Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fightback!

Union officials explained to union teachers later that the signs had to be ready, even though they continue negotiations with the CPS bargaining team (which still doesn’t include Mayor Emanuel’s hand-picked “Chief Executive Officer,” former Rochester schools supt. Jean-Claude Brizard).
Some of the signs expressly state that the picketing is being done for “informational purposes” and not as part of a work stoppage.  Others are clear: ON STRIKE FOR BETTER SCHOOLS they read, in bold sans-serif type.
Signs were also being delivered to the Merchandise Mart offices of the 30,000-member union, about 26,000 of whom would strike unless a decent contract is agreed to (the remainder of union members, including this reporter, are retirees who do not vote on strikes or contracts).   www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=3511&section=Article

August, 1965, Lyndon Johnson signed law designating five year prison sentences for defacing or burning draft cards. Days Later…..

Oakland Liberates a Library The building unveiled today as the Victor Martinez Community Library was part of a Carnegie Foundation endowment of four libraries given to the city of Oakland between 1916 and 1918. Oakland’s librarian at the time, Charles S. Greene, believed that the city’s people would benefit most from libraries placed within their communities.
Despite this vision, the building was one of seven branch casualties of budget cuts in the late seventies, severing vital library life-lines in poor and working communities. From the early 70s untill the late 80s, this building was a school created during the Chicano Movement called the Emiliano Zapata Street academy. Since then, the “Latin American Branch” library building located at the corner of Miller and 15th st. has mostly sat empty, despite the fact that the next nearest library is miles away, and increasingly difficult to access in a city like Oakland with an increasingly expensive transit system. With its eroding chain link fence and decaying, armored exterior, the building is much more than an eyesore; the unused, but inaccessible, space creates a life-draining dark vacuum of stability that serves at best as a convenient place for the unscrupulous to dump their old mattresses, couches and assorted garbage.
This morning, a group of activists opened this building again for use as a library.  http://occupywallst.org/article/oakland-liberates-shuttered-library/

Wait for the Other Shoe to Drop at UTLA As L.A. Unified reopened for the new school year Tuesday, the teachers’ union is urging its members not to participate in a voluntary performance review program that ties student test scores to teacher evaluations.
In a recorded back-to-school message sent Monday evening to 38,000 teachers and healthcare service professionals, Warren Fletcher, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, told members he “strongly advises” them to reject district efforts to find one volunteer at each school to participate in the new evaluation program.
“UTLA strongly advises against volunteering for this high-stakes program in the current scapegoating environment,” he said. “LAUSD should be putting its efforts into negotiating a meaningful, research-based evaluation system rather than trying to impose a flawed program based on discredited methodology.”   latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/08/la-teachers-union-urges-members-to-ignore-performance-program.html

Congratulations on the Publication of:

Up the SF Slayers! Government officials, politicians, and pundits proclaim a “budget crisis.” We counter, “California is not broke. The budget crisis is the result of a 30 year political strategy called “starve the beast,” a term coined by David Stockman, President Reagan’s budget chief. The “beast’ is government entitlement programs. The budget crisis is an excuse to push through policies the public would not otherwise support. The budget crisis is a crisis about values, distorted priorities and access to political power.
Vampire Slayers is a working group of faculty, staff, and community members working closely with students and other organizations in the social justice movement. We are based at San Francisco State University with an affinity group at City College of San Francisco. Vampire Slayers focuses our work on contributing in-depth information, research and analysis, creative public education, and opportunities for dialog. We are motivated by a positive vision of public education as the foundation of an authentic democracy    http://www.vampireslayers.org/

Families of Slain Iranian Scientists Sue Isreal, US, UK The families of Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated by foreign-backed terrorists have filed a lawsuit against Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom, for their involvement in the murders.
Rahim Ahmadi Roshan, father of Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who was killed in a terrorist attack in January, told a press conference in Tehran on Wednesday, that the families have asked Iran’s Judiciary to pursue their complaints and bring those responsible for the assassinations to justice.
In November 2011, some US presidential candidates said operations should be carried out against Iran, such as assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, sabotage of Tehran’s nuclear program, and even a military strike on the country.   www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/08/16/256479/israel-us-uk-sued-for-scientists-murders/#.UDAgDn9PFI4

There’s a Riot Goin on, in France Months of tension between police and young people in a troubled district of northern France exploded on Tuesday, with dozens of youths facing off against riot officers in a night of violence. Seventeen officers were injured, a pre-school and public gym were torched, and at least three passing drivers in Amiens were dragged from their cars.
The immediate cause of the riots was unclear, but a standoff between police and people attending a memorial for a young man who died in a motorcycle accident may have been one trigger. Officials underlined that police were not involved in the death.
The eruption of violence shows how little relations have changed between police and youths in France’s housing projects since nationwide riots in 2005 raged unchecked for nearly a month, leaving entire neighborhoods in flames in the far-flung suburbs.  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jaA-Z0wIR0N1Jp3JTYLY6-OqAzJw

The Little Red Schoolhouse

The New Ratt–worse than the old Ratt :” Contest Rules and Grading System

In addition to meeting the 2,000-student threshold, to be eligible to compete a district must also implement evaluation systems for teachers, principals, and superintendents by the 2014-15 school year.
Districts must also address how they will improve teaching and learning using personalized “strategies, tools, and supports.”
In fact, this personalized learning component makes up 40 points on the 200-point grading scale. The rest of the grading scale is:Prior academic track record and how transparent the district is (such as if it makes school-level expenditures readily available to the public), 45 points;
“Vision” for reform, 40 points;
Continuous improvement (having a strategy and performance measures for long-term improvement), 30 points;
District policy and infrastructure (such as giving building leaders more autonomy), 25 points;
Budget and sustainability, 20 points.
Ten bonus points are available for districts that collaborate with public and private partners to help improve the social, emotional and behavioral needs of students.
After districts firm up their applications, states and mayors must be given 10 business days (up from 5 days in the proposed rules) to comment on the proposals. However, the contest rules don’t require districts to make any changes with the feedback they’re given. ”   blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2012/08/_the_money_will_be.html

AFT Lets Nearly 1/2 of NYC Teachers See Tenure Denied Nearly half of New York City teachers reaching the end of their probations were denied tenure this year, the Education Department said on Friday, marking the culmination of years of efforts toward Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s goal to end “tenure as we know it.”  Only 55 percent of eligible teachers, having worked for at least three years, earned tenure in 2012, compared with 97 percent in 2007.
An additional 42 percent this year were kept on probation for another year, and 3 percent were denied tenure and fired. Of those whose probations were extended last year, fewer than half won tenure this year, a third were given yet another year to prove themselves, and 16 percent were denied tenure or resigned.
The totals reflect a reversal in the way tenure is granted not only in New York City but around the country. While tenure was once considered nearly automatic, it has now become something teachers have to earn.  A combination of factors — the education reform movement, slow economies that have pinched spending for new teachers, and federal grant competitions like Race to the Top that encourage states to change their policies — have led lawmakers to tighten the requirements not only for earning tenure, but for keeping it.
Idaho last year did away with tenure entirely by passing a law giving newly hired teachers no expectation of a contract renewal from one year to the next. In Florida, all newly hired teachers now must earn an annual contract, with renewals based upon their performance.
Last month in New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation overhauling the nation’s oldest tenure law and making it easier for teachers to be fired for poor performance.   www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/nyregion/nearly-half-of-new-york-city-teachers-are-denied-tenure-in-2012.html

Corruption is Endemic to Capitalism and its Schools Faced with mounting debt, a former high school principal allegedly looted student activity funds for thousands of dollars and used the money to pay his bills, investigators said Monday.
Michael Greening, former principal at Royal Oak High School, was bound over Monday to stand trial on two counts of embezzlement following a preliminary exam before Royal Oak District Judge Daniel Sawicki. Sawicki ordered Greening to remain free on personal bond.
More than $11,000 collected by student groups at the school during 2010 and 2011 is unaccounted for, Royal Oak Police Detective Keith Spencer testified Monday.
Greening declined comment after the exam. He was placed on paid administrative leave in December when police began investigating the concerns of some school officials, who noted that fundraising receipts and bank deposits did not match up. Greening resigned in May.   www.detroitnews.com/article/20120813/SCHOOLS/208130423/Testimony-alleges-ex-Royal-Oak-principal-used-student-funds-personal-debts?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

LA’s Test Cheats The meeting at Crescendo Preparatory South was progressing as usual when the acting principal dropped a bombshell: She had been given copies of the upcoming standardized tests. The teachers were to study them, take notes — and make sure the kids got it.Some of the eight instructors were troubled by what seemed to be an order to cheat. One burst into tears.
So began one of the most brazen cheating scandals in the nation. Ultimately, all of Crescendo’s schools in South Los Angeles, Gardena and Hawthorne were shut down, its teachers let go and 1,400 students forced to find new schools.
Only the rough outlines of the 2010 scandal were made public, but dozens of interviews with former Crescendo employees and officials — as well as a review of previously unreleased documents — portray an environment so poisoned by demands to excel on state proficiency tests that many submitted to a plan to boost the scores of schools that were already doing well.
Two separate investigations blamed Crescendo’s founder and chief executive, John Allen, who was driven, as one official said, by a desire to be “better, better, better, best.” Allen has declined all interview requests and maintained his innocence in court documents.
Former Crescendo principals are still grappling with how they were drawn into violating a fundamental tenet of their profession, and teachers are left questioning their own actions and an educational mission in which they believed so deeply.  ..The Crescendo network, which combined strict academics with arts and music enrichment, attracted black families in particular; African Americans made up at least 80% of the enrollment, compared with less than 10% districtwide.
The schools were the brainchild of Allen, an imposing figure who started teaching in L.A. Unified in 1988 and became a principal in the Capistrano Unified School District in Orange County eight years later. He then headed the well-regarded Watts Learning Center, a publicly funded, independently run charter.  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-crescendo-20120818,0,5414088.story

Head at LA Test Cheat Schools got $245,000 Buyout A Los Angeles charter school administrator fired for allegedly ordering his staff to cheat on state tests received $245,000 after he sued for wrongful dismissal, the Times has learned.
The settlement, which included a confidentiality clause, was approved in April between the board of Crescendo charter schools and its founder and former chief executive John Allen.
The cheating scandal ultimately led to the shutdown of the six Crescendo campuses at the end of the 2010-11 school year.
Allen lost his job in the wake of disclosures that he allegedly ordered principals to direct teachers to review the standardized tests in 2010 to achieve higher scores.  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-charter-settle-20120811,0,4197783.story

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Blackhawk Down (again) A U.S. military helicopter crashed during a firefight with insurgents in a remote area of southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing seven Americans and four Afghans in one of the deadliest air disasters of a war now into its second decade. The Taliban claimed they gunned down the Black Hawk.
American service personnel are dying at a rate of about one per day so far this year despite a drawdown of troops and dwindling attention on the home front. That death rate has risen recently with the summer fighting season in full gear and a rash of attacks by Afghan security forces on their foreign trainers and partners.
NATO forces said they could not confirm what caused Thursday’s crash and stressed that it was still being investigated. The Black Hawk was operating in support of an ongoing assault on the ground but initial indications were that it was not shot down, according to U.S. officials who spoke anonymously because the investigation was continuing.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said insurgent fighters struck the helicopter in Kandahar province on Thursday morning.    http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/US-special-forces-among-11-dead-in-Afghan-crash-3792546.php

Engels, “Soldier suicides are one step from Shooting their Officers” Thirty-eight soldiers killed themselves in July, the worst month for suicides since the Army began releasing figures in 2009, according to Pentagon officials.
If soldiers continue to take their lives at the current rate, the Army will lose about 200 active-duty troops this year, a number that is significantly higher than any year in the past decade.  …In July there were 26 active-duty suicides and 12 suicides among National Guardsmen and reservists who were not serving in uniform at the time of their deaths. The combined 38 Army suicides is twice the number of troops killed in Afghanistan this month.
The Marine Corps had eight suicides in July, the highest monthly number so far this year, according to the Associated Press.   www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/july-marked-worst-month-for-army-suicides/2012/08/16/a310c6ec-e7e6-11e1-936a-b801f1abab19_story.html?hpid=z4

As the Failed Empire’s Invasion Unravels–“Holy Crap. They Don’t like us. They shoot us!” Two American Special Forces members were shot to death on Friday by a new Afghan local police recruit they were training at a small outpost in western Afghanistan.  In a second “green-on-blue” attack on Friday, in the south, an Afghan security force member turned his weapon on other international service personnel, wounding two American soldiers, NATO and Afghan officials said.
The two American service members who died were part of a Special Operations team  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/world/asia/two-americans-killed-by-afghan-recruit-in-green-on-blue-assault.html?ref=global-home

Obamagogue’s Booming (but Failing) War Buildup Here are some facts that should be considered by those who criticize the Obama administration for “leading from behind” in the troubled Middle East.
A steady buildup in the number of U.S. ships and aircraft available for possible new military action in the Middle East has been underway for months, and the Pentagon has done little to hide it from the leaders of Iran and Syria.  …Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta’s spokesman, George Little, told reporters in mid-July that the 11-day event would be “a defensive exercise aimed at preserving freedom of navigation in the international waterways of the Middle East and aimed at promoting regional stability.” He added, “This is not an exercise that’s aimed to deliver a message to Iran.”
I don’t believe that, and certainly Tehran didn’t. The announced exercise drew this response from the commander of Iran’s navy, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari: “The United States assumes that it can affect Iran through announcing that it will hold a minesweeping exercise in the Persian Gulf, but it is not the fact.”…A basic part of such planning requires that the forces to carry out agreed-upon missions be in place. Along with the units already mentioned, two U.S. Navy carriers, the USS Enterprise and the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, with more than 100 aircraft plus their strike groups, are operating in the area to help in Afghanistan. But they could be used in any other regional role. They include five destroyers and two cruisers. In Bahrain, the U.S. 5th Fleet’s five minesweepers were augmented recently by the arrival of four more.
While Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are fully aware of the growing U.S. land, sea and air forces they face, White House critics refuse to recognize what’s going on.
It’s easy to speak or write about no-fly zones or surgical strikes if you cavalierly overlook the weight on President Obama. The president, acting from the safety of the White House, must consider sending more Americans — husbands and wives, sons and daughters — into another war knowing that their lives will be endangered or even lost.
It’s even easier if you have never been to war yourself.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leading-from-behind-in-the-middle-east-force-buildup-tells-a-different-story/2012/08/13/7241d598-e308-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story_1.html

The Empire wants to go Mach 6 (but cannot defeat people who live in caves) The X-51A Waverider, an unmanned experimental aircraft being financed by both the US Department of Defense and NASA, was tested over the Pacific Ocean on Tuesday. The Los Angeles Times reported that travelling through the sky at Mach 6 — or roughly 4,300 miles per hour—for just around five full minutes would be twice as long as any other hypersonic aircraft has sustained before. If all goes as planned the Pentagon may be one step closer to ushering supplies, missiles, and one day even passengers across the Atlantic, all in under an hour.  http://rt.com/usa/news/waverider-pentagon-hypersonic-speed-667/

OOOPS

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE3zeoMVPfA

According to Times Live, the aircraft broke apart over the Pacific Ocean seconds into a military test flight due to a faulty control fin.  http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/330898

CIA’s McGovern on Why Israel Wants to Hit Iran before US Sham Election “The Israelis want to pretend the Iranians are building up their nuclear capabilities, want to zap them between now and November 6, and the chances are at least even that they will try to do that thinking the U.S. will come in with both feet,” McGovern told us.
McGovern thinks that “Israel does not fear a nuclear weapon in Iran’s hands” because Israel already has a nuclear arsenal and the threat of Iran having a couple of nukes “would not be all that credible except in a limited, deterrent way.”
That deterrent would be important, however, because “since 1967 the Israelis have been able to pretty much do whatever they want in that area” and a nuclear Iran would bring a “different strategic situation because, for the first time, Israel would have to look over their shoulder.”
So even though Israel’s leaders don’t truly fear imminent nuclear annihilation, McGovern says they “would like to end any possibility, however remote, that anytime soon Iran could have that kind of very minimal deterrent capability.”
McGovern believes that Israel’s primary goal is to “have Iran bloodied the same way we did to Iraq” so that Iran “would no longer be able to support Hamas and Hezbollah in Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere.”   And the reason Nov. 6 is an important date, McGovern wrote in a recent article, is that “a second-term Obama would feel much freer not to commit U.S. forces on Israel’s side” and “might use U.S. leverage to force Israeli concessions on thorny issues relating to Palestine.”
There is serious doubt that Israel could handle a full-fledged war with Iran, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has admitted that he would prefer the U.S. and its superior firepower lead any attack.    http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-cia-analyst-explains-the-real-reason-israel-wants-to-strike-iran-before-the-us-election-2012-8#ixzz23vaWsHWw

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

“Since to give least for most, and to give most for least, are universally bad, what remains? Equity remains, which is to give like for like, the same for the same, neither more nor less. But this equity, society, as at present constituted, cannot give. It is not in the nature of present-day society for men to give like for like, the same for the same. And so long as men continue to live in this competitive society, struggling tooth and nail with one another for food and shelter, (which is to struggle tooth and nail with one another for life), that long will the scab continue to exist. His will “to live” will force him to exist. He may be flouted and jeered by his brothers, he may be beaten with bricks and clubs by the men who by superior strength and capacity scab upon him as he scabs upon them by longer hours and smaller wages, but through it all he will persist, giving a bit more of most for least than they are giving.” Jack London

That Auto Bailout and Your Money The Treasury Department says in a new report the government expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout. That’s 15 percent higher than its previous forecast.
In a monthly report sent to Congress on Friday, the Obama administration boosted its forecast of expected losses by more than $3.3 billion to almost $25.1 billion, up from $21.7 billion in the last quarterly update.
The report may still underestimate the losses. The report covers predicted losses through May 31, when GM’s stock price was $22.20 a share.
On Monday, GM stock fell $0.07, or 0.3 percent, to $20.47. At that price, the government would lose another $850 million on its GM bailout.
The government still holds 500 million shares of GM stock and needs to sell them for about $53 each to recover its entire $49.5 billion bailout. At the current price, the Treasury would lose more than $16 billion on its GM bailout.  http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120813/AUTO01/208130392/Treasury-U-S-lose-25-billion-auto-bailout?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

David, “Government is a Trojan Horse for the Rich,” Becomes and Anti-imperialist? Mr. Ryan professes to be a defense hawk, though the true conservatives of modern times — Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Robert A. Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, even Gerald R. Ford — would have had no use for the neoconconservative imperialism that the G.O.P. cobbled from policy salons run by Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites three decades ago. These doctrines now saddle our bankrupt nation with a roughly $775 billion “defense” budget in a world where we have no advanced industrial state enemies and have been fired (appropriately) as the global policeman.    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/14/opinion/paul-ryans-fairy-tale-budget-plan.html?_r=1

$340 Million Fine? Phooey! Stocks Book at Standard Chartered  Investors in Standard Chartered breathed a collective sigh of relief on Wednesday.
The positive reaction came after the British bank agreed to a $340 million fine related to charges that it had laundered hundreds of billions of dollars in money with Iran and lied to regulators.
The agreement ends speculation that Standard Chartered might lose its New York State banking license. The bank’s top executives had been expected to defend its actions in a hearing on Wednesday, which was postponed after the settlement was announced.  http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/15/standard-chartereds-shares-rally-after-settlement/?ref=global-home

Biggest Deporter Ever, Obamagogues’ Divide and Rule Immigration Order Long lines formed at help centers and lawyers’ office across America Wednesday as thousands of young, undocumented immigrants began applying for relief from deportation.
They took advantage of one of the biggest immigration policy changes in years. An executive order by President Barack Obama allows those who entered the country illegally as children to remain and work without fear of deportation for at least two years.
A crowd formed at Chicago’s Navy Pier Wednesday to get help from immigration lawyers and fill out forms.  As many as 1.7 million youths may qualify for the program, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center.
Dubbed Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the deferral program was created in June under an executive order signed by President Barack Obama.
However, there is no guarantee of its future if Obama is not re-elected. Republican Mitt Romney would then have the power to revoke the order.    articles.cnn.com/2012-08-15/us/us_immigration-deferred-deportation_1_immigrants-line-immigration-laws-immigration-services

Below, the Rich Kids of Instigram–should they exist?

Below, what Rich Kids Own. Where is yours?

richkidsofinstagram.tumblr.com/

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

August 19th, 1934 – The creation of the position Führer is approved by the German electorate with 89.9% of the popular vote.

Mandela’s ANC Cops Murder Strikers

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqUPlYQqjN0

Hey OWS Ghost Dancers! How about a Solidarity Trip to the US National Cathedral?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZS1U6zM_o

Poland and the CIA’s black Torture Cites Already the prosecutor has charged Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, Poland’s former interior minister and intelligence chief, with unlawful detention and corporal punishment for allowing the CIA to operate at Stare Kiejkuty from December 2002 to September 2003.
And the prosecutor’s office has given victim status in the case to two men the U.S. is holding indefinitely at Guantánamo: Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi charged with orchestrating the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen, and Zayn al Abdeen Mohammed Hussein, a Palestinian better known as Abu Zubaydah who was described by the Bush administration as a key catch in the war on terror. Nashiri faces a possible death sentence; Abu Zubaydah, who’s been held for 10 years, hasn’t been charged.
Their status as victims comes from claims that they were kidnapped by U.S. authorities, brought to Poland illegally, tortured, then spirited from Poland to other detention centers without the legally required extradition proceedings.  http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/13/2950447/poland-peels-back-layers-on-secret.html

Brits have Assange Trapped in Embassy (don’t forget Bradley Manning, in jail/no tria) Over the decades, London has known other diplomatic sieges that ended dramatically.  There was the one at the Iranian Embassy in 1980, when special forces killed five gunmen who had thrown a dead hostage into the street. That was followed by a standoff at the Libyan Embassy in 1984, when a member of the embassy’s staff fired on protesters from an upper floor, killing a policewoman from Scotland Yard.
And now, there is one at the Ecuadorean Embassy, a sanctuary for the past nine weeks for the fugitive WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, and, since Thursday, his place of asylum, as granted by Ecuador’s leftist president, Rafael Correa. Unlike those earlier sieges, this one, many believe, could last months, even years.
Mr. Correa presented his move as a pre-emptive strike against American plans to ensnare the Australian-born Mr. Assange and transport him for trial in the United States on espionage charges for his role in publishing tens of thousands of secret American military and diplomatic documents over the past two years. If American officials have made such preparations, they have studiously avoided disclosing them.   www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/world/europe/julian-assange-under-watch-at-ecuadorean-embassy.html

Solidarity Forever

With NEA and AFT Doing Nothing (but groveling for Obamagogue) Michigan guts Pensions The Legislature passed a teacher retirement reform bill Wednesday that sponsors said will save school districts an estimated $300 million annually while shaving $15 billion in legacy debt.
It also will force newly hired public school employees to pay more for their pensions and no longer receive state-provided health coverage in retirement. New hires would get a match of up to 2 percent plus a lump sum upon retirement to pay for health insurance. Retired employees covered by state-provided insurance would pay at least 20 percent of their premiums.
The decision was heralded by Republicans and Gov. Rick Snyder, who wants to control costs of the sprawling Michigan School Employees Retirement System. Democrats and teachers unions denounced the measure, saying it will make it harder to recruit and retain good teachers.   www.detroitnews.com/article/20120816/SCHOOLS/208160384/1026/schools/Teacher-pension-benefits-sliced-by-Lansing

More Union Boss Corruption—and the Coverup

An Ocean Pines woman late last week was charged with theft and theft scheme after allegedly absconding with well over $400,000 from the Worcester County Teacher’s Association (WCTA) over a three-year period from 2006 to 2009.
Denise Inez Owens, 58, (above) last Friday was charged with two counts of theft over $500 and one count of theft scheme over $500 for alleging bilking the WCTA out of $433,784 while acting in the capacity of the association’s treasurer. In February, Worcester County Bureau of Investigations (WCBI) detectives began an investigation into theft involving the WCTA.
The investigation revealed Owens, who served as treasurer from 2006 to 2009, was in charge of all of the association’s financial transactions during that time frame. It was also learned Owens had full access to all of the association’s bank accounts. During her time as treasurer, it was learned Owens allegedly wrote numerous checks to herself and others. Owens made further withdraws from the account and used the money for personal issues and debt.
In early 2009, a forensic audit of the WCTA’s accounts was conducted and the audit determined the association was short $433,784 and that the shortage was related to Owens’ theft scheme. According to the statement of charges, an informant told a WCBI detective in March that Owens was asked to resign in 2009 when she was confronted about the money missing from the WCTA account. In a second meeting, Owens allegedly admitted taking an undisclosed amount of money from the association.
Owens and the WCTA’s attorneys had another meeting in Annapolis following the forensic audit in 2009 and later agreed to have Owens begin paying restitution without notifying authorities about the crime.   www.mdcoastdispatch.com/articles/2012/08/10/Top-Stories/Teachers-Union-Embroiled-In-433K-Theft-Scheme

Crime in the Border Patrol Union? The longtime former leader of the national union for Border Patrol agents was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Diego Thursday on charges that he funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in union funds for his own use.  Terence J. Bonner, widely known as “T.J.” during the 22 years he was president of the National Border Patrol Council, was accused of getting paid for supposed union-related work and travel when he was actually conducting personal business, including visiting a mistress in Chicago and attending sports events.
The indictment also says Bonner was reimbursed for lost pay while doing union work when he was actually at home downloading and viewing pornography — on computer hard drives purchased at union expense.
In addition, Bonner was charged with submitting bogus travel reimbursement claims for things such as meals and rental cars that he claimed to have incurred while traveling on union business. Instead, the trips were for personal business, according to the indictment.  http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/aug/16/former-border-patrol-union-head-indicted/

Caterpillar Workers Smashed by their Own Union–(you don’t need a union to surrender; just throw up your lonely hands and give up) In ratifying the deal, the strikers acted against recommendations made by leaders of their union local, who had objected strongly to the pact. The agreement was negotiated by union leaders from the district level to end a showdown that had gone on for months without significant progress toward a resolution.
The fight between Caterpillar and the International Association of Machinists was considered a test case in American labor relations, in part because Caterpillar was driving such a hard bargain when its business was thriving.
The strike by 780 members of the machinists began on May 1 as workers rejected Caterpillar’s demand for a six-year wage freeze for two-thirds of the factory’s workers — those hired before May 2005 — at a time when the company was reporting record profits. Caterpillar argued that wages for the higher-paid workers exceeded market levels.
The deal the workers ratified contained far-reaching concessions, including the wage freeze, a pension freeze for the more senior two-thirds of the workers and a steep increase in what the workers pay toward their health care insurance. It also called for a $3,100 ratification bonus, which union officials said Caterpillar agreed on Thursday to increase from $1,000….During the strike, the workers often expressed anger that Caterpillar was insisting on a wage freeze when the company, the world’s leading producer of earth-moving machinery, had a record profit of $4.9 billion last year, with forecasts of stronger earnings this year. The compensation of its chief executive, Douglas R. Oberhelman, increased by 60 percent in 2011, to $16.9 million.    www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/business/striking-caterpillar-workers-ratify-contract-offer.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

SEIU Whipsaws and Double Crosses CA Student Assistants Brown and the state’s largest public employees union, Service Employees International Union Local 1000, agreed the 95,000 state workers it represents would take 12 unpaid days off through next June 30 in exchange for, among other things, purging the state payroll of student assistants as of Sept. 1….When the state lets them go next month, many of the students will confront rising tuition and falling employment prospects.
Tuition and fees at California’s two public college systems have more than tripled in the last decade as state funding has dwindled.
Earlier this year, the California State University system increased tuition by 9 percent. The University of California last week hiked professional degree program fees by up to 35 percent. At the same time, UC regents froze undergraduate tuition, assuming that voters will approve Brown’s tax measure.
Meanwhile, California’s unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds in June was 18.1 percent, compared with 10.7 percent for all age groups.   www.sacbee.com/2012/07/23/4650575/california-student-assistants.html

The Magical Mystery Tour

Top Catholic Porn Purveyors Germany’s largest media company is “Weltbild.” They’re owned completely by the Catholic church. Not many were aware of that until recently, when Buchreport, a German industry newsletter, said they also sell porn. The media company sells DVDs, books, music, etc., controlling, in fact, twenty percent of the book market in Germany.
For around ten years, concerned members of the Catholic church who were aware of the goings-on have tried to point it out to Church authorities. Worldcrunch reported that, “In 2008, the group sent a 70-page document to all the bishops whose dioceses have shared ownership of Weltbild for 30 years, detailing evidence of the sale of questionable material.”
A spokesman for the church responded, “Weltbild tries to prevent the distribution of possibly pornographic content.” The previously mentioned group of Catholics were outraged at the hypocrisy in that statement.   www.addictinginfo.org/2012/08/15/the-catholic-church-and-german-porn/

Russian Orthodox Priest Crashes His Bmw A Russian Orthodox priest crashed a BMW Z4 into two vehicles in Moscow, causing thousands of dollars of damage, and injuring everyone involved in the accident.
Clergyman Alexei Pobedov – otherwise known as Igumen Timofei, Abbot of the Church of Elijah the Prophet – was behind the wheel of a convertible BMW registered to Malta’s deputy ambassador in Moscow.  ..Eyewitnesses claim the priest was either drunk or on drugs, with Irina Likholetova, one of the motorists involved, saying Pobedov had “glassy eyes” when he emerged from the car following the incident.   www.rt.com/news/priest-orthodox-crash-car-679/

In Capital’s World, behind Every Mystic is a dollar, even in India What began as an isolated communal conflict here in the remote state of Assam, a vicious if obscure fight over land and power between Muslims and the indigenous Bodo tribe, has unexpectedly set off widespread panic among northeastern migrants who had moved to more prosperous cities for a piece of India’s rising affluence.
A swirl of unfounded rumors, spread by text messages and social media, had warned of attacks by Muslims against northeastern migrants, prompting the panic and the exodus. Indian leaders, deeply alarmed, have pleaded for calm, and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appeared in Parliament on Friday to denounce the rumor mongering and offer reassurance to northeastern migrants.
“What is at stake is the unity and integrity of our country,” Mr. Singh said. “What is at stake is communal harmony.”
The hysteria in several of the country’s most advanced urban centers has underscored the deep roots of ethnic tensions in India, where communal conflict is usually simplified as Hindu versus Muslim, yet is often far more complex.   www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/world/asia/panic-radiates-from-indian-state-of-assam.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Spy Versus Spy

Spooks attack Obamagogue Over Leaks (“redeployed to heaven”???) In a direct attack on one of President Obama’s political strengths, a group of former special operations and C.I.A. officers started a campaign on Tuesday night accusing Mr. Obama of recklessly leaking information about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and other security matters to gain political advantage.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/us/politics/ex-military-and-cia-officers-attack-obama-over-bin-laden-leaks.html

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World