Why Should Anybody Be Surprised

that somebody who makes a living exploiting women and getting "engaged" to women young enough to be his great-granddaughter has an "empire" which is equally sordid?

Hefner likes to have anywhere between three and 15 girlfriends at any one time. One of the group will be chosen to be Girlfriend No 1. She will share Hefner’s bedroom at all times, while the others are merely visitors.

For Izabella, the Playboy Mansion was far from the glamorous pleasure palace she had imagined. ‘Each bedroom had mismatched, random pieces of furniture,’ she recalls in her autobiography Bunny Tales. ‘It was as if someone had gone to a charity shop and bought the basics for each room.

‘Although we all did our best to decorate our rooms and make them homely, the mattresses on our beds were disgusting — old, worn and stained. The sheets were past their best, too.

Oh, barf.

Hef is little more than an acceptable version of fugitive pimp Joe Conforte.

News, Etc.

It's goodbye and good riddance to another former actor turned politician.
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More Reasons Not to Support a Fake "Democrat"

like Obama, who eagerly bends over and takes it in the ass for the GOP.  Hell, he is one of them anyway:

Even in the "compromises" Obama has exacted from the Republicans (who, if you'll recall, were deeper in minority status in the departing congress than any party has been for many years), are of the type Br'er Bear made with Br'er Rabbit: "Oh PLEASE don't throw me in that briar patch!" Republicans have looked to kill Social Security since Roosevelt first enacted it, and this may cost it a good part of its political support. We just obligingly threw them into their comfy briar patch.

I cannot support a President who had such power, and such genuine authority given to him by the electorate, and let it be taken from him without helping the people who elected him, and I cannot support a President who is so naive and feckless in dealing with a very weak opposition. I will support any real Democrat who promises to be a fighter for our working people instead of a pawn of the same rich that we so favored so heavily by Obama's predecessor.

News, Etc.

Another fool or practical joker continues on the search for Sasquatch or Bigfoot, with the realization few men without connections to Hollywood go parading around the wild wearing ape suits.

The Mail Tribune is a pay site now, so if you don't have access, well, I don't know what to tell you.
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A man who was the first donor of a successful transplanted organ operation  has died.

Herrick's twin brother lived eight years following the 1954 kidney transplant.
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The tragic fire in New Orleans where eight people died trying to get warm in an abandoned warehouse is unfortunately the present and future of what was once the greatest country in the world, at least for the vast majority of people living in it:

A recent Rutgers University study demonstrates that the experiences of increasing numbers of Americans have led them to believe that the “American Dream”—one of the principal ideological justifications for US capitalism—is out of reach of the vast majority of people in this country. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed in “The Shattered American Dream: Unemployed Workers Lose Ground, Hope, and Faith in their Futures” believe that “hard work does not guarantee success.”

The study interviewed 1,202 people who had been unemployed at some point between September 2008 and August 2009. Just one-third of those surveyed believe they will recover financially to where they were before the economic downturn; 61 percent did not expect to get back to “their prior economic station in life.” Almost half said they were in “flat-out poor financial shape.”

Among those aged 18-34, 51 percent said the economic downturn has had a major impact on their family, and 41 percent said they were in poor financial shape.

If You Are a Teacher and You Are Found Duct Taping

or doing something similar to a student, you not only get fired, you also risk having your license pulled.

But if you are Michelle Rhee, it is the subject of much bragging and light-heartedness. 

Another reason why this woman isn't fit to run a hot dog stand, let alone any school district.

She's absolutely pathetic and cruel, but she isn't the only lousy administrator out there.

When the Social Safety Net is Gone for Good,

make way for a return of the poorhouses, especially if you have the likes of nitwit Glenn Beck to advocate for them.

Texas of All Places

is looking at whether Temp for America is really a good way of wasting precious taxpayer money.

As if there really should be any debate about it.  Waste all of this money so some private outfit can farm out temps pretending to be "teachers" for a couple of years, helping to screw over Title I kids even more by districts not allowing them the veteran, experienced (read expensive)  teachers they truly need.  Then, if these "teachers" can stand the first two years, they ditch these "careers" to do something less stressful and for a lot more money.

But TFA serves a purpose to the educrats and the "reformers" who want to bust the already weak and often useless unions by making teachers "at-will" employees when education is a completely different field than private business, and schools can't be run on business models.  Teachers are already terrified of losing their careers because most of them work under incompetents and sociopaths called "principals" who basically do whatever the fuck they want with the knowledge their "superiors" will back them to the hilt, including abusing the legal system at taxpayer expense.  The power imbalance and rigging of the legal system for school districts' benefit would only get worse under "reforms" like allowing temps to "teach,"  with districts knowing they can just throw teachers out after a couple of years.  It's all to save money on "expensive" teachers, some with even master's degrees, now despised by "reformers."  Teachers would never become vested in public employee retirement in their states and in some states even get screwed out of part of their Social Security.

TFA is a scam designed to suck more money out of hard-pressed states and school districts and further destroy a profession to the point it is just a piece of shit McDonald's job.

BS = Bullshit. MS = More Shit.

Ph.D. = Piled Higher and Deeper.

That's an old saying related by one of my professors at the University of Nevada, Reno, though not exactly in that language, describing the long, arduous process of getting a doctorate in any field in some hope there will be some kind of academic or research pot of gold at the end of it.

I once thought of getting a doctorate, but now I will be lucky if I even survive the winter, and, at almost 56, getting any further education longterm would be a waste of time and money.

But even if you're far younger, there are no guarantees the "investment" in education will pay off.

I don't regret all of the education I got, but now I am in such bad shape financially I can't reflect on its value.

Some Families

and individuals like yours truly are being forced to move in with family in order to survive this economy, as Michael Luo notes in his latest report.

I was going to be interviewed for this piece, but I didn't get back with him in time.  I need to write him an email in the next day or two telling him how I am faring.

Diane Ravitch

takes stock of education in 2010, and while she deserves a lot of credit in looking into the machinations of the "reformers," let's not forget where the REAL problem is in education, and that's with administrators who are not held accountable for their actions, as I can tell you from bitter, personal experience.

I will NEVER "heal" from what was done to me almost three years ago; I am on a downward spiral and don't really see a way I can reverse the situation.  However, the assholes at WCSD are doing better than ever, and they aren't held accountable for ANYTHING.  They and the WEA really are a gang of crooks, of thieves.

How would privatization make it better?  It would be even worse, but until we recognize the real problem, and that's with administrators and the fact they treat administrative law, union agreements, and federal law as toilet paper to be flushed down the toilet along with the teachers they destroy, no change for the better will ever happen.

Karen Horwitz from NAPTA, commenting after the piece:

Not let's consider the track record of bankers and Wall Street and analyze what is wrong with this picture whereby they think they should take the lead in education reform. When they "reformed" real estate with subprime mortgages, and "reformed" Wall St. with derivatives it led us to where? And there goals were preserving the democracy or stuffing as much money in their pockets? Do we recall which one?

It is time we substituted "bilk" for "reform" and we will know exactly what is going on in education. Check out WhiteChalkCrime.com and EndTeacherAbuse.org if you REALLY want to know what is going on. The alternative is to watch education implode as did real estate; the same type of agenda is in place. However, when it implodes it implodes our democracy as they are connected at the hip. And then who will pick up the pieces? Do we want the greedy creating a civil society in their image? Better yet, would the greedy even entertain the need for a civil society when money and power are their chosen tools for navigating in this world? Money and power substitute for a civil democracy, the former purpose of an educated populace.

If all of this sounds way too incredible, just think Bernie Madoff and his sinister Ponzi scheme. All it takes is charm, connections, and greed and one can fool a lot of people. We have a bunch of mini Bernie Madoff's at the helms of schools all over this nation with a press blaming teachers, unions, and parents rather than blaming these thieves in place to bilk all of us of the foundation of our democracy. (This is the same press that didn't notice the subprime scam.)

This brilliant strategy of pitting parents against teachers and their unions is at the core of this Ponzi-like success for it is true that unions are at the center of the "reform" that is really bilking, while it is not true that the unions represent or even care about dedicated teachers. And it is not true that the unions are on a different side than these mini Bernie Madoffs. As the unions and administrations play good cop, bad cop while reforming, no bilking, our schools with the media's blessings, the public is left clueless.

Become educated or expect an end to public education as we know it. Yes, the unions deserve our contempt, but not unless their bed partners - the administrators and school boards - are held in contempt equally. Learn about White Chalk Crime. It makes Bernie Madoff's antics seem like nothing. There is organized crime in education that Diane Ravitch has yet to bring to the surface. It keeps Diane Ravitch from television, stuck at the right fork of the road where if she could venture down it, her dedication and brilliance could solve these problems.

Instead we all speak in circles while our schools are being "reformed/bilked." Time to focus on White Chalk Crime as only then will any of this change.

Posted by: teacherkh | December 28, 2010 11:06 PM | Report abuse

In the Pursuit of Deskilling Teaching,

"reformers" must condemn the use of master's degrees for greater pay for teachers.

Of course since the "reformers" don't value education anyway for the masses, degrees are useless for teachers because they are too expensive since education and years of experience are used for the step system for salaries.

Unbelievable.

Obituaries

Champion racehorse War Pass, 5, of undisclosed causes.  He had completed his second year of stud duty at Lane's End Farm, where he will be buried.
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Another economist who thought deregulation was hunky-dory, Alfred Kahn, 93, of cancer.
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White R&B singer Teena Marie, born Mary Christine Brockert, 54, of apparent natural causes.
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Lone Ranger announcer Fred Foy, 89, of  natural causes.
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Actor Steve Landesberg, 74,  best known for his role in the sitcom Barney Miller, of colon cancer.

One of his favorite hobbies was to keep people guessing how old he really was, kind of like Zsa Zsa Gabor:

Initial reports of Mr. Landesberg’s death, relying on numerous biographical sources, said he was 65. In acknowledging that he was actually nine years older, his daughter said he had provided varying birth dates over the years. “He got kind of a late start in show business,” she explained, “so he tried to straddle the generations. He fooled the whole world. People were surprised to think he was even 65.” 

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Pedophilia Meets Necrophilia

I borrowed that phrase from some wit who aptly characterized the "engagement" of Hugh Hefner to some nobody Playmate who is about 1/4 his age.  If this were an 84-year-old woman who took on a 24-year-old man, people would be outraged and the couple would be subject to ridicule.  But when it is a "man" or rather a man who looks like a corpse (and there are many men who look far better at that age than Hefner, including my former landlord), it's okay.

To try and justify this makes me absolutely sick to my stomach.  If Hef weren't a millionaire publisher who happened to make his fortune in trafficking in naked women's images but a plumber or even a lawyer, people would be offended.  But robbing the cradle is okay as long as the man is filthy rich.

If his new bride Crystal doesn't take on a lover her own age while "married" to this corpse, she's a bigger fool than I ever thought possible.

I wonder what his first wife, Mildred Williams Hefner, thinks of this latest news, assuming she is alive.

This bit from Wikipedia may explain why Hef is so fucked up in the head when it comes to women:

Hefner married Northwestern University student Mildred Williams in 1949. They had two children, Christie (born November 8, 1952) and David (born August 30, 1955). Before the wedding, Mildred confessed that she had had an affair while he was away in the Army; he called the admission "the most devastating moment of my life." A 2006 E! True Hollywood Story profile of Hefner revealed that Mildred allowed him to sleep with other women, out of guilt for her infidelity and in the hopes that it would preserve their marriage. They divorced in 1959. 

I read someplace he was actually a virgin when he married, so his wife's transgression had to have hurt him a lot.

Still, I can't justify his preying on women young enough to be his great-granddaughters.

For All of Those Jobless,

employers are hiring--for overseas jobs.

Unfortunately, neither party in Congress and our president have ANY intention of reversing 30 years' worth of disastrous policies designed to destroy the middle and working classes.

I Really Believe

that more than even his hero Ronald Reagan, who actually WAS a Hollywood creation, Barack Obama  is largely a media manufactured politician.

There were so many people "out there" who actually bought what the media were selling, they ignored all of the warning signs that this guy was and is a faker.

After being on the ropes for months on end, practically since his inauguration, Barack Obama is now deemed by the media to be making a "comeback."  I suspect the reason for this propaganda is the media sees this guy as nothing but a right-winger, a sellout, and they hope Obama will continue the hard-right policies of his predecessor.

WSWS:

The key to this remarkable turnabout, according to the media narrative, is Obama’s turn to bipartisan collaboration with the Republicans, who will control the House of Representatives and have a larger presence in the Senate in the incoming 112th Congress. The stroke of genius that set the stage for ensuing legislative victories in the outgoing “lame duck” Congress was Obama’s announcement December 6 of a deal with the Republican leadership in the Senate to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the rich.

Obama is bad news for anybody not in the top 1 percent of the population.

News, Etc.

James Auchincloss is back in jail because he violated the terms of his probation.

Now that the Medford Mail Tribune is a pay site, I had to go elsewhere for the "story," just in case anybody is interested in this nobody whose case is noteworthy only because he was and is related to a somebody.
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The Baby Boom Generation

most likely has already collected at least part of their retirement if they are in the first three years of the wave, but the crooks on Wall Street are afraid that what little the boomers have in retirement and investments, they will be taking out in huge amounts, and therefore more money has to be found to pilfer.

Hence all this talk about privatizing education and other public services and gutting Social Security.

But let's blame the boomers for their "choices" or dumb luck rather than deliberate policy by our politicians.

In Addition to All of the Other Abuses

teachers contend with, if Bill Gates has his ignorant way, he will FILM teachers to "prove" they are effective.

What a bunch of shit, not to mention the logistics when you MUST have parental consent to film students.

News, Etc.

This story makes me thankful I live on the West Coast and have to worry only about earthquakes and volcano eruptions.
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News, Etc.

Is is possible "they" finally found Amelia Earhart's bones?

I guess anything is possible, but it's unlikely the plane will ever be located.
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Meanwhile, there is not much else to say.  I have to go to work at the call center in about 45 minutes.  If I am not laid off by Thursday, I will resign.  I can hardly stand that shit.

What a way for one to end her career doing shit work as a result of some outfit wanting to protect their incompetent or negligent employees.
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News, Etc.

Nevadans will soon say goodbye and good riddance to Governor Jim Gibbons when he leaves office--and hopefully political life--next month.
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It's Time for People to Join Together Against Those Forces

hellbent on destroying Social Security and Medicare.  Here is one group dedicated to fighting those "reforms" put forward by our corrupt politicians to destroy this country as we know it or once knew it.

I'll put this link on my left sidebar under the blogs list.

I Already Have Exceedingly Low Expectations of Obama,

but this next Congress just about guarantees he will further lower my expectations by cutting more deals with the right-wingers in the GOP (as if there are any other kind of Republican).

The mythmakers in the mass media can do little to cloak the essential lesson of the past two years: that the entire political system, including the Democratic and Republican parties, is under the iron grip of the corporate and financial aristocracy, allowing no expression of the interests of the vast majority of the population.

News, Etc.

Here is a list of some of the more notable obituaries of the year.
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For Millions of People in This Country,

this Christmas is hardly a merry one, with widespread joblessness and despair.  But let's not worry about them: The people who count, Wall Street and others in the parasite class, are doing better than ever.

THEY, not the peons, will get this country back on track.

WSWS:

Three years since the onset of the recession in December 2007, the majority of the US population is facing staggering levels of unemployment, home foreclosures, hunger and poverty. For millions of working-class families, buying gifts this year required scraping together scarce dollars, borrowing from friends and relatives or adding more debt to their already overloaded credit cards.

At the other pole of society, America’s ruling elite, which has presided over this economic catastrophe, is celebrating its good fortune. The recent deal by President Obama and the Congressional Republicans to extend tax cuts to the richest two percent of the population tops off a year of record corporate profits and an 85 percent surge on the S&P 500 stock index.

The Parasitical Class

I couldn't have said it better if I tried:

JAY: Well this clearly doesn't seem to be sustainable on any long-term way. So where does this lead five, ten years from now? 'Cause we're not likely to see any significant changes from this Washington politics.


HUDSON: Well, if you study biology, you know that there are more species of parasites than there are of hosts--of course it's not sustainable. But to a parasite, you don't have to be sustainable, because you're a parasite. That's your mindset. And you want to take what you can, and at a certain point you devour the host and skip to new hosts. That's what they're doing: they're going to shrink the American economy, and they're going to move to Asia or to other countries, which is why you have the economic split between the BRIC countries' currencies that are going up and the dollar and the euro that are going down.

The "Documentary" of the Year

is a propaganda piece funded by billionaires trashing the public school system in general and teachers in particular, because, as I noted in such colorful language below, it is impossible to fire them.  After all, these good-for-nothings have it made,  these old hags and farts over 50 are stale in their jobs, and they must make way for these "energetic," "cute," "personable" Barbie doll bimbos from traditional education programs or from temp services like TFA, provided anybody is crazy enough to go into this field these days.

I never saw that documentary, and I doubt I ever will.  I KNOW what it's like to work in this system, and the "reforms" have no bearing on what the real problems are in education.  I don't need a billionaire Harvard dropout  like Bill Gates to lecture me on education and its problems.

I Try Not to Feel Tremendous Anger

over what has become of my life, but then when I looked at my "huge" paycheck from a call center for the past two weeks, I am in almost a blind rage.

After 88 hours of work for two weeks, I "made"  or "took home" the giant sum of $659, which is just a little over one third of what I "took home" as a teacher bi-weekly before I was illegally sacked almost three years ago.  Remember, that's including eight hours of fucking overtime.  While I am not paying rent and utilities at my brother's house, that doesn't mean I don't have expenses.  My goddamned car is going to eat up half of that money, and the rest of it I must somehow find money to buy food (after all, I get only 16 bucks a month in  food stamps), clothing (which I need), and gas, and maybe have a little bit left over to buy a few things for "fun," like a book or a DVD.  That 's it.  If I don't work next week, I will have to be able to stretch what remains of this check and the next one clear into the middle of fucking February, when the ESD pays again, assuming I can make any money.

Oregon just taxes the living shit out of people, and it is worse when you have little money to make to begin with.  I forgot how high the income tax here is.

Thirty years ago, I worked at the same company and made something like $3.50 an hour to start, and with increases was able to make around $7 when I left at the end of 1983.  I was able to afford an apartment, pay utilities, and have enough disposable income left.  But on $9.60 an hour now (down from nearly $50,000 a year in Reno)  I can't even get a goddamned RV to live independently or even a dump of an apartment.  This shit is less than what I made on unemployment compensation from the last job.  I am so angry I can't see.  I want these assholes who killed my career held accountable for their actions.

Then I found out that because of a budget freeze, the Job Council will NOT provide a voucher for me to at least be able to get my Oregon substitute license.  The Teacher Standards and Practices Commission charges the shit out of you if you have your training from out of state:  $120.  Then I have to "disclose" what that cunt principal (I deleted the names of the schools so that I don't get sued for telling the truth) and the crook in HR did to me as a part of their "character" questions.  Remember what they want you to answer is  "alleged" "misconduct," which I didn't fucking commit, but I have to tell them anyway because Question 3 (the revised one) asks if I have ever been put on "administrative leave."  Never mind it was UNPAID leave, and it was designed solely to starve me into a piddling 10k settlement after that corrupt WEA executive director (who took a bribe working under the HR crook as "labor relations manager" while my "case" was going through the sham due process)  LIED about my UI eligibility.

These fucking sociopaths at Washoe County School District are doing better than ever, and at my expense.  Oh, sure, as I noted a few days ago, Superintendent Heath Morrison, who had nothing to do with my situation, apparently feels some pangs of guilt over having read my letter from last May, which included the pleadings in the sham civil action,.   He is parading around the district  talking about the need for a "culture of respect."  Coming from a Broadie, this notion rings somewhat hollow.  In any case, "respect," when it comes to these sociopaths, is a completely alien idea. "Bend over and take it" is their motto.

.

News, Etc.

What in the hell was the dog doing off the leash in the first place?

Another Sobering Statistic

which is representative of the times, and that's more working "families," to say nothing of individuals, are falling through the cracks into poverty:

Food stamp usage increased by 16 percent over the past year, according to CNNMoney.com, with one in seven Americans now depending on the federal program. Idaho saw the biggest increase in its food stamp program, with a spike of 39 percent compared to last year, followed by Nevada, at 29 percent, and New Jersey, at 27 percent. In the nation’s capital—Washington, DC—21.5 percent of the population currently receives food stamps, the highest rate in the country.

You better be completely destitute to get much of anything out of that program, though.  I get the queenly sum of $16 a month for food stamps because I am making such a huge, huge salary working in a shitty call center at a temporary job that will probably end this week or next.

Then I get to substitute and maybe clear $1,000 a month, not even one-third what I cleared as a teacher in Nevada.

So, Obama Gets a Couple of Victories

under his belt such as START and DADT, but these tiny victories are overshadowed by his total failure to deal with the economy on any meaningful basis.

After all, his goal is not to represent the people who elected him but instead to represent the people who donated to him with obscene amounts of cash, i.e., the parasitical class.

Here's an example of Obama's failure:

A hint of an answer can be found in another Senate defeat for Obama over the last few weeks that got almost no attention in the media but was a big one: Republicans blocked consideration of the House-passed Disclose Act, which would have required groups that spend money on outside political advertising to disclose the major sources of their funding.

Bend-Over Barry

strikes again.

The 2012 elections can't come soon enough for me--if I am still alive:

According to all reports, the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow's FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet.

The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it's become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users.

A LOT of Us Who are NOT "A-List" Bloggers

are in severe financial straits this year, have been in the previous couple of years, and will likely likely be well into the future.  Some of us are really handicapped by being overqualified and over 55 years of age, but many of us don't like to go around and beg for donations even with PayPal buttons on the website; it's unseemly.

I mean I feel for others, but chances are they haven't been in my shoes, and there are some who are in even worse shape than I am in.  I was supposed to have an interview with the New York Times' Michael Luo, but he had already written his story about people being forced to move in with relatives and "double up" as a way to avert homelessness.  He still wants me to contact him; I will probably do it after my call center job presumably ends this week so I can go back to substituting.  Both pay not even 1/3 of what I made as a teacher being paid for nine months work.  And Oregon taxes the shit out of you with its income tax.  In my current job at a call center, which I thoroughly detest but am doing it only to try and tide me over for the next few weeks when I can get paid in FEBRUARY working as a substitute aide (I can't afford to get a regular or substitute teaching license in Oregon right now), I make less than $100 a week take-home pay than I did drawing UI in Nevada.

I did have some help with purchasing a pair of eyeglasses and an exam so I can try and get my Oregon driver's license, but the expenses keep rolling in.  Even without paying rent here at my brother's, I still have expenses, and they seem bigger because there is so little in the way of money coming in.  It's a downward spiral, and I truly see no way out of it.

This is what I wrote that despicable piece of shit who terminated me in Nevada and destroyed my career while she is out gallivanting around making well over 100k a year in salary, plus 1/3 more in benefits, which outlines how bad off I am:

Oh, sure, I should "move on," after you STOLE my career, a career for which I had prepared for 15 long years, paid my way through undergraduate and graduate school while working full-time in different lines of work, including teaching-related work.  But since you have never worked anywhere else but WCSD, probably got your initial job and promotions to AP and principal because of some kind of family or friend connections, you wouldn't have a clue what it is like to be in my shoes.  Well, I will TELL you what it is like, just as I described to a reporter from the New York Times who had interviewed me a couple of weeks ago.   I filed for unemployment insurance the day of my kangaroo hearing and was able to get it, contrary to ***'s LIES about my eligibility.  Before that, I was on food stamps and energy assistance.  I also lost my car when it had to be junked, so I was without a car for eight months, which made it virtually impossible to find any kind of work in Reno.  Thanks to family, I was able to get another car, some 22 years old, but with low mileage and in great condition.  However, to date I have not been able to get any kind of work, especially now with the economy tanking all over the United States, including and especially Nevada.  I am 55 years old and have lost EVERYTHING. I am deemed too old to work, and I am too young to collect Social Security, which the district robbed me of during my four years there and must have THAT monthly benefit reduced because of collecting PERS.   Now that I could no longer pay the rent, I have been forced to move in with family back in Oregon.  My "home" is a couch in the living room of my brother's mobile home; otherwise, I would be homeless.  I had to stop paying utilities on the apartment, so those were shut off.  I have now run out of all unemployment insurance, so I have no income whatsoever.  I have no savings at all and my credit is ruined.  I have no access to health insurance.  I have no dental insurance, which I desperately need.  I owe the IRS over a thousand dollars in back taxes since I couldn't afford to have federal taxes withheld on UI.  I also put my student loans on forbearance; I had student loans from the time I student taught back in 1999--this was the only time I didn't pay for my education out of my own pocket.   I am being forced to pawn off some possessions in order to have money coming in, but uncertain as to whether I will ever be able to get money to get the items out.  Last winter, while you were out gallivanting around Hawaii getting your one-of-a-kind tattoo, scuba diving,  belly-bumping with the giant manta rays while they were feeding, and boasting about how good life is, I was forced to pawn off my mother's 1 1/2-carat diamond solitaire ring in order to pay for my auto insurance and registration.  Fortunately, I was able to get it out of the pawn shop.  However, I am being forced to pawn other items now.  In addition, I have signed for "retraining" programs for people over 55, since I am essentially blackballed from the teaching profession because of what YOU did, and of course you and the district must keep up your deceptions so you would LIE to a prospective school district if it ever gave me a chance to even make the cut for an interview.  The way school district job applications in Oregon, California, Washington, and many other states are written, I have to REVEAL what YOU and the district did to me under threat of losing any license I would be able to get in these states.  So I am automatically screened out as a "bad" teacher, lumped in with the child molesters and DUIs, even though my work performance had NOTHING to do with why you threw me out on my ass.  I don't even get a chance to explain anything.   

On top of that, I lost my beloved dog, Tony, which made things even worse for me emotionally.  The ring, by the way, is back in a pawnshop, so I could lose that at any point.  Meanwhile, this piece of incompetent shit principal is pulling down over 100k in salary plus 1/3 more of that in bennies.  All done at my expense, while I am facing absolute destitution and cannot even afford a fucking place to live.  On top of that, I should any day be subpoenaed to be deposed on that bogus lawsuit.  The plaintiff's lawyers have already deposed three of my former co-workers, including my co-defendant, so my day is coming, or so everybody thinks.  I have no intention of being psychologically raped again so people can get rich or have cushy jobs at my expense.

I started my working career at the company where I am working in a call center.  I was making three-something an hour back in 1980 and could AFFORD an apartment and live independently.  Now I am making $9.60 an hour and can't even DREAM of ever living on my own again.  I can hardly stand this job, and being almost 56 it is just about impossible to work multiple jobs, unlike 10 or 15 years ago, when I could do it.   Of course, this job is temporary work, just as the shit sub job is temporary work, and I can't afford to apply for a teaching license in Oregon for regular teaching or substituting and make more money unless I can get the Job Council to help out.  

It's dire, and I don't see my situation improving at all, if ever.  And now that no-good son of a bitch Obama wants to take away Social Security for people like me who are just a few years away from collecting.

The Standards for "Teachers" Will Continue to Fall,

especially when more and more people steer away from education as a major, and desperate "smart" kids take TFA jobs which undercut morale for REAL teachers in public schools.

In an era when the education mantra is that all kids deserve great teachers, some members of Congress want it to be the law of the land that a neophyte teacher who has demonstrated "satisfactory progress" toward full state certification is "highly qualified."

This is all about inferior education for poor students; after all, they are never going to amount to anything anyway, so why waste money with experienced, older teachers?  It's also all about scamming taxpayers by these temp agencies like TFA.

Although I No Longer Live in Nevada,

I say goodbye and good riddance to the outgoing governor.

Not that Sandoval will be much better,  but one has to look very hard to find a more inept governor in the history of the United States.

Thanks to Policies Deliberately Creating an Underclass

in this country, more and more people discover they are nothing but throwaways in a throwaway economy, working in shit jobs like I am doing right now not even making enough money where one can even afford a place to live.

Meanwhile, the crooks on Wall Street and their hacks in Congress are doing better than ever--at workers' expense.

One person quoted in the article says this:

“You’re nothing but a commodity, always on call. The temp agency will call you the night before or even a few hours before your assignment—but you never get guaranteed hours. At one job for a catering service, they expected you to invest hundreds of dollars for your own clothes, including a tuxedo, shoes and ties. You get no transportation even if the assignment is 40 miles away. A friend of mine had to travel back and forth for over an hour but they only gave her four hours. She got $10 an hour, but the temp agency was paid $19.50 an hour for her services.”

“There are very limited opportunities to work in the field you studied in,” Jeff added. “The only way to get a full time job is to start temporary. I’ve worked in catering and warehouse work and I’ve never heard of a temporary job with benefits. A quarter of the new hires are temps. That is a fundamental change. The companies feel that in a depressed labor market they can get the skills they need from the pool of unemployed workers without paying competitive wages or benefits. It’s all part of the reduction in living standards for the working class.”
 

Florida Teachers

enjoyed a bit of a respite when former governor Crist refused to go along with the "refomers'" plans to destroy the state's educational system.

But Charlie Crist is no longer there, and now the floodgates are about to open for widespread criminality in the name of "reform."

Scott's plan is radical because it's designed to get around a constitutional problem the state encountered a few years back when, during Bush's tenure, it attempted to create vouchers to send public school students to private schools. But Scott apparently believes that his proposal will slip through, in part because the money could be used for other public schools. There are many flaws in Scott's proposal. But here's a biggie: It’s likely to be a fraud magnet.

As soon as the state starts handing families $5500 a year, it's virtually assured that enterprising thieves will devise various schemes to help them part with those funds, including by starting "independent" for-profit virtual schools, charter schools, and other predatory "educational" institutions. While the idea of privatizing the education system may seem like a big money saver, and no one really loves school bureaucracies, putting that much taxpayer money out there without adequate oversight (i.e. bureaucracy) is a formula for disaster.

The assault on our democracy continues unabated, and the "Democrats" can't be counted on to preserve its institutions.

News, Etc.

So much for long articles in the Reno Gazette-Journal:  A settlement was reached in the HRT lawsuit.
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Even Though Neoliberalism Has Been Shown to Be a Failure

over and over and over again, it has become more entrenched than ever in D.C., and in BOTH political parties.

That's because neoliberalism is the ideology of the financial elites, and they control both political parties.

Paul Krugman may find it shocking, but I am past being shocked by the level of corruption of both parties which are hellbent on destroying the United States of America.

Nobody should be surprised Obama is "caving."   He really isn't "caving" but actually supports whatever shit the GOP dishes out.  The GOP, though, turns around and keeps calling this Reagan lover "socialist."  They play the cynic card purely for political gain.

All of it would be funny if it weren't so tragic for this country.

As We Know,

"austerity" is only for us peons but not for Wall Street.

News, Etc.

Another lawsuit over the health risks of HRT will be going to trial next month.
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News, Etc.

At least there has been some good news for Amanda Knox.

It's hell being convicted by the tabloids and have your life ruined.
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Is This the Endgame?

Just think of it, retirees and workers in the public sector, the latter being the last real bastion of unionization, could be screwed over if the right gets its way and forces states into bankruptcy.

This is all about an insane ideology.  Of course Obama, a closet Republican, will go along with any kind of scheme to destroy the middle class once and for all.

Obama Catered to His True Constituency

and signed a bill that would help the parasitical class hoard more of "their" money.  Meanwhile, the long-term unemployed get nothing.

Wall Street, the crooks who created this mess worldwide, will benefit most of all.

It's Up to the Teacher-Hating Washington Post

to sensationalize cases of child-abusing teachers who slip through the cracks and remain teaching for years before being caught, while teachers wrongfully terminated don't get any kind of public notice at all.  After all, teachers HAVE to be doing something wrong to be fired, right, since it is impossible to fire them?

By the way, most teachers who get caught for "misconduct" with students "slip through" the cracks and get hired because there is no record of them previously having done so.

link

The paper rants and raves about the expense of terminating these teachers.  Well, yeah, but that's the breaks of administrative law.  Administrative law is government law, and "due process" rights and procedures are true for all government sectors.

That doesn't mean the law is worth the paper it's written on, but it's there.

What is galling is this study mentions only 15 teachers in 19 states studied slipped through the cracks.  Out of thousands and thousands of those who don't get certified or hired because of background checks.  Yet the paper thinks this very rare occurrence is worth writing tons and tons of ink.

When You're in the Pocket of the Elites,

or you're a member of the elites, the two-for-one "deal" of giving handouts to the rich in exchange for a pittance for the jobless--and remember, UI is NOT being "extended," only filing dates are being moved back--makes perfect sense.

Along those same lines, Obama's meeting with the usual suspects in the business world indeed was a shameless and obvious catering to his REAL constituency, and that's not to those gullible people who thought he was a "progressive."

It's never been explained WHERE Obama got all of the campaign money he raised in 2008.

WSWS:

In his pre-meeting remarks, Obama made a fleeting, mealy-mouthed reference to the nearly $2 trillion in cash being hoarded by American big business. The reality is that Wall Street is carrying out a productive investment and hiring strike, holding the country ransom in order to ram through double-digit cuts in high-end income taxes and corporate taxes, a further gutting of business regulations, and austerity measures targeting bedrock social programs such as Medicare and Social Security.

All of this, for which Obama signaled his support, is supposedly in pursuit of the goal of job-creation. This is a fraud. Had Obama ordered the seizure of the profits of the 20 firms represented at his round table, he would have had a good start toward a multi-billion-dollar public works program to provide hundreds of thousands of jobs. Of course, neither he nor any other bourgeois politician would contemplate such a measure.

I couldn't have said it better.  It's an attempted bank heist.

Obituaries

Director Blake Edwards, who was also married to Julie Andrews for years and years, 88.  He directed some of the more notable films of the last 50 years:

What the critic Pauline Kael once described as Mr. Edwards’s “love of free-for-all lunacy” was flaunted in good movies and bad ones: in commercial successes like “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (1961) and “The Pink Panther” (1963), the first of a series of films starring Peter Sellers as a bumbling French policeman, and in box-office disasters like the musical spy extravaganza “Darling Lili” (1970), staring his wife, Julie Andrews, and his slapstick tribute to silent-film comedy, “The Great Race” (1965), starring Jack Lemmon as a black-suited villain and Tony Curtis as a white-suited hero.

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MacKenzie Miller, 89, who trained 1993 Kentucky Derby winner Sea Hero, of complications of a stroke
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Football player and broadcaster Don Meredith, 72, of a brain hemorrhage.
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Convicted killer John E. DuPont, 72, a DuPont heir who made headlines when he killed a champion wrestler, was found dead in his cell of undisclosed causes:

John Eleuthère du Pont was born Nov. 22, 1938, in Philadelphia and lived a lavish and eccentric lifestyle. He built the Delaware Museum of Natural History to house his renowned collections of 66,000 birds and two million seashells. And on his rolling 800-acre estate, he built a $600,000 training center for pentathletes, swimmers and wrestlers, who competed under his sponsorship as Team Foxcatcher.

On occasion, Mr. du Pont ferried athletes to competitions in his helicopter. But his behavior changed from unconventional to troubling over the years, athletes who had trained with him said at the time of the shooting.

Mike Gostigian, a former Olympic pentathlete who knew him from childhood, said in 1996 that Mr. du Pont’s personality seemed to grow more erratic after three incidents in the 1980s: an automobile accident that curbed his vigorous life as a sportsman, a brief marriage that failed and the death of his mother, Jean Austin du Pont.

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Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller, 92, following treatment for pneumonia.  He also suffered from leukemia.
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News, Etc.

It figures some con artists are trying to get at state pensions like Nevada's while peddling scam 401(k)-type junk.  Since Nevada and some 13 or 14 other states do NOT pay Social Security for their public employees, these employeses would get fucked over royally by such "reforms."

It's another attempted bank heist by Wall Street.

In actuality, the Segal outfit  which conducted the study, is very skeptical of any conversion of defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans, with the latter virtually guaranteeing people wind up destitute, but the USCC and other right-wing outfits are absolutely enamored with the idea of screwing public employees over as much or more as private employees.

The original article is in a paper I no longer link.

As If We Need Anymore Proof

the United States doesn't give a flying fig about the people who vote them in--only their contributors.

The lopsided vote tells it all, I believe.

I Haven't Had a Good Laugh in Weeks

My former school district's current superintendent, Heath Morrison, an Eli Broadie, wants his 7,000-plus employees to know he really does believe in a "culture of respect":

Culture of Respect

by Heath Morrison, WCSD Superintendent
Dear WEA Members:
First, I would like to thank all of you for doing a great job this year. From our year-round schools to our traditional schools, our opening of school was excellent, and I want to thank you for the hard work you put into educating children every single day.
Our community and state are taking notice of your work as well. As I travel across Nevada, people, including the legislators recently voted into office, tell me they are excited about what they are seeing in the Washoe County School District. From our reform efforts in Envision WCSD 2015 – Investing in Our Future to our improved test results and graduation rates, WCSD is a topic of conversation in the Silver State.
As we continue to move forward with our strategic plan, one of the most important efforts will be on Goal 4 - Value and Strengthen a Positive, Self-Renewing Culture. Central to these efforts will be the creation of an agreement or compact about a culture of respect. I have been meeting with all employee associations during the course of the last couple of weeks about creating such an agreement or compact and the subsequent understandings, procedures, and professional development that would follow. This agreement or compact will be between all 7,400 employees so that each and every staff member feels valued and respected. It will describe how we handle adversity and resolve conflicts. The culture of respect will be the way we, as an organization, value what each person does as we work together toward our mission.
The associations and I will continue to meet to create a framework for gathering input and soliciting your views on how you envision this culture of respect. It is critical the final product and implementation is the amalgam of diverse views, beliefs, and perspectives representative of all district stakeholders. In January during one of our early release days, we will focus on the culture of respect and ask you to share your ideas. What should this culture look like? What does it mean? What should go into the document that will be the agreement between all of us? A culture of respect focuses on you – the employees that make this District great.
This culture of respect is about appreciating what every single person contributes to improve student achievement. It will be a driver that leads to true professional learning communities within every school and district office in Washoe County School District. The culture of respect is one critical piece to ensuring we reach our goal of “every child, by name and face, to graduation.”

---

Translated:  "Respect," when it comes to school districts, is a one-way street.  If you are a teacher, you had better bend over and take it in the ass no matter what the principal wants, even if what he or she is asking is illegal.  That is the "culture of respect" in public schools.  The principal is God, you as a teacher are nothing, and the principal's bosses are also gods.  They are never wrong, and they make sure the legal system says so, too. Also make sure the "union" is bought and paid for, which WEA is, and as I know for a fact when it sold me down the river almost three years ago.

While most of us were taught respect is a two-way street, that it is something to be EARNED, not as a matter of rank,  it is completely at odds with the structure of public (and private) school systems.   What people don't understand is the sole goal of the school district administrator is self-preservation, i.e., preserving the (overpaid, underworked) job at ALL costs.  He or she will do anything to keep it, for these administrators CANNOT cut it in the private sector.  These administrators would be fired for conduct common in public education, including criminal acts, for the simple reason private companies cannot for the most part afford malfeasance.  Public education, though, always has a steady stream of money flowing into its coffers thanks to taxpayers, so administrators can do pretty much what the hell they want.

THIS is the "culture of respect" teachers work under.  It is basically a military-like culture.  Shut up, take it, and don't complain, Morrison's high-minded rhetoric notwithstanding.  After all, he would have to do a wholesale cleansing of the green house, which is rife with incompetents and crooks, to even BEGIN to get respect in and for that district.

link

As Part of Reform, Principals are Being "Replaced,"

which of course doesn't mean they are actually fired; typically they are moved to other schools or even promoted, no matter how good or bad they are.

In any case, the 'reformers" don't want teachers and students to become too invested in the very few good principals out there.

Because of the Relentless Attack on the Teaching Profession,

with schools and school districts being run more and more by sociopaths, crooks, and "reformers" who hate teachers' guts and think they are expendable, California at least is seeing a plunge in the teaching supply.

Either this is true or else school districts want to cry "shortage" to have even more idiots go into this horrible line of work.

Maybe, just maybe, people are realizing education is really not about "making a difference in students' lives" but instead is about a gang of crooks in administration who are in it solely for the substantial pay and perks.  Anybody who gets in their way has his or her life destroyed.

Snip:

The impact of other factors is harder to pinpoint, such as the intense pressures on teachers to increase test scores under No Child Left Behind over the past decade, and more recent moves to link teacher evaluation to test scores of students.

Because of budget cuts, teachers are expected to do more with less, typically teaching in larger classes, with fewer counseling and other staff to help out with hard-to-teach children. All this comes on top of reductions in salaries and benefits in the form of unpaid furlough days, increased health care premiums, and other cost-saving measures.

"Teachers are coping with lower compensation, fewer resources and increasing expectations of student achievement," said Shields. "It is a reasonable expectation that a college sophomore or junior might think 'I might not even get a job, so perhaps I should look for another career.'"

Not to worry:  It won't be long before the "reformers" clamor for more "distance learning" for K-12 so they can simply outsource "teachers" from China and India.

News, Etc.

Too bad, so sad, David, you decided to follow your relatives' sleazy footsteps instead of going into honest work.
No sympathy for you.
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For One Thing, Fernanda,

you are a fucking liar when you state teachers receive "lifetime employment" as a result of "tenure."  They don't:  I am fucking living proof of it, along with thousands upon thousands of other teachers around the country who "received" it and were sacked anyway.  Most of us did not commit firing offenses, with many of us having committed the unpardonable sins of being older and being more expensive.

Principals DO have almost ironclad job security because of the dysfunctional way almost all school districts in the country are run.  The principal is god, no matter how badly he or she screws up, no matter how unethical, no matter how incompetent or even criminal.  And these principals have the absolute power to destroy a teacher's career for no fucking reason, even with "tenure" laws put in.  Those administrative laws are typically flouted by school districts to the detriment of teachers.

"Tenure" in public education is completely and totally different than in higher education, but liars like this "reporter" know that.   All "tenure" is is the "right" of a teacher to have a rigged hearing.  As it is, teachers have fewer employment rights than burger flippers.

When I read a fucking liar posing as a reporter on education issues, I want to scream.

link

Birdbrain Bill Strikes Again

Bill Gates is on another mission to persuade everybody he doesn't know a goddamned thing about teaching and learning.

Can you imagine teachers being "rated" by their students or by people with no knowledge about teaching after watching a video?  It boggles the mind.

Well, we know all education will eventually be done online.  Kids will be staying home or be in centers to be babysat by teacher aides, while the "real" teachers will be pennies-a-day "instructors" in China.  And since all learning will be done online, somebody is going to profit from any online software.

Enter Bill Gates.

Right now, online "public" or "charter" schools are limited in terms of enrollment in the various states.  But as states become more and more starved for funds, watch them junk the enrollment restrictions.  The vultures will then pick over the bones of what was once a vibrant public education system.
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Obituaries

Diplomat  Richard Holbrooke, 69, of complications from a ruptured aorta:

Mr. Holbrooke's expansive career began in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, where he served as a field officer, and included appointments as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and as one of the youngest assistant secretaries of state in U.S. history. When Republicans were in power, he was a banker, a journalist and a best-selling author.

His most prominent role was as a presidential wartime problem solver, to which Mr. Holbrooke applied an unwavering energy, a flair for diplomatic improvisation and a hard-charging style that could yield dramatic breakthroughs but also generate bitterness and enmity, even among his American teammates.

It's Something

that a proposal like tax cuts to people who don't need them has an easier time making "cloture" in the dysfunctional United States Senate than "extending" unemployment compensation for millions of people who DO need the money.

After all, the United States Senate members are generally in the income bracket which would benefit from the tax cuts.

Obama's Health Insurance "Reform"

isn't even a victory now that a judge has struck down parts of it.  No doubt it will go to the USSC.

There are very few things that unite people all across the political spectrum than this "mandated" shit, especially when those who are without health insurance now can't afford any private insurance.  The older you get and the sicker you are, the less likely you can afford it.

Bend Over Barry takes it in the ass--again.

He gave away the store, and people are now even in worse shape than before this "health care reform" crap passed.

Something to Celebrate If You're a Fascist

It's been ten years since the United States Supreme Court decided to jettison the will of the American people and appoint George W. Bush as president of the United States.  It was the worst decision in the history of the United States, even worse than Dred Scott or Plessy v. Ferguson.  It's worse because the decision basically said it was okay for a supposed neutral body, a court, to decide elections.

There was nothing Al Gore could do to reverse the decision. Remember, he, like former president Bill Clinton, believed in the American system of elections and knew he had little recourse without the other side inciting violence.  The Bush flaks were prepared to overthrow Gore if it came to that. But ever since Bill Clinton had won the presidency in 1992, there had been a movement afoot to destroy the underpinnings of democracy for the purpose of installing an aristocracy in the United States.  The whole sham Clinton scandals, including the Lewinsky circus, were designed to destabilize his presidency so that he could get little accomplished and help the GOP in gaining more seats in Congress.

Now the GOP has gotten much more sophisticated with each election.  Now they've, or even more accurately, the neoliberals, basically infiltrated the Democratic Party to the point of putting one of their own, Barack Obama, so any shenanigans like Bush v. Gore can now be avoided.  He's a puppet doomed to fail on purpose, and the GOP will like clockwork get back into the White House and probably have both houses in Congress by 2013.

WSWS remembers this shameful anniversary:

The first recount of voting machines, required by Florida law, cut Bush’s supposed margin from 1,725 to 327 votes, but there were tens of thousands of ballots still uncounted, concentrated in four major metropolitan counties—Miami-Dade, Broward, Volusia and Palm Beach—where there was a substantial Democratic majority. Local officials began hand recounts in each of these areas.

The Republican-controlled state government stepped in to block this vote counting. Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, co-chairman of the Bush campaign in Florida and a Bush elector, first ordered the counting stopped. When reversed in court, she said she would not extend the November 14 deadline for reporting final totals, even though her own actions, in initially halting the count, made it impossible for three of the four counties to finish their recounts in time.

This arrogant opposition to demands that all votes be counted typified the stand of the Bush camp from the beginning. It was combined with misinformation and lies. The chief of the Bush recount team, former secretary of state James Baker, declared that machine counts were more reliable than hand counts, although hand counts are accepted as the highest standard in most states, and Bush had signed a Texas state law to that effect.

News, Etc.

Only in America...

The Fact is the Privatizers Have Moved Far Beyond Vouchers

and have put their money behind sham private schools called "charter schools" to soak up taxpayer money.  Vouchers were found to not have worked at all, and charter schools by and large are no better, and often worse, than traditional public schools.

All of these privatization efforts won't work because the people peddling them don't know or, more likely, don't care, that the real problem in public education is the lack of accountability of administrators and the fact administrative law really doesn't protect teachers at all from administrator abuse and labor law violations.

link

Paul Street Gives Obama's Political Obituary

which can be summed up as "I told you so."

And he did, as did many of us who bothered to look at his writings, listen to his speeches, and cut through the media hype.

Obama hasn't been president two years, and he's already a lame duck.

His only achievement will be the destruction of the Democratic Party--provided traditional constituencies sit on their collective asses. And, as Street notes, the so-called "left" has allowed him to do it.

It takes a "Democrat" to destroy Democratic Party principals.

News, Etc.

At least this billionaire is a true philanthropist and not one of these fakers like Bill Gates who uses tax exempt foundations to destroy social institutions.

This guy actually is doing some good.

link
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Speaking of environment, here are some nice photographs of Yosemite during this time of year.
_____

Better late than never, I suppose.
_____

The Worst Moment in the Obama Presidency, Bar None

That clip is so astounding to watch.  It's surreal.  The former president cannot be counted on to bail Obama out, but Obama apparently thinks so.  Besides, Bill really needs to retire from public life; he looks horrible.

Because Obama is Turning into a Spectacular Failure

as president, his biggest cheerleaders in the media are working overtime to try and encourage him to save his reputation, especially those in the "liberal" media, when in fact those same cheerleaders are in the same category as the white-collar crooks who benefit from Obama's latest blunders.

News, Etc.

Don't think for a minute Eli Broad's "foundations" give one rip about improving public education.
_____

Elizabeth Edwards was laid to rest today.

It's Pretty Damned Pathetic

when Obama has to get a former president to try and bail him out.

For his part, Bill Clinton needs to get out of the public limelight and go back to his library in Arkansas.  He just makes himself look worse trying to defend Obama.

The WSWS analyzes those tax windfalls for the rich.

A news clip of the press conference that made me sick:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

More Barack

First-person account of what happened in the Iowa caucuses in 2008.    It's pretty interesting--and damning of Obama's rather sleazy campaign..

It's in a private forum, so I won't post excerpts here.  The writer accuses the campaign of blatant cheating in the caucuses and appears to have  good evidence of it.

News, Etc.

The money people are getting a little bit upset with Obama.
_____

And What About Obama and Unions?

Well, we know he has as much use for them as he has for all of the other traditional Democratic constituencies, which is none at all.

After all, union members aren't part of the plutocracy Obama represents.

On unions and dems, please remember two gross things; (1) in late 2007 he assaults Edwards (actually pro-labor) as a tool of "the big special interests that control Washington") because Edwards was getting advertisement support from SEIU (as if big labor was the big power in the country...absurd); (2) in 2008 in his economic advisor the neoliberal jerk economist Austan Goolsbee told Canadian officials to disregard Obama's campaign rhetoric (to Ohioe workers) about trade law reform ...basically Goolsbee said "don't worry, this is just the fake populist crap you have to say to all these sorry ass proletarian shlubs; he's really safe for global capital." Well that promise has been born out. They haven't lifted a finger for EFCA. And labor leadership seems not to care; just pathetic.

We are in danger of losing it all, and it took a "Democrat" to do it.  The neoliberal poison in the Democratic Party began to take hold in the late 1980s following the defeat of Dukakis,  with the belief that Democrats needed to be more "pro-business"  to get the needed moolah to compete with the corrupt GOP and therefore ultimately be as corrupt as they are.   The cynical belief was that the traditional constituencies like unions, liberals, and minorities would vote Democratic anyway because they had nowhere else to go, so it was seen as essential to try and make headway into the big biz constituency of the GOP.   Many critics of the current incarnation of the DP look at the Democratic Leadership Council as key to this, but I'd say the poison went far beyond a pseudo think tank.  The DLC was actually a product of southern Democrats like Bill Clinton in  designed to help the Dems to be more competitive in national elections.  Granted, it was and is pretty damned neoliberal, but I believe an outright takeover by fake Dems has occurred with the election of Obama.  He was never vetted by the media--on purpose--but as longtime critic Paul Street notes, the plutocracy vetted Obama well.  With his election, these crooks basically own both political parties.  We are now in danger of losing everything because these plutocrats or parasites, as I call them, are basically anti-American.

Why Should Anybody Be Surprised

Bend Over Barry is willing to sell FDR's legacy down the river?  He never had any use for real Democrats.

It's just astounding how this man ever got to where he is today.

We haven't seen the worst of Obama yet.

Veteran Teachers in NYC

had better cash in their retirement early or dust off their resumes to work in call centers, for Cathie Black is looking to can a whole slew of them in order to make room for Barbie doll bimbos, you know, the more "energetic," "enthusiastic," read CHEAP, "teachers."

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I suppose Cathie Black is a "Democrat" as well.

There is a Reason

why our president deserves the nickname "Bend Over Barry."  Every damned thing the Republicans want, he obliges.  After all, he's a tool for the same corrupt interests as the GOP.

As the Black Agenda Report noted below, Obama's big contribution is he is absolutely destroying the Democratic Party.  But ringers exist for a purpose, and that's to help the other side.

I was thinking about how similar the promotion of Obama to the nomination and presidency was to the cynical promotion of Clarence Thomas to the United States Supreme Court.  These promoters played the race card in both cases, but with Thomas the African African constituency wasn't fooled.  But man were they ever bamboozled with Obama.  I believe the "D" in front of his name made all the difference.

The trouble is, far from being a "socialist," Obama has the potential of being the most right-wing president in American history, even more so than Bush II or his hero Ronald Reagan.

Fuck him and the horse's ass he rode in on.

I Can't Argue With a Word of This

It was always obvious:

Obama doesn’t really want folks to take the long view of his time in office. His modus operandi after every debacle is to claim to have rescued bits and pieces of the Democratic agenda from GOP savaging: a health care bill that, in total, is worse than none at all, a financial “reform” unworthy of the name. He early in his term set in motion his infernal deficit reduction commission, knowing it would attack social spending across the board, so that he could later “rescue” selected programs from extinction and claim saviorhood. Obama will claim to have “saved” extension of unemployment benefits by this week’s “compromise” with the Republican minority in the lame duck Congress when, in reality, it is Obama’s center-right modalities of governance and back-channel dealings that have allowed the GOP minority to behave like a majority.

The overarching truth of the last two years Is that Obama has been at constant war with the New Deal and the left hemisphere of his party, acting as Wall Street’s Trojan Horse in the White House. Tuesday’s press conference starred an unrepentant, unreconstructed, center-right, corporate operative who sees his primary duty as destroying what remains of the Democrat’s progressive legacy. And the first term of the disaster is less than half over.
 

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I Made Sure I Missed the Sellout's Press Conference

of the other day where he once again capitulated to the GOP's interests:



I can barely stand him anymore.

Barf City

In this infamous video clip made by the Reno Gazette-Journal, Obama can hardly hide his admiration for Ronald Reagan; after all, he's patterned his disastrous presidency after him and has embraced right-wing policies Reagan wouldn't have DARED:

Good News for Those Bent on Destroying Social Security

Now that there's talk of raising the age of getting full Social Security benefits to 69 (when actually the age should be lowered, with the earliest age being 55 given the lack of jobs and age discrimination), fewer people will qualify because life expectancy is going into the  ditch.

You don't have to be Pol Pot or Hitler to commit genocide.

The Moral of the Story Is This

Never EVER trust anybody connected with the University of Chicago including its law school.

We basically have one political party now, with two factions: one seemingly sane and the other utterly and brazenly batshit.  Both factions, however, serve the filthy rich elite and their selfish interests to the detriment of everybody else.

I am glad this guy finally saw through the media-inducted hype:

Of course, by extending (and actually increasing, as the compromise does) the Bush tax cuts, the effect will be to accelerate the frequency where the debt ceiling will become an issue again and again and again. Each time, Republicans will demand takeaways from American workers and our disadvantaged, and every time Obama will bend over and let US take it up the tailpipe again. He has no spine and, more importantly, no loyalty to the great principles of the Democratic Party to which he owed his election.

We have got to beat this mewling coward, this Republican masquerading as a Democrat, when he stands for renomination as our party's standard bearer. Let him run as the VEEP candidate on a ticket headed by Michael Bloomberg, because that's where he stands on every issue that counts, and where his lack of honor and absence of courage will be a good fit.

God forbid we get stuck with Bloomberg.  He's been an utter disaster in NYC, especially in his "stewardship" of the public school system there.

There will come a day, however, when the Tea Party types especially wake up from their stupor and realize they've been bought and paid for and conned by the elites and realize there is really a class war being waged against everybody who is not in that financial elite, what I call the parasitical class.

Katy bar the door when that happens--those sideshow "social issues" like abortion, gay marriage, etc., won't mean shit when people are homeless, starving, and angry.

 

News, Etc.

Our compassionate conservatives couldn't find it in their own black hearts to provide health aid to those brave people who risked their lives and health during the 9/11 attacks.
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The United States is trying to emulate China in its attempt to limit educational opportunities, while China in turn is trying to emulate the U.S. in test score cheating.
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Aretha Franklin is suffering from some very serious health issues, possibly the almost always fatal pancreatic cancer, but she is said to be doing well.

I suspect if she has the dreaded pancreatic cancer, she had the Whipple procedure or something similar.
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Even Robert Reich

thinks very little of Barack Reagan's latest capitulation to the GOP on tax cuts for people who don't need them.

Barack Reagan

After all, "trickle on" really does work--for the rich, of course, just as it is intended.

The rest of us keep fighting over fewer and fewer crumbs while the parasites take it all.

If You Talk Like a Republican and Act Like a Republican,

why should anybody be at all surprised when you propose things that are Republican?

Especially when you're a "ringer" like Obama always was, and as I called him over three years ago.

Only a "Democrat" would get away with this garbage.

How ingenious it was for our parasitical class and its media to peddle this neolib as a "Democrat" and cynically use the race card to get him nominated.  It makes me so goddamned sick how  people were manipulated into voting for him when the neoliberalism was there all along.

Why Is It I Don't Hold Billionaires in Awe?

I am supposed to be "impressed" because a slew of billionaires have decided they feel so guilty over their ill-gotten gains they are going to "give it away" through "foundations" which are nothing more than tax writeoffs and have strings attached.

What they should have been doing all along is paying their fair share of taxes so that the rest of us would not have to worry about our public services being cut.  They should have been paying their fair share all along instead of bribing politicians to find more creative ways of hoarding the money.

Call me unimpressed.

At the Rate Obama is Going,

he won't have any supporters left except perhaps wife Michelle and Oprah:

He is a man without honor, a true mewling coward at best, a traitor to his party and the American people at worst. He has betrayed us over and over and over again to try to get empty kudos for himself for "seeming reasonable" as the Republicans steal his and our lunches. He is now citing "exit polls" as his excuse to capitulate on taxes, ignoring the fact that the exit polls cannot reach any of the people who he betrayed and who decided not to go to the polls at all -- I went, but only reluctantly and heavy-heartedly, and I know there are LEGIONS who would have voted for him had he kept his promises -- enough to achieve gains in the House and the Senate rather than the "shellacking" he takes such evident joy in publicly admitting to (even though it was no such thing).

I will support whoever challenges him in the next Democratic primary season, choosing from among the contenders whichever one I believe will best fight for the ideals of the Democratic Party and the good of the American people.

Barack Obama can shove it where the sun don't shine. I will never, ever vote for him again. Ever. I won't vote for a Republican but that is because I have made a solemn, heartfelt vow never to do so, a vow I intend to keep. I am quite seriously uncertain that another vote for him would NOT be a vote for a Republican. I mean, his spineless, groveling, mealy-mouthed crap sounds more like the obvious deceits of Howard Baker, Bill Scott, or Everitt Dirksen than it does like any Democrat I ever knew.

It's not like people weren't warned about him.  It's just that people wanted to believe in something after the years of Bush and Cheney.  Who'd have thought one would be nostalgic for THOSE two?

If Obama has accomplished anything at all, he's succeeded in that.

One could argue he's a trojan jackass.

Remembering Elizabeth Edwards (1949-2010)

Elizabeth campaigned for John at the Carpenters Union Hall, Reno, Nevada,  in September of 2007.  She signed a foldable frisbee for me.  You can see an example in one of the pictures.

It Figures an Avowed Admirer of Ronald Reagan,

even one peddling himself as a "Democrat," would subscribe to the discredited "trickle on" theory of economics.

He's just digging himself further and further into a hole.

I Just Returned from Working

when I found out the news Elizabeth Edwards, 61, had passed away today after a six-year battle with cancer.

I met her three times; she was a great person and sharp as a tack.

Here is the NYT obituary.

The Raleigh News-Observer has a better obituary that focuses more on her:

She became a popular figure on the presidential campaign trail in 2004, seen as someone approachable, less glamorous and more down-to-earth than her husband. She would make fun of herself as someone without perfectly coiffed hair or a stylish outfit, as someone who struggled with her weight.

It was during a campaign trip in Wisconsin a few weeks before the 2004 election that Edwards noticed a lump in her breast. Tests indicated cancer, but she and her husband kept it a secret until after the election.

The day after the election, when Kerry and John Edwards made their concession speeches in Boston, Edwards went to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for a biopsy and to begin treatment. She spent much of 2005 undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment after surgery.

She received 65,000 messages of support.

Another Unqualified School "Leader"

tries--and fails--to define what public school "tenure" is.

Of course the reformers deliberately confuse it with college and university tenure by claiming public school teachers have "lifetime" jobs and they can't be removed.

It's such a crock of shit I don't even know where to begin. If people were talking about administrators, they'd have a point about how it is virtually impossible to get this morons removed.

Teachers have fewer rights than burger flippers.

As If

we need anymore proof Obama is an outrageous sellout.

I am so sick of the man I can't see.

News, Etc.

Sad news that Elizabeth Edwards has now stopped all cancer treatment, with doctors believing any further treatment would be "unproductive."
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The "99ers" like yours truly can drop dead for all Congress cares. Obama, being the Republican he is, decided again to cave to the GOP and give their millionaire and billionaire supporters even more money in tax breaks to hoard.

And no, EUI hasn't been "extended"; filing dates would be pushed back a year.
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You KNOW It's Bad for Obama

when you have people like this writing that since Obama continues to disregard his "base," meaning, of course, REAL Democrats, he should be challenged for the nomination in 2012 ala LBJ in 1968.

Life is Good

when you live in a big city like Detroit and can no longer find work.

Life is even better when you realize our wonderful Congress is using the long-term unemployed as a bargaining chip in exchange for the Bush tax cuts for people who don't need it and only hoard the money.