Category Archives: jobs

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::

The Fourth Amendment

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…is the right to be let alone.  The right to have privacy from the government unless there is a court order stating there is probable cause (there is evidence you did something against the law).

It should also be fiercely enforced for whistleblowers.…a democracy depends on it.

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

 

 

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…

 

Corporate Welfare

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So…when the corporations, and their toadies in Congress, are spewing forth the lie that corporations pay too much in taxes, inhibiting job growth, you can cite this.

S&P 500 members citing effective tax rates of 0% in past twelve months, ranked by market value (in billions):

Verizon: $146.4

MetLife: $53.9

Eaton: $32.7

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals: $29.6

Public Storage: $29.5

Ventas: $19.3

Avalonbay Communities: $17.4

Agilent Technologies: $16.9

Vornado Realty Trust: $16.8

Boston Properites: $16.7

Seagate Technology: $15.9

Broadcom: $15.7

News Corp.: $9.8

Lam Research: $8.8

Kimco Realty: $8.6

Waters: $8.5

Macerich: $8.3

Plum Creek Timber: $8.4

PulteGroup: $6.4

Apartment Investment & Management: $4.3

Perkin Elmer: $4.2

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Story here on paying a living wage…why can Costco pay a living wage and be successful..? Because the owners are not looking to be super-rich like the Waltons…

More evidence why we need media diversity

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Protestors in Venezuela were blocked on twitter from posting images of the protests.

PBS, which is supposed to be free from corporate influence, is now under fire for airing an anti-Pension series sponsored by John Arnold.   David Sirota’s article on it here.

In recent years, Arnold has been using massive contributions to politicians, Super PACs, ballot initiative efforts, think tanks and local front groups to finance a nationwide political campaign aimed at slashing public employees’ retirement benefits. His foundation which backs his efforts employs top Republican political operatives, including the former chief of staff to GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey (TX). According to its own promotional materials, the Arnold Foundation is pushing lawmakers in states across the country “to stop promising a (retirement) benefit” to public employees.

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…both PBS’s “Pension Peril” correspondent and the AP reporter did not mention that according to budget data, pension shortfalls in Illinois are far smaller than the amount the state is spending on expensive taxpayer subsidies to corporations. 

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The state is just choosing to spend that money on huge subsidies to corporations like Sears and Google rather than paying its bills or making its required pension payments.

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See…the money is there…but it’s going into the pockets of the 1%, see?  Note the $4 billion per year in subsidies in New York!  OMG talk about greedy, greedy, greedy!

And here we have the smoking gun of executives knowing who was funding it and refusing to disclose it:

“We were sitting in a meeting talking about another issue and (PBS officials) were drawing examples of how they were working with other campaigns, and one of their executives said they’ve got a series called pension peril coming up talking about the threat of pensions at the state and local level,” said the source. “I asked who was funding that project, and the executive said that at this point they are not disclosing who their funders are, and everybody sitting around the room kind of paused.”

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Link to Jane Meyer’s article in the New Yorker here.

In 1997, he [David Koch] began serving as a trustee of Boston’s public-broadcasting operation, WGBH, and in 2006 he joined the board of New York’s public-television outlet, WNET. Recent news reports have suggested that the Koch brothers are considering buying eight daily newspapers owned by the Tribune Company, one of the country’s largest media empires, raising concerns that its publications—which include the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times—might slant news coverage to serve the interests of their new owners, either through executive mandates or through self-censorship. Clarence Page, a liberal Tribune columnist, recently said that the Kochs appeared intent on using a media company “as a vehicle for their political voice.”

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$50 for Christmas bonus?  Are you kidding me?  So much for trickle down economics, eh?

Meyer’s piece brings up the ABC News story on Disney hiring pedophiles being cancelled…because Disney owns ABC.  If I recall correctly, the reporter of the story was asked if he was crazy for investigating it….

Even more depressing is the upcoming PBS pieces by Chitester on the “evils of the welfare system”  I can hardly wait.  What a bully this guy is…pick on the ones who are least likely to fight back.  Creep.

Honoring dead and missing women

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Idle No More has this up on a day to honor dead and missing Indigenous women.  I would like to expand that to all women—missing, dead, beaten, and raped.

Unfortunately, it’s in Canada…but yeah, if you’re not there, perhaps you could just take that time from 10:00 to 12:00 p.m. to meditate on that.  Not only on that, but how we can heal our society so that women are not seen as second class or “less than” for being….women.

Some suggestions:

–Say a prayer.

–Make a list of what you can do personally to stop the rape/violence against women culture.

–Change your thinking of hierarchy–that one must be “above” or “below” another.  And that one’s material wealth is equal to their spiritual worth.

–Examine the media.  Truly examine how the media sends messages of women’s worth.

–Listen to women.  Listen to what they tell you they want–don’t try to put your own ideas on to women.  And don’t, for pete’s sake, make us all one homogenous group….we are all individuals with different ideas, needs, wants, and goals.

Starving in America **edited

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Politicker has this up on Jerry Nadler speaking out on the republican plan of decreasing the surplus population–through even more cuts to food stamps..in a  Depression…oh, wait, we’re not supposed to call it a Depression…my bad.

I’ve debated back and forth whether to write about my situation with the state.  Like so many people on food stamps, it’s humiliating to have to beg for food.  It’s humiliating to go to job interviews and not get that call, even though the interviewers seem to like you….then you are called lazy and unmotivated by these republican (and some Democrats) jackasses….so they’re going to “help you” not be lazy and unmotivated…

Briefly, I did get them reinstated…BUT the state pulled a number out of its arse that isn’t even reflecting of what I am bringing home.

Gah, this is hard talking about, but here goes:  I made a total of $520.00 since September.  The average of those months is $130.00 per month…before taxes.  The state has done some fuzzy math and now deemed me making $260.00 + what my son gives me.  I told them that he only helps me out if I don’t make enough to cover my supplements and vitamins (which keep me healthy until I can get this horrible poison out) and my gas and the basics like laundry detergent, soap, shampoo, etc.   I really hate having to ask him for money, so if he does help out, it’s never over $100, unless the car needs work or some emergency comes up.  He signed a paper stating such.

So…they decided that he helps me out *every* month, regardless, which is a lie.

Even with all the false money that I don’t have coming in, the total they have assigned is…$360.00 per month.

And they cut my food stamps because apparently I’m living high on the hog at their false total of $360. Yep.

This does not take into account taxes taken out, gas to get back and forth to work, and the weather, which has impaired my ability to work.  They don’t take into account that the car needs tires, a transmission fluid change, and other maintenance just so I can make it to work.  Doesn’t matter to them.

According to them, I’m making $360, with no taxes to pay and no other expenditures.

$143 is all they will give me for an entire month’s worth of groceries.  And now they want to cut that even more.  They spend more than that on a month’s worth of coffee.

Oh, and what was that about the automatic pay raises of Congress?  You can’t “make it” on $100,000 per year?

Mitt Romney and his cronies, gutting jobs while raking in the cash….and looking the other way while people go hungry.

My post on being lazy and unmotivated here.

My other posts on food stamps  here, here, and here.

My piece on the media slamming the poor ..I should note that I also saw the South Bend station doing the exact.same.thing within months after this piece aired.

So…you can’t find a job, you’ve got food stamps that don’t last a month, and you’re not supposed to beg for money…vicious, heartless, and punitive.

And when the sociopaths talk about wanting to cut food stamps because of fraud, they neglect to mention  the program is one of the best run with only a 3% error rate!

Meanwhile, they look the other way at rampant fraud with the Dept. of Defense….and the welfare queens of McDonald’s and Walmart.

 

**edited to add:  I just want to make it plain that this is not a pity post.  Like I said in the previous post, we don’t want your stinking charity.  We want jobs with livable wages.

Pipeline rupture report of 2009 buried

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Warrior Publications has this up on a report of yet another pipeline rupture that was buried since 2009.  Accidentally, of course…/snark

Nathan Lemphers says “it’s hard to guess intentions” as to why this report was buried….

…yeah, I’m not buying it, either, that it was an “oversight” that the damning report was never to see sunlight.  There are too many incidents of the oil industry interfering with freedom of the press and freedom of speech for it to be unintentional.

Let’s not forget the Arkansas oil spill that we wouldn’t have heard about, if it were up to the mainstream media. Or the massive devastation of the Gulf that BP tried to hide (and unfortunately, did a pretty good job of interfering with photographers and having dead dolphins carted away before they could document them.)

The tide was turned against the Vietnam war through the media…once one sees how devastating it is, it makes it harder to look the other way.

…and so it is with the devastating effects of the energy companies on the environment….hard to look the other way once one sees how devastating it is to the Earth and to the wildlife.

Neil Young’s song and the accompanying video haunt me–it shows in stark contrast how beautiful this Earth truly is until the oil and gas companies move in…

Ed Shultz (MSNBC)  has now two nights in a row yelled into the screen about how we  should be in favor of the XL pipeline for *cough* safety reasons.  Um-hmmm…

You know, I might have believed him if he wasn’t leaving out one important factor of tar sands:  pet coke.  Pet coke being the highly toxic byproduct of tar sands….which they want to dump in my already toxic state…

He is adamant that the “oil is going to come out, anyway” so it might as well be us, because if China or anyone else does it, well, it’s just not going to be as environmentally friendly.

I say let them.  It will be blood on their hands, not ours.

Better yet, leave the oil in the Earth where it belongs.  As the Sierra Club stated, if the XL is not built, then there is high probability that the tar sands will remain in the Earth.

Additionally, I thought it was disingenuous of Ed Shultz not to mention the Mi’kmaq or other First Nations of Canada whom have rights to the lands that are being destroyed.

Not a peep.  That speaks volumes!

And it also speaks to why MSNBC and Ed Shultz are still trying to convince people, almost on a daily basis, that Hillary Clinton is the front runner for the 2016 presidential race.  Hillary Clinton is all for the XL. 

Lastly,  Ed and his backers would still like to downplay how devastating XL would be on the environment.

He says we “have to” have XL in order to turn on our lights…and other scare tactics.

I don’t think we have *even* begun to truly use our brain cells to discover sustainable ways of creating energy.

…and Ed, we can always light a candle instead of cursing the dark…