February 26, 2013

If no cuts to Social Security, why must the president include "protections for the vulnerable?"

At the White House website on February 21 there was posted the president's final offer to Boehner on deficit reduction.

A Balanced Plan to Avert the Sequester and Reduce the Deficit

In the middle of all the cuts that are listed is this sentence:

Spending savings from Superlative CPI with protections for vulnerable

From what I have read Superlative CPI is either the president's version of Chained CPI or they are the very same. I have read both.

I have to wonder why the vulnerable need protecting? From what? If there are no cuts intended why is there a need for protection?

Jay Carney told us in December that President Obama included it in the negotiations to find common ground with the Republicans. I find myself resenting that very much.

From the White House transcript:

Why Chained CPI was included by Obama

MR. CARNEY: Well, let’s be clear about one thing: The President didn’t put it on the table. This is something that Republicans want. And it is --

Q But the Republicans --

MR. CARNEY: -- part of his -- if I could please answer Sam’s question, I’d appreciate it. And the President did include it in his counterproposal, his counteroffer, as part of this process, as part of the negotiation process. I would note that this is a technical change -- would be if instated -- to the way that economists calculate inflation, and it would affect every program that has -- that uses the CPI in its calculations. And so it’s not directed at one particular program; it would affect every program that uses CPI. There are also -- as part of the President’s proposals, he would make sure that the most vulnerable were exempted out from this change.

But let’s be clear, this is something that the Republicans have asked for, and as part of an effort to find common ground with the Republicans, the President has agreed to put this in his proposal -- agreed to have this as part of a broad deficit reduction package that includes asking the wealthiest to pay more so that we can achieve the kind of revenue targets that are necessary for a balanced approach to deficit reduction.

Thom Hartmann had sharp words for the use of this CPI.

The pure cruelty of the chained cpi

If Obama goes along with a “chained CPI,” he will be the first Democratic President in the history of the Party to have actually cut Social Security. Even though it doesn’t do a thing – nothing! – to reduce the budget deficit. And, as we saw with Bill Clinton “reforming” welfare, once the Republicans can corner a Democratic president into shooting a Democratic Santa Claus, the Republicans can finish the job through the death of a thousand paper cuts over the next decade and in the states, and everybody just remembers that it was a Democratic President who started it.

Bernie Sanders had equally strong words.

Chained CPI: An economic, moral disaster

The so-called “chained CPI” is Washington shorthand for one of the most-talked-about cuts favored by Republicans and some Democrats.

Unfortunately, few outside the Beltway understand its consequences. It is a devious and underhanded way to wage class warfare against working families.

Wall Street billionaires and other supporters claim that changing the consumer price index is a “minor tweak.” Tell that to the millions of senior citizens trying to survive on just $14,000 a year whose Social Security benefits would be cut overall by $112 billion during the next decade.

Average 65-year-olds would get $650 a year less in benefits when they turn 75 and see a $1,000 a year cut when they turn 85.

It really upsets me that Democrats are putting this on the table. It also upsets me to see so many excusing it for various reasons. They have pounded this austerity, fiscal cliff stuff into our heads until it is part of the language.

I add to that the frustration and anger I personally feel over the casual way people are accepting the privatization of public education, the way so many are in denial that it is happening.

Being the first Democratic president to cut Social Security, being a Democratic president who is finalizing the Bush family plans for education reform.....that is a legacy that needs to be rethought very soon.

February 25, 2013

Rachel's show in 2009: Dorgan warned us 1999 on the repeal of Glass Steagal.

This was posted in 2011. Rachel Maddow interviews Byron Dorgan on his warnings about the repeal of Glass Steagal.

Byron Dorgan's words in 1999

Consequences of Glass-Steagall repeal

“I think we will look back in 10 years' time and say we should not have done this but we did because we forgot the lessons of the past, and that that which is true in the 1930's is true in 2010. I wasn't around during the 1930's or the debate over Glass-Steagall. But I was here in the early 1980's when it was decided to allow the expansion of savings and loans. We have now decided in the name of modernization to forget the lessons of the past, of safety and of soundness."

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D;ND), one of 7 Democrats who voted against the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services "Modernization" Act of 1999

Here is more from Dorgan in the NYT in 2009:

10 Years Later, Looking at Repeal of Glass-Steagall

Mr. Dorgan still feels the same way. “I thought reversing Glass-Steagall would set us up for dramatic failure and that is exactly what has happened,” the senator told DealBook on Thursday. “To fuse together the investment banking function with the F.D.I.C. banking function has proven to be a profound mistake.”

Also from the NYT, look at the lopsided vote. I would say we can pretty much blame bipartisanship for this fiasco.

But 10 years ago, the revocation of Glass-Steagall drew few critics. In the House, 155 Democrats and 207 Republicans voted for the measure, while 51 Democrats, 5 Republicans and 1 independent opposed it. Fifteen members did not vote.

February 24, 2013

Michelle Rhee's group headed to Burbank to buy off the school board race there.

That's amazing how that group is zeroing in on California schools this year. They just finished giving the Los Angeles school district $250,000.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022408570

A group led by former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee donated $250,000 Wednesday to contests for seats on the Los Angeles Board of Education, adding further political fuel to a battle over the direction of reform efforts in the nation's second-largest school system.

Rhee's donation follows a $1-million contribution to the same candidates made by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg last week.The independent campaign, with resources of more than $3 million for the March 5 election, is being managed by the Coalition for School Reform, which is closely allied with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Rhee's donation matches that of philanthropist Eli Broad and media executive A. Jerrold Perenchio. Another large recent contribution, $100,000, has come from philanthropist Casey Wasserman, who has funded positions on Supt. John Deasy's executive staff.

So now they are on their way to Burbank. The two candidate recipients of the donations by Students First appear to be confused by it all.

Super PAC puts down money in Burbank school board race

StudentsFirst — led by former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee — spent $6,675 each on campaign mailers and other promotional materials for Burbank school board candidates David Dobson and Charlene Tabet, according to reports filed with the city clerk. The expenditures were made through the group's super PAC, Parents and Teachers for Putting StudentsFirst.

...StudentsFirst spokeswoman Jessica Hsiang Ng said in an email that the group seeks to enact “student-focused reforms” and “reform-minded individuals,” and that Dobson and Tabet “will be important partners in our ongoing push to ensure that every student attains a great school and is taught by a great teacher.”

...That a well-known super PAC would get involved in Burbank, where public schools perform above state benchmarks, perplexed even Tabet and Dobson, who said they were unaware the support was coming.

...Dobson had also recently answered a questionnaire for StudentsFirst, but was unaware of the super PAC's support until he received the mailer at his home.

I guess they will know what's going on when the group pressures them to support their favorite....parent trigger laws. And merit pay.

Oh, I am sure before it's over they will figure it out.

February 22, 2013

FL Senate head: Public school teachers not to be paid, treated, or evaluated like charter teachers.

If you can read this statement by Florida's Senate President Don Gaetz and not be alarmed, then the anti-public school propagandists have done their job too well.

It looks like the state will pass the new law that is far more charter school friendly, and thus public schools will be deprived of even more resources.

Gaetz's statement that if a teacher chooses to work in a traditional public school, they should not expect to be treated the same as a charter school teacher.....appalling. Right out in the open.

Teachers shouldn't expect even playing field

Gaetz is a former public school superintendent and school board chairman in Okaloosa County. I guess he has done a complete about face as charter companies have moved into Florida.

Just as parents have a choice about where to send their kids to school, he said teachers should also have a choice about where to work.

“If you think you’d rather work in a charter school so that you’re not necessarily under the thumb of the district or of a union, I think you ought to have a chance to apply to a charter school and get selected,” Gaetz said.

He says teachers who feel more comfortable in a traditional school environment should be able to work there, too.

“But you’re not going to get paid the same, you’re not going to get treated the same, you’re not going to get evaluated the same,” Gaetz said

Maybe Gaetz should be reminded of how teachers are often treated in Florida charter schools by the management teams who run them.

FL failed charter school spent 366,000 on teachers 824,000 on principal

This charter school was closed for failure and financial fraud. It doesn't look to me like they respected and treated their teachers very well.

The principal in question not only received a $519,000 severance check, but she took home her $305,000 annual salary for a grand total of $824,000 during the 2010-2011 school year. The Orlando Sentinel also reported last week the school only spent $366,000 on teacher salaries and instruction during that school year. Nothing can justify that imbalance, especially for the leader of a charter that failed.

Senate leader Don Gaetz is listed as one of Jeb Bush's star reformers at the Foundation for Excellence website

Crossposted at Daily Kos

February 21, 2013

Michelle Rhee group $250,000, Bloomberg one million to local school board race in L.A.

That is a huge amount of money to give to local candidates for school board. The article names 3 of the ones to receive the donations... school board President Monica Garcia as well as Kate Anderson and Antonio Sanchez.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0221-school-board-20130221,0,4497748.story

A group led by former District of Columbia schools chancellor Michelle Rhee donated $250,000 Wednesday to contests for seats on the Los Angeles Board of Education, adding further political fuel to a battle over the direction of reform efforts in the nation's second-largest school system.

The support of StudentsFirst, which is based in Sacramento, will benefit an independent campaign on behalf of school board President Monica Garcia as well as Kate Anderson and Antonio Sanchez, who are seeking to join the seven-member body.

She's not the only one giving big figures to this race. The reformers must consider it a vital race for their purpose. Seems like a lot of money to me.

Rhee's donation follows a $1-million contribution to the same candidates made by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg last week.The independent campaign, with resources of more than $3 million for the March 5 election, is being managed by the Coalition for School Reform, which is closely allied with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Rhee's donation matches that of philanthropist Eli Broad and media executive A. Jerrold Perenchio. Another large recent contribution, $100,000, has come from philanthropist Casey Wasserman, who has funded positions on Supt. John Deasy's executive staff.

It seems to pay off for them in getting the "reforms" they want. Politicians tend to do whatever their big donors expect.

One good example is in Tennessee. This is an example of how all those "parent trigger law" bills are happening. Those who get the huge money from the reformer groups just keep introducing the bills even though parents are fighting back.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130124/NEWS04/301240128/TN-parent-trigger-bill-would-allow-school-takeovers?nclick_check=1

A much-anticipated parent trigger bill that would allow a majority of parents or teachers to force a school takeover is ready to wind its way through the Tennessee House.

The bill was filed Wednesday by Rep. John DeBerry, a Memphis Democrat and member of the House Education Committee.

“It is, in my opinion, important legislation that will get the debate started,” DeBerry said Thursday. “One thing we can’t afford is we can’t continue to support the status quo.”

In its current form, the bill would allow the parents of 51 percent of the students attending a public school to petition for a conversion of that school to a charter school or to another turnaround model that would improve the school. To be eligible for the parent trigger conversion, a school would have to academically rank among the lowest 20 percent of public schools in the state. DeBerry would also allow 51 percent of the teachers in a school to force a change.

They just keep pushing it in Florida. Rhee did her work here right after Scott was elected governor. This year they think it will not fail as it did last year. Parents are organizing again, fighting back. The sad part is they simply do not care what teachers or parents think. It does not matter to the Rick Scott Republicans in the state legislature.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/02/14/florida-legislative-leaders-say-this-is-the-year-for-the-parent-trigger-bill/

The bill died on the final day of the legislative session last year when a former Senate sponsor cast a deciding vote against the bill. The House approved the bill.

The bill is much the same as it was last year. The main difference this time, according to Senate President Don Gaetz, is in the makeup of the Florida Legislature.

“Some of those who vociferously opposed the parent empowerment legislation last year were termed out of the Senate, and we have some new senators,” Gaetz said. “The concept of allowing parents more control over their children’s schools has got to be a concept that we believe in if we believe in the power of neighborhoods and in the power of parents and in the responsibility for their children’s education.”

Opponents of the legislation say it benefits for-profit companies, could privatize public facilities and gives control to people who may have little educational experience.

Crossposted at Daily Kos.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/21/1188705/-Michelle-Rhee-s-group-buys-the-L-A-school-board-race-250-000-Bloomberg-one-million

February 20, 2013

Al Franken's Supply Side Jesus.

Here is the printed version with words.

The Gospel of Supply Side Jesus

February 19, 2013

Noami Klein "Iraq was intended to be rebuilt as a global corporate "utopia"

This was in Harper's in 2004. It is still in Information Clearing House. Considering the privatization of everything now, including education, it makes so much sense.

Baghdad Year Zero

Klein said they wanted to see how giving corporations free rein would work in a way it that it could not work in this country because all us liberals and environmentalists got in the way.

Iraq was going to change all that. In one place on Earth, the theory would finally be put into practice in its most perfect and uncompromised form. A country of 25 million would not be rebuilt as it was before the war; it would be erased, disappeared. In its place would spring forth a gleaming showroom for laissez-faire economics, a utopia such as the world had never seen. Every policy that liberates multinational corporations to pursue their quest for profit would be put into place: a shrunken state, a flexible workforce, open borders, minimal taxes, no tariffs, no ownership restrictions. The people of Iraq would, of course, have to endure some short-term pain: assets, previously owned by the state, would have to be given up to create new opportunities for growth and investment. Jobs would have to be lost and, as foreign products flooded across the border, local businesses and family farms would, unfortunately, be unable to compete. But to the authors of this plan, these would be small prices to pay for the economic boom that would surely explode once the proper conditions were in place, a boom so powerful the country would practically rebuild itself.

Hubris is an excellent word to use for the invasion of Iraq. It was not a war, it was an invasion and an occupation.

Iraq was to the neocons what Afghanistan was to the Taliban: the one place on Earth where they could force everyone to live by the most literal, unyielding interpretation of their sacred texts. One would think that the bloody results of this experiment would inspire a crisis of faith: in the country where they had absolute free reign, where there was no local government to blame, where economic reforms were introduced at their most shocking and most perfect, they created, instead of a model free market, a failed state no right-thinking investor would touch. And yet the Green Zone neocons and their masters in Washington are no more likely to reexamine their core beliefs than the Taliban mullahs were inclined to search their souls when their Islamic state slid into a debauched Hades of opium and sex slavery. When facts threaten true believers, they simply close their eyes and pray harder.

Klein describes her visit there while Bremer was in charge.

But three hours after my arrival in Baghdad, I was finding these reassurances extremely hard to believe. I had not yet unpacked when my hotel room was filled with debris and the windows in the lobby were shattered. Down the street, the Mount Lebanon Hotel had just been bombed, at that point the largest attack of its kind since the official end of the war. The next day, another hotel was bombed in Basra, then two Finnish businessmen were murdered on their way to a meeting in Baghdad. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt finally admitted that there was a pattern at work: "the extremists have started shifting away from the hard targets ... and are now going out of their way to specifically target softer targets." The next day, the State Department updated its travel advisory: U.S. citizens were "strongly warned against travel to Iraq." The physical risks of doing business in Iraq seemed to be spiraling out of control. This, once again, was not part of the original plan. When Bremer first arrived in Baghdad, the armed resistance was so low that he was able to walk the streets with a minimal security entourage. During his first four months on the job, 109 U.S. soldiers were killed and 570 were wounded. In the following four months, when Bremer's shock therapy had taken effect, the number of U.S. casualties almost doubled, with 195 soldiers killed and 1,633 wounded. There are many in Iraq who argue that these events are connected – that Bremer's reforms were the single largest factor leading to the rise of armed resistance.

Take, for instance, Bremer's first casualties. The soldiers and workers he laid off without pensions or severance pay didn't all disappear quietly. Many of them went straight into the mujahedeen, forming the backbone of the armed resistance. "Half a million people are now worse off, and there you have the water tap that keeps the insurgency going. It's alternative employment," says Hussain Kubba, head of the prominent Iraqi business group Kubba Consulting. Some of Bremer's other economic casualties also have failed to go quietly. It turns out that many of the businessmen whose companies are threatened by Bremer's investment laws have decided to make investments of their own - in the resistance. It is partly their money that keeps fighters in Kalashnikovs and RPGs.

The Iraq invasion divided my family. Why? Because I expressed outrage about it at a time when none of my mostly Republican family wanted to hear it. I finally got the message and shut up about it, but it took a toll on me.

It was a shameful sickening time in our country. It played out on TV with all its shock and awe. All the George Bush cowboy followers cheered.

I will always be thankful for having a place like Democratic Underground during those days.

February 19, 2013

Remember when Rumsfeld said "Stuff happens" when Iraq's treasures were looted?

Rumsfeld's arrogant words in 2003 on the looting of Iraq. "Stuff happens"

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Declaring that freedom is "untidy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday the looting in Iraq was a result of "pent-up feelings" of oppression and that it would subside as Iraqis adjusted to life without Saddam Hussein.

He also asserted the looting was not as bad as some television and newspaper reports have indicated and said there was no major crisis in Baghdad, the capital city, which lacks a central governing authority. The looting, he suggested, was "part of the price" for what the United States and Britain have called the liberation of Iraq.

"Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things," Rumsfeld said. "They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things. And that's what's going to happen here."

Looting, he added, was not uncommon for countries that experience significant social upheaval. "Stuff happens," Rumsfeld said. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed. "This is a transition period between war and what we hope will be a much more peaceful time," Myers said.

We were bombing and looting Babylon, and most Americans never knew it. From 2003

Babylonian Booty

It had been conquered and re-conquered a dozen or more times, by (among others) the Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Parthians, Arabs, Ottomans and British, and in February 1991, yet another foreign power raised its flag over the ancient city of Ur, near the mouth of the Euphrates: the Americans. Daring the allies to bomb the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham, Iraqis had parked their jets near Ur's 4,000-year-old ziggurat, but the planes were shot up all the same. American soldiers toured the ancient tower, then got out their entrenching tools and began digging for souvenirs. A forlorn Iraqi gatekeeper ran among them, wailing protests in Arabic, until U.S. officers put a stop to the looting. Last week, when NEWSWEEK visited the site, it was virtually deserted, except for a lone guide, the son of the old gatekeeper, keeping a wary eye on the American and British warplanes streaking overhead. "Ninety-nine percent of Americans don't know the country they'll be bombing is Mesopotamia," says Dr. Huda Ammash, a high-ranking Baath Party official. "Our country has served humanity for so long, now it's up to the international community to help protect Iraq."

February 18, 2013

Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children. Evolution denial unique to US

More from the video transcript:

Bill Nye: Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children

According to Bill Nye, aka “the science guy,” if grownups want to “deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them.”

..."Denial of evolution is unique to the United States. I mean, we’re the world’s most advanced technological—I mean, you could say Japan—but generally, the United States is where most of the innovations still happens. People still move to the United States. And that’s largely because of the intellectual capital we have, the general understanding of science. When you have a portion of the population that doesn’t believe in that, it holds everybody back, really.

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. It’s like, it’s very much analogous to trying to do geology without believing in tectonic plates. You’re just not going to get the right answer. Your whole world is just going to be a mystery instead of an exciting place.

As my old professor, Carl Sagan, said, “When you’re in love you want to tell the world.” So, once in a while I get people that really—or that claim—they don’t believe in evolution. And my response generally is “Well, why not? Really, why not?” Your world just becomes fantastically complicated when you don’t believe in evolution. I mean, here are these ancient dinosaur bones or fossils, here is radioactivity, here are distant stars that are just like our star but they’re at a different point in their lifecycle. The idea of deep time, of this billions of years, explains so much of the world around us. If you try to ignore that, your world view just becomes crazy, just untenable, itself inconsistent.

February 17, 2013

From 2000. Squeezed to Death. Iraq after years of sanctions. John Pilger paints sad image.

I am so thankful that Rachel Maddow is going have the special, Hubris, next week.

Those of us here at DU in 2002 were in shock what our country was doing. I posted this article years ago. I have wondered how in the world they could have been any kind of threat to us after all those years of sanctions and daily bombings.

From the Guardian UK March 2004:

Squeezed to Death

Wherever you go in Iraq's southern city of Basra, there is dust. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat. It swirls in school playgrounds and consumes children kicking a plastic ball. "It carries death," said Dr Jawad Al-Ali, a cancer specialist and member of Britain's Royal College of Physicians. "Our own studies indicate that more than 40 per cent of the population in this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long afterwards. Most of my own family now have cancer, and we have no history of the disease. It has spread to the medical staff of this hospital. We don't know the precise source of the contamination, because we are not allowed to get the equipment to conduct a proper scientific survey, or even to test the excess level of radiation in our bodies. We suspect depleted uranium, which was used by the Americans and British in the Gulf War right across the southern battlefields."

Under economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council almost 10 years ago, Iraq is denied equipment and expertise to clean up its contaminated battle-fields, as Kuwait was cleaned up. At the same time, the Sanctions Committee in New York, dominated by the Americans and British, has blocked or delayed a range of vital equipment, chemotherapy drugs and even pain-killers. "For us doctors," said Dr Al-Ali, "it is like torture. We see children die from the kind of cancers from which, given the right treatment, there is a good recovery rate." Three children died while I was there.

A 95% literacy rate before the 1st Gulf war.

"The change in 10 years is unparalleled, in my experience," Anupama Rao Singh, Unicef's senior representative in Iraq, told me. "In 1989, the literacy rate was 95%; and 93% of the population had free access to modern health facilities. Parents were fined for failing to send their children to school. The phenomenon of street children or children begging was unheard of. Iraq had reached a stage where the basic indicators we use to measure the overall well-being of human beings, including children, were some of the best in the world. Now it is among the bottom 20%. In 10 years, child mortality has gone from one of the lowest in the world, to the highest."

More about the care being withheld:

Just before Christmas, the department of trade and industry in London blocked a shipment of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against diphtheria and yellow fever. Dr Kim Howells told parliament why. His title of under secretary of state for competition and consumer affairs, eminently suited his Orwellian reply. The children's vaccines were banned, he said, "because they are capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction". That his finger was on the trigger of a proven weapon of mass destruction - sanctions - seemed not to occur to him. A courtly, eloquent Irishman, Denis Halliday resigned as co-ordinator of humanitarian relief to Iraq in 1998, after 34 years with the UN; he was then Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, one of the elite of senior officials. He had made his career in development, "attempting to help people, not harm them". His was the first public expression of an unprecedented rebellion within the UN bureaucracy. "I am resigning," he wrote, "because the policy of economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that . . . Five thousand children are dying every month . . . I don't want to administer a programme that results in figures like these."

Just including this as a background on the voices of both parties. In These Times has a paragraph called The B Team.

Strangers to the Truth

The B team

On the other side of the aisle are the shining lights of the Democratic Party, James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Bob Shrum (the consultant who ran Kerry’s campaign and shied away from confronting the Swift Boat Veterans). These three men founded the Democracy Corps, a nonprofit “dedicated to making the government of the United States more responsive to the American people.” Recall that on Oct. 3, 2002, prior to the Iraq war resolution votes, Democracy Corps advised Capitol Hill Democrats: “This decision to support or oppose an Iraq war resolution will take place in a setting where voters, by 10 points, prefer to vote for a member who supports a resolution to authorize force (50 to 40 percent).” In other words, Carville and friends advised Democrats to cater to public opinion and let Bush have his war.

This invasion will define us forever. Perhaps Rachel's special Monday will bring it to the forefront again so our younger Americans won't forget.