Category Archives: bankers finance

Eye Candy

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This week’s pics of beautiful Canada.  I was thinking about Neil Young’s song and the video of the Earth before the energy companies move in, and how much is lost that cannot be regained after they’re done stripping the land…

Saving Michigan Public Schools

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Diane Ravitch has this link up on Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton fighting the good fight for Michigan public schools from the profiteers.

From the link:

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan, who signed his authority over school reform to the experimental EAA for 15 years in 2011, asked to get it back immediately, apparently due to deep concerns about the EAA’s many failures – but EAA Chancellor John Covington refused. Given the crumbling relationship between the EAA and Flanagan, Lipton said the EAA must be brought to a halt, not expanded, as Republicans in the Legislature are seeking to do.

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and then there’s this:

And why won’t the governor, through his control over the EAA Board of Directors that hired and can fire Covington, demand Covington to immediately return control to Flanagan or be removed from office?”

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Stunning.   Absolutely stunning that they signed authority over for 15 years to an uproven entity!!  Who does that?!

Of course the Repubs are not only not stopping this, but trying to expand it.  (Probably hoping that it will be harder to stop a speeding train).  Eli Broad, Bill Gates, Bill and Hillary Clinton, the Koch Brothers, John Arnold, and the billionaires boys club have too much at stake to take their marbles and go home…

 

Joe Donnelly on Obama exec order

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So…Joe Donnelly was on the local radio station getting free air time, er I mean, informing the public…

…when he was laying into President Obama for the executive order to force the minimum wage to $10.10 for federal workers.

Donnelly casually mentions that George W. Bush did this (and so did several other presidents, including Reagan and Clinton, who were neck and neck with executive orders). More here on Mike Pence (now Indiana’s governor) who thinks executive orders are just fine for George W. Bush.

Donnelly stated that President Obama “should have tried to work with us…and he jumped the gun…”

bwahahahahahaha

Um, he has tried to work with Congress.  Members of Congress have had a secret agreement to deliberately thwart Obama and block nominees, legislation, etc.

They have blocked raising the minimum wage for as long as I can remember.  While they complain that they need an automatic pay raise every year, Congress looks the other way while people go hungry, lose their homes, go without medical care, and live under constant stress of deciding whether to pay the light bill, mortgage, heat bill, or put food on the table.

You might remember Donnelly phrased cutting food stamps as “savings” when on the radio just before Thanksgiving….absolutely callous while ignoring waste and fraud and bloated budgets in other areas, such as Defense spending.

 

The mother of the dying child speaks out

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Ken Previtti (Reclaim Reform) has a follow up to the mother whose child was in hospice and the state of Florida was demanding he be tested.   Keep the kleenex handy.

Godspeed to her and her family.

Heartless creeps.

Charter Schools Gravy Train

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(hat tip to scathing purple musings)  Forbes, of all places, has this article up that pretty much summarizes all that is wrong with charter school profiteers.

As mentioned here before, the article notes that Bill Clinton allowed them to proliferate by giving them tax credits and not only that, but green cards for foreign investors.  Yep.

As I’m reading about the for-profit scheme and how the author notes that they have not been that profitable…I’m thinking of the “classes” being given to kids via video or online “learning”…so they don’t have to pay a teacher at all.  Or–they have one teacher to answer questions or grade tests for however many kids they can squeeze in….I don’t even know the answer to that and I’m not going to even try to guess.   They don’t really care, anyway, if the child is getting a good education…as long as it looks something like an education, they’re just fine with that…

Lastly, I’m even more impressed with public schools after reading this–the author notes that charter schools can pick and choose their students, so they should be showing better test scores than public…less than a third do that.

So…even with the students that are autistic or mentally challenged, the public schools still outdid the charters.  Here’s to the dedicated and beleaguered public school teachers….::clink::

U of Illinois faculty on strike ** edited

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Fred Klonsky has a picture blog up on the U of Illinois at Chicago faculty strike.  I hope he’ll provide more details as it goes…

**edited:  Fred wrote about it last week.  Link.

People don’t understand that faculty are not making the big $$$.  When I graduated in 2000, the new hires (assistant professors) were making a whopping $25,000.  This while the university was funneling money into athletics.

The case against Hillary Clinton as President

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Ralph Nader has this up on the actions of Hillary Clinton and why she would not be a good President.  I heart Ralph and wrote his name on a ballot once, along with 26 other souls in my republican stronghold small town.

…former Secretary of State Clinton ordered U.S. officials to spy on top UN diplomats including Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-Moon, and those from the United Kingdom. She ordered her emissaries around the world to obtain DNA data, iris scans and fingerprints along with credit card and frequent flier numbers. Not only was this a clear violation of the 1946 UN convention, but after admitting what happened she didn’t even make a public apology to the affected parties.

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Big Brother, meet Big Sister…of course Hillary would not make an apology….she clearly feels she did nothing wrong.  Stunning.  Absolutely stunning the hubris of this politician.

Nader also notes her actions getting us into Libya with no Congressional approval.

Like I’ve said before, I’m sick of Bushes and Clintons in the White House.  They have come to believe they are entitled to the position, for one.  For another, their policies, along with Ronald Reagan, have led this country into the pit it is in now.  How anyone could vote for her or support her after the revelations of what she has done is beyond me.

Nader links to the Nixon and Kissinger article in the NY Times, as Hillary Clinton is best buds with Henry Kissinger.  Another article on Kissinger and Nixon here with more details.

If you recall, he was in the I’m-not-running-for-president video of Hillary Clinton, along with Benjamin Netanyahu:

…and Tony Blair..? Of the Downing Street Memo…?

Yes, yes, he is yet another example of ethics and humanity. /snark

 

 

Video segments of Kochs Exposed

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Here are snippets of the documentary on the grip the Kochs have on policy.  It’s truly heartening what happened in Wake County, a southern area, and how they were not willing to go backward.

Also, this documentary leaves out the Gates Foundation and Eli Broad and the Walton family’s influence on destroying public education…just wanted to note that important piece of this pie.

 

 

Kochs Exposed: one of the most important films…

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…you will ever see is here.

It is just mindboggling how the Koch brothers have their tentacles in every aspect of society: union busting, voting rights, livable wages, social security, corporate taxes, healthcare, etc….

Not only that, but equally troubling is how easily Congress and politicians can be bought.

They are more than willing to endorse the racist ideas of the Kochs by a stealth way of re-segregating schools, interfering with one’s right to vote, and dumping toxins in poor and black neighborhoods.  The only thing missing from this documentary is how BP is right there with Koch and will most likely accept the petcoke byproduct of tar sands at the Whiting, Indiana refineries.  Indiana always seems to get lost in the concerns of pollution.

Another troubling aspect of this documentary is how Ed Shultz is featured as being against the Kochs, but he is for XL pipeline….which the Kochs are behind!  One can only wonder how much the Kochs have paid to MSNBC or to Shultz (which I would find it hard to believe, but Kochs seem to go on the belief that everyone has a price…and they only need to find out what that price tag is…)  since Ed has changed his tune, and the Kochs are known for greasing palms to buy people’s silence or worse, it’s not without merit to question if they have paid somebody off to get Ed to promote the pipeline.

I’m glad, however, to say that some of us care about the environment and our health and our children’s health and are resistant to this dirty money…