Divestment Campaign against fossil fuels growing fast, says study

It's tough to pepper spray, arrest, do a media blackout on a strategy like this.

Investors aren't just listening to the bobbleheads on network news. We can actually do a lot to influence this by persuading our retirement funds to divest from companies working against our interests, especially if you belong a public employees retirement system.

For teachers, this is exactly the approach we need to take the wind out of the sails of the corporate education reformers, and we need to start before it's too late.

NORM SOLOMON: Google quietly joins ALEC

IF Dems win in 2014, what should they do that would help US the most and help them in 2016?

They have a chance of clearing the table in 2014, but by being too corporate compliant, they could blow their chances for 2016, and screw the rest of us too.

What are some bold moves they could make if they have the House, Senate, and White House that would do the most good, politically and in the real world?

Dems could win both chambers of Congress in 2014--how do we keep corp Dems from blowing it?

The little daylight between the corporate wing of the Democratic Party and Republicans is probably what led to Dems losing the house in 2010.

For some core constituencies like teachers, even though we know the Dems are better than republicans, the "put corporate profits ahead of teachers and students" approach to education reform makes us feel like idiots for doing much work for them it's like your only choice is between dating someone who beats you with a baseball bat and someone who only beats you with their fists.

The corporate wing could blow this in two ways:
1. putting up candidates who don't highlight their differences with the GOP and instead try to co-opt their agenda

2. Getting elected but then going corporate once in office, dampening Democratic prospects for 2016

Far more importantly, besides making the horse race unnecessarily close, either option will hurt most of us A LOT.

We can't afford another Democratic president or members of Congress who make Nixon look like a socialist.

What can we do?

What will be the outcome of the shutdown?

How do we overcome these two obstacles to real democracy?

1. As Mayer Rothschild said, "Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws," bankers have an effective veto over our democracy and can dictate policy to both major parties in the US and even the social democracies of Europe.

How can we make banks subordinate to democracy instead of vice versa?

2. How can we have representative government that isn't subject to corruption by lead or gold? That is, or representatives can be bribed or threatened (and the threats acted on if they don't comply) into doing other than what is in our best interest. The very wealthy have one or two other tricks they can use at election time too: ridicule in the media or simply having the media ignore candidates regardless of how popular they are with the public.

Campaign finance reform only partially addresses the gold part--jobs after politicians leave office as lobbyists, CEO's, and do nothing board members are also a financial carrot the rest of us can't match even if we could theoretically scrape together the money to match the donations of the wealthy.

Why isn't debt limit AUTOMATICALLY raised when Congress votes to spend more than they tax?

When I finally heard an explanation of the debt ceiling that made any kind of sense, this was my first thought.

HOW can you tell someone to spend money they don't have but not allow them to borrow it either?

Maybe we need something like the opposite of sequestration: if Congress doesn't pass taxes to pay the bills or raise the debt limit, a tax increase (preferably on those who can afford it most) will automatically be enacted to make up the difference.

RAVITCH: Bill Gates: "We Won’t Know for a Decade Whether Our Ideas {for public education} Work"

It's hard to think of a better example that our education policy has been as corrupted by big campaign donors as our economic, trade, and foreign policy.

Bill Gates has money to spend, so politicians will force whatever idea he pulls out of his ass on public school teachers and kids.

If he really thinks he knows how to run schools, he should open up some entirely private ones, and see how many paying customers he'll get.

the Wall Street take over of public education

In reviewing Diane's Ravitch's book
Reign of Error on the corrupt corporate take over of public schools and what real reform would look like, this reporter summed up what they reformers want, why, and what it will and is actually doing to public schools pretty well.

We have to take education policy out of the hands of the sociopaths who broke our economy, gambled with our mortgages, stole private employee pensions and working to steal public employee pensions, and would like to steal our Social Security too.

The financial sector's behavior in the last ten years alone is reason enough to keep them miles away from our children.

A possible unintended side effect of Obamacare

California has set up their exchange and has a calculator to show what your premiums would be if you used it to get your insurance.

My family is currently covered through my job, though if my wife lost her job, I'd have to pay quite a bit to cover her and my daughter with my job's insurance.

So I was curious to see what the exchange would cost.

I plugged in our numbers and got about $1200 a month for the three of us for the gold coverage (the ones below that had such high deductibles it wouldn't make sense for us).

I had two reactions to seeing that number:

1. That is significantly cheaper than it would cost to get covered in the past (I've checked).

2. It's still a hell of a lot.

That second reaction is the one I'm wondering if more people won't have.

Since most people get their insurance through their job, they probably have no idea what the total cost of their coverage is.

I've worked with my union local, and the only time I felt the least bit sympathetic for management was when I heard how much health insurance costs went up every year.

I think a lot of people will appreciate the lower cost, but after the initial gratitude wears off, I wonder if they won't be a bit critical of the total number and ask if their isn't a way to reduce it further--like taking the for-profit leeches out of the equation altogether.