Slanting the news

January 14, 2014 by eagle

Diane Ravitch has this up on Politico’s slanted reports on Education. I have noticed this myself lately of the few articles I’ve read on there–a definite change in the wind, so to speak. The comments are interesting, too, as others have noticed and some suspect the Billionaires Media Club is at work here.

From the comments:

Ryan

January 14, 2014 at 11:20 am

It’s the billionaire boys club at work again, I’m afraid. Stephanie B. Simon was a superb reporter working stories on the privatization of public schools, and Silicon Valley’s and Wall Street’s pieces of the pie. Then she was hired by Politico, and her stories have changed. Similar thing happened to the NYT Pulitzer-prize winning reporter Mike Winerip, who early on did a great piece on the scam that is K-12 Inc’s so-called ‘virtual schools.’ Really K-12 is just peddling incredibly overpriced software and a few overloaded teachers to answer questions. NYT offered him full-time work, and put him on the baby boomer beat (?) and now he is writing its Motherlode blog — dispensing advice to parents. Gates $$ have totally shifted Ed Week’s reporting — it seems they aren’t even bothering to re-write the press releases fro the privatizers. PBS has done only a little reporting on the privatization of education. Rachel Maddow is silent. And on it goes.

~~~~~~~~

(underlining is mine to emphasize reporters’ collaboration by silence or slanted reporting.)

Young speaking out on Canadian Tar Sands

January 13, 2014 by eagle

Neil Young is trading pointed remarks with the Canadian government over the tar sands oil.

Good for him. I’m glad someone with some media attention is speaking out for the indigenous.

Republican Mask – Democrat Mask

January 13, 2014 by eagle

Reclaim Reform (Ken Previti) has this up on the Chicago Teachers Union’s new IPO….the solution isn’t with those wearing Democrat or Republican Masks whom are in reality corporate employees…but with us.

God bless Karen Lewis and the CTU.

Moving the pet coke

January 12, 2014 by eagle

Well, of course….they’re dumping pet coke in Chicago…and Whiting, Indiana….

“Petcoke tends to have higher metal content than coal – like nickel, vanadium and selenium,” added Geertsma. “Coal can have higher mercury content, so they’re both bad in terms of toxic heavy metals content.”

~~~~~~~~

The report says that Canadian exports of petcoke to the U.S. more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, and BP Whiting’s expansion will triple its petcoke production to 6,000 tons per day.

~~~~~~~~~

And I got my answer to where the petcoke piles were moved to–Ohio.

Understanding the gravity of NAFTA

January 11, 2014 by eagle

Idle No More has a post up on the far-reaching effects of NAFTA. This is especially important because now we have NAFTA on steroids with TPP being fast-tracked through Congress.

Here’s an update on Blackfire.

More here.

From the article:

Though officials did meet with NGOs opposed to the mine, they accepted Blackfire’s take that protestors were out to squeeze money from the firm, says MiningWatch’s analysis of the emails.

~~~~~~

Of course….because the mining company execs see everything in $$, they think everyone *else* thinks as they do. It is inconceivable to them that there are people who value the environment, their health, their children’s health, the Earth, etc.

Note how the company was unable to substantiate claims against Abarca. It appears he was thrown in jail under false claims.

NAFTA, and I fear TPP, are all about taking power and control away from the local people. It means losing their autonomy to decide what happens in their communities, as the mega million dollar lawsuit illustrates.

These trade agreements are not supportive of the democratic process, rather a dictatorial process. How is this representation of taxpayers?

Marines shoot and kill 4 year old

January 10, 2014 by eagle

Get us out. Now.

Gov. Pence wants to give $1 billion to businesses

January 6, 2014 by eagle

…in the form of a tax break…by eliminating property taxes for businesses.

From the article:

An analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency determined that if the tax were eliminated, schools and cities in Lake County would lose $74.2 million, Porter County $14 million and LaPorte County $7.2 million. That’s about the same annual impact as property tax caps, which have decimated government services in all three counties.

~~~~~~~~

I can smell ALEC all over this push to eliminate taxes for the wealthiest while putting more of the burden on the middle class and poor, if they try to make it up through sales tax.

And then there’s the continued assault on Glenda Ritz’ authority as a duly elected official who got more votes than Pence. (Indeed, they were practically begging people to attend his inauguration. A website reported that 1500 people attended his inauguration….I’m betting that 1,000 were homeless people given $20 to be there. Or perhaps state workers threatened with their jobs if they didn’t attend. /snark) I also tried to access the site that lists Pence’s contributors for his inauguration day–the website was listed as suspicious! Nope, not going to risk that.

Anyway, here we are still under the death grip of the Koch brothers and neocon toadies….

The weather…what else.

January 6, 2014 by eagle

You know it’s bad when we’re as cold as…Canada. They’re expecting wind chills to reach -43 below here. Brrrr.

So… pretty much all the businesses and schools in the area are closed. Canadians? Meh, those poor kids go to school anyway. Good Grief.

Ah, Rahm Emanuel, his compassion and concern is just…underwhelming. Good Grief, how callous can one person be?

And, from my own little corner of the world–

Slave Labor to fight fires

January 5, 2014 by eagle

So now the prison system is using prisoners to fight wildfires…for $1 an hour, and that’s if they’re lucky. Others have received only 50 cents an hour. This is just wrong on so many levels.

And, as someone noted in the comments, it fits right in with for-profit schools, for-profit security state, for-profit healthcare, etc., with forcing people to work for slave wages, so the 1% can make even more profits. Disgusting.

This is what was happening with the mental health system before reform–they were forcing folks to work without pay. While I do think that having something to do and learning a trade is valuable, it must be fair and paid with decent wages.

Label the FDA