If You Want to Know Why Bill Gates and His Ilk

are so involved in education "reform," look no further than the rise of "virtual schools," whose teachers will ultimately be outsourced to other countries, once state licensure laws are scuttled.

This is an outrage. Of course, the billionaires will still be allowed to employ real teachers for their kids, but the lowlifes of the masses will get inferior educations with virtual books and virtual teachers.

It is a social disaster waiting to happen. School not only is about academics, it is also about students finding what their place is in the real world through human interaction with adults and with fellow students.

Articles here and here.

In Oregon, Gov. Kitzhaber has proven himself to be clueless when it comes to education:

Governor Jon Kitzhaber proposed earlier in the year to enact legislation giving every student in the state access to a full-time virtual school, stating that online schools cost 70-80 percent of a traditional school. Additionally he is proposing cutting transportation allocations and facilities grants as well as consolidating school districts and buildings. The State Board of Education last year recommended a funding model including “the appropriate percentage of special education children who should be enrolled in online schools.”

A "Democrat" who despises teachers. Just like Obama.

Fat Chance Obama

will EVER propose any kind of jobs program that would alleviate unemployment; in fact, neolibs like him BELIEVE in high unemployment because it forces wages and salaries down.

Obama had the duty to put through a jobs program the first goddamned day he was in office. But instead, he focused on a bullshit Romneycare-style "health care reform" which does NOTHING to solve problems with health care.

Health care is a luxury when you haven't enough money to survive.

A Truly Monstrous Bill

is making its way through the California legislature which would "allow" teachers and other unqualified personnel to administer valium rectally in students with certain types of seizures.

This is all about saving money in not hiring school medical personnel and has nothing to do with how "easy" it is.

This is similar shit that was done to some special education teachers at Washoe County School District who were forced to take a class in inserting catheters. Never mind doing them incorrectly can cause infection and even death and open districts up to huge liability suits. Never mind students could simply use diapers. This, like the rectal insertions, is a cheapo way out of paying for school nurses, who are considered "frills" in this day and age.

Cartoon of the Day

Back-to-school cartoon:

Yes, "Differentiated Instruction" Is a Bunch of Bullshit

concocted by "scholars" who haven't spent time in real classrooms in many years. It is impossible for teachers to customize instruction for every kid, and even special education students also have many interests in common as much or more than they have differences.

Teachers simply don't have that many hours in the day to sit there and customize instruction. The same is true with "individualized" instruction for all students; it is impossible.

Libertarianism = Fascism

I am a huge fan of Michael Lind (Up From Conservatism), and he nails these goddamned libertarians who are poisoning the political dialog as nothing more than fascists. They despise democracy, and therefore as far as I am concerned they are anti-American traitors.

Sorry, but that is what they are. They are pure, unadulterated EVIL:

The history of democratic nation-states since the 19th century proves that Macaulay, and von Mises, and Hayek, as well as lesser lights like Patri Friedman, have been right to argue that democracy is incompatible with libertarianism. Every modern, advanced democracy, including the United States, devotes between a third and half of its GDP to government, in both direct spending on public services like defense and transfer payments. Given the power to vote, most populations will not only vote for some system of government-backed social insurance, but also for all sorts of interventions in individual behavior that libertarians object to, from laws banning nudity in public to laws mandating that people support their children, do not torture or neglect their pets and water their lawns during droughts according to scheduled rationing.

Unfortunately for libertarians who, like Hayek, prefer libertarian dictatorships to welfare-state democracies, even modern authoritarians reject the small-government creed. The most successful authoritarian capitalist regimes, such as today’s China and South Korea and Taiwan before their recent transitions to democracy, have been highly interventionist in economics, promoting economic growth by means of state-controlled banking, state-owned enterprises, government promotion of cartels, suppression of wages and consumption, tariffs and nontariff barriers to imports, toleration of intellectual piracy, massive infrastructure projects to help industry, and subsidies to manufacturers in the form of artificially cheap raw materials, energy and land.

The dread of democracy by libertarians and classical liberals is justified. Libertarianism really is incompatible with democracy. Most libertarians have made it clear which of the two they prefer. The only question that remains to be settled is why anyone should pay attention to libertarians.

Because fascistic assholes like the Koch brothers have bought public opinion when they never should have gotten a foothold here. Crackpots like Milton Friedman were awarded Nobel prizes when they should have been laughed out of every campus in every university in the country.

Now our country is on the ropes because of these fascists. Unfortunately, the neolibs have also polluted the Democratic Party.

Crater Lake National Park/Plaikni Falls Hiking Trail

No regular posts today as I went with family to Crater Lake National Park and went down the latest trail opened to the public, Plaikni Falls Hiking Trail, which is off of Pinnacles Road which in turn is off of the East Rim Drive.

It was a gorgeous day, perfect to visit. Flowers were in bloom this late in the summer thanks to the long winter.

Etc. and News

One book I will make sure I miss is Steven Brill's idiotic attack on public school teachers. The lousy reviews are enough to make me pass it up.

When you deliberately confuse public school teacher "tenure" with university tenure, your credibility goes out the window.

It is laughably easy to get rid of teachers; it's just that districts don't want to pay the money for the bogus hearings which almost always favor principals.

Not to mention the book is completely bizarro:

Reviewers have criticized Mr. Brill for making what seems like a bizarre turnaround in the book's final chapter. When I asked him about it, he said the two years spent reporting had changed him.

In the book's first 420 pages, he bashes the union and its president, Randi Weingarten, is dismissive of veteran teachers and extols charters.

Three people seem to have altered that thinking. First, David Levin, a founder of the Knowledge Is Power Program, the biggest charter chain in the country, told him that charter schools would never be able to train near the number of quality teachers needed to populate all public schools.

Second, Jessica Reid, an assistant principal at Harlem Success who worked night and day to improve the lives of poor children, burned out right before Mr. Brill's eyes and quit midyear.

And third, against the odds, he came to like Ms. Weingarten. "She really cares about this stuff," he told me.

The book ultimately concludes that only the union can supply quality veteran teachers on the scale needed.

Perhaps this guy shouldn't have written about something he knows nothing about.

Get a load of this exchange:

Steven Brill
New York,NY
August 29th, 2011
11:15 am

I appreciate that Mr. Winerip thinks I have “seen the light” at the end of the book. What he doesn’t realize, though not for lack of my trying to explain it to him, is that I was simply reporting what I found over two years. I was not trying to render, let alone reconcile, a verdict for or against his (anti-reform) point of view.
However, despite his distinguished prior career as an reporter, I am not surprised by the apparent anger in Mr. Winerip’s opinion column, let alone his decision to distort my book by ignoring all in it that describes teachers (and even teachers’ union leaders) in a positive light and strains to explain, and depict from the classroom, how difficult efffective teaching is. When he talked with me, it was almost as if he’d been waiting to unload on me for years. He freely cast epithets, some profane, at many of the men and women portrayed in the book, and refused to consider that his reporting about alleged “skimming” of the best students at the Harlem Success charter network might be based on faulty data. (Though he did, I guess in attempt to humor me, chuckle when I tweaked him for ignoring in a prior article that I was the product of Queens, New York elementary and middle public schools, before winning a full scholarship to go to a prep school – whereupon he repeated this revelation in this article.)
After he slammed a phone down on me on Friday when I tried to get him into the weeds of that Harlem Success data, I sent Mr. Winerip an email urging him to reconsider. I never received a reply. Whether my reading of the data on Harlem Success is right or wrong (and I believe it is correct), I think his approach to dealing with the issue, let alone the near-venom of his piece today, speaks for itself.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers
Report as Inappropriate

Michael Winerip
Education Reporter, New York Times
August 29th, 2011
12:19 pm
I have not been waiting to unload on Mr. Brill for years; on the contrary, I have admired much of his previous work. As I told him during the reporting for my column, I was a big fan of the Teamsters book and I was also very, very impressed with "American Lawyer," a truly original creation.

In terms of my interaction with him last week: our interview was originally scheduled for 9 a.m., but he had a limited amount of time. We then agreed to talk at 6 a.m., when he had an hour; we talked again for about a half hour at 9 a.m. I have the email string; I sent him 11 and he sent me 11. In addition, I'd estimate he made several additional phone calls to me after the second interview. Eventually, I told him I had to cut short our conversation to write the piece; the very last words I said to him were: I have to go, I apologize. I did not slam the phone.

As for the substantive points in his email, he and I clearly have pretty different perspectives on school reform. Here's my take on his take on my take on his take:

First, on the data from Harlem Success:

In his book, Mr. Brill says: "Union critics of charter schools and their supporters have repeatedly asserted that schools like Harlem Success 'skim from the community's most intelligent students and committed families' or that they teach fewer learning challenged or impoverished students and fewer students who are English language learners. None of the actual data supports this."

As I indicated in my column, the city Department of Education Web site clearly has data that contradicts what he says. I sent Mr. Brill the link for verification. Here it is: http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/tools/report/default.htm#FindPR

I also told Mr. Brill that there was a recent study by the city's charter school organization that said the same thing -- that charters serve children with fewer challenges.The study says that students at charters score better but district schools have more students with special needs -- precisely what I said in the column. Mr. Brill sent me emails claiming that the city was wrong, and that he had the right information. But in his 437-page book, none of this information is included. If he had said there is disagreement on this issue, and provided the data, I would have included a reference. But in the notes in the back, he cites the same source as I did -- the city Web site.

As for Mr. Brill's statement that he was just reporting what he found, I don't understand: is his recommending Randi Weingarten for chancellor "simply reporting?" When I asked him if he meant that as some metaphor or he actually believed it, he said he was serious, and joked that some of his friends wanted to cut off his head for taking that point of view.

I stand by my characterization of his attitude toward teachers and the union: He spends most of the book detailing what's wrong with the union, and then changes this point of view at the end -- which I noted. As for his point about supporting teachers, I think what he said about "thousands" who are "skilled and motivated" supports my perspective. Thousands out of 3 million is a modest percentage.

Finally, Mr. Brill noted in the back of his book that he and his children attended private schools, so it seemed like fair game for me to as well.

In 35 years as a reporter, I have never been accused of being profane or inappropriate. Nor was I in my many conversations with Steve Brill.

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Student loan default is the next big bubble about to burst.

Of course the exorbitant cost of a higher education is a deliberate attempt to restrict college access because the jobs are simply not there requiring anything much above a high school education.

People Think This Superintendent is a Hero,

but the fact is he is a classic double-dipper who is getting a fat pension (with other benefits) plus making 31k a year as his "sacrifice."

There is nothing noble about this. He should have simply retired without coming back and let somebody else take over.

link

The issue is not the 800k in pay and benefits saved but the fact this jerk is double-dipping into the California taxpayer coffers.

This stuff goes on all the time.

If he were truly noble, he would have put off his retirement and take a big cut in his regular salary.

The Big Fake

We now know who Obama's real constituency is, and it isn't the American people. The fact the NY Attorney General is trying to go after the crooks and Obama is trying to prevent it should tell all.

These banksters need prison time and their assets seized, NOT be part of a "settlement."

School District Follies

It appears another Broadie has cut and run from his school district:

While his teachers and other staff labor on the front lines trying to make a success of Superintendent John Covington’s far-reaching plans for the Kansas City School District, Covington has been entertaining at least one job offer. As you’ll see here, he’s a candidate to run a collection of low-performing schools in Michigan.

In this light, his sudden and mysterious resignation Wednesday makes more sense. He knew there’s a good chance he’ll be leaving, and I guess he decided to take down his adversary, school board President Airick Leonard West, on his way out, by leveling meddling accusations.

Just like the pedophile priests, these superintendents go from one district to another, wrecking havoc everywhere they go.

News, Etc.

Sarah Dutra was released from prison today after serving some nine years for the murder of former Reno lawyer Larry McNabney.

Justice hasn't been served in this case.
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News, Etc.

Of course companies are going to drop health care coverage for their employees once the "reform"
takes effect.

Let's be cynical and say this was the intent of the legislation in the first place, and that is to simply give corporations a way out of paying health care benefits at all.

Just as companies took advantage of loopholes in ERISA to gut pensions and force employees on worthless defined contribution plans like 401(k)s.
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If this deal about foreclosures isn't proof Barack Obama is a corrupt son of a bitch, I don't know what is:

The idea behind this federally-guided “settlement” is to concentrate and centralize all the legal exposure accrued by this generation of grotesque banker corruption in one place, put one single price tag on it that everyone can live with, and then stuff the details into a titanium canister before shooting it into deep space.

This is all about protecting the banks from future enforcement actions on both the civil and criminal sides. The plan is to provide year-after-year, repeat-offending banks like Bank of America with cost certainty, so that they know exactly how much they’ll have to pay in fines (trust me, it will end up being a tiny fraction of what they made off the fraudulent practices) and will also get to know for sure that there are no more criminal investigations in the pipeline.

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Etc.

In Rick Perry's world, the only good teacher is a dead one.
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When privatizers found out there was public resistance against vouchers for private and parochial schools, they decided to exploit Al Shanker's concept of "charters" and still managed to rip off taxpayers in the process.

There are many arguments against charter schools, as this post notes.
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Another Josef Fritzl has been found in Austria:

Austrian police are investigating claims that a man locked up his two mentally ill daughters in a small room in their home and sexually abused them for 41 years.

Officers said the 80-year-old repeatedly raped the women between 1970 and May 2011 in St Peter am Hart, near the Bavarian border. The alleged victims are now aged 53 and 45. A police official did not name either the suspect or the alleged victims.

Police confirmed they were investigating after a report in the Oberösterreichische Nachrichten newspaper.

The newspaper said the women escaped when the father was unable to get off the floor after the older daughter pushed him over when he last tried to rape her.

Good God.

The Anti-Guvmint Crowd

has been bitching about Social Security and Medicare for decades, but now they have grabbed onto the economic crisis to make an excuse to abolish both programs.

One could ignore them if it weren't for the fact there is a "Democrat" in the White House who subscribes to the exact same thing.

And he is taking his orders from the neolibs at the IMF, World Bank, etc.

"Technical Difficulties"

It appears the "internet" light on my brother's modem has burned out, so I am forced to use a public library computer until the problem is solved.

He bought a "refurbished" modem a couple of years ago, and it has obviously bit the dust.

It doesn't do a hell of a lot of good to have a modem if the "internet" light is burned out and can't connect.

I have a desktop computer, but I am going to try and save to get a laptop because of space limitations.

Meanwhile, the next few days may see very little in the way of commentary here on this page.

News, Etc.

The fact VP Biden is spending time in China trying to reassure the dictatorship that the dollar is on fair strong ground is proof this country is just about finished.
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Anti-public school "reformers" are on the ropes, but when there is money involved, I seriously doubt they will be stopped from peddling their lies.

Including the likes of ignoramus Steven Brill.

There are powerful neoliberal forces that are behind the privatization push, and they are international in scope.

Just because charters and regular private schools aren't better than public schools doesn't mean anything to the privatizers.

The "common good" must be replaced with "profit."
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This is typical of what teachers all over the country go through, but it is largely hidden from the public.
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Once again Obama sells the country down the river in order to help the banksters:

t is a sellout deal that, in return for a pittance of compensation by banks to ripped-off mortgage holders, would grant the banks blanket immunity from any prosecution. That is intended to short-circuit investigations by a score of aggressive state officials, inquiries that offer the public a last best hope to get to the bottom of the housing scandal that has cost US homeowners $6.6 trillion in home equity in the past five years and left 14.6 million Americans owing more than their homes are worth.

The $20 billion or so that the banks would pony up is chump change to them compared with the trillions that the Fed and other public agencies spent to bail them out. The banks were given direct cash subsidies, virtually zero-interest loans, and the Fed took $2 trillion in bad paper off their hands while the banks exacerbated the banking crisis they had created through additional shady practices, including fraudulent mortgage foreclosures.

Yet the administration has rushed to the aid of the banks once again and is attempting to intimidate the few state attorneys general who have the gumption to protect the public interest they are sworn to serve. As Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times reported:

Obama is a crooked son of a bitch beholden to crooks.

It Has Been a Full Year Since Tony Died,

and even though I have since acquired another Lhasa Apso, Tony was a totally different personality.

Some photos to remember him by:

God Apparently Incurred His Wrath

today at Congress for being on vacation instead of doing their jobs and decided to curse the area as well as the East Coast with a 5.8 earthquake.

Although places all over the world get earthquakes, they are almost always small and are not large enough to be felt. When they are, they are typically located in the so-called "Ring of Fire" of the Pacific Ocean. A 5.8 is fairly major for the East.

News, Etc.

The Feds are still using "our" money to bail out Wall Street crooks.
______

The Obama Administration continues to support right-wing propaganda disguised as "talk radio" or television "news" by gutting the Fairness Doctrine.

It is hardly "outdated" but is no use to the plutocrats who wish to brainwash people further.
_____

It appears would-be students are finally waking up to the scam that is for-profit colleges and universities.

Enrollment is plummeting.
_____

As long as he thinks teachers and their unions have nowhere to go, he couldn't give a shit less whether or not they like his neoliberal, privatization policies destroying education in this country.

We need a different candidate--a Democrat.
_____

If you want to know why Congress just doesn't give a shit about people, take a look at the "top 50" richest members.

It takes a net worth of six million dollars to make the list.
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Obituary of note: Famed rock 'n' roll lyricists Jerry Leiber, who with partner Mike Stoller penned some of Elvis Presley's biggest hits as well as many for other artists, has died at the age of 78.

The cause was cardio-pulmonary failure.

From the obit:

The team of Leiber and Stoller was formed in 1950, when Mr. Leiber was still a student at Fairfax High in Los Angeles and Mr. Stoller, a fellow rhythm-and-blues fanatic, was a freshman at Los Angeles City College. With Mr. Leiber contributing catchy, street-savvy lyrics and Mr. Stoller, a pianist, composing infectious, bluesy tunes, they set about writing songs with black singers and groups in mind.

In 1952, they wrote “Hound Dog” for the blues singer Big Mama Thornton. The song became an enormous hit for Elvis Presley in 1956 and made Leiber and Stoller the hottest songwriting team in rock ’n’ roll. They later wrote “Jailhouse Rock,” “Loving You,” “Don’t,” “Treat Me Nice,” “King Creole” and other songs for Presley, despite their loathing for his interpretation of “Hound Dog.”

News, Etc.

Another shitty superintendent of schools has bitten the dust:

Arlene Ackerman's departure has been confirmed by the Philadelphia School District. She will be paid $905,000 to walk away - $405,000 of that coming from anonymous private donations.

Here's the district press release from Ackerman, SRC Chairman Robert L. Archie Jr. and Mayor Michael Nutter:

“Today the School Reform Commission and Superintendent Arlene Ackerman have agreed that Dr. Ackerman will step down as Superintendent and CEO of the nation’s eighth-largest school district effective immediately,” stated School Reform Commission Chairperson Robert Archie. “We have collectively made great strides, but we have much more work ahead. The School Reform Commission and Dr. Ackerman are in agreement that the work begun by her requires us to focus our mission and resources on building a system of great schools for all children.

This incompetent is set for life and will probably bounce back in another school district.
_____

Michelle Rhee can dish it out, but she sure as hell can't take scrutiny:

lways, she preens for the cameras. Early in her chancellorship, she was trailed for a story by the education correspondent of “PBS NewsHour,” John Merrow.

At one point, Ms. Rhee asked if his crew wanted to watch her fire a principal. “We were totally stunned,” Mr. Merrow said.

She let them set up the camera behind the principal and videotape the entire firing. “The principal seemed dazed,” said Mr. Merrow. “I’ve been reporting 35 years and never seen anything like it.”

And yet, as voracious as she is for the media spotlight, Ms. Rhee will not talk to USA Today.

She ought to serve jail time.

Lots of Questionable Practices

and conflicts of interest at the California Department of Teacher Credentialing, according to a whistleblower:




This is worth watching. It's scandalous.

If Anybody Deserves Disability

it's those Chilean miners who survived being trapped for 69 days. They have not fared well, according to a 60 Minutes report:



I doubt they are doing any better now than they did this past winter.

Now These Propagandists are After the Disabled

by lying about Social Security's disability programs being on the verge of "insolvency." What a bunch of bullshit.

It is extremely difficult to get it and typically takes YEARS to qualify.

SS does this so that people will give up long before there is disability hearing with an ALJ.

This is just more "austerity" garbage.

I Am Surprised

TFA hasn't been outlawed in urban school districts around the country because it does promote putting in unqualified "teachers" in classrooms where these students actually need experienced, older, qualified teachers.

You don't hear the TFA propagandists say we should have these pseudo-teachers in rich suburbs. Not a chance.

It's about the inequality of education services, and TFA promotes it with the notion "anybody" can teach.

The day people make the same claim for doctors and lawyers is the day I will listen to TFA.

News, Etc.

Interesting piece in the NYT questioning whether various laws putting on a scarlet letter on convicted sex offenders are too broad and too harsh.

It isn't just the garden variety pedophiles who are covered in these "scarlet letter" statutes.
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Confederacy of crooks: In case you weren't invited, there was a huge billionaire bash on Long Island, which cost a million alone for Elton John's services.

The occasion was billionaire Leon Black's 60th birthday.

Take a look at the guest list:

On August 13, billionaire private equity investor Leon Black organized a 60th birthday party for himself at his estate in Southampton, on Long Island, that cost “millions of dollars,” according to an account at CNNMoney. Reportedly, pop singer Elton John, who gave an hour-and-a-half concert for the 200 guests, was alone paid $1 million for his services.

The attendees, reports the New York Times, included financier and “junk bond pioneer” Michael Milken (initially sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1990, he served 22 months)—he was Black’s boss at investment banking firm Drexel Burnham Lambert (which went bankrupt in 1990 in the junk bond scandal); Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs; “billionaire buyout titan” Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group; hedge fund manager and billionaire Julian Robertson; New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, also a billionaire; Senator Charles Schumer, Democrat from New York, and devoted friend of Wall Street; miscellaneous “celebrities,” including fashion designer Vera Wang, Martha Stewart and Howard Stern.

Mr. Black’s home, writes the Times, is “one of the Hamptons most desirable addresses for its panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean and Shinnecock Bay. He counts among his neighbors Calvin Klein and David H. Koch, the [extreme right-wing] billionaire industrialist.”

You knew a Koch had to be in there somewhere despite not being invited.

It is nothing more than a giant "fuck you" to the masses of people in this country who are hurting and are actually supporting these parasites thanks to giant tax cuts and bailouts of Wall Street.

From the original article:

But where Mr. Schwarzman’s $3 million birthday party came to be seen as a symbol of a new Gilded Age, a party like Mr. Black’s — at this moment in time — appears to some to be something else.

“It displays a kind of moral bad taste given the vast economic problems in the country,” said Michael M. Thomas, a former Lehman Brothers partner who writes novels about Wall Street. “This behavior suggests they are isolated from the rest of the world, living behind these great big hedges, and in a way they are.”

Mr. Black is no parvenu, having been a fixture on Wall Street for decades. When Drexel collapsed in the late 1980s, Mr. Black started a firm to buy stakes in troubled companies. Today, that firm, Apollo Global Management, manages $72 billion in assets and is publicly traded. Its holdings include Caesars Entertainment, the world’s largest casino company, and LyondellBasell, a big plastics and chemicals business.

Mr. Black, a major philanthropist to various scholastic, medical and cultural institutions, has also used his riches to amass a world-class art collection. In 2009, at a Christie’s auction, he paid about $47 million for a chalk drawing by Raphael of a woman’s head.

That money should have gone to Uncle Sam.

Election Follies

If there is anybody worse than Obama, it's Governor Rick Perry.

However, I don't believe he will get the GOP nomination; it will be Mitt Romney instead.

Since Americans Are Being Held Hostage By the Neoliberals,

not one goddamned thing has been done about the jobs crisis in this country, and Obama has absolutely no intention of doing one goddamned thing about it, either.

We have a demand side problem in this country that can only be solved by creating more jobs--WPA-type jobs if necessary--in order to stimulate demand and thus create more jobs.

But Obama doesn't give a shit about it, and Democrats seem unwilling to put forward a candidate who WILL do something about it.

News, Etc.

No matter how good Nevada State Treasurer Kate Marshall is as a candidate, there is NO chance any Democrat will win District 2 in that state as long as the boundaries are the way they are. This despite the fact this poll was conducted by a Koch-backed front group.

The rural counties will vote a chimpanzee for Congress as long as there is an "R" after his or her name.

Sharron Angle could have even won that seat.

It's really disgusting.

As Far As I Am Concerned,

this person should run against Obama in the primaries:

In his Eugene office Wednesday, Defazio accused the President of lacking the will to fight for the promises he made to get elected.

“Fight? I don’t think it’s a word in his vocabulary,” said the Springfield Democrat, who specifically cited Obama's lack of follow-through in promises to restore Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

"He repeatedly said that. Then the Republicans telegraphed to him they were going to use a fake crisis over the debt limit in order to muscle some major spending reductions or other things on to him. And that was in December. And what happens? Suddenly he flip flops and concedes everything to the Republicans.”

Although he doesn't make the obvious conclusion, I do, and that's Obama really is a Republican, not a Democrat.

Because I Am Sicker Than All Get-Go,

I had to stay around the house today. Not my idea of a fun day because the weather has been so nice, but with this awful sinus infection having gone down to my lungs, I don't dare do too much.

Including blogging.

I spent some time watching on YouTube the classic 1939 French film, The Rules of the Game, and while I feel it is a good film, I think one actually has to be French to really understand what the film is actually about besides it being a spouse-swapping film. I also didn't care for the hunting scene--the director, Jean Renoir, apparently had dozens of poor little jackrabbits shot for the hell of it. I was just disgusted. It was completely unnecessary.

It's watchable, and the print is certainly excellent given the film's age, but I have to say I would NOT put it on any ten all-time great movie list.

Fun fact to note is that at least two of the cast members are still alive: Paulette Dubost, who played the maid Lisette, will be 101 years old in October, and Mila Parely, who played Geneviève, is 93.

Link to the YouTube video (Part 1, with others on the sidebar):

link

Mourning in America

Several stories at this link about the worsening economic conditions in this country.

Frivolous Lawsuits, Inc.

If a civil case sounds unbelievable, it probably is.

I commented in the comments following the article with several posts like this:

Of course the claims are frivolous. The thing is phony on its face. I don't think a single person on this discussion board understands the low standards in filing a civil suit. All it takes is somebody to find a clever, unethical, or rotten lawyer willing to bend ethical standards against filing false claims and twisting or making up "facts" to conform with the causes of action filed, and a plaintiff is in business. A gullible media compounds the problem because their "reporters" don't understand what is being filed is an insurance claim and goes about naming staff names, which is almost impossible for school staff to fight. They can't sue for libel. There is NO such thing as a "local" case in this age of the internet. Reputations are ruined. People here are calling for people to be fired or jailed without ANY facts at all other than what a lawyer has filed in court and claims happened.

I have been through a similar case which was totally fraudulent. Lawyers who file false insurance claims and defraud a court in this manner should have action taken on their law licenses. It's that serious a violation because lawyers who take these phony cases do not exercise due care or look at these claims with a skeptical eye as kids DO lie all the time and can be especially vicious in their lies. It's all about the money, and school districts are easy targets because they will NOT allow kids to be forced to testify in a civil case and the resulting negative publicity.

***

Lawyers on both sides know the goal of the plaintiff's attorney is to get a pretrial settlement, not a trial (few of these cases EVER see a courtroom), so they will drag the case out for years, goldbricking the billable hours and making hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process. The actual plaintiffs get little money by comparison. Staff members named in the suit have no say at all; the school district's risk management department and the insurance company call all the shots. Settlements are almost always the result of these suits. It's a win-win for the plaintiff's lawyer because he or she can claim a "victory" when in fact a settlement isn't actually a victory in the legal sense. They got the money. That's all that counts.

Meanwhile, staff members have their reputations ruined because of the media. But who cares about them in this cynical game?

A Couple of Things to Read Today

I am sicker than hell with a sinus infection today--no Flonase, and I have to be able to get it so I don't get so sick like this--so here are a couple of articles I will post today instead of commenting too much.

For all the talk of the "looting" in the UK and other places, it seems our political leaders are unaware of the massive robbery wherein the culprits are not even punished. Never mind the riots are a direct result of those "austerity" measures put in by the parasitical class and their toadies.

We have an economic agenda run by and for crooks.
_____

Given how rotten a president Obama is and how he is doing the GOP's dirty work for them anyway, we might just as well have Perry or Bachmann in the White House. At least we'd have something to laugh at rather than wring our hands and weep.

No, This Isn't the Onion

I hope these newfangled "nations" get swallowed up in earthquakes and hurricanes. "Libertarians" are a bunch of lunatics.

From the article:

Thiel has been a big backer of the Seasteading Institute, which seeks to build sovereign nations on oil rig-like platforms to occupy waters beyond the reach of lat-of-the-sea treaties. The idea is for these countries to start from scratch--free from the laws, regulations, and moral codes of any existing place. Details says the experiment would be "a kind of floating petri dish for implementing policies that libertarians, stymied by indifference at the voting booths, have been unable to advance: no welfare, looser building codes, no minimum wage, and few restrictions on weapons."

Jeb Bush Is At It Again

He's pushing school privatization plans in Indiana, and of course he is being aided and abetted by people like the governor. Naturally our president also supports this shit.

And the vast majority of people have NO clue what is going on in this country. We are about to lose EVERYTHING because of this neoliberal insanity.

What a Stupid S.O.B.

The day Obama can do the work of public safety employees is the day he has any right at all to bitch about their pensions.

More to the point, he should support the return of pensions to private employees and support abolition of ripoff 401(k)s.

Even more to the point he has no business talking about "cushy" pensions when he himself will get one when he leaves office.

He needs to switch party affiliations.

I Missed This Piece

published last month in In These Times exposing ALEC and the Koch brothers' attempts to dismantle and destroy the public sector.

What I want to know is why these criminals aren't thrown in jail for sedition.

Snip:

ALEC contends that government agencies have an unfair monopoly on public goods and services. To change that situation, it has created a policy initiative to counter what it calls “Publicopoly.” ALEC’s stated aim is to provide “more effective, efficient government” via privatization—that is, the shifting of government functions to the private sector. ALEC lists its initiatives on its website (alec.org/publicopoly).

Though the specifics are secret and “restricted to members,” ALEC openly advocates privatizing public education, transportation and the regulation of public health, consumer safety and environmental quality including bringing in corporations to administer:

• Foster care, adoption services and child support payment processing.

• School support services such as cafeteria meals, custodial staff and transportation.

• Highway systems, with toll roads presented as a shining example.

• Surveiling and detaining convicted criminals.

• Ensuring the quality of wastewater treatment, drinking water, and solid waste services and facilities. (After all, when someone mentions a safe and secure public water supply, the voter’s next immediate thought is: “Only if it’s cost-effective!”)

These fuckers have never heard of the concept of "public good." Not everything can or should be for profit.

Thanks to Nonstop Brainwashing

of the masses by the likes of Fox "News" and people's unfathomable identification with the rich, especially those obscenely rich, they don't realize just how badly they have been screwed over.

Washington, of course, is at the heart of the screwing over. These politicians in both political parties don't even hide their contempt for the voters.

And note it is the one-tenth of the top one percent who are taking it ALL. And probably in the end it is no more than a few hundred families and individuals who are taking it ALL.

These people are actually parasites--the poor are not the parasites.

Considering the first factor, it is obvious that people have become beaten down psychologically and financially. A report in the Guardian titled, “Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage,” suggests that people are so desperate to hold onto what they have that they are too busy looking down to look up: “As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery.”

Considering the second factor, people do not understand how much wealth has been withheld from them. The average person has never personally experienced or seen the excessive wealth and luxury that the mega-rich live in. Wealth inequality has grown so extreme and the wealthy have become so far removed from average society, it is as if the rich exist in some outer stratosphere beyond the comprehension of the average person. As the Guardian report states:

“… having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn’t think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: ‘Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance.’… Even now most underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.”

That popular show from the 1980s, The Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, gave people a clue as to just how these parasites live. It's a whole different world from the average person or even the average millionaire.

People like Gates or the Kochs or any other of these obscenely rich have too much money, period. They are using their ill-gotten wealth to create mischief and misery upon the masses by creating "foundations" or "think tanks" to create policy or to influence public opinion instead of paying their goddamned share of taxes.

It pisses me off.

Here's another look at how the rich are different.

News, Comments, Etc.

In the Iowa "straw" poll, the person with the most sawdust in her head won.

There isn't much further right these people can go without wearing swastikas or hoods.

None of the Republican candidates, either the three presumed frontrunners or the numerous also-rans, has any widespread popular support. On the contrary, opinion polls show the Republican Party to be even more unpopular than the Democrats, even under conditions where the indifference of the Obama administration to mass unemployment and social misery has become obvious to tens of millions of people.

The ultra-right trend in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination will be seized on by liberal supporters of the Obama administration, as well as their pseudo-left apologists in groups like the International Socialist Organization, as an argument for supporting Obama and the Democrats in the 2012 elections.

And Obama does the fascists' dirty work anyway.
_____

Perhaps the biggest reason the Koch brothers and their ilk hate Social Security and want it abolished is because then they don't have to pay FICA taxes on their employees. Obama, of course, actually opposes Social Security on principle, so he goes along with everything these privatizers want.
_____

Is Black America finally waking up to what Obama REALLY is and where his loyalties TRULY are?
_____

Actually tax rates need to be at the Eisenhower levels for this country to ever see real prosperity ever again. That's not likely to happen, and the country is headed for complete destruction as a result.

Call me unimpressed a billionaire wants to see taxes raised.

And the crooks who caused this economic mess should be JAILED and have ALL their assets seized. Period.

Back to the Bad Old Days

The Koch Brothers are at it again:

Employers

find all kinds of sneaky ways to get around federal discrimination laws by putting up help wanted ads requiring applicants be "currently or recently employed" or working in "permanent employment." Of course absurd requirements like this are put in solely to screen the flood of applicants out or commit age discrimination because people over 50 are overrepresented in the long-term unemployed statistics.

Another favorite I see constantly is weight-lifting and standing/sitting requirements for the jobs. These are designed to discriminate not only against older workers but also those with disabilities.

News, Etc.

At least five are dead after the stage collapsed last night at the Indiana State Fair.
_____

This story made my head hurt.

Why would a gay man marry a transgendered woman instead of taking up with a gay man, unless the transgendered woman was not actually post-op? I don't get it at all.

Somebody is confused, and I don't think it is just me.

FreeRepublic isn't some site I quote here much at all, but this post was absolutely hilarious:

You know what? I have to rethink my original post. I was wrong. Why?

If a gay guy marries a gay guy who is a gay guy turned into a woman, then the gay guy turned into a woman is gay if the original gay guy thinks he married a gay guy, and not a woman. But if the original gay guy who married a gay guy turned into a woman thinks that it is not a woman but a gay guy, then the original gay guy is gay, but not necessarily the gay guy turned into a woman, because if the gay guy turned into a woman liked women, then the gay guy turned into a woman would not be gay, but if the gay guy turned into a woman liked gay guys, then the gay guy turned into a woman would be gay, unless the original gay guy switched his preferences and liked women who turned into gay guys.

Then all the bets are off.

45 posted on 08/13/2011 8:48:12 PM PDT by Flycatcher (God speaks to us, through the supernal lightness of birds, in a special type of poetry.)

I couldn't have said it better.

It hurts too much to try.

One Sacked Teacher to Another

Here is what I wrote in the comments following the article, in case it is never published there:

The chances of this teacher ever securing another teaching job are about nil. It is insane to go after a doctorate when the teacher HAS to know districts will put you higher on the salary scale...districts are notorious for hiring the cheap 22-year-olds or relatives. They will NOT hire people they regard as "too expensive." And what will this teacher do for references if she is even looked at for a possible position? How does she answer the "character questions" on an application if and when they ask why she was nonrenewed or fired? She will be screened out automatically from contention. She, like yours truly, learned the hard way just how political and despicable public school districts are and how they will do anything to protect an administrator. I was illegally fired--and was actually in two protected classes--but my worthless "union" preferred to collude with the district than tell me my rights to sue in federal court.

With the job market in the ditch overall and especially in public education, this teacher should probably give it up. I have NEVER been able to get back on my feet financially, and I am sole support and 56 years old.
...

link

Etc. and News

Good response here by the WSWS critiquing Drew Westen's critique of our neoliberal SOS CIC:

Westen admits that these policies led to widespread confusion and then disillusionment among those voters who had expected a progressive alternative from Obama, and opened the way for the ultra-right Tea Party movement to divert popular discontent and gain influence. But he attributes this to Obama’s failure to motivate his policies, not to the objective content of the policies themselves. Thus he writes that no administration official would “explain why saving the banks was such a priority, when saving the homes the banks were foreclosing didn’t seem to be.”

Such a formulation suggests that such an explanation was possible; in other words, that Obama was pursuing a policy that was ultimately in the interests of working people, but failed to communicate it properly. The truth is far different: Obama’s policies were determined solely by the interests of the banks and corporations, and it proved impossible for him to disguise this fact from the working class. The Madison Avenue techniques and rhetoric of “hope” and “change” employed during the 2008 presidential campaign proved inadequate for gulling the masses indefinitely in the face of continued double-digit unemployment and declining living standards.

In short, he's a tool of interests like the World Bank and the IMF.

I Would Say There Is Nothing

"passive" about Obama's political conservatism--he's an active rightwinger who is a far bigger threat to the country than any Republican would be.

The question is why he ever ran as a Democrat in the first place since he isn't one for all intents and purposes.

Cartoon of the Day

Much more truth than fiction here. This is the ultimate goal of the privatizers:

News, Comments, Etc.

No surprise as an appeals court has struck down the "Obamacare" requirement that ALL people must carry health insurance or face penalties.

The REAL result of this "reform" is companies will get rid of their health care benefits altogether, forcing people to pay for it themselves or simply go without.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was the real aim to begin with.
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OF COURSE poverty and family background are the biggest reasons there is a gap in "achievement" among students, but the privatizers don't care at all about this.

It is about dismantling public education because it is public.
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What does the Wisconsin election REALLY signify?
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Is Black America finally waking up from the spell of Obamaism, or is it too goddamned late?

Cartoon of the Day

We Already Knew the Rich Are Fucked Up in the Head,

so this study comes as no surprise.

Households with 90k income are nothing remotely like the Koch brothers, Gates, and their ilk.

They might as well live on another planet because their lives are totally different from almost everybody else.

I always knew their attitudes stunk. They think they are better because they have more money, that they are smarter, more capable, and all of that other shit that isn't true.

A "self-made" person does NOT exist. Period.

Unlike the rich, lower class people have to depend on others for survival, Keltner argued. So they learn “prosocial behaviors.” They read people better, empathize more with others, and they give more to those in need.

That’s the moral of Capra movies like “You Can’t Take It With You,” in which a plutocrat comes to learn the value of community and family. But Keltner, author of the book “Born To Be Good: The Science of A Meaningful Life,” doesn’t rely on sentiment to make his case.

He points to his own research and that of others. For example, lower class subjects are better at deciphering the emotions of people in photographs than are rich people.

A lot of them aren't all there in the head, as they got rich through inheritance, marriage, and just plain luck of being at the right place at the right time.

After all, there are hundreds of thousands of people who worked far harder than they did and never got rich.

News, Comments, Etc.

With the S&P lowering the U.S.'s credit rating (I suspect it is trying to blackmail Congress into more "austerity" measures to bail out the parasites responsible for the economic meltdown), capitalism itself is under a severe crisis of which there may be no return.

I would say that in this country the blame rests squarely on Washington for creating this mess.
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Believe it or not, Rupert Murdoch doesn't actually call the shots at Fox "News"; instead it is Roger Ailes, who Murdoch is actually scared to death of:

Many within Murdoch's family have come to viscerally hate Ailes. Murdoch's third wife, Wendi, has worked to soften her husband's politics, and his son James has persuaded him to embrace the reality of global warming – even as Ailes has led the drumbeat of climate deniers at Fox News. PR man Matthew Freud, Murdoch's son-in-law, recently told reporters: "I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes's horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to."

"Rupert is surrounded by people who regularly, if not moment to moment, tell him how horrifying and dastardly Roger is," says Wolff, Murdoch's biographer. "Wendi cannot stand Roger. Rupert's children cannot stand Roger. So around Murdoch, Roger has no supporters, except for Roger himself."

The family could pull out the money financing the operation or sell the damned thing if it bothers them so much.

The original piece is here.
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In more and more cities, it is a crime to be poor:

In Los Angeles, housing expert Peter Dreier says that "people who've lost their jobs, or at least their second jobs, cope by doubling or tripling up in overcrowded apartments, or by paying 50 or 60 or even 70 percent of their incomes in rent." According to a community organizer in Alexandria, Virginia, the standard apartment in a complex occupied largely by day laborers has two bedrooms, each containing an entire family of up to five people, plus an additional person laying claim to the couch.

No one could call suicide a "coping strategy," but it is one way some people have responded to job loss and debt. There are no national statistics linking suicide to economic hard times, but the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline reported more than a four-fold increase in call volume between 2007 and 2009, and regions with particularly high unemployment, like Elkhart, Indiana, have seen troubling spikes in their suicide rates. Foreclosure is often the trigger for suicide -- or, worse, murder-suicides that destroy entire families.

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Our society is so full of sexism and ageism, a few women who are old enough to know better are actually undergoing the knife despite possible health risks.

Don't hand me any crap it's about "feeling better." This is about attracting men, period. By the time you are in your late 70s, the men have pretty much died off or are in bad shape anyway.

I KNEW This Was Going to Happen

Feudalism is about to make a huge comeback:

In a similar spirit, apparently, Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) has proposed a solution to America’s foreclosure problem (i.e. there are too many of them) and its rental problem (i.e. prices are too high). We should, Reed says, simply put renters in some of the available foreclosed homes.

How about encouraging homeownership with houses below 100k in the vast majority of areas in the country?

I knew this was going to happen with the rich buying off everything, being the parasites that they are, and force everybody else to be renters.

The neolib in chief apparently thinks this is a good idea.

link

Who Would Have EVER Thought

we'd be praying for Obama to leave office either in 2013 or 2017 or even believe a Republican could do far less damage as president?

Unfortunately, this is the situation we are in with this neoliberal sellout who never should have run as a Democrat in the first place.

A Republican president will automatically get some push back from the Democratic rank and file. If we hope for anything in our political future, it should be that Republicans ought to be elected president instead of Democrats. Progressives are only concerned with whether the letter D follows the candidates name instead of R. If the Democrat favors the social policies which excite them more than ideology does, then any other acts committed by said Democrat will be declared acceptable. If current trends continue, gay marriage will be legal but Social Security and Medicare will no longer exist and most Democrats will say nothing as long as the deed was carried out by one of their own.

What a hell of a goddamned situation.

Coverup Time

Frankly, Dr. Hall, the Atlanta cheating scandal IS the whole story and is a direct result from policies pushed through by officials who don't have a clue about teaching and learning.

Besides, you and your underlings created a climate of fear where teachers felt they HAD to risk their careers in order to preserve their jobs.

I know that sounds weird, but I meant it exactly as I said it. They risked their licenses taken away from them and blackballed from the profession in order to protect themselves from administrators who threaten to take away their jobs and blackball them anyway if they don't do what they are told.

I Couldn't Have Said It Better

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

The only problem is Obama is as corrupt--if not more corrupt--than Congress.

Obama Isn't an Incompetent Fool

but a willing tool for those interests hellbent on destroying the United States.

If people had paid attention to him when he first ran for president or even before, they would know he is a neoliberal at heart, and therefore he is evil.

Neoliberalism = evil

He is a fucking disaster as president, perhaps the worst of all time.

When It Comes to History,

lies and revisionism (often the same thing) have NO place, especially when talking about the bombing of Japan which ended World War II.

Truman was right to approve the dropping of the bomb. The bombings saved many more lives than they took. The horror resulting from the bombs virtually guaranteed they would never again be used in wartime.

The Japanese at the time were far more similar to the Nazis than anything. It is inexcusable to use this tragedy of World War II to make some kind of "politically correct" point.

This is a Short and Sweet Definition

of what "neoliberalism" is all about:

Around the world, neo-liberalism has been imposed by powerful financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. It is raging all over Latin America. The first clear example of neo-liberalism at work came in Chile (with thanks to University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman), after the CIA-supported coup against the popularly elected Allende regime in 1973. Other countries followed, with some of the worst effects in Mexico where wages declined 40 to 50% in the first year of NAFTA while the cost of living rose by 80%. Over 20,000 small and medium businesses have failed and more than 1,000 state-owned enterprises have been privatized in Mexico. As one scholar said, "Neoliberalism means the neo-colonization of Latin America."

In the United States neo-liberalism is destroying welfare programs; attacking the rights of labor (including all immigrant workers); and cutbacking social programs. The Republican "Contract" on America is pure neo-liberalism. Its supporters are working hard to deny protection to children, youth, women, the planet itself -- and trying to trick us into acceptance by saying this will "get government off my back." The beneficiaries of neo-liberalism are a minority of the world's people. For the vast majority it brings even more suffering than before: suffering without the small, hard-won gains of the last 60 years, suffering without end.

It's the ruination of the world.

A Report

has come out about "cheating professionals," i.e., teachers and administrators in public schools, thanks to the stupid requirements of NCLB and RTTT.

The "sports" attitude displayed by the idiot Arne Duncan should give one a clue is to how he feels about education. This man is totally unqualified to be any kind of administrator of schools, yet he was made such in Chicago, to disastrous results. He has apparently forgotten education is a collaborative enterprise, not a competitive one, but he's nothing but a dumb jock.

Education is not a sport. School is not a sport. Academic learning is not a sport. Right? Why can you and I clearly understand that, but our own federal and state governments cannot? Tell me that we have not elected people so dense they cannot tell the difference between a sports score and an academic score. PLEASE tell me that our national security, health security, social security and border security, plus our country’s economic security in the world, is not being directed by people who cannot tell an NFL game field with 22 players from a 4th grade class with 22 students. Please tell me that the country with the supposedly brightest scientists, and the first and only country to land people on the moon, cannot – in effect – comprehend the opening paragraph of almost every book on classroom testing stating that the purpose of testing students is to improve instruction. It is to help teachers AND students ascertain what had and had not been learned from the course content. Period. Our politicians
– who now have way too much say about academic achievement – do not seem to comprehend the
purpose of testing. They think that children competing against one another’s schools for the highest average test score is a good thing!

Duncan was a basketball buddy of Obama's, and Duncan once played pro basketball in Australia. That tells you everything you need to know about this idiot.

Daniel Inouye, Supposedly a Democrat,

can kiss my ass:

Inouye, the 86-year-old president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate, said he wants to protect retirement benefits for most existing workers, but people just entering the work force today wouldn't miss Social Security benefits as much.

"You don't have to cut away anything that, say, someone who is retiring today or 20 years from now will be receiving," Inouye said from his office in Honolulu. "But someone who is just starting to get into the Social Security cycle, and he won't be receiving any benefits for the next 50 years, he won't know."

But they are paying the fucking taxes for those already receiving benefits, or didn't you know that, Senator?

There is NO crisis in Social Security. The only enemy is people like you who are hellbent on destroying it to enrich a criminal class who is running the government.

Etc. and Bullshit

It figures the tabloid report of Jackie O. claiming on tape LBJ had something to do with her husband's assassination is a bunch of bullshit.

The Kennedy family always accepted the Warren Commission's conclusion that Oswald alone killed the president. All the evidence points to it, after all.
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Another Elvis Presley mystery has been solved:

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

It's a good clip.

"Linda Green,"

or, how the United States of America went down the tubes. A rerun from 60 Minutes:



It used to be forgery was a crime. I guess if you are part of the bankster class, it's perfectly legal.

Uh, Teachers ARE "Assessed" and Evaluated

and always have been (never mind their evaluators are generally people who are the least qualified to do so, principals, but that's another post altogether, and often downgrade teachers they don't like), and standardized test score results are being twisted to make it look like they are accurate measures of "teacher ability" rather than what the student knows, provided students are stressed out or simply blow the tests off.

Cheating is the result of this poisonous atmosphere. Education is supposed to be collaborative, not competitive, but the privatizers don't know and don't care.

In Atlanta (and in many other areas), honest teachers knew something stunk about the students' abilities.

Though she does not condone any of the cheating alleged in the report, Rogers-Martin is sympathetic to the teachers who may have felt they were pressured into altering scores or giving answers to students.

Teachers, some faced with unreasonable targets, were cajoled and scared into cheating and were threatened with being placed on a Professional Development Program or PDP, she says. Though it sounds innocuous enough, teachers understood that a PDP could be the first step in losing their jobs, she and other Atlanta teachers said.

"I have a husband who has a good job, so I could quit. I could say: 'There's no way! I'm not going to do this,'" says Rogers-Martin.

"If I were a single mother and I had two kids' mouths to feed and this was my only job, I would hate to think what I would do -- I don't know."

They kick you to the curb if you cheat, and they kick you to the curb if you don't. Administrators have obscene power over teachers.

The Save Our Schools March May Have Had Good Intentions,

but organizers, attendees, and speakers really didn't connect the dots to the bigger picture of what is going on in the United States under the guise of "education reform."

Lois Weiner always hits it on the head:

Still, we can’t be too hard on the march organizers because their unwillingness to identify the politics behind the assault on teachers unions (and public education) has characterized most of the liberals in the education establishment, like the Opportunity to Learn Campaign. Even more disappointing has been The Nation's analysis, or rather, lack of it. A recent story about “teacher quality” is typical of The Nation’s refusal to take note of Obama’s buy-in of policies advanced by Democrats for Education Reform, who are indistinguishable from the neoliberal American Enterprise Institute. Jane McAlevey’s fine piece about labor’s capitulation to Obama’s policies was an exception to The Nation’s failure to get at the deep problem we face in the bipartisan drive to refashion public education and destroy teachers unions. Another solid piece, by Pedro Noguera and Michelle Fine, explaining the politics of scapegoating teachers, is worth reading in The Progressive.

The Progressive piece:

This attack on public education has diverse roots, and comes not only from Republicans. Groups like Democrats for Education Reform have dedicated substantial resources to undermining teachers unions. The Obama administration has put its weight behind an agenda featuring charter schools, which employ mostly nonunion labor, as its centerpiece.

A disturbing bipartisan consensus is emerging: a market model for public schools that would abandon America’s historic commitment to providing education to all children as a civil right.

I like this. The attack on public education is REALLY an attack on children's civil rights.

Uh, Arne, I Don't Think You Can Overrule Legislation

just because it is a pile of shit. After all, it isn't just NCLB that is bad--it is also RTTT and other "reforms" peddled by you and so-called "Democrats" and Republicans.

If he and/or Obama is impeached, it wouldn't break my heart at all.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will unilaterally override the centerpiece requirement of the No Child Left Behind school accountability law, that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014.

Mr. Duncan told reporters that he was acting because Congress had failed to rewrite the Bush-era law, which he called a “slow-motion train wreck.” He is waiving the law’s proficiency requirements for states that have adopted their own testing and accountability programs and are making other strides toward better schools, he said.

The administration’s plan amounts to the most sweeping use of executive authority to rewrite federal education law since Washington expanded its involvement in education in the 1960s.

The administration's "reforms" are actually making it worse, but Arne doesn't listen to teachers on the field. He listens to the billionaires and hedge fund crooks who want a piece of the public tit.

The "100 percent" requirement was ALWAYS a bunch of shit because "reformers" WANTED to close ALL public schools. THAT is the point of it, but Obama/Duncan's "reforms" are just as punitive and would have the same result.

Obituaries

Former NY governor Hugh Carey died at the young age of 92.

He was governor from 1975-1982.
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Although my mother couldn't stand him, Oregon's Mark Hatfield was one of the truly good Republican politicians back in the days when Republicans weren't full of shit.

He died yesterday in Portland at the age of 89.

Snip:

Mr. Hatfield served in the Senate from 1967 to 1997, spending eight years as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. But he came out against the war even earlier, while serving his second term as governor of Oregon.

At a meeting of the National Governors Association on July 28, 1965, as his colleagues rallied behind President Lyndon B. Johnson, Mr. Hatfield said, “I cannot support the president on what he has done so far.” He complained that Mr. Johnson’s escalation of the war had American troops taking over South Vietnam’s responsibility “to win or lose.”

Citing “the deaths of noncombatant men, women and children,” he said the American bombing campaign “merits the general condemnation of mankind.”

At the time, a few prominent Democrats, including Senator Wayne Morse, a fellow Oregonian, were opposing the war. But Mr. Hatfield was the first prominent Republican to come out against it.

It was so long ago. It seems now this country is a completely different country than it was then.
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Billionaire and big Bush II supporter Charles Wyly, 77, has died. He was killed in an automobile accident in western Colorado.

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Football star and movie actor Charles "Bubba" Smith, 66, of apparent natural causes.
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Gospel singer Delois Barrett Campbell, one of the Barrett Sisters and featured in the 1983 documentary Say Amen, Somebody, 85, of a pulmonary embolism.

A vintage clip of the Barrett Sisters:

Classic Lucille Ball

Two famous scenes from I Love Lucy. This show never ceases to make me roll on the floor:

From "Lucy Does the Tango":



From "Lucy's Italian Movie":



Simply timeless.

The Plain Truth

is Obama was NEVER "one of us" although he was sold as such.

The author has obviously been the target of a massive fraud, but people who closely observed Obama from the beginning knew he was not for "us" but for THEM. "Them" being the crooks and billionaires who actually control BOTH political parties.

What the Obama debacle has taught us, or should have taught us, is that BOTH political parties are tools of the same corrupt interests.

The question remaining is what the American people can do about it before EVERYTHING is gone.

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

I don't think Obama gives a shit about "history." He will be taken care of for the rest of his privileged life.

News, Commentary, Etc.

A gangster organization decides to blackmail the United States government by lowering its credit rating.
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One doesn't have to read the jobs report for July to know hiring is practically non-existent for job seekers.

Almost all of the jobs listed are either part time, phony "sales" jobs, or jobs with descriptions so specific, nobody can qualify for them.
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For some reason Noam notices America is on the decline.
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Yesterday was supposed to have been the settlement conference in the bogus lawsuit that I am named in. I assume mom is getting her little extortion settlement because WCSD is too chickenshit to pursue it further.

Unless you have worked for them. Then the district will fight you to the death.

Despicable.
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Jamestown, New York, honors the 100th anniversary of Lucille Ball's birth.

She was born there in 1911, and she was eventually laid to rest there following her death in 1989.

I Love Lucy episode "The Diet," one of the early episodes: