Obituaries--Frank Buckles

America's last World War I veteran, Frank Buckles, died yesterday. Buckles lived to the impressive age of 110, just having had a birthday on the first of this month. He was one of only three surviving WWI veterans in the entire world.

New York Times obituary:

The Department of Veterans Affairs said he would be buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

Sought out for interviews in his final years, Mr. Buckles told of witnessing a ceremony involving British veterans of the Crimean War, fought in the 1850s, when he was stationed in England before heading to France. He remembered chatting with Gen. John J. Pershing, the commander of American troops in World War I, at an event in Oklahoma City soon after the war’s end.

And he proudly held a sepia-toned photograph of himself in his doughboy uniform when he was interviewed by USA Today in 2007. “I was a snappy soldier,” he said. “All gung-ho.”

Two who served for Britain, Claude Choules, who lives in Australia, and Florence Green, who lives in England, are the last two surviving veterans of World War I.

President Obama issued a proclamation noting Buckles' passing.

Obituaries--Jane Russell

Actress Jane Russell, who was discovered by Howard Hughes and created a sensation in the movie The Outlaw,has died at the age of 89. The cause was respiratory failure.

Russell played in many other roles, including co-starring with Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She was reported as saying she liked Monroe very much.

In her later years, she capitalized on her initial success, as one might call it, by promoting Playtex bras.

Since The Outlaw is a public domain title, it can be seen its entirety on YouTube:



There are very few stars left from Hollywood's Golden Age.

Another obit.

News, Etc.

Here are the Oscar results, in case people care to look at who was the best key grip and so forth. Just kidding, of course.
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Just what is the significance of the Wisconsin protests? The significance goes beyond one state and one dictatorial governor:

The significance and implications of this conflict extend far beyond Wisconsin. The actions of the Walker administration, which have a distinctly dictatorial odor, are the spearhead of a ruthless nationwide assault on the working class. Three years after the onset of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s—brought on by the criminal financial speculations of the capitalist oligarchy that rules the United States—the attack on working people’s living standards and democratic rights is escalating. The corporate and financial interests that were the beneficiaries of the multitrillion-dollar bailout of 2008-2009 are demanding that the resulting bankruptcy of states and the country as a whole be paid for by the working class.

This is the political and social essence of the demands for wage freezes and actual cuts, the slashing of hard-won and vital benefits, the destruction of countless thousands of jobs, and the elimination of socially critical services. The cuts that are being planned, demanded and implemented threaten to set the working class back not only decades, but even generations.

What Else Can One Expect

from an Eli Broad-trained school "executive" but a person who demands total obedience, causes widespread fear among teachers, and whose tenure is rife with incompetence and corruption?

After all, Broad wants school districts to be run on business models.

Any school board member who hires a Broad superintendent "academy" graduate needs to be recalled and the Broadie purged from the system.

Unfortunately, trends are well underway to destroy public education.

I'll Put This Infamous "Phone Exchange"

just to have it on the record. God, Scott Walker IS stupid and subjected himself to even more ridicule nationally:





link

link

Can governors in WI be impeached for stupidity? This "phone call" from an imposter posing as David Koch is unbelievable.

News, Etc.

A hypocrite decides he can't stay away despite public opinion he go away:

So as he travels the country, he is striking two related notes: that the nation faces not just a fiscal crisis but also a loss of its moral foundation, and that his conversion to Catholicism two years ago is part of an evolution that has given him a deeper appreciation for the role of faith in public life.

How convenient when he ditched two ex-wives when the they got too old and got too ill for his liking.
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Although I wasn't aware of any protests locally, there were protests in support of the Wisconsin state workers nationwide.

Live stream of the Madison protests is here.

Naturally the Education "Reformer" Proponents

are against collective bargaining because they are opposed to unions in principle and opposed to public education in general. Remember, these people are neolibs, and neolibs are opposed to anything designed for the public good. Everything must be subject to "market forces," even though there are institutions in this society which CANNOT be successfully privatized to any extent.

Education is one of them. Private schools or the quasi-private charter schools can't even begin to absorb the great number of students. Besides, they can boot out students they don't want.

As for teachers' "unions," there needs to be REAL unions in the field, not these very expensive social clubs whose paid staff have no intention of really helping teachers but are using their cushy jobs as stepping stones to get cushy golden parachute school district jobs as what happened in my case.

Don't hold your breath Obama will do anything to support unions. He's University of Chicago through and through.

Just call him Shoeless O.

In a Nutshell

it is the neoliberalism, stupid, that is the underlying theme of the current attack on teachers and schools nationwide. It is frankly an assault on our very way of life and democracy.

We are about to lose it all because people are so busy blaming others in the same boat instead of the culprits who really are at the heart of the problems.

Neoliberalism has created this economic mess. It's never worked, and it never will because it runs contrary to having a civilized society.

As long as there are two people in the world, neoliberalism will never work. Someone else has to be in misery to enrich somebody else, and therefore neoliberalism is doomed to fail. A mixed economy is the only system that works; we know that, but then again, the people in charge have fallen sucker to a cult.

You Don't Even Have to Be a Republican

to decide to shit on teachers, nor do you have to live in the South to do it. It appears Oregon's Kitzhaber wants to wreck teachers here.

It sounds like he wants to take complete control over education, even though this guy is NOT trained as a teacher. Just because you went to Dartmouth and received a medical degree, Kitz, that doesn't mean you know squat about anything outside your narrow range of expertise.

He's going the way of Obama in my eyes, and it didn't take long.

At Least One Teacher is Deciding

it isn't worth staying in education despite spending an entire working career in the field. If the person doesn't retire, he or she will be fired anyway because the person is too expensive.

Ed News and Pithy Comments

The question must be asked is why Wisconsin voters elected these anti-worker cretins in the first place.
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Can you imagine having a "career" on the line that just one person--a principal who is typically a failed teacher or even a nonteacher as in the case of many in NYC--can write up a fake charge because he or she doesn't like you? And most of these "unsatisfactories" or disciplinary actions are as a result of vindictiveness and retaliation rather than real reasons.

It doesn't happen in the private sector because of the fear of lawsuits bankrupting them, but this isn't the case with school districts.
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As long as teachers are vilified by asshole politicians and their media puppets, as long as their futures are in the hands of literally one person, a person who is more often than not vindictive or mentally unstable, and as long as they are given utterly no support to help them do their jobs, expect lots more teachers not bothering to stay more than a couple of years.

Of course more are being forced out even before they qualify for pensions, which is the end game, after all.

Who the hell is going to waste money going into a "profession" where you are treated worse than McDonald's workers?
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Here is yet another example of a lousy Broadie wrecking havoc on a school district.
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Scandal Rocks Seattle Public Schools

Note that Maria Goodloe-Johnson, superintendent, is an Eli Broadie:

Seattle Public Schools spent up to $1.8 million on contract work that was never done or didn't benefit the district, triggering a secret criminal investigation into allegations of financial fraud.

At the same time, the School Board has launched a sweeping review of who should be held accountable, up to and including Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson.

"This is an extraordinarily serious event," School Board President Steve Sundquist said Tuesday. "From my perspective, it is unacceptable and it will be damaging to public confidence."

She's on the Broad Superintendent Academy website.

What in the HELL--Again

It wasn't enough what happened in Central Falls, Rhode Island, last year. Now it appears Providence, Rhode Island, has fired ALL of its teachers.

Do people really think there are going to be that many unemployed teachers who are going to take that kind of shit and even apply for the jobs?

Apparently this school district is under mayoral control--ALWAYS a lousy idea.


Video:



More of this outrage here.

Of course it is all orchestrated to benefit the parasitical class of billionaires like the Koch brothers:

Randi Weingarten is the Enemy of Teachers

Is there really any doubt at all?

After all, if these teachers were really lousy in their teaching, they wouldn't have been "tenured" in the first place. This is just an excuse for districts to get rid of the older and more senior teachers for the simple reason they cost far more money than a bimbo right out of college.

When will people get it?

By the way, quoting privatizers is not an example of real reporting. Neither is calling an arbitrator "neutral." Arbitrators are NOT neutral by any stretch of the imagination.

There is Little Doubt the Fascists

would resort to violence if they thought they would get away with it:

Jeff Cox, the Republican deputy attorney general of Indiana recently told the liberal magazine Mother Jones that he favored “live ammunition” as the response to the protests in Wisconsin. He described workers protesting benefit cuts and attacks on their legal rights as “political enemies” and “thugs” and declared, “You’re damned right I advocate deadly force.” Cox, a state attorney for eight years, was fired Wednesday after the magazine published the exchange.

A blogger from a pro-union web site in Buffalo, New York contacted Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Tuesday, posing as billionaire David Koch, one of the leading backers of corporate union-busting and the ultra-right Tea Party movement. The blogger, Ian Murphy, recorded the call and published the transcript Wednesday.

The So-Called "Shock Doctrine"

comes to the United States, with the most blatant example being the scheme by the Wisconsin governor to gut collective bargaining rights in the name of "fiscal responsibility."

As we know, there are all kinds of goodies in that bill that are just as onerous as the union-busting provision.

News, Etc.

Crystal Harris prepares to be Hef's final--presumably--nursemaid.

Hef is somebody to take home to meet your mother. Few things are more disgusting than a glorified pimp.
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Regardless of push polls and media propaganda, "last in, first out" is the ONLY fair way to do layoffs because "merit" simply doesn't exist. Besides, school principals cannot be trusted to be fair.

Besides, seniority is also used in layoffs in the private sector, whether or not it is unionized.
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WI

Either the troopers really can't find those legislators who walked out or they aren't looking on purpose.

Meanwhile, the protests continue while politicians and union officials try and find ways to screw the workers over.

Don't think it is just Republican governors who are going after state workers:

While the ongoing confrontation in Wisconsin has attracted the greatest attention, Democratic and Republican governors throughout the country are targeting state employees for cuts in wages, jobs, benefits and bargaining rights. In many states the cuts are even more severe than in Wisconsin.

It Isn't Just That Legal Prostitution

is bad for Nevada's image. It is the fact that prostitution in ALL of its forms is a human rights violation and is NOT acceptable in any society.

We need to move past the lies pushed by the tabloid media in the seventies and eighties this is a lifestyle choice and the current glamorizing of this on cable television, as the Moonlite Bunny Ranch was on HBO. The owner of this brothel should be jailed on human rights violations, not be glamorized.

Reid is right legal brothels should be gone, but it isn't just a matter of luring businesses. It's the exploitation, stupid.

What in the HELL?

If I advocated for violence against public officials, I'd be in the hoosegow right now. But if a public official does the same towards pro-labor protesters, I guess it is okay:

On Saturday night, when Mother Jones staffers tweeted a report that riot police might soon sweep demonstrators out of the Wisconsin capitol building—something that didn't end up happening—one Twitter user sent out a chilling public response: "Use live ammunition."

From my own Twitter account, I confronted the user, JCCentCom. He tweeted back that the demonstrators were "political enemies" and "thugs" who were "physically threatening legally elected officials." In response to such behavior, he said, "You're damned right I advocate deadly force." He later called me a "typical leftist," adding, "liberals hate police."

Only later did we realize that JCCentCom was a deputy attorney general for the state of Indiana.

Cute.

News, Etc.

Senator John Ensign has the unmitigated nerve to think that because he has repented to God, that gives him the excuse to try and con the voters of Nevada once again.
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It's never been aboout the kids when it comes to Michelle Rhee.

Things Go Bitter With Koch

Protests continue in Wisconsin and in Ohio.

Despite the nonstop propaganda by outfits like Fox "News," there is widespread support for the right of workers to collective bargaining. However, there is still this ignorant sentiment among too many people who believe public employees are the "haves," while private employees are the "have-nots."

In the end, these voters need to take some responsibility for their actions and finally realize they have been conned into voting against their self-interest. They need to understand that anybody who is not in the top one-percent of the population is at risk living in complete destitution in order to enrich the tiny few. It's been a thirty-year con, but it is still a con.

Joseph Cannon is noting the obvious kickback scheme by the Koch brothers to give them more handouts while screwing over the union workers. Obviously to them it really isn't about labor at all but getting even more obscenely rich at taxpayer expense.

More about the "average" Koch brothers and their scheme to ruin the country to further enrich themselves. Apparently Chuck and Dave can't survive on $21.5 billion apiece:



The New York Times editorial board is paying close attention to the Koch brothers' shenanigans.
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Diane Ravitch

says she is going to stand with the Wisconsin teachers and gives some reasons why.

Little-Noticed Provision In Walker's Bill Could Reap Huge Gains For Koch Indust.

Little-Noticed Provision In Walker's Bill Could Reap Huge Gains For Koch Indust.

Did you think the Koch brothers wouldn't be up to their eyeballs in destroying Wisconsin public sector unions if there wasn't a kickback in store for them?

News, Etc.

Apparently the governor of Wisconsin doesn't want THIS fact well known about states without collective bargaining and how well their students do on college entrance exams.
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Have the "reformers" cooked the books with regard to those "value-added assessments"?

Reformers wouldn't be reformers if they didn't; after all, they are trying to run schools on business models.
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At least 65 are known dead in the Christchurch, New Zealand, 6.3 earthquake, while scores are trapped.
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Indiana is following Wisconsin's lead.

A few facts to show nobody other than the filthy rich are doing well in this economic "recovery."

I Mentioned

Detroit drastically cutting schools and laying off teachers, but can you believe there will be class sizes of 60 students per teacher? That is pure insanity, and basically this is nothing but a naked class war on the poor. After all, the poor are seen as losers, so why the hell invest money in teaching them anything beyond what is scripted?

State education officials have ordered Robert Bobb to immediately implement a financial restructuring plan that balances the district's books by closing half of its schools, swelling high school class sizes to 60 students and consolidating operations.

While I Think It is Possible

the situation in Wisconsin is hopeless because masses of people have been brainwashed by the neoliberals, their think tanks, and the media into thinking unions--especially public sector unions--are the enemy, any defeat would merely postpone the inevitable.

The neolibs CANNOT win for the simple reason there are too few of them and too many of the masses.

Snip:

During the post-war boom, workers were able to win through the trade unions significant concessions, despite the pro-capitalist orientation of the bureaucracy. With the decline of American capitalism, beginning in the 1960s and accelerating through the 1970s and 1980s, the unions’ defense of capitalism took on a new form. Increasingly, their primary function became the suppression of working class struggles and the enforcement of concessions on their own members. The interests of the bureaucracy became entirely divorced from the interests of the membership.

This process has reached a certain culmination in the present situation in Wisconsin. That the public employees union can announce that collective bargaining is the most essential issue at stake, while openly abandoning the defense of the economic needs of workers, only underscores the direct antagonism between the interests of the rank-and-file workers and the union.

My real concern is the unions will sell out to the governor while many people have been propagandized to believe unions are the enemy. The right has cleverly brainwashed workers into resenting people who have protections, even if those who resent benefit from those same protections.

These brainwashed, stupid people don't realize how good they have it.

Paul Krugman is Saying What I Have Been Saying All Along

about what the goal of the far right is, and it isn't about any concern about budgets, austerity, cutting taxes, or whatever tripe they are pushing.

It's all about creating a third world country here:

There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.

So will the attack on unions succeed? I don’t know. But anyone who cares about retaining government of the people by the people should hope that it doesn’t.

News, Etc.

For fun here are the places in the United States with the highest foreclosures.

I don't have to tell you Vegas is in the top spot with one in nine homes.
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Expect more teachers to be targeted with this "new" "improved" teacher evaluation system in Washoe County.

Despite the talk about principals being held under scrutiny, it'll never happen. If they have trouble, they are merely reassigned or promoted.
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Detroit plans to close half of its schools.

It Didn't Matter Koch's Tea Party "Protesters"

were in Wisconsin to try and con the masses into believing they are representative of anything other than their billionaire backers. Some 75,000 people came to Madison to protest the Koch-sponsored governor's attempts to destroy unions once and for all:

A mood of militancy and confidence filled the air as teachers, firefighters and other public employees were joined by steel, auto, construction and other private sector workers, along with high school and college students, in a march that surrounded the state capitol.

The events in Wisconsin are a sign of what is to come. It has been an entire generation since workers in the US have been able to participate in mass social struggles. The AFL-CIO trade unions have worked to artificially suppress every sign of working class resistance. The betrayal of the 1981 PATCO strike—and the unions’ complicity in Reagan’s firing of 12,000 air traffic controllers—was followed by a decade of isolated and defeated strikes.

The virtual disappearance of strikes from American life coincided with an explosive growth of social inequality and a vast transfer of wealth from the working class to the richest one percent of society.

Social tensions have now reached a breaking point. Two and half years since the eruption of the financial crisis, more than 26 million workers cannot find a full-time job. State governments, under both Democrats and Republicans, are responding to budget deficits by closing schools, libraries, clinics and other public facilities, and carrying out attacks on state and municipal employees.

The class war by the few against everybody else is out there for everybody to see. The Wisconsin workers' fight is OUR fight, and it's just a matter of overcoming apathy and 24/7 propaganda by the likes of Fox "News" for this to succeed.

The WSWS was right there Saturday observing and reporting on the protests by tens of thousands of people.

And Why Is It

teachers are pissed off royal? Because many of them have finally, FINALLY connected the dots that their profession is under relentless attack by billionaires and politicians for the sole purpose of dismantling the entire system and make it like the Chinese system where few students have any opportunities beyond middle school.

This attack goes WAY beyond the United States, as we know.

This Blogger

has read Time's resident moron Joe Klein's (as opposed to departed NYC schools dictator Joel Klein) latest screed against public education and teachers so the rest of us don't have to get nausea looking at it for ourselves.

I don't have to read a moron and waste my blood pressure trying to knock some sense into his head. I KNOW what public schools are like, and I KNOW what the real problems are in public education, and it has nothing to do with teachers.

Although This Piece

doesn't say anything I don't already know, and perhaps nothing the few readers of this blog don't already know, I thought I'd post the link here about the naked assault on public education.

It isn't just the billionaires--it's also our politicians who seem to cling onto a debunked and discredited economic and political theory called neoliberalism who seek to dismantle ALL public institutions as a matter of ideology.

This despite who it hurts. You are seeing a wholesale assault in Wisconsin and in other states.

News, Etc.

The grandnephew of Sonia Rios Risken, the so-called "black widow of Lomita," and a Navy buddy of his have been convicted of her 2007 murder.

Risken was suspected of having her two husbands killed in the Philippines as part of two murder-for-hire insurance fraud schemes nineteen years apart. She was under investigation at the time of her death.

Snip:

Delacruz, who called Risken "Grandma" and testified during trial that she practically raised him, expected to inherit her money and property, prosecutor John Lewin said during closing arguments.

"Mr. Delacruz just wanted the money that he thought was coming to him, and he didn't want to wait," Lewin said.

To avoid getting caught, Delacruz planned to frame Risken's son, John Bourdeau, prosecutors alleged. In January 2007, Delacruz set up an e-mail account in Bourdeau's name and began e-mailing the sister of Larry Risken, Sonia's deceased second husband, authorities said.

The jury took only three hours to reach a verdict, a move which shocked almost everybody. The defense plans to appeal:

Larry Risken's sister, Sherry Jackson, said she was shocked by the fast verdict.

"Three hours, holy smokes," she said. "The nightmare is finally coming to an end. I hope they rot in hell with Sonia."

Although Sonia Risken never was held accountable for Larry Risken's death, Delacruz's and Romero's trial provided the first time in a courtroom that a judge and prosecutors said on the record that she was the likely killer.

"I'm just happy as hell," said Larry Risken's father, who is also named Law Risken. "It's the only victory I'm going to get out of this thing."

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There's lots to chew on in this post exposing all those lies about Nevada teachers.

I have already written enough about my experiences as a teacher. I'd add the unions are worthless in defending teachers. That's what happens when you live in a "right-to-work" state.
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Jobless Chronicles

I guess because I "work" whenever I get a call with a sub list of 36 people for perhaps 80 aides and may get called twice a week, I am considered "employed" and not considered a liability anymore. Or whatever. Of course employers are trying to screen out the longterm unemployed as a way to weed out what they think are undesirables, but of course LT unemployment disproportionately affects older employees and minorities.

Lotsa luck though trying to sue on the basis of discrimination.

What kills many workers is the fact they are told by "experts" they need to use "chronological resumes," which are worthless if you aren't currently employed, to submit to employers rather than a combination or a functional resume. They look for "gaps" in jobs, and that is supposed to be a "red flag" to them.

More is here.

The Crowds Get Bigger and Bigger in Madison

as the WSWS notes:

On Friday, the walkout movement of Wisconsin school teachers forced the closure of Milwaukee Public Schools, by far the largest district in the state. Even before the start of the school day Friday, nearly 600 teachers had declared sick days in this city of 600,000 in order to attend demonstrations, forcing the shutdown of over 200 schools in the city. Only a day before, Superintendent Gregory Thornton had boasted to the media that he had succeeded in blocking the movement from reaching Milwaukee by threatening teachers with “disciplinary action.”

I'd like to see this go national; however, many people have been brainwashed by the billionaire-owned media to think workers are the enemy. The media does this in order to get the "stupid" masses to believe that the picking of their pockets is okay as long as the masses' attention is diverted elsewhere.

If I Could, I'd Go to Wisconsin

to enlist my support for the public employees. What I am afraid of is the possibility they could "compromise" with an asshole who has no intention of doing so. The rank and file should not put their trust complete in their leaders, including the AFL-CIO.

I also wouldn't count on Democratic officials to help out, either, despite the courageous act of the 14 in Wisconsin who have left the state in protest:

The truth is, however, that the Democratic Party is conducting identical attacks on workers at the local, state and federal level. The brutal attacks on Wisconsin workers are not unique to their state, but are taking place in every region of the country. Democratic governors in New York, North Carolina, Illinois and California are demanding similar cuts in wages and pensions, slashing jobs and attacking democratic rights such as the right to strike.

As for Obama, he has already demonstrated his class solidarity with Governor Walker by imposing a two-year freeze on federal workers and targeting public school teachers for attacks on seniority and job security. The Obama administration is now proposing a budget that demands working people pay, through cuts in domestic social spending, for the deficits produced by the bailout of Wall Street, tax cuts for the wealthy, and imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The only difference between the two parties is that the Democrats make use of the unions as an instrument for enforcing the cuts, while the Republicans propose to dispense with the unions altogether. This difference is of utmost importance to the union officials—their incomes and privileges are at stake—but the end result for the workers is the same.

Tbat's the thing the workers have to understand, and that's the Democratic Party, especially Obama, subscribes to neoliberal politics, and it is this neoliberalism which is destroying living standards. Obama will not change, so voters will have to demand a candidate who DOES care about working people.

Naturally the Tea Party bunch, backed by the billionaires, are going to try and stir up trouble.

Obituaries

One of the so-called "Memphis Mafia" for Elvis Presley, Lamar Fike, has died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was 75 years old.
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Wall Street versus the Poor and the Middle Class: Obama’s FY 2012 Budget Is A Tool Of Class War

Wall Street versus the Poor and the Middle Class: Obama’s FY 2012 Budget Is A Tool Of Class War

Once again Paul Craig Roberts hits the nail on the head with this piece.

He doesn't mince words here:

What all this leads to is an assault on “entitlements”, which means Social Security and Medicare. The elites have programmed, through their control of the media, a large part of the population, especially those who think of themselves as conservatives, to conflate “entitlements” with welfare. America is going to hell not because of foreign wars that serve no American purpose, but because people, who have paid 15% of their payroll all their lives for old age pensions and medical care, want “handouts” in their retirement years. Why do these selfish people think that working Americans should be forced through payroll taxes to pay for the pensions and medical care of the retirees? Why didn’t the retirees consume less and prepare for their own retirement?

The elite’s line, and that of their hired spokespersons in “think tanks” and universities, is that America is in trouble because of its retirees.

Too many Americans have been brainwashed to believe that America is in trouble because of its poor and its retirees. America is not in trouble because it coerces a dwindling number of taxpayers to support the military/security complex’s enormous profits, American puppet governments abroad, and Israel.

This brainwashing has been spectacularly successful. People still devour the shit from Fox "News" and the right-wing think tanks.

As Roberts says in the last line, no country is in need of revolution worse than the United States. I am just afraid the people in Wisconsin and other states will simply capitulate when in fact they should not ever until the powers-that-be are gone from the scene.

Believe It or Not,

there are actually REAL Democratic politicians in the United States, but it appears one has to search the state legislatures like Wisconsin to find them:

The Wisconsin State Patrol was dispatched Friday to find a Democratic state senator who fled the Capitol to delay the near-certain passage of a bill to end a half-century of collective bargaining rights for public workers, a measure that's attracted thousands of protesters for four days.

With Democrats saying they won't return before Saturday, it was unclear when the Senate would be able to begin debating Gov. Scott Walker's measure meant to ease the state's budget woes. Democrats who disappeared Thursday at first kept their whereabouts secret, then started to emerge to give interviews and fan the protests.

I can't even imagine our politicians in D.C. doing the same thing. Certainly Obama is peddling his right-wing "conciliation" shit to interviewers:

Obama spoke with a WTMJ television reporter for ten minutes, an interview set up hastily as the scale of the confrontation in Wisconsin began to become apparent.
The first question was about his reaction to Walker’s actions in pushing through legislation to eliminate collective bargaining rights for most public employees.

“Everybody’s got to make some adjustments to new fiscal realities,” he began, endorsing the basic falsification employed by Democratic and Republican politicians alike to justify cuts in public employee wages and benefits.

What a no-good son-of-a-bitch. Why don't you change your political affiliation, Barry, and get on with it?

link

As Ed Schultz Noted in the Video Posted Below,

this is all about 2012 for the GOP. They are playing divide-and-conquer between the public and private sector workers, which is utterly stupid because if public workers are decimated, that has an enormous domino effect on the private sector. But these people simply don't give a shit because they are bought and paid for by the financial aristocracy.

I don't expect Obama to do one shitting thing about it, either, since he is anti-union and anti-teacher himself, a neoliberal through and through.

Meanwhile, the protests are starting to hit Ohio, where Kasich, who trashed police officers, is trying to pull the same shit as the governor of Wisconsin.

The Ed Show

has been blogging about the situation in Wisconsin, while most of the other media push the protests on page 10. At the same time they try to paint the protests in the Middle East as being the work of Islamic extremists, which is ridiculous.

What we are seeing is a genuine revolt by the masses against their leaders who have sold themselves down the river for the tiny number of rich. The masses are suffering, and the situation is coming to a boil here.

A sample video from last night:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Wisconsin

My biggest worry is the public workers will make concessions, and workers CANNOT make deals with the devil. It won't work.

The situation will NOT get better if there are concessions. Let the son-of-a-bitch call the National Guard, then perhaps he will be forced to leave the statehouse.

What in the hell is the matter with people that these assholes were EVER elected in the first place.

I hope the uprising spreads to Ohio, to North Carolina, to New Jersey, to Illinois, to New York, to Florida. And on and on.

From the WSWS, which tells the truth about the financial aristocracy despite its Trotskyite leanings:

Workers must reject out of hand the concessions called for by union leaders and the entire political establishment. The budget deficit in Wisconsin is a tiny fraction of the wealth of the country’s billionaires. Indeed, the total budget deficit of all 50 states is about one-tenth of the net wealth of only the 400 richest Americans. This wealth, and the trillions expended to bail out the banks, must be reclaimed to meet the basic social needs of vast majority of the population.

A struggle against budget cuts requires the unification of the entire working class and youth in Wisconsin and throughout the country. Organizations independent of the trade unions must be built--rank and file committees of workers and students to unite public sector and private sector workers as well as youth in the workplaces, schools and neighborhoods of Wisconsin and beyond. Preparations should be made now for a general strike of all workers against the cutbacks.

It's going to be a long, hard process to rid the world of neoliberals and neoliberalism, but it has to be done. The biggest obstacles to getting rid of this poison are threefold: propaganda by the rightwing media which seeks to divide and conquer while letting the real culprits off the hook, the general apathy of this country, and the Citizens United case, which makes wholesale bribery of politicians even easier than it is now.

News, Etc.

Sharron Angle continues to go on the campaign trail, probably all for nothing.
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Never incur the wrath of an administrator, especially one as inept as Philly's Arlene Ackerman, or you will be told off in front of hundreds of people:

When the young teacher attending a panel discussion about men of color and education stood up to tell Superintendent Arlene Ackerman that the School District's constant bureaucratic requirements impeded her ability to teach, she hardly expected what happened next.

Ackerman blew up at her and, in essence, told her to quit.

"What we need are teachers who don't make excuses," said Ackerman. "I don't want to hear about bureaucracy. We have always had bureaucracies. We are looking for people who say 'I can teach a rock to read.' If it is not the right place for you then you should find another place to go."

The audience of about 400 people was stunned.

News, Comments, Etc.

Unfortunately, this country ISN'T veering from Ronald Reagan's "make believe" politics; if anything, Obama is one of his most ardent desciples.
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There really WASN'T any "stimulus plan" offered by Obama, just more handouts to people who are crooks or who don't need the money. Which is practically the same thing anyway.
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Smile! You're on Candid Camera.

Another report says this burglar actually "pleasured himself" in the car for something like 15 minutes while a family was sleeping just a doorway away.
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Matt Taibbi asks the silly question of why Wall Street isn't in jail.

Short answer: It's because they run the government, that's why.
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A new documentary called Rise is being shown nationwide tonight to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the tragic plane crash in Brussels, Belgium, which killed the entire United States figure skating team, plus many others. There was also a book about it, which I have, documenting the story of the team.

A clip is here.

Laurance (Laurie) Owen seen here in action shortly before her death:



Stephanie Westerfeld in action:



Maribel Owen and Dudley Richards:

Don't Think for a Minute

the assault on public education is merely limited to the United States: This is a worldwide phenomemon.

Case in point: Mexico:

The teachers were protesting against Calderón’s signing Monday of legislation that allows wealthier Mexicans sending their children to private school to deduct much of the tuition costs from their income taxes. The teachers and other opponents of the measure charge that it constitutes an escalation of the attacks on public education in Mexico and is in violation of the country’s constitution.

The demonstration was called by Section 22 of the National Education Workers Union (SNTE). The union struck 13,500 schools across the state on Wednesday, organizing a march through the center of the city of Oaxaca and blockades of highways in a number of areas. The union demanded the resignation of the state government’s secretary general, Irma Piñeyro, and the director general of the State Institute of Public Education, Bernardo Vázquez Colmenares.

I Hope the People of Wisconsin

keep up the pressure. I'd like the governor actually forced to step down. Ditto for those in Ohio, Florida, and New Jersey.

Hell, get rid of the governors in New York and Illinois, who subscribe to the same Friedmanite bullshit.

More about the protests in Wisconsin:

Officials ordered the closures of Madison’s public school system after 40 percent of teachers had called in before Wednesday morning to declare a sick day in order to attend the rally. Busloads of demonstrators continued to arrive in the capital from throughout the state. Near Milwaukee, a crowd estimated at 1,500 marched on Walker’s suburban home. About 1,000 high school students staged a walkout in the city of Appleton.

In an effort inspired by Egyptian demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, dozens of workers and youth camped out in the Statehouse overnight between Tuesday and Wednesday. They have promised to continue the occupation until Walker’s bill is defeated.

It is anticipated that the protests will continue Thursday and Friday. Schools throughout the state are bracing for teacher absences and student walkouts. A large walkout of University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduates and graduate students is expected Thursday.

I hope the workers don't back down. Apathy has always been this country's undoing.

I Don't Think There is Any Question Now

that there is very little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans at least when it comes to economically destroying the United States. That's because the filthy elite have polluted BOTH political parties with their neoliberal philosophy, a philosophy that has no basis in reality.

Reagan's economic ideas are failures, but they are still being implemented. And why? Because the very richest among us continue to benefit, even if it is a result of stealing from everybody else:

Both sides agree that the US private economy is in such a poor and dangerous condition that it needs massive fiscal stimulus from the federal budget: classic Keynesian policy. Washington thus plans to spend roughly $3.5tn, while taking in tax revenues of roughly $2tn; hence a deficit of $1.5tn. In the light of such numbers, the debates of Democrats and Republicans over spending cuts likely to be of the order of $40-60bn are inconsequential. They become yet more inconsequential in light of the fact that the federal budget's projected deficit of $1.5tn will carry an annual interest cost of $40-60bn. That interest will be an additional budget outlay offsetting the likely cuts arrived at the end of loudly publicised debates over spending reductions.

Both sides agree that government spending will continue to follow the old "trickle down" theory, despite its failure to date. Massive federal outlays on the largest banks, insurance companies and selected other large corporations produced a "recovery" for them, but not in the rates of unemployment, home foreclosures and state and local austerity budgets that keep crippling the US economy. Federal largesse has yet to trickle down, but both parties proceed on the assumption that it eventually will. Neither party tallies the economic and social costs of massive unemployment, home loss and state and local austerity budgets. Neither party offers any alternative to "trickle down", as if no alternative exists or is worth debating.

Our government is run by and for gangsters. These people who promote these laws and benefit from them ought to be in jail instead.

The breaking point is just about here.

Cairo Comes to Madison,

and that's what the powers-that-be were so afraid of when the widespread protests happened in Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, Ireland, and other countries and why we didn't have a whole lot of coverage on most of them.

And we know the media especially didn't want to cover the onslaught against public employees in the United States.

Republicans have been so adept at brainwashing the public that they think they can get away with it. And now that neoliberalism has overtaken the Democratic Party, there is no political opposition to the attempts to destroy the middle class once and for all. Note, for example, Obama's complete indifference to the Wisconsin situation.

The WSWS has something to say about these current events.

nstead, they are part and parcel of an orchestrated attack on working class living standards being carried out by both big business parties, led above all by the Obama administration. While handing over trillions to bail out Wall Street, provide tax breaks for the rich and finance its criminal wars, the White House has refused to help the states, which have a combined deficit of $126 billion. The budget shortfall is being seized upon as a pretext to lay waste to any form of government spending that does not boost the fortunes of the rich, the banks, and the corporations.

Across the border in Illinois, the Democratic-controlled state legislature is moving toward banning the right of public school teachers to strike in order to carry forward a massive assault on public education. In Ohio, a Republican governor is working hand-in-hand with Democratic mayors to bar public employee strikes. Democratic governors in New York and California are ordering unprecedented budget cuts, just like their Republican counterparts in states such as Florida and Arizona.

Democratic politicians are about as big an enemy as Republican ones. People better wake the hell up. Politicians are also blatantly lying that their budgets are broke while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the fact too few people have too much money and all at the masses' expense.

This Piece is Right on the Money,

but it really doesn't matter to education "reformers" because their assault on public education and teachers has nothing to do with perceived "failures" in the system as it is it is being deliberately destroyed as a matter of ideology.

These neolibs aren't interested in facts about poverty and parental involvement being far better indicators of student success than teacher "effectiveness," whatever that means. The neolibs believe the masses shouldn't be educated beyond a middle school grade level for the simple reason the jobs aren't there in any great numbers for people with more formal education; therefore, it is a waste of money to educate them further and to have a professional teaching force to do the job.

The sooner the neolibs are outed, the better chance we have of salvaging a system which is the cornerstone of democracy, a concept the neolibs like Obama despise.

News, Etc.

Nevada legislators decide they want to disregard voter sentiment and want to repeal the state's minimum wage laws--period.

Stupid doesn't get more stupid than this. All states have to follow the federal mandate at the very least.
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Obama wants to screw over the American people in order to help his Wall Street masters. Surprise--not.
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Some of the vilest garbage ever posted comes from blogs commenting on reports CBS reporter Lara Logan had been sexually assaulted in Egypt.

Many of the blogs were vile, and the comments following blog posts and regular reports were even worse.
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Given Obama's continuing hostility towards public education and teachers, which is reflected in his budget proposals, 2012 can't come soon enough to get a primary challenge to oust this fraud.

Gone to the Dogs

Hickory, a five-year-old Scottish deerhound, has won the 135th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. I personally was rooting for the Bearded Collie, GCH Tolkien Raintree Mister Baggins, who has the most beautiful coat, to win the competition.

You just never know which dog the judges will pick.
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News, Etc.

At least this wasn't a teacher.
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Wishful thinking: Those rumors about O.J. Simpson being beat up in prison are not true, unfortunately.

While Obama's Budget

is by and large a farce, it is instructive to know just how billionaires get by if they aren't hoarding every single penny they have that they should have paid in taxes.

If Washington DARES to Fuck With Public Employee Pensions,

expect riots from sea to shining sea, and especially if they fuck with police and fire employees.

That's as risky as going after the military.

Neoliberalism MUST die.

News, Etc.

Thanks to the worsening economy and the fact our politicians have instituted a philosophy that the rich should have everything, Obama is promoting "austerity" measures on everybody else.

What a son of a bitch posing as a "Democrat."
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It's the poverty, stupid. Not that education "reformers" care because these poor won't amount to anything anyway.
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John Ensign is wasting his time running for re-election.
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A memorial was held for Highway 50's famous Shoe Tree, which was cut down by some idiots who didn't understand the significance of it.

A new tree in the area has been designated the official Shoe Tree.
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Obituaries

Actress Betty Garrett, 91, who appeared in films such as the 1949 classic musical On the Town (link is to a clip of the movie featuring her and Frank Sinatra--nobody is allowing embedding of clips) and television shows like All in the Family, has passed away from an aortic aneurysm.

Garrett was long married to actor Larry Parks, who I have mentioned in a couple of posts on this blog for his performance as Al Jolson in the biopics The Jolson Story and Jolson Sings Again. Sadly both of them were blacklisted during the McCarthy era, and the couple wound up performing in summer stock and other productions. I believe Larry Parks ended up selling real estate. They had two sons together. Parks died in 1975, relatively young. Garrett never remarried.

More here and here.

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Heir and kidnap victim J. Paul Getty III, only 54 years old:

“Dear Mummy,” his note began, “Since Monday I have fallen into the hands of kidnappers. Don’t let me be killed.”

The eldest Mr. Getty refused to pay the kidnappers anything, declaring that he had 14 grandchildren and “If I pay one penny now, I’ll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren.” His son said he could not afford to pay.

Three months after the abduction, the kidnappers, who turned out to be Calabrian bandits with a possible connection to organized crime, cut off Mr. Getty’s ear and mailed it, along with a lock of his hair, to a Roman newspaper. Photographs of the maimed Mr. Getty, along with a letter in which he pleaded with his family to pay his captors, subsequently appeared in another newspaper. Eventually the kidnappers reduced their demands to around $3 million. According to the 1995 book “Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortune and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty,” by John Pearson, the eldest Mr. Getty paid $2.2 million, the maximum that his accountants said would be tax-deductible. The boy’s father paid the rest, though he had borrow it from his father — at 4 percent interest.

No wonder the younger Getty went into a downward spiral from which he never recovered. What a son of a bitch of a grandfather he had.
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Actress Peggy Rea, 89, of of complications from heart failure.

News, Etc.

You'd swear Ronald Reagan came back from the dead.

Obama needs a primary challenge in 2012 or be made to not seek re-election. He's a disaster.

It's everything for Wall Street and screw everybody else.
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A newly AKC-recognized breed of dog will make a cameo appearance at this week's Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

I think I'll keep my chihuahua and look for a second dog of a different breed. No hairless dogs for me.
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The neoliberal son-of-a-bitch wants to make homeownership even less likely for those with modest incomes.
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News, Etc.

Our president has found a creative way to cut down on Social Security expenses, and that's to slash home heating assistance to the poor and elderly.
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The trial of the murder of the so-called Lomita (CA) "black widow," Sonia Rios Risken, is underway. This is a link to several articles about the trial.

Her grandnephew, Eric Delacruz, and an accomplice, Fernando Romero, are on trial for the murder.

Rios is believed to have masterminded the murders of her two husbands in the Philippines in order to collect insurance money.

48 Hours did an episode on the case, which is quite a tale:




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Why Was There No Scrutiny

of former D.C. schools dictator Michelle Rhee BEFORE she got the job? Having ties to Kaplan is no excuse for the Washington Post to drop the ball on this. Rhee not only was unqualified to run a school district, but she never should have been allowed anywhere near a school, public or private, after having admitted to abusing students and joking about it.

Any teacher or substitute caught duct taping students would be fired on the spot and his or her license to teach revoked. It's that serious.

Not only that, but she blatantly lied on her resume:

A former D.C. math teacher, Guy Brandenburg, posted on his blog a study that includes test scores from the Baltimore school where Rhee taught from 1992 to 1995. The post, dated Jan. 31, generated intense discussion in education circles this week. In it, Brandenburg contended that the data show Rhee "lied repeatedly" in an effort to make gains in her class look more impressive than they were.

Rhee, who resigned last year as chancellor, denied fabricating anything about her record and said Brandenburg's conclusion was unfounded. But she acknowledged this week that she could have described her accomplishments differently in 2007, when then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) selected her to be chancellor.

At issue is a line in Rhee's resume from that year that described her record at Harlem Park Elementary School: "Over a two-year period, moved students scoring on average at the 13th percentile on national standardized tests to 90 percent of students scoring at the 90th percentile or higher."

On Wednesday evening, Rhee said she would revise that wording if she could. "If I were to put my resume forward again, would I say 'significant' gains?" Rhee said. "Absolutely."

Unless you had a private school class like mine, which was frontloaded with high-achieving students, you are NOT going to have your class in the 90th percentile in ANYTHING, much less do it in a couple of years. It simply isn't possible in public education, not even in the most affluent school districts. Even in my private school, my kids posted in the 78th percentile overall on the tests in my second year there, and that was including two or three students in a class of 12 who were in the 99th percentile on the Stanford Achievement Tests.

It's impossible without having your classes full of gifted and talented students to begin with.

News, Etc.

It's goodbye and good riddance to Hosni Mubarak as he leaves Egypt for good, presumably.

Too bad Americans are too apathetic not to demand the same thing of our Congress and the White House. These politicians are all worthless neoliberal birds of a feather.

The crowds in Cairo get angrier as they don't believe Mubarak is really gone for good:

Angry protesters, who had swarmed by the thousands into the streets here Friday morning, were hardly mollified by the news of Mr. Mubarak’s exit and an accompanying statement by the Supreme Council of the Egyptian Armed Forces over state television and radio. The protesters said they would not believe he was gone until he had formally relinquished his title as president, and until Mr. Suleiman, his handpicked successor, had been ousted as well.

The protesters did let out a cheer at news on state radio that Naguib Sawiris, a wealthy and widely respected businessman, has agreed to act as a mediator between the opposition and the authorities in carrying through the political reforms.

More is here.

Meanwhile, our country continues to engage in apathy while our leaders steal and destroy everything in sight.

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Leave the ESDs alone in Oregon; it's much more cost-efficient to pool resources than to have duplicate services. Not to mention special education students will get the shaft if the programs are implemented by individual school districts.

Remember, special education is a big cash cow for school districts, and abuse is rampant, not to mention teachers are under extreme pressure to cheat for administrators.

I can't believe Kitzhaber thinks this is a good idea to ditch ESDs. He has NO fucking clue what goes on in education:

In his recommended budget released earlier this month, Gov. John Kitzhaber proposed cutting that funding and sending it instead directly to school districts. The move could starve some ESDs, but Kitzhaber says it would introduce competition and force the service districts to provide top-notch programs. School districts would have an option to continue using their ESD, find another provider or perform the services themselves.

You stupid, stupid asshole. This is special education services, which are mandated by federal law, and special education is widely abused in school districts because of the money.

You want tons of lawsuits? Just piss off sped students' parents.
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Only a religious sect which devalues single people in general and single women in particular would create a conflict on whether to have sex outside marriage and long after most people have already "done it."

I never thought much of the Mormon faith because it is so sexist towards women.

Various Education Battles

Despite widespread opposition from teachers and the community, Bloomberg is closing 22 more schools in the already corrupt, beleaguered district.

More about how teachers feel:

Martin Freeman, a teacher at Health Professions High School, said, “Where should I start with the problems facing public education? I’m worried about our situation. I’m worried that Health Professions HS may be shut down even though it is not being closed right now. I think all of the public schools are worried now because they might be closed next.

“Teachers are demoralized. They are worried about their careers, their wages, their benefits and their seniority. I think the charter schools are salivating on the sidelines. They want to come in and take over. The city wants to take teachers off their payroll and subcontract the whole business out. This is very obvious. Bloomberg is a businessman. Cathleen Black was not hired to run an education system. This is the death knell of public education.

“We don’t know how it will come out. It depends on what the politicians can get away with. The Republicans are pushing for privatizing public education with charter schools. New York Governor Cuomo seems like he is for it. I was disappointed in Obama when the school fired all the teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Obama said, ‘Good. They should fire them.’

It's all about neoliberal ideology, and therefore public schools must be dismantled.
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Michelle Rhee's record as "chancellor" of D.C. schools isn't worth writing home about.

Like a Good Republican,

Obama has decided to put the burden of the screwups of his Wall Street supporters on the backs of the poor:

The Obama administration, reports National Journal's Mark Ambinder, will propose big cuts to a program that provides energy assistance to poor people when it unveils its suggested 2012 budget. "The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP," writes Ambinder, "would see funding drop by about $2.5 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion."

The news is generating a lot of outrage from progressives, in large part because of a paragraph that suggests that the White House wants to gain political advantage from being seen as tough on the most vulnerable Americans -- people who can't afford heating oil during cold winters.

News, Etc.

Goodbye and good riddance to Senator Kyl.
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Which is Worse?

Is it the deadbeat homeowner who defaulted on his or her obligations, or is it the bankster who made it all happen?

The answer is here.

Thanks to 24/7 Propaganda

by our so-called "news organizations" and talk radio, people who have had their jobs and pensions or retirement decimated by the worsening economy have decided to take their wrath on public employees, which makes utterly no sense.

The REAL targets are Wall Street and the crooks in Congress who have enabled them to steal from everybody. Instead of wanting public employees to be equally poor, the anger should be directed against those REALLY responsible.

It Is Certainly a Record to Be Proud Of

Of course I am talking about the record number of households that are now financially underwater thanks to the outrageously overpriced real estate in the past decade. People were brainwashed to believe their homes were "investments" that would only appreciate rather than regard them as places to live.

The price of houses is still at least double what it should be in order to be in line with the average wages and salaries of working people. One shouldn't have to have two incomes in order to go into debt; in fact, one should be able to save enough money to pay cash for a place to live, like my parents did.

News, Etc.

Just what do the wingnuts want for this country?

One thing they DON'T want is a democracy or anything resembling it. They despise it; what they really want is some kind of aristocracy where the masses serve the handful of rich.

Of course it will never work; there will be bloodshed before any of that happens.
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Speaking of wingnuts, there will be a shindig for them in D.C. A bunch of potential GOP candidates will be attending the conference, including who I think will be the eventual nominee and president, Mitt Romney.

A bunch of possible candidates will be there, but one definite candidate will not show up: Barack Obama.
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Broadie Heath Morrison lies his ass off about teacher "tenure" and knows good and well his district is already making it next to impossible for new teachers to obtain continuing contracts by abusing the one-year-only designations for jobs that are supposed to be open because an incumbent has taken leave or is a grant-funded position. Instead, jobs that really ARE standard contract openings are being made OYO to screw over teachers and ultimately deny them a pension:



He is also a liar when he says teachers become "tenured" at one year. They don't--the process is two years unless a teacher is already experienced or unless a principal says it is okay.

Meanwhile the principals and other administrators are as incompetent, vindictive, or as corrupt as ever, and Morrison will do nothing about them.

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News, Etc.

A former Temp for America "teacher" tells the truth about the program.

The philosophy underlying TFA is that any damned fool can get into a classroom and "teach" and not need preparation to go into classrooms. Experience is not necessary, especially when dealing with poor children.

Naturally this program should be found illegal because poor children are being denied their constitutional right to equal education opportunities. Putting ill-prepared and unqualified people in these classrooms--especially at a time when there are tens of thousands of fully certified teachers out of work--is wrong.
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Jose Ochoa got himself coldcocked by an armed rooster and it cost him his life.

Ochoa and Steve Irwin: Two birds of a feather.

The Whole POINT of Education "Reform"

is to limit higher education access, so why should it be a surprise at all that most NYC graduates of charter schools are NOT "college ready"?

The data also cast new doubt on the ability of charter schools to outperform their traditional school peers. Statewide, only 10 percent of students at charters graduated in 2009 at college-ready standards, though 49 percent received diplomas. The state has not yet calculated results for every district and school.

That won't stop the hedge fund crooks and billionaires from trying to bleed dry every last dime from the taxpayers.

What a Record to Be Proud Of

Food stamp usage is on the rise, and one out of seven households now rely on the program for survival, such as it is.

States put all kinds of roadblocks for people to apply for the program and try to continue the stigma attached to having rely on it instead of eating out of dumpsters. This despite the fact the vast majority of recipients are or have been paying taxes which help fund the program.

Nationally, about two thirds of all eligible households receive food stamps, but there is great variation among the states. In Texas and California, for example, less than half of eligible households receive SNAP benefits. Even though the program is funded in full—except for administrative costs—by the federal government, California vindictively requires those seeking food assistance submit to fingerprinting and a 13-page application.

Only about one third of the nation’s 7 million food stamp-eligible senior citizens receive assistance. Many of the remainder may be unaware of the program or confused about how it works.
“A lot of people aren’t aware that they are eligible, particularly the elderly,” Barb Rupert of Commission on Economic Opportunity in Luzerne and Wyoming counties in Northeast Pennsylvania told the Hazleton Standard Speaker. In Luzerne County, an old coal-mining region, food stamp use is up 12.1 percent in two years.

Never underestimate the "shame" factor, either, which makes people feel guilty for even thinking about applying for it. After all, the GOP has tried and has succeeded in demonizing the poor for decades.

Obituaries

A pair of actresses who starred in cult films have died recently:

Lena Nyman, 66, star of a pair of 1960s Swedish films that were controversial for their time, I Am Curious Yellow and I Am Curious Blue, after a long illness.

Criterion video has both of those films on DVD, but they aren't anything I care to see.

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Tura Satana, a resident of my former home of Reno, Nevada, starred in the Russ Meyer cult film Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! She is believed to have died Friday of heart failure. Satana was 72 or 75, depending on the source.

There was no nudity in this film, but it was a kind of oddball picture for its plot.
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Don't Think for a Minute

the vulture philanthropists, who have had their own children in private schools, are limiting their destructive "reforms" to traditional public schools. It appears now Catholic schools are coming under scrutiny, and never mind they aren't bound by the same rules as public or charter schools if they don't take public money:

Historically, parochial schools have fared slightly better in standardized tests than public schools, partly because as private institutions they are not bound by law to take all comers, as public schools are.

But the effort to bring charter-school standards of accountability to a system once dominated by parish priests and their staffs has created some tensions between patrons and school administrators. At one school in the Bronx, a principal wanted to spend a donor’s money on a gym, which he considered crucial to attracting new students, while the donor wanted to stock a new library. The school got the library, but closed soon afterward because of declining enrollment.

It's isn't "partly" because of frontloading the schools with high-achieving students that parochial students do better on standardized tests. It's the whole thing. When a school can pick and choose which students to admit, OF COURSE the test scores will fare better. But these schools have severe problems keeping staff; most leave when they can secure public education jobs because parochial schools may pay only 50 or 60 percent of public school pay, if that. It's also the same thing for the vast majority of non-religious private schools.

I doubt the private schools are going to want the vultures picking on the bones of their schools.

Now That There is So Much Unemployment,

businesses can't lay off any more people, unless, of course, state and local employees get the shaft more and more often.

Naturally the "9-percent" unemployment rate is a bunch of bullshit. It's supposed to be "good news" for so many people to desperately compete for jobs, with about only about 1 in 5 able to get an available opening.

If these assholes in our government don't reverse course, expect the Tunisia or Egyptian solution to hit here.

There is no "best of times." It's bad out here.

A letter writer calls b.s. on some of the article:

With many fine points made, and good information.

One thing troubles me though -- the author's statement that if you are still employed now, you don't have to worry....not for 14 years? That is ridiculous. It's absurdly broad, and doesn't apply to most industries, not to mention it does not take into consideration personal issues or issues specific to certain parts of the economy, or regions.

If you have a job, and just think "I'm sittin' pretty!", you are a fool.

I have a couple of friends who just lost their jobs over Christmas -- laid off of a sizable publishing company who offshored all their jobs (yes, the ENTIRE 190 person company) to Lahore, Pakistan. Why? Because editors in the US pulled down $50K salaries (in this area) but in Lahore, they can pay $8-10K for an English speaking editor, not to mention vastly lower costs for office space, utilities, etc.

My friends had college degrees, PLUS master's degrees, PLUS one had a J.D. They were all highly educated, technologically adept, internet-savvy. The company wasn't failing; it was superbly profitable. They just DID NOT NEED THEIR US WORKERS ANYMORE.

If anyone had asked either of these women -- in their 50s, and profoundly shocked to find themselves unemployed at their ages -- each with over 24 years with that company -- and each virtually unemployable in this area, in their specialty -- FOURTEEN YEARS AGO if this could have happened, they would have laughed their asses off at you.

Indeed, one of them told me only this weekend: "I need to apologize to you, because some years back, YOU were out of work and I thought you were a screw up or lazy, or deserved to get laid off -- and when you had a hard time finding a new job, I was sure you were too lazy to really look. Now THAT IT IS ME UNEMPLOYED, I realize even hard-working good employees get let go -- and that finding a new job is brutally hard." I accepted her apology, but that's the way it always is - -isn't it?

Always easy to think IT WILL NOT BE ME. It can't be ME....I am smart! I am hard working! I have a solid work ethic! I went to college and got lots of degrees! I did internships! I'm up on all the latest technology, social networking, gadgets!

BUT IT CAN BE YOU. Yes you, Paul Wiseman. Yes, you Derek Kravitz. Yes, you Kerry Lauerman.

Yes YOU who are reading this. It could be you.

From where I sit, things are not getting better -- that is an illusion of depressed people who overspent during the holidays because they'd rather not face reality (or they realize they can just declare bankruptcy on all those credit cards they used!). There is no way our economy got "better" because nothing REAL has gotten any better -- we don't manufacture anymore of our own stuff -- we haven't called back any of the unemployed -- we still have an unemployment rate of over 18%.

Phony optimism is worse than realistic pessimism. Time everybody started acknowledging that.

Of course it is NOT better. That's why these "feel-good" statements from businesses and economists are so important. They are trying to jumpstart the economy by bringing back consumer confidence.

As long as there are few new jobs being created, consumer confidence isn't going to come back.

News, Etc.

With all of the talk about Ronald Reagan's presidency now that his centennial is this month, it might be important to look at the record:

As the media repackages history to serve the purposes of the ruling elite, no mention is made of the fact that the 1980s was the decade that witnessed the most bitter episodes of class struggle in the United States since the 1940s. The actions taken by the Reagan administration during its first year in office—the slashing of federal funding for vital social programs and the firing of nearly 12,000 air traffic controllers who went out on strike in August 1981—outraged millions of workers. The social philosophy of the new administration found its most poignant expression in the redefinition of ketchup as a vegetable in order to justify the cutting of federal funds for school lunch programs. In September 1981, nearly three quarters of a million workers demonstrated in Washington to protest budget cuts and the destruction of PATCO, the union of the air traffic controllers. An even larger demonstration took place in Washington in 1983. Virtually every industry was shaken by bitter and often violent strikes as workers fought back against the class-war policies of the Reagan administration.

But that history has no place in the ongoing eulogies to the dead president. These tributes to Reagan are, in essence, a celebration of the services he rendered to the rich. The overriding goal of his administration was the removal of all legal restraints on the accumulation of personal wealth. The motto of the Reagan administration, like that of the notoriously corrupt government of King Louis-Philippe in 19th century France, was “Enrich yourself.” The slashing of the tax rate for the wealthy—from 70 percent to 28 percent—earned for the president the boundless affection of the grateful rich. This massive cut in taxes laid the foundations for the environment of social debauchery and orgiastic celebration of wealth that characterized the 1980s. It was the decade of Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Donald Trump (who is now making a comeback), and, of course, the fictional Gordon Gekko, who so famously proclaimed, “Greed is good!”

Nobody writes obituaries quite like WSWS. You're really better off dead.
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The game itself was far, far better than the halftime show.

At least they didn't perform "My Humps."

News, Etc.

Bush II decided to cancel a trip to Switzerland for fear his flight might be rerouted to The Hague.
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Commentary, Etc.

This blogger, like yours truly, will most likely owe the IRS money since he, like me, couldn't afford to have taxes taken out of his UI.

It might be the same for me next year, and the next year...and so on because now I have a meager pension, which I am lucky to get but will have to pay taxes on.
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Meanwhile, the man who once said unemployment compensation was an all-expenses paid vacation for freeloaders, Ronald Reagan, is being idolized by the media which propagandized on his behalf when he was president. Of course, the media got all kinds of goodies in exchange for the glowing press he received. However, the reality of Ronald Reagan's presidency is far different than the myth.

If anything, Reagan will be remembered for three things apart from his movie career, none of them good. The first was his firing the air traffic controllers (PATCO) and thus creating a situation where the middle class would be decimated because companies now were given permission to gut unions and go overseas to find cheap labor. The second was his indifference to the AIDS epidemic, which could have been contained. Only when his good friend Rock Hudson got sick and died of the disease did his administration actually do much in the way to combat it. The final thing he will be "remembered" for is his gutting of the Fairness Doctrine; this more than anything contributed to the rise of nonstop hate radio and outright propaganda posing as news (i.e., Fox).

Not a good record to be proud of. There are a lot of other negative things that happened during his term such as Iran-Contra, the rise of homelessness thanks to the cuts in mental health funding, the rise of neoliberal economic policies which are wrecking the world, and the issuance of the fraudulent A Nation at Risk education "report," but the three mentioned above will do for now.

If You Want to Know Why the GOP is Full of Greedy Crackpots,

look no further than the financial support of two crackpot "liberatarian" (redundant, I know) billionaires David and Charles Koch.

They're spoiled, greedy morons, the last people on earth we should have running our political process.

News, Etc.

This is one judge who should be recalled for unnecessarily wasting taxpayer money, but of course it won't happen because it is Reno:

Justices said the remarks were “so outrageous as to create the appearance of partiality and result in a miscarriage of justice.“

According to a transcript cited in the order, Kosach said, “Now, I can’t say in any way, shape or form that I hate the defendants, because I’m a judge. I can’t say I hate Saddam Hussein. I can’t say I hated Adolph Hitler. I can’t say I hated Ho Chi Minh. And I fought in the jungles against his boys.“

Defense lawyers immediately asked for a mistrial, arguing the judge’s statements tainted the jury pool. Kosach denied the motion.

It appears the judge never took Law 101.

You can read the opinion here. Kosach's remarks are even worse than the news excerpt.
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Obama goes where the wind blows when it comes to Egypt.
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Payroll growth slowed to the lowest in four months.

A list of firms shedding jobs is in the article.
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Whistle-blowing for Teachers = Wrecked Careers

In this Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, teachers are really up against overwhelming pressures by principals and higher administrators to cheat on standardized tests. Those teachers who are ethical risk losing everything if they talk:

In Atlanta, as in other Georgia school districts, teachers have little job security. Even those with tenure work under year-to-year contracts, and they have no collective bargaining rights. Younger teachers, in particular, say that if they run afoul of administrators, they risk being “non-renewed.”

Teachers also can be kept in line with the threat of being placed on a “professional development plan,” a form of probation that may lead to firing. At one Atlanta school, according to public records, the principal told her faculty that if test scores didn’t increase, she would be placed on a professional development plan — and if she was, each of them would be, too. Teachers in at least two other schools have complained of similar threats.

Georgia law, including a statute preventing punishment of certain whistle-blowers, offers no special protection for teachers who report wrongdoing, said Gary Walker, deputy executive secretary for the Professional Standards Commission, the state agency that licenses and disciplines teachers.

Walker said he tells potential whistle-blowers: “If they retaliate, we can’t promise we can take care of it for you.”

Teachers are absolutely shit out of luck. This is a national problem, not just a Georgia problem.