, 120 pounds on a 5-foot-10 frame. The company says it ditched her because of her “inability to meet the obligations under her contract with us.” Just a crazy coincidence, I’ve no doubt.

How in the hell is a size 4, 120 pounds, on a nearly six-foot tall frame considered fat? That's anorexic. Sorry, but that scrawny a body is no beauty standard.
_____

Cartoon of the Day

Senate Democrats

are really and truly trying to put the GOP on the defensive regarding extended unemployment insurance, something that should have passed many weeks ago.

I'll believe the legislation becomes law when I see it. And it will have to be extended at least a couple of more times.

Why I Can't Stand the GOP Senators

They care more about the minority of taxpayers who itemize their taxes than if masses of people go without food or risk homelessness:

Legislation to extend unemployment benefits has become entangled with a bipartisan effort to extend a popular tax break for first-time homebuyers.

Johnny Isakson , R-Ga., wants to offer an amendment to the jobless benefits bill that would extend the $8,000 tax credit set to expire on Nov. 30 and expand it to all primary home purchases, first-time or otherwise.

Every single one of these people need to be thrown out of office.

The Education Wars II

Of course two years does not make a teacher, but that doesn't matter anymore in our throwaway public education system.

The time to have raised a stink was 25 or 30 years ago, when the propaganda that our public schools couldn't keep up with other countries as noted in the fraudulent Nation at Risk report was published. That was the opening salvo in the war against public education.

Finally, the job benefits that keep people in teaching — tenure, pensions, union contracts that provide medical insurance and other protections — are not anachronistic relics of a distant past as characterized by many reformers. Rather, they allow and encourage people to stay in a difficult career that provides many challenges and limited financial rewards.

By the way, those are ALL being held as relics of the past as tenure laws are being subverted to get rid of unwanted (read expensive) teachers, pensions are being reduced because of wholesale firing of teachers, and union contracts aren't worth the paper they are written on, thanks to unions all too often being in bed with the school districts.

The Education Wars

Yet another superintendent tries to force a business model on a school district by supporting "value added" evaluations of teachers:

When Terry Grier was hired to run the San Diego Unified School District in January 2008, he hoped to bring with him a revolutionary tool that had never been tried in a large California school system.

Its name -- "value-added" -- sounded innocuous enough. But this novel number-crunching approach threatened to upend many traditional notions of what worked and what didn't in the nation's classrooms.

Rather than using tests to take a snapshot of overall student achievement, it used scores to track each pupil's academic progress from year to year. What made it incendiary, however, was its potential to single out the best and the worst teachers in a nation that currently gives virtually all of them a passing grade.

In previous jobs in the South, Grier had used the method as a basis for removing underperforming principals, denying ineffective teachers tenure and rewarding the best educators with additional pay.

There's more bullshit in the article about how "tenure" supposedly "protects" "ineffective" teachers.

What a crock of absolute, unmitigated bullshit.

The problem with schools isn't with the teachers--it's with administrators, who have almost IRONCLAD job security.

I Don't Know If I Would Go As Far

as to call Obama's job creation a "fraud," but he clearly isn't doing enough to help people who are in desperate straits:

The states most in need of help received the fewest number of jobs. In Michigan—which leads the nation with a 15.3 percent unemployment rate—only 397 jobs were “created or saved.” This is a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands of workers who lost their jobs in the state under Obama’s forced restructuring of GM and Chrysler.

Businesses in Nevada, which has the next highest jobless rate, reported 159 new jobs. Rhode Island, which has the third highest unemployment rate at 12.8 percent, reported only six new jobs. In California, where more than 2.2 million are officially unemployed and joblessness is the highest since 1940, only 2,260 jobs are attributed to the federal stimulus money.

The Republicans Prove Once Again

what a group of assholes they are by continuing to stall extended unemployment benefits:

Democratic politicians will hold a press conference Tuesday to blast Republican politicians for holding up legislation to extend unemployment benefits another 14 weeks for the nation's out of work citizens. Elected representatives in both houses of Congress have agreed on the details of a bill and apparently have the votes to pass it, but Republicans blocked passage by unanimous consent, and continue to offer what Democrats characterize as unrelated amendments in a series of parliamentary maneuvers designed to stall passage of the benefits.

Democratic leaders have scheduled a forum Wednesday to discuss further measures which might be enacted to put Americans back to work. Princeton University economist Alan Blinder, economist Mark Zandi, former adviser to both Obama and McCain, and Heather Boushey, former senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee are expected to attend. With unemployment at 9.8% nationwide, an annual deficit of $1.4 trillion, national debt of $11.9 trillion, and more than 4 million jobs lost so far this year, Obama administration senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said, "Everything is on the table."

Senate Budget Committee ranking Republican Judd Gregg said he believes the procedural differences over unemployment benefit extension will be resolved soon. Gregg wants to avoid the benefit extension measure adding to the national deficit. "This deficit is driven by us," Gregg said. "The systemic risk today is the Congress of the United States. We're creating massive debts which we're passing on to our children."

These sons of bitches didn't care one iota about the deficit when Bush was in office wrecking the country, and now they feign concern.

These millionaires want people to STARVE. I fucking hate them.

Obituaries

The number of notable people who have passed on has died off in recent weeks. Here are a few of note:

Vic Mizzy, 93, composer of The Addams Family theme song, of heart failure.

Producer Daniel Melnick, 77, of lung cancer.

Church founder Elizabeth Prophet (her real married name), 70, of Alzheimer's disease.

Pop singer Al Martino, 82, of undisclosed causes.

Rock singer Dickie Peterson, 63, of liver cancer.

Football player Cullen Bryant, 58, of undisclosed causes.

Irish pop singer Stephen Gately, only 33.

Senator Gillibrand of New York

says it's time for the GOP to stop playing politics and work to get EUI passed:

More than 7,000 people across the country are losing their unemployment benefits every single day because Republicans are playing politics. Hardworking, middle class families, who are already cutting coupons and squeezing pennies to make ends meet, are now going to have the last strand of the safety net pulled right out from under them, simply because Republicans are obstructing progress.

Last week, the majority of my colleagues and I moved twice to extend unemployment benefits for millions of hardworking Americans who have been laid off and unable to find work in this difficult economy. These are our families, our friends, our neighbors. We all know someone who has been thrown into this situation.

But rather than do what is right, Republicans did what was politically convenient, twice blocking the extension in an effort to derail other economic recovery programs.

Both sides have been screwing around while people are hurting so much out here.

This Editorial,

which remains unread by the Senate, says Congress needs to get on the stick with EUI.

The sad thing is EUI will have to be continually extended for the next year or so at least.

Why the Senate is Screwing Around

with extended UI:

Advocates for the unemployed say Republicans have indicated they have eight amendments they want added onto the bill. As of late Friday, they'd filed language for six of them.

Once all the amendments are filed, Senate leaders will have to work out a deal to get the bill moving. In Florida, officials estimate that about 52,000 people have already used up their jobless benefits and another 200,000 or so will do so by the end of the year.

Unlike earlier extensions, there are no plans at this point to make the benefits retroactive. So every week that passes without a new extension is a week of lost payments to folks who are exhausting their benefits.

And get a load of what two of the commenters said:

First the Democrats held it up - Shaheen held everyone else up because at the last minute she woke up and wanted to include all states, then the Republicans held it up - Kyl wanted to read it. So it's BOTH parties. It's practically a full month since the House passed it. I called Reid's office again this morning and asked when they would be voting on it. They said McConnell was holding it up. I called McConnell's office and they said Reid needed to schedule it. I called Shaheen's office, the one who started this whole mess, and they said the Republicans were holding it up. Classic runaround. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their benefits weeks ago, some months ago. In the next few years I am going to vote every incumbant out. These people do not deserve to be in office. Maybe then they'll listen.
Meanwhile, please call these people and ask when will they be voting on it please. Maybe if we all call they'll get sick of us.

And this:

Bill, there is plenty of blame to go around but you must be watching a different CSPAN than I am. I've been watching the senate and they are not spending 100% of their time on healthcare. They have been pleading for cooperation on the unemployment bill – can't post links here --see YouTube under Dick Durbin and Unemployment for an excerpt.).


Week before last the Democrats believed they had an agreement on the extension, to give all states an additional 14 weeks plus 6 weeks for high unemployment states. Then Democrats tried to get quick approval using the unanimous consent method of passage, but Republican Senator Kyl objected saying they need more time to study the bill. Kyl himself acknowledged it would eventually pass. Senator Kyl defends his position “acting in his role as minority whip" on his website. Now there is talk of by the Republicans of gunking up the measure with more things, like the home buying extension and other measures.


Apparently now the Republicans are ready to move, according to statements made over the weekend on news programs. Noted in a New York Times article "Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said Republicans are getting ready to clear the way for the unemployment benefit extension as long as some Republican amendments are aired." and "Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said he believes procedural differences holding up an extension of unemployment benefits will be resolved soon." They have been playing games for some larger purpose. While they are playing games, people are suffering.

Really sad – we can get cash for clunkers over a weekend but not a bill to help people with families who can’t find jobs. Unemployment compensation will simultaneously stimulate and support the economy far more than “cash for clunkers” ever will. I guess it’s the beneficiary of the bills that makes the difference – ordinary Americans or big business.