Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Wisconsin Teachers Retiring Enmasse Before Collecting Bargaining Limiting Bill takes Place. Maybe Scott Walker Can Fill In As A Substitute. That Way He'd At Least Be Earning His Money. God Knows How Much Damage He's Done To Wisconsin

Wisconsin Teacher Retirements Double After Cuts To Benefits And Collective Bargaining
Wisconsin Teachers
By SCOTT BAUER 08/31/11 12:01 PM ET AP
Documents obtained by The Associated Press under the state's open records law show that about twice as many public school teachers decided to hang it up in the first half of this year as in each of the past two full years, part of a mass exit of public employees.
Their departures came before the new law took effect, changes pushed by Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Legislature that led to weeks of protests at the Capitol.
The ensuing exodus of teachers and other state employees has led to fears that the jobs might not be filled, and that classroom leadership by veteran teachers will be lost.

Full Story Here:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/doubled-teacher-retiremen_n_943495.html

According to the Boston Globe State Auditor Suzanne Bump might have the state take over collaborative after millions of dollars have been misappropriated. Private company taking public funds and stealing massive amounts. This may be the tip of the iceberg

Auditor wants takeover of special-needs agency

She recommends outside receiver

Bump found collaborative officials racked up $4.3 million in credit card charges for alcohol, golf fees, and more.Bump found collaborative officials racked up $4.3 million in credit card charges for alcohol, golf fees, and more.
By Michael Rezendes
Globe Staff / August 10, 2011
State Auditor Suzanne M. Bump called yesterday for the appointment of an outside receiver to take control of an embattled public agency for special-needs children after her office found that more than $30 million may have been spent inappropriately - three times as much public money as earlier reports have estimated.
 
Bump’s auditors found that the Merrimack Special Education Collaborative; its longtime leader, John B. Barranco; and others spent inappropriately on salaries, inflated rents, and pension fraud, as well as luxuries such as alcohol, golf fees, and country club outings.
A draft of her report, a copy of which was obtained by the Globe from a source outside the auditor’s office, also said that collaborative officials actively obstructed her investigation, preventing her from talking to some employees and, in one instance, failing to turn over documentation for $2.5 million in expenses.
In a letter to Education Commissioner Mitchell D. Chester, Bump said that her audit of the Billerica-based collaborative found such serious lapses in “governance, management, accountability and transparency’’ that an immediate state takeover is called for.
“It is clear to me that nothing less than [state] controlled receivership of this entity will provide the governance and fiscal controls necessary at this juncture,’’ Bump wrote in the Aug. 9 letter, which was also obtained by the Globe.

Read more here: http://search.boston.com/local/Search.do?s.tab=&s.largeMap=&s.sm.query=bump+to+audit+collaboratives&s.ypsearch=&s.yplocation=Greater+Boston&when=&qf=&qn=&qc=&qs=&s.town=&s.si%28simplesearchinput%29.sortBy=&s.dateRange

A non-teacher backs up a cheating superintendent in the name of Ed reform

Stephen Brill took offense that the money behind the site RheeFirst.com originated. Brill is the founder of things of such monumental importance in American life such as court TV and has written such thought provoking articles such as Class Warfare: Are the teacher Union the Enemy? http://news.yahoo.com/steven-brills-class-warfare-teachers-unions-enemy-134100672.html. He also written the book, Inside the fight to fix America's school's. Here is a good article on who Steve Brill is http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-would-anyone-expect-honest-book.html

Here's a list from previous article of Brill's successes and failures, which would certainly make me look for someone who I would want to fix education.

Successes

The American Lawyer: Brill launched what would become the nation's leading legal magazine in 1979. This is not an unqualified success, though, since American Lawyer Media (now Incisive Media) is having problems right now.

Court TV: Brill created the network (now truTV) in 1991. After receiving a huge popularity boost from the OJ Simpson trial, it was sold it to Time Warner in 1997. For which Brill got a tidy sum.

Emily Brill: Steven's daughter, the ultimate narrator.

Failures

Brill's Content: Launched in 1998, this mediacentric mag was supposed to capitalize on America's insatiable thirst for news about the news! Turned out not that many people really care about the news about the news. Not enough to pay money, at least. Stopped publishing in 2001.

Contentville.com: A website selling "a variety of content ranging from thesis papers to ebooks." Closed in 2001.

Inside.com: The legendary media site that launched the careers of many top media reporters and also failed to make any money. The magazine version of Inside was merged with Brill's Content, and the website was part of a convoluted plan with Primedia to corner the market on media trade publications, but the whole thing was shuttered in 2001.

Clear: In the post-9/11 world, Brill noticed, airport security sure was a hassle. People would pay to be "verified" beforehand so they could breeze right through! Right? 165,000 people did, reportedly, and Clear raised more than $100 million from investors, but now it's dead, unable to afford to keep going.

Brill also wrote a couple books which didn't sell all that well and a column for Newsweek, but you can judge those on their own merits. He's not out of the game, though—his other ongoing venture is Journalism Online, a company that plans to help various magazines and newspapers charge readers for online access. Bet on it!

Back to the commentary. Brill got some support when the aptly named Students First group took issue with this blog. It's founder is Michelle Rhee. Of course no one actually says whether the group wants the students to be first at achieving academic greatness or going over a cliff. She also got support from groups support the American Way and another who support puppies.

In a press release Michelle's group celebrates Michelle's time working for  teach for America and her time of achieving unprecedented growth in the Washington School System. It does not disclose a primary tool Michelle used to achieve this goal.



According to the AFT (American Federation of Teachers) ,"It's revealing that StudentsFirst's spokesperson calls RheeFirst.com an attack site -- yet doesn't challenge any of the facts on the site. That's because RheeFirst.com aggregates articles raising fair and legitimate questions about Michelle Rhee's agenda. Much of this information can't be found on Michelle Rhee's official website, such as her work with Republican governors to promote vouchers and to dismantle public education, her failure to acknowledge the seriousness of the cheating that occurred on her watch in Washington, D.C., or countless other examples you can find on RheeFirst.com.
RheeFirst.com has acted as a truth squad, and that's what it will continue to do. We hope StudentsFirst's feigned outrage will lead members of the media and the public to visit RheeFirst.com and get a better understanding of Michelle Rhee's true agenda. We also hope, in the spirit of transparency, that StudentsFirst will now reveal its donors."

Full Story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/29/rheefirst-michelle-rhee-american-federation-of-teachers_n_941085.html

What the ed reformers really seem to object to is that the attack on Rhee is one sided and does not past the fair and balanced test such as readers of this blog will remember Rhee famously sweeping out all the excess teachers from her schools.

They also disapprove of the maliciousness shown to this woman rather than the caring thoughtful decisions that this women showed to her employees. Anyone who has read this blog knows the thoughtful caring nature that she demonstrated while firing them, after making the difficult decision to bring the cameras in to document it.


Anyone who would like to link to the blog can do it here: http://www.rheefirst.com/

Do it before the ed reformers manage to erase this down the rabbit hole of history. Of course they'll only do so because they selflessly have your children's welfare at heart.


According To Huff Post Perry Surges In Polls. Call me Crazy but I think this is subject to change when people, not corporate people for Mitt Romney, get to vote. I wonder how many more candidates will drop out.before a vote is cast

Tea Party Support Fuels Rick Perry's Poll Surge
Rick Perry Polls
First Posted: 8/30/11 05:20 PM ET Updated: 8/30/11 07:42 PM ET
 
WASHINGTON -- A new poll out Tuesday from CNN and ORC International shows Texas Gov. Rick Perry leading the field of candidates vying for the 2012 Republican nomination, confirming the trend shown on four more surveys in recent weeks. But a look past the horse race numbers shows that the real battle is yet to come.
Recent polls show Perry's surge coming mostly from the Tea Party, which was found by Pew Research Center surveys to be the Republican faction most engaged in the election. While that group will be critical, the underlying data shows Republican voters are still considering their choices. The crucial question is whether Perry or any other candidate can

Rest of Story Here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/30/rick-perry-polls_n_942432.html

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Democracy Now: Wilkerson says he'd be willing to testify against Cheney. A great country when war criminals go around as statesmen. Transcript from Crooks and Liars



Joining Wilkerson and Goodman to discuss Cheney's new book "In My Time," Salon's Glenn Greenwald said that it was disturbing to see the former vice president treated simply as an "elder statesman."
"The evidence is overwhelming... that Dick Cheney is not just a political figure with controversial views, but is an actual criminal, that he was centrally involved in a whole variety not just of war crimes in Iraq, but of domestic crimes, as well, including the authorization of warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens in violation of FISA, which says that you go to jail for five years for each offense, as well as the authorization and implementation of a worldwide torture regime that, according to General Barry McCaffrey, resulted in the murder -- his word -- of dozens of detainees, far beyond just the three or four cases of waterboarding that media figures typically ask Cheney about," Greenwald explained.
"And as a result, Dick Cheney goes around the country profiting off of this, you know, sleazy, sensationalistic, self-serving book, basically profiting from his crimes, and at the same time normalizing the idea that these kind of policies, though maybe in the view of some wrongheaded, are perfectly legitimate political choices to make. And I think that’s the really damaging legacy from all of this."
"Colonel Wilkerson, do you think the Bush administration officials should be held accountable in the way that Glenn Greenwald is talking about?" Goodman asked.
"I certainly do," Wilkerson replied. "And I'd be willing to testify, and I'd be willing to take any punishment I'm due. And I have to say, I agree with almost everything [Greenwald] just said. And I think that explains the aggressiveness, to a large extent, of the Cheney attack and of the words like 'exploding heads all over Washington.' This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will 'Pinochet' Dick Cheney."
Wilkerson was referring to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was arrested in London in 1998 after being indicted for crimes against humanity. It was the first time the principle of universal jurisdiction had been applied to a former foreign head of state.

Full Story here: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/former-bush-official-promises-testify-if-som

Bachman's kneeslapper

The Public Finance Song. The Tune Is Catchy Too.

Samuel Gompers president of the AFL still as true today as it was then



"The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day. . . . We do want more, and when it becomes more, we shall still want more. And we shall never cease to demand more until we have received the results of our labor."

Donald Rumsfeld I heard about "that" when confronted by widow of one of the soldiers he helped lie into war

Scott Brown Dropped By To Pick Up Some Massachusetts Cash and Roughly 500 People Who Couldn't Afford To Get In To Talk To Brown Tried to Get Their Representative's Attention. He's Not So Big On Town Hall Meeting Where People Who Can't Afford His Time Can Show up

Bill Nye The Science Guy On Fox. Maybe He Should Be Teaching These Bozos

Fox Contributor To Bill Nye: You're 'Confusing Our Viewers' On Climate Change (VIDEO)

 

Fox host Charles Payne and Bil Nye "The Science Guy"

 

Just days after Hurricane Irene swept up the East Coast, causing massive flooding in Vermont and leading to almost 40 deaths, Fox Business Network personality Charles Payne just had to ask, is global warming really to blame?
His guest, Bill Nye "The Science Guy," said there is evidence to suggest it is a result of global warming, but that climatologists will need more time to fully connect the dots. Nye went on to lay out in plain terms some of the facts of climate change, including rising temperatures in the Pacific ocean. The two debated a Newsweek story claiming radical weather is the "new normal," with Payne asking Nye if that was "irresponsible, or is there any science behind it?"
Well, Nye said, "there's a lot more science behind it than saying it's not."
"The world is getting warmer," he added. "Everybody, the world is getting warmer." Nye went on to give some context to former Vice President Al Gore's remarks comparing global warming skepticism to 20th century racism before Payne said, "you're confusing our viewers."

Video Link Here: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/fox-host-to-bill-nye-youre-confusing-our-viewers-on-climate-change.php?ref=fpa

Heck Of A Job Brownie Helping Explain What He'd Do To Help Turn This Hurricane Into A Second Katrina. Thanks Fox For Some Quality Television

Another Republican having trouble convincing his constituents that he works for them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYYHKBiAFYA&feature=player_embedded

Maybe he's got to go back to Romney and convince them that corporations are people and those are the people he represents. The other people don't seem to understand the wisdom of this.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Getting Ready To Head Back.

Bush projecting calm like a leader should. I think I've see little leaguers who project it a little better. Thanks National Geographic for offering up what little is left or your reputation.

Bush was visiting a Florida classroom and the incident, which was caught on TV film, and has often been used by critics to ridicule his apparently blank face.
"My first reaction was anger. Who the hell would do that to America? Then I immediately focused on the children, and the contrast between the attack and the innocence of children," Bush says in an excerpt of the interview shown to television writers on Thursday.
Bush said he could see the news media at the back of the classroom getting the news on their own cellphones "and it was like watching a silent movie."
Bush said he quickly realized that a lot of people beyond the classroom would be watching for his reaction.
"So I made the decision not to jump up immediately and leave the classroom. I didn't want to rattle the kids. I wanted to project a sense of calm," he said of his decision to remain seated and silent.

"I had been in enough crises to know that the first thing a leader has to do is to project calm," he added.

Full Story here:   http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/29/bush-says-slow-reaction-on-911-was-deliberate-decision/

Let's see the calm again:

Plenty Calm here

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Guffaw

Fox produces a Bush glorifying 9/11 fact free documentary that they are hiding under their National Geographic label. It reminds one of when Junior Scholastic blamed the whole thing on Bill Clinton skipping over the fact that he wasn't president when it happened

News Corp Set to Air 9/11 Documentary Glorifying Bush; Producer Says He's Not Interested in the "Facts"

by: Lee Fang, Think Progress | News Analysis
After spending over a decade promoting President Bush, the PATRIOT Act, and the Iraq War, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation appears to be up to the same tricks, this time with an hour-long promotional video about Bush’s leadership during the 9/11 attacks. Although News Corp. is perhaps best known for its Bush cheerleading through its Fox News subsidiary, the Bush documentary is airing on another News Corp. company with a better brand image, National Geographic.
The documentary has not aired yet, but is scheduled to come out a few days before the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Early reviews of the program, however, paint Bush as a hero who discarded politics and his right-wing agenda once the planes hit the towers. The film also depicts Bush as a leader bent on capturing Osama bin Laden, no matter what:
It’s not one of those moments where you weigh the consequences or think about the politics,” [Bush] adds. ”You decide. And I made the decisions as best I could in the fog of war. I was determined. Determined to protect the country.And I was determined to find out who did it and go get them.”
In reality, within hours of the 9/11 plane hijackings, Bush’s Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began drawing up plans to launch a war in Iraq “even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks.” Indeed, Bush aides quickly went to work undercutting the proposed commission to study the events leading up the 9/11, and despite the growing evidence linking the terrorist act with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda group, Bush never made bin Laden a priority. By January 2002, Dick Cheney told the press that bin Laden “isn’t that big a threat.” The next month, Bush said bin Laden was “not the issue.”
Will producer Peter Schnall critically, and accurately, explain to the public Bush’s actions during and after the horrific 9/11 terrorist attacks? In a recent interview about the program, Schnall said he tried not to push “it too far” with the former president, and that he was “less interested in facts than how” Bush “was feeling”:
“He would only take it to so far,” Schnall tells Zap2it. “If I had pushed it too far, he might have shut down a bit more, and my goal was to get him to talk about those four or five days. I was less interested in facts than how he was feeling.”

Full Story here:  http://www.truth-out.org/news-corp-set-air-911-documentary-glorifying-bush-producer-says-hes-not-interested-facts/1314632428

P.S. I thought Republicans hated all that evolutiony, global warmy stuff. Why are they running a channel that at least pretends to know scientific things.

Maybe You Can Forward This To Eric Cantor. Richmond is On One Side of His District. Good News I Think That Washington Is Cleaned Up.

If you care to take a look around Eric Cantor's home district. You can see some of damage but those people don't deserve to get anything because they don't have a representative who works for them.

Some pictures from The Richmonder





http://www.the-richmonder.com/2011/08/after-storm.html

Rep Eric Cantor to people in his own district go stick unless you give us tax cuts. Why do we pay these people and get nothing out of it? They're like wards of the state

2000 hit.

Thanks Everyone!

Ted Rall. 15% of American receiving food stamps. Many I believe work for the job creators just not the job payers

These two should get their own show

Sarah Palin meets Teddy Roosevelt

From Our future.com. This is not an endorsement of O'bama but this is why we need to stop him and turn it back over to same people who got us into the mess.

Three Charts To Email To Your Right-Wing Brother-In-Law

Dave Johnson's picture

Problem: Your right-wing brother-in-law is plugged into the FOX-Limbaugh lie machine, and keeps sending you emails about "Obama spending" and "Obama deficits" and how the "Stimulus" just made things worse. Solution: Here are three "reality-based" charts to send to him. These charts show what actually happened.
Spending
Bush-Obama Spending Chart
Government spending increased dramatically under Bush. It has not increased much under Obama. Note that this chart does not reflect any spending cuts resulting from deficit-cutting deals.
Deficits
Bush-Obama Deficit Chart
Notes, this chart includes Clinton's last budget year for comparison.
The numbers in these two charts come from Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2012. They are just the amounts that the government spent and borrowed, period, Anyone can go look then up. People who claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" are either misled or are trying to mislead.
The Stimulus and Jobs
Bush-Obama-Jobs-Chart
In this chart, the RED lines on the left side -- the ones that keep doing DOWN -- show what happened to jobs under the policies of Bush and the Republicans. We were losing lots and lots of jobs every month, and it was getting worse and worse. The BLUE lines -- the ones that just go UP -- show what happened to jobs when the stimulus was in effect. We stopped losing jobs and started gaining jobs, and it was getting better and better. The leveling off on the right side of the chart shows what happened as the stimulus started to wind down: job creation leveled off at too low a level.
It looks a lot like the stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus.
Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH!
More False Things
These are just three of the false things that everyone "knows." Some others are (click through): Obama bailed out the banks, businesses will hire if they get tax cuts, health care reform cost $1 trillion, Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme or is "going broke", government spending "takes money out of the economy."
Why This Matters
These things really matter. We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has. But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them. Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse. If you get tricked into thinking that Obama has made things worse and that we should go back to what we were doing before Obama -- tax cuts for the rich, giving giant corporations and Wall Street everything they want -- when those are the things that caused the problems in the first place, then we will be in real trouble.

From Huff Post: When one side has proven to be anti-labor why should this be surprising

Republican Politicians Banned From Labor Day Parade In Wisconsin

First Posted: 8/29/11 08:34 AM ET Updated: 8/29/11 08:34 AM ET
 
WASHINGTON -- A group of Wisconsin union officials has voted to ban Republican politicians from a local Labor Day parade, underscoring how partisan the state has become in the wake of this year's clashes over collective bargaining rights. The Marathon County Central Labor Council, which sponsors the parade, includes some 30 local unions. Council President Randy Radtke said in a statement on the group's website that politicians are only welcome at the festivities if they have demonstrated support for workers' rights. "It should come as no surprise that organizers choose not to invite elected officials who have openly attacked worker's rights or stood idly by while their political party fought to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain," Radtke said. "It is a time for working families to come together to celebrate their hard work and a time where we recognize the labor movement for all they have given us -- the weekend, the 40 hour work week, child labor protection, a safe work environment." Full Story:  http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/why-republicans-might-demand-hurricane-relief-be-paid-for-with-more-program-cuts.php?ref=fpb

We're waiting for Eric Cantor to do the right thing and demand tax cuts if people in his own district are going to see any federal money


This is a big problem. The budget is already stretched very thin, and even Cantor has asked his members not to provoke another fight about cutting spending beyond its already agreed-upon levels. And if clean-up costs reach into the billions, paying for it by cutting spending will damage other important services, despite the fact that the usual standard is to not use natural disasters as political bargaining chips.
Three things are going on here by my count. First, Republicans have learned an obvious lesson since they retook the House -- that they can control the agenda in Washington, and put popular government programs under attack, if and only if they have some leverage over Democrats to play along. The government shutdown fight in April was their first victory. The debt limit showdown was their piece de resistance.
Second, there are political pitfalls to this approach, particularly when it requires Republicans to publicly stake out specific positions. Cutting government spending might focus group well, but privatizing Medicare does not, as Republicans learned quite painfully earlier this year. This augurs for slashing spending in nebulous ways -- capping discretionary spending, and spreading the cuts out across myriad federal programs; or promising to "find monies" in the budget to offset new expenses. Death by a thousand, invisible cuts.
Third, the right flank of the Republican party expects no less. In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina devastated southern Louisiana, Cantor's predecessor, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) claimed Republicans had pared discretionary spending back enough that federal aid could be financed with new debt. He came under attack from members of his own party and quickly reversed himself. Looks like Cantor learned his lesson.
But it's a difficult line to walk. Part of what made Republican victories in the shutdown and debt limit fights plausible was a logical veneer that doesn't exist here. "We spend too much money on government programs," Republicans basically argued, "so we won't fund the government unless we impose discipline." Another line was, in effect: "The national debt has skyrocketed, so we won't allow the government to incur more of it unless steps are taken to hold down its growth." When you drilled into these arguments, they crumbled, but at a glance they were quite plausible.
That's not the case after a natural disaster. And if there's a loud cry for federal aid once the damage is assessed, Cantor's position will probably prove unsustainable.

Rest of story here:  http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/why-republicans-might-demand-hurricane-relief-be-paid-for-with-more-program-cuts.php?ref=fpb

From talking Points Memo Republicans closing down their critics at town hall meeting. Isn't that what representative democracy is all about?

Democracy On Their Terms: Republicans Lock Down Town Halls To Stifle Critics

 

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
In 2009, the current Republican Congressional majority rode into power on a wave of voter frustration voiced through organized protest at town halls. So it's perhaps out of fear that the same thing will happen to their majority in 2012 that Republicans found new and novel ways to stifle the voices of constituents who might criticize them.
All across the country, Republican members of Congress have done their best to duck their critics this August, traditionally the month when town halls can become heated and policy agendas shifted. But with congressional and Republican approval ratings way, way down, it seems the GOP is preoccupied with quieting those who might criticize them over facing the music back home.
In Florida, Rep. Daniel Webster (R) distributed a sort of blacklist of local activists that aimed to tear down those who might criticize him at his town hall meetings. The tone of the list was almost comically paranoid, with photos next to big warnings that activists once worked for the "Barak [sic] Obama Presidential Campaign" in 2008.

Full Story here:  http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/democracy-on-their-terms-republicans-lock-down-town-halls-to-stifle-critics.php?ref=fpb

From Naked Capitalism a good piece on New York's Attorney General

Matt Stoller: Power Politics – What Eric Schneiderman Reveals About Obama

By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He is the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller
A lot of people have asked why New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is going after the banks as aggressively as he is. It’s almost unbelievable that one lone elected official, who happens to have powerful legal tools at his disposal, is doing something that no one with any serious degree of power has done. So what is the secret? What kind of machinations is he undertaking that no one else has been able to do?
I’ve known Schneiderman for a few years, back when he was a state Senator working to reform the Rockefeller drug laws. And my answer to this question is pretty simple. He wants to. That’s it. Eric Schneiderman is investigating the banks because he thinks it’s the right thing to do. So he’s doing it. This guy has thought about his politics. He wrote an article about how he sees politics in 2008 in the Nation, and in his inaugural speech as NY AG he talked about the need to restore faith in both public and private institutions. Free will still counts for something, apparently.
In all the absurdly stupid punditry, the simple application of free will to our elected officials goes missing. Yeah, Obama got money from Wall Street. But Obama is choosing to pursue a policy of foreclosures and bank bailouts not because of any grand corporate scheme. He just wants to. He thinks it’s the right thing to do, and he’s doing it. If you don’t think it’s the right thing to do, then you shouldn’t be disappointed in him any more than you might have been disappointed in Bush. Obama is not trying to do the opposite of what he’s doing, he’s not repeatedly suckered by Republicans, and he isn’t naive or stupid. Obama is simply doing what he thinks is right. So is Eric Schneiderman. So is Tom Miller. So are any number of elected officials out there.
In positions of power, the best expression I heard is that “up there the air is thin”. That is, you have enormous latitude, if you want to use it. Power can be wielded creatively and effectively on behalf of whatever it is the wielder wants. Now of course there are constraints, plenty of them. Smart politicians spend their time working to maximize the constraints they want to impose and weakening the ones they want to overcome. But the basic Reaganite liberal argument defending supplication towards Obama these days is that Obama is “disappointing”. In this line of thought, powerful corporate interests and Republicans are preventing him from enacting what his real agenda would be were he unfettered by this mean machine. Eric Schneiderman, who is in a far less powerful position as New York Attorney General, shows that this is utter hogwash. Obama is who he is, and anyone who thinks otherwise is selling something.
The banking system is really at the heart of our politics, which is why it’s such a great test of one’s political theory of change. I’ve been following the foreclosure fraud story for a few years now, because it’s the tail end of a massive economy-wide fraud scheme that started as early as 2003. The securitization chain failure can’t be put back in the bottle, the housing system it collapsed is simply too big to bail. So elites keep trying to patch this up the way they have everything else. It isn’t working. And their scheme has been obvious and obviously dishonest. Along with Obama (who I criticized as empty as early as 2004, ratcheting this up to dishonest and authoritarian by 2006-2007), I pointed out that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller was engaged in serious bad faith only a few months after the negotiations started.
I’m no genius, I just listened to what these people actually said and did. Obama mocks the idea that he is an honest politician, overtly, lying about NAFTA and FISA very early on in power. Miller lied to activists about being willing to put bankers in jail, and then said he was negotiating with banks in secret. It was overt. For Miller, as with Obama, few people really picked up on the lies until recently. Iowa activists who heckled Miller got it, as did Naked Capitalism readers. Now it’s becoming more and more obvious. That’s just how it is, I suppose, people in the establishment are paid to not notice corruption until the harsh glare is too bright.
The crazy thing is that robosigning is apparently still going on. Right now, the “settlement” talks are the equivalent of law enforcement negotiating with a serial killer over whether he’ll get a parking ticket, even as he continually sprays bullets into the neighborhood. Even having these “settlement” talks when the actual crimes haven’t been investigated or a complaint hasn’t been registered should be example enough that this process is rigged as badly as Dodd-Frank. It should not be a surprise that the administration is putting pressure on Eric Schneiderman, that Tom Miller is kicking him out of the club house. That’s who these people are. It’s what they believe in. Just as it should not be a surprise, though it is laudable, that Schneiderman isn’t knuckling under to the administration. I suspect he probably is laughing at the idiocy of Miller’s pressure tactic. I mean, this is a guy going up some of the most powerful entities in the United States: Bank of New York Mellon, Bank of America, the New York Fed, etc. And the Iowa Attorney General isn’t going let him on conference calls? Mmmkay.
When you look closely at most significant areas of government, it becomes clear that the President and his administration are enormously powerful actors who get a lot done. Handing over our national wealth to the banks and to China is not nothing. These people are reorganizing the economy and the political system so that there are no constraints on the oligarchical interests that fund and pay them. That is their goal, it has been their goal from day one (or even before that), and anyone who says otherwise is just wrong or deluding him or herself. Obama spoke at the founding of Robert Rubin’s Hamilton Institute, and his first, and most important by far policy initiative, was his whipping for TARP, a policy that was signed by Bush but could not have passed without Obama getting his party in line. That was his goal, and he’s still pursuing it. The numerous “what happened to Obama” wailing editorials overlook the consistency of his policy agenda, which stretches back years at this point.
If someone worked or works for the Obama administration, or the Department of Justice, or any other executive branch agency, they need to remember their service as a mark of shame for the rest of their lives. Remembering how they participated in this example of how to govern is literally the least they could do for the damage they have caused. I would leave out the small number of people who are there to overtly prevent as much damage as possible, and those who resign or are fired in protest.
For the rest of the Democratic Party, well, reality is just beginning to intrude into the fantasy-land of partisans, even though the 2010 loss should have delivered a searing wake-up call to the failure Obama’s policy agenda. From 2006-2008, the Bush administration’s failures crashed down upon conservatives, and they in many ways could not cope. But their intellectual collapse was bailed out by Obama. Faux liberals are seeing their grand experiment in tatters, though right now they can only admit to feeling disappointed because the recognition that they have been swindled is far too painful. And the recognition for many of the professionals is even more difficult, because they must recognize that they have helped swindle many others and acknowledge the debt they have incurred to their victims. The signs of coming betrayal were there, but in the end it all comes down to judging people based on what they do and who they choose as opponents. And this Democratic partisans did not do, choosing instead a comfortable delusional fantasy-land where foreclosures don’t matter and theft enabled by Obama (and Clinton before him) doesn’t matter.
Eric Schneiderman’s willingness to go after the banks and stand up to the corruption of the Bush and Obama administrations should be a reminder to all of us of this. We have free will. He is doing the right thing for no other reason than because he wants to, because he believes in it. He is going to face serious consequences for this, very nasty stuff. Eliot Spitzer was taken down and his name dragged through mud because of who he took on. Paying ugly costs for standing up is routine, unfortunately, in modern America. And the least powerful among us face far worse consequences than politicians who are embarrassed. But integrity exists, and Schneiderman is showing that free will can be exercised in its service. This fact is true of many people, not just Schneiderman; Bill McKibbin, Jane Hamsher, Dan Choi and others just got arrested in front of the White House to register dissent. So next time someone tells you that you have no choice but to support one of the two branches of the banking party, just remember, you also have free will. And the only person who can take that away from you, is you.

From Mlive.com 62% of voter do not approve of the job Governor Snyder is doing but why should they have a say in any of this

Poll shows highest disapproval yet over Gov. Rick Snyder's job performance

Published: Monday, August 22, 2011, 12:43 PM Updated: Tuesday, August 23, 2011, 10:05 AM
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Gov. Rick Snyder's job approval ratings continue to languish as Michigan's unemployment rate rises and discontent with politics in general grows.
According to the August survey by the Lansing firm EPIC-MRA, 62 percent disapproved of the job Snyder is performing as governor, the highest since taking office in January and up from 57 percent in July.
According to the survey of 600 voters Aug. 13-16 released today, 33 percent approved of the job he was doing. Both the positive and negative numbers in EPIC's poll have been fairly consistent dating to early May as his budget and tax overhaul was being approved in the Legislature. Since then, voters remain unconvinced it was the right thing to do.
When those plans were introduced in February, 32 percent approved of the job he was doing, but only 37 percent disapproved.
RICK SNYDER.jpgGov. Rick Snyder
A greater percentage of those surveyed, however, like Snyder personally as 42 percent regarded him favorably. An equal percentage regarded him unfavorably. In January, his favorable to unfavorable spread was 59 percent to 8 percent.
About 69 percent of Democrats surveyed don't like Snyder and 19 percent do. Among Republicans it's the opposite - 69 percent like him, 14 percent don't. Self-described independents are evenly split.
EPIC pollster Bernie Porn said voters are skeptical that business tax cuts will improve the state's economy and don't care for either the 2012 cuts in state aid to education or the increased taxes on retirement income that take effect Jan. 1.
Unless there is swift and sure job creation that can justify those unpopular changes, Porn said Snyder's numbers are unlikely to climb. "He's captive to what's happening in the economy."
When asked about his poll numbers, Snyder says that personal meetings with residents suggests the public is more supportive than the surveys say.
Contact Peter Luke at (517) 487-8888 ext. 235 or e-mail him at pluke@boothmichigan.com.

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