Democrats Slaughtered From Coast To Coast

There's no better emblem of how badly voters took the sledgehammer to Democrats last night then what happened to Congresswoman Louise Slaughter in Western New York:

If Democrats went into Election Day anxious about any local race, it certainly wasn't Louise Slaughter's bid for a 15th term in Congress.

In the end, it was likely that contest that caused them the greatest grief. Republican challenger Mark Assini gave Slaughter the race of her career.

The race was too close to call on Tuesday night. Unofficial results from the polls and a partial count of absentee ballots put Slaughter ahead of Assini, but only by 605 votes — 94,251 to 93,646. Another 2,800 absentee ballots still have to be tallied.

Slaughter claims she's won, but the race is too close to call.

Frankly, the race should have never been close at all.

It was that kind of night for the Democratic Party.

Republicans added seats in the Congress, they took at least seven seats in the Senate, they held on to governor's seats they were supposed to lose (like Scott Walker's in Wisconsin), they made races close that weren't expected to be close (like Slaughter's in Western New York and Mark Warner's in Virginia), and they easily took back the State Senate here in New York.

Message sent: America thinks Democrats suck.

And they do suck - most of them stand for little other than their own careers, many of them govern or vote whatever their corporate masters want and, if you put the politics of a lot of these people up against, say Ronald Reagan's record, they look an awful lot like Republicans.

Slaughter, alas, isn't one of those kind of Dems, but she got caught up in it too - a night when a lot of Democrats went down to defeat or had races of their lives that weren't supposed to be races at all.

In the end, I suspect yesterday's election is as much or more of an expression of overall dissatisfaction with the direction of the country as it is a thumbs-up for Republicans.

In two years, many Republican Senators in blue or purple states face re-election and I wouldn't be surprised to see exactly what happened to a lot of Dems last night happen to Republicans in 2016 - especially if Hillary Clinton is at the top of the Democratic ticket.

But before we get to 2016, there's a whole lot of damage that can be done.

Nationwide, will Obama, dying to do a deal to destroy Social Security, get to do it now that Republicans control both the House and the Senate?

Will we finally get passage of No Child Left Behind II now that the GOP has both houses of the legislature?

In New York State, Andrew Cuomo won re-election with 54% of the vote and now has an out-and-out Republican State Senate to work with - no Jeff Klein or Tony Avella needed to ram through anti-teacher or anti-public school legislation or lift the charter cap completely, though I suspect the members of the Independent Democratic Caucus will be seduced to govern as Republicans anyway and really put an exclamation point on the whole thing.

Early on last night, I tweeted this:

Corporate Dems going down all over the place tonight. It be nice if lesson learned was, don't be corporate whore.
— realitybasededucator (@perdidostschool) November 5, 2014

But of course, that won't be the lesson Dems nationwide will take.

The lesson they'll take is to move ever more rightward, ever more corprorate-friendly, ever more corporate-whorey.

The NY Times says the political map has been re-ordered for the next two years, with Republicans in the ascendant across the nation.

That is certainly the case even here in blue New York where a Republican Lite governor has  a Republican State Senate and his eyes aimed on "breaking" the public school "monopoly" and bringing a punitive revision to his APPR teacher evaluation system in order to fire more teachers.

Going to be a bumpy two years.

Free Refreshments Courtesy Of The Gates Foundation-Funded Educators4Excellence

A notice was passed along about an Educators4Excellence "Testing Networking Event!" tomorrow between 3PM and 5PM in Manhattan.

In case you're unfamiliar with the Educators4Excellence group, they're an astroturf organization run by some ex-educators who started a reform group that aligned well with what wealthy education reformers want for public education, then quit teaching to live high off the Gates Foundation-funded hog.

They push for all kinds of fantastic "teacher-led" reforms like teacher evaluations tied to test scores, 6+ observations a year, more and "better" testing, and of course Common Core.

You know, the kinds of top-down reforms that were shoved through by the Wall Street-funded Obama and Cuomo administrations, both of whom lap up the donations from the same wealthy education reformers who fund the Educators4Excellence (see here and here.)

In any case, the Educators4Excellence have got some excess Gates cash to burn tomorrow and they're holding a "Testing Network Event!" that you are cordially invited to:

Come celebrate the start of a new school year and network with some other teachers!  Enjoy complimentary refreshments on Educators 4 Excellence and hear about teacher-led change!

When: Friday October 17th
            3:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Where: CK-14 The Crooked Knife
             232 W. 14th Street

Why: Network with like-minded educators that teach in your area, learn about E4E, and discuss teacher recommendations around testing and assessment.

No notice if you have sign a loyalty oath before you partake in the complimentary, Bill Gates-funded refreshment or discussion about "teacher-led change!", but in the past E4E has been known to make attendees at their get-togethers sign oaths before they were allowed in.

If there's no oath to sign and you're in the neighborhood around 14th Street, why not stop by, enjoy some Bill Gates-funded complimentary refreshment and let the Educators4Excellence astroturf folks picking up the tab know what you think of them and their "teacher-led change!"

Of course, since the braintrust at E4E, such as it is, have quit their jobs to work in "advocacy," they really ought to term their jive "ex-teacher led change!", but whatever.

Oh, and make up your own joke about why they chose "The Crooked Knife" for their pro-deform "Testing Network Event!"

My take is, that's the knife they use to stick teachers in the back with - bought and paid for by Gates and other corporate deformers, of course.

The Lesson For Liberals And Progressives In The Eric Cantor Defeat

Buh-bye, Eric:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was defeated Tuesday by a little-known economics professor in Virginia’s Republican primary, a stunning upset and major victory for the tea party.

Cantor is the second-most powerful member of the U.S. House and was seen by some as a possible successor to the House speaker.

His loss to Dave Brat, a political novice with little money marks a huge victory for the tea party movement, which supported Cantor just a few years ago.

Brat had been a thorn in Cantor’s side on the campaign, casting the congressman as a Washington insider who isn’t conservative enough. Last month, a feisty crowd of Brat supporters booed Cantor in front of his family at a local party convention.

His message apparently scored well with voters in the 7th District.

“There needs to be a change,” said Joe Mullins, who voted in Chesterfield County Tuesday. The engineering company employee said he has friends who tried to arrange town hall meetings with Cantor, who declined their invitations.

Tiffs between the GOP’s establishment and tea party factions have flared in Virginia since tea party favorite Ken Cuccinelli lost last year’s gubernatorial race. Cantor supporters have met with stiff resistance in trying to wrest control of the state party away from tea party enthusiasts, including in the Cantor’s home district.

Brat teaches at Randolph-Macon College, a small liberal arts school north of Richmond. He raised just more than $200,000 for his campaign, according to the most recent campaign finance reports. Prominent national tea party groups did spend independently to help Brat.

Brat offset the the cash disadvantage with endorsements from conservative activists like radio host Laura Ingraham, and with help from local tea party activists angry at Cantor.

The teacher tenure story in California remains the biggest story of the day, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor getting knocked off by a Tea Partier is a pretty close second.

You can bet Cantor's defeat will catch the notice of GOP insiders and party stalwarts.

Contrast what happened to Cantor tonight with the surrender the Working Families Party did on the Cuomo endorsement last month.

Until people on the left start taking these smarmy corporate Dems out the way the Tea Party just took out the smarmy Cantor, corporate Dems will continue to take the left for granted, will say anything they need to in order to get votes, then pull a full betrayal as soon as the election is over.

You start primarying a few of these corporate Dems and knocking a couple of them off and you can bet they'll stop taking you for granted.

It's a shame the left hasn't learned this lesson yet - not in 2012 with Obama, not in 2014 with Cuomo.

Maybe the left will learn it someday.

But probably not.

Cuomo Says You Can't Get More Left Than Him

I checked the calendar, but it's not April Fool's Day.

Still, have to assume this is some kind of joke:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave a defense of his progressive credentials on Wednesday after he was asked about a potential challenge from a liberal gubernatorial candidate this fall.

“I don’t know if there’s a lot of space to my left,” Cuomo said.

He cited the legalization of same-sex marriage, along with the 2013 gun control law known as the SAFE Act as examples of Democratic base-friendly measures he has successfully pushed through the Legislature which both times was partly controlled by Republicans.

“I think we’ve accomplished more progressive measures than this state has accomplished in decades and decades and decades,” he said while adding, “We have a phenomenal record of accomplishment.”

Okay, first I don't think you can be considered "progressive" while using the "Royal 'We'" - just saying.

Also, Cuomo conveniently avoids the fiscal side of things, where he shoved concession-laden contracts down the throats of the state unions, is starving school districts via a tax cap even as he puts more and more mandates on them, undercuts traditional public schools for privatized charter schools, pushes tax cuts for the wealthy and tuition hikes for working and middle class students at SUNY colleges. 

You can't get much further to the right than Andrew Cuomo on any of these issues without being, say, a Republican.

And quite frankly, a lot of us out there on the left think he is a Republican, in Dem clothes, and while Cuomo thinks he's getting the best of both worlds by eating up all the yummy yummy Wall Street and hedge fundie money from his corporate base even as he pushes a lefty agenda on social issues and calls himself a "progressive", he's fooling nobody - not liberal activists, not the base of the Democratic Party, not the "net roots" at the Daily Kos and elsewhere on the Internets.

Call yourself a "progressive" all you want Sheriff Andy - it's a laughable statement on its face and no one takes you seriously when you make it.

You've got problems on the left and whether you buy off some of the unions and scare some of the activists with threats of retaliation post re-election, everybody's got your number on politics - a corporate whore through and through out to do the business of the 1%.

As Markos said a while back at Daily Kos, run for president all you want because you deserve the humiliation.

You have as much chance of winning the White House as Lieberman in 2004.

Which is to say, none.

Run, Andy, run!

You got the Joementum!

Spitzer Must Be Doing Something Right

The corporate crooks who own this city and the neo-liberal functionaries in the press that shill for them are out for Eliot Spitzer this morning, with all three major daily newspapers attacking Spitzer with all their guns a blazin'.

The Daily News sends out Mike Lupica, Denis Hamill, Bill Hammond, and the editorial staff writer to shoot him down.

The Post puts out the hit on Spitzer with Andrea Peyser, Bob McManus, and the editorial staff writer as well.

Not to be outdone, the NY Times sends out Frank "I Loved 'Won't Back Down'" Bruni, Michael Powell, and the editorial staff writer to shiv Spitzer.

As I posted last night, UFT: A Union Of Retirees President Michael Mulgrew has threatened to personally take out campaign ads against Spitzer himself.

And Kathryn Wilde, head of the corporate criminal lobbying group New York City Partnership, attacked Spitzer in the Times.

Given how much of a reaction Spitzer's announcement to run for comptroller generated from the neo-liberal ruling class and their functionaries in the media, I'm starting to think Eliot Spitzer back with political power is just what we need in this city.

Anybody who upsets Kathryn Wilde, Michael Mulgrew, and the Post, Daily News and Times editorial staff/neo-liberal columnist brigade must be doing something right.

Given the chaotic roll-out of his campaign that makes Weiner's rollout look masterful, they probably have nothing to worry about.

It doesn't look like he's organized enough to get enough signatures to get on the ballot by Thursday's deadline.

But it will be interesting to see what happens if he does.

John Liu scares the neo-liberal ruling class and their functionaries in the media a little bit, which is why they destroyed him with the campaign finance fraud scandal.

But Liu doesn't come close to scaring the corporate criminals, political establishment and media functionaries the way Spitzer does.

Taking a look at the panic Spitzer's announced candidacy is generating in the corridors of power today, I'm starting to think my own initial negative reaction to Spitzer's announcement was a touch misguided.

Anybody who puts this kind of fear into the elite can't be all bad.

Using Cory Booker's Hedge Fundie/Charter School Connections Against Him

Buzzfeed has a piece out that says opponents of Newark Mayor Cory Booker have a four-pronged strategy to take him out before the special election to replace Frank Lautenberg's Senate seat from NJ - and one part of that strategy is to hit him on charters and his adversarial relationship with teachers:

But one a strategist connected to an opposing campaign said one weak spot in Booker’s campaign would be “the fact that his record in Newark is even debatable,” the source said. “You look at Pallone and Holt and you see a proven record in Washington, not to mention a voting record.”

As mayor of a city, Booker has managerial experience that very well may appeal to voters, but Pallone and Holt have both voted on a range of economic, social, and foreign issues on the floor of the House, providing voters a clear sense of where both candidates stand on national policy.

Rival candidates could also seize on Booker’s strained relationship with state teachers unions, as well as his support for charter schools, which are championed by the same hedge fund and Wall Street communities that have financed Booker for years.

“That’s what makes us least comfortable,” said Steve Phillips, a progressive fundraiser whose political action committee has vowed to raise $1 to $2 million for Booker. “I understand the complexities of trying to do something for lower-income kids in a political bureaucracy, but if I could wave my magic wand, I wouldn’t want him as close to the hedge fund folks as he is.”

Booker is way ahead of Frank Pallone and Rush Holt in polls, but as one commenter in the piece notes: “Nothing is inevitable.”

We'll see.

If nothing else, exposing Booker for the opportunistic corporate whore he is would be a good thing.

But What Great Asshats!

Above is a photo of Evan Stone and a few other members of the Asshats4Educators, the Gates Foundation/DFER-funded corporate education reform group that brought about two dozen members to City Hall Park yesterday for a rally to pressure the UFT into caving to NYCDOE demands on a new test score-based teacher evaluation system.

The boys in the green asshats don't look too happy at their little rally and that's because there were almost as many people at the Asshats4Educator rally protesting the Asshats4Educators as there were Asshats.

What was worse, many of the Asshats present were ignorant of their own agenda, as the crack team at South Bronx School showed in this interview of an Asshat member on what value-added measurement is:




There we have an Asshat4Educator in City Hall Park protesting for value-added measurements of student test scores to be used on him who can't explain what value-added measurements are.

As the guys in the Guiness ad used to say "Brilliant!"

The Asshats4Educators rally was so demoralizing for the Asshat faithful that even Asshat-friendly education reform website Gates Foundation/Gotham Schools, normally happy to publish all things asshattery without any criticism or skepticism whatsoever of the Gates Foundation-funded corporate reform astroturf group, had to acknowledge the protest against the Asshat demo right under their ad for the Asshat4Educator rally.

And with the counter rally looking like this, no wonder the corporate reform shills at Gates Foundation/Gotham Schools couldn't ignore it:

Which brings us all back to the top picture of Asshats looking so unhappy:

Wanna know why the Asshat brass look so unhappy in that photo?

Because normally they're used to excluding anybody from Asshats4Educator events who doesn't sign an Asshat loyalty pledge or promise undying fealty to their corporate reform agenda, as Ednotes reported here, but this time given the public nature of the rally, the Asshats couldn't keep the real teachers and anti-reformers away from their little shindig and they got some reality-based criticism of the corporate-funded horseshit they're trying to sell to the public.

So overall, not a great day for the Asshats4Educators, but really, when you're wearing such great free, Gates Foundation-funded green asscaps, who cares if the rally didn't go so well.

I mean, everybody loves free Gates Foundation swag, right?

Who's Biden Kidding?

From the soon-to-be closed New York Post:

WASHINGTON — Vice President Biden yesterday accused Mitt Romney of carrying out a “full-blown assault” on educators, telling the nation’s largest teachers union that the Republican Party thinks they’re “selfish.”

The spirited defense of educators came as President Obama hopes to fire up working-class and union support in a bus tour that kicks off in Ohio right after the Fourth of July.

“There’s a pretty uniform view held by Mr. Romney and the Republicans in the majority in Congress today — they criticize and they blame you, they make you the fall guy,” Biden told the National Education Association’s annual convention in DC.

“They should be thinking of ways to make your job easier, not more difficult. Instead, they hector, they lecture, and they blame you,” he continued. “I can’t think of a candidate for president who’s ever made such a direct assault on such an honorable profession.

“They don’t understand why you chose to teach in the first place. Honest to God, I don’t think they get it,” he said, claiming that the Republican plan for public education “is to let the states use [federal] Title I dollars to boost enrollment in private schools.”

Has there been any administration that has used teachers as scapegoats more than this one?

The Obama administration's signature education program, Race to the Top, is all about a "full-blown assault" on teachers, making teachers' jobs more difficult, blaming them for all the ills of the education system (and society, for that matter), scapegoating them in public (the Secretary of Education endorsed the publishing of bogus teacher ratings in the LA Times) and firing them (both Arne Duncan and Barack Obama celebrated the firing of the Central Falls teachers.)

Biden isn't wrong in his "assessment" of Mitt Romney's attitude toward teachers or Romney's education policies.

But he must assume teachers are the dumbest people on the planet to sit and listen to the shit he was slinging at the NEA yesterday without calling him and his corporate-whore boss on it.

Every accusation he made against Romney is true of Obama as well.

The sell-outs in the leadership suites at the NEA and the AFT (and the UFT and the NYSUT) have decided to endorse Obama out of political expediency and cynicism.

Sure, Obama sucks, goes the notion, but at least he's not a Republican. At least he's not Romney.

Sorry, that argument doesn't hold water.

Barack Obama is the most anti-teacher president ever.

His Race to the Top program has transformed public education so that by 2014 nearly every child in this nation is going to take 35+ standardized tests a year in math, ELA, social studies, science, art, music, foreign language, and physical education not for diagnostic purposes but simply to evaluate, grade and fire their teachers.

In addition, this administration has bragged about how easy they are making it for testing vendors to sell their wares nationwide because they have standardized the nation's curriculum via the untested Common Core "State" Standards.

Was the Common Core promoted to improve public education for students or vending opportunities for Barack Obama's corporate education backers?

Dunno, but I do know that teachers all across the nation will be evaluated on how well they teach this untested curriculum, or at least, how well their students test on it.

Moreover, the administration has promoted the use of value-added voodoo on teachers, with Arne Duncan hailing the publication of bogus value-added data of teachers that was generated by the LA Times that led to the suicide of one veteran LA teacher.

No one at the USDOE or the Obama White House ever took responsibility for that.

The administration has made teacher evaluation systems that use value-added measurements a "must" for states to get a waiver from No Child Left Behind Regulations.

If states fail to evaluate their teachers using a VAM, they fail the NCLB waiver process.

This has all been put into place because Barack Obama believes there are hundreds of thousands of "bad" teachers across this country that need to be fired.

That's why both Duncan and Obama not only cheered the firing of the teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island, they have put in place policies that ensure teachers all across this nation will be scapegoated and fired in the next few years.

On Teacher Appreciation Day, Barack Obama ignored unionized teachers and instead cited the greatness of charter schools.

He couldn't be bothered to visit the NEA convention to sling his own shit and instead sent Biden.

The policies this administration imposes, the words this president uses and the treatment of teachers that he exhibits tells you everything you need to know about the race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on education.

There ain't a damned bit of difference between the two that matters in the long run and if you care about public education and care about schools and teachers, you would best serve the cause by calling up the Obama White House and telling them how full of shit you think Biden and his corporate-whore boss are.

Oh, and vote for somebody other than Obama/Biden/Duncan/Gates/Broad/Walmart/Bloomberg in November.

Because if you pull the lever for Obama/Biden in November, you're getting the policies of Duncan/Gates/Broad/Walmart/Bloomberg as well.

Bloomberg Layoff Push All About Ending Seniority Rules And Replacing People With Computers

Now that Mayor Bloomberg has issued his final budget proposal for fiscal year 2011 and still maintains that he has to lay off 4,278 teachers, I expected to see his "END LIFO" push to reanimate back to lfe.

And just like that, here it is, courtesy of the Bloomberg propaganda rag, the Murdoch Street Post:

Schoolyard brawl!

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday revived his push to scrap the "last in, first out" law after proposing to lay off 4,100 teachers in his executive budget plan.

LIFO job protections must be replaced with a merit-based system in order to keep the best teachers regardless of seniority, the mayor said, adding, "We need it -- and we need it right now -- because of layoffs."

And so he threw down the gauntlet to the city's delegation of state lawmakers to pass LIFO reform.

If the city is forced to do layoffs strictly through seniority, "the greatest carnage will be" in elementary schools in the poorest neighborhoods, those with the neediest students, he predicted.

Those schools would be disproportionately impacted because they have the highest number of recently hired teachers, he said, warning Albany that ending LIFO "should be [its] No. 1 priority."

But the teachers union said the mayor was simply crying wolf. His threat to lay off thousands of teachers comes amid hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenues to the city, an admitted surplus exceeding $3.2 billion, and an increase in state aid this year, said UFT President Mike Mulgew.

And then of course out of the woodwork comes the Hedge Fundies For Education Reform to shill for the mayor and "reform":

Gov. Cuomo and state Assembly Democrats have agreed with the UFT by refusing to touch LIFO. Only state Senate Republicans have voted to change the controversial law.

Yet one school-advocacy group says Albany should be siding with the kids, not the union.

"It's time for state leaders to act to end the practice of LIFO, and help ensure that the best teachers stay in the classroom during this difficult time," said Joe Williams, of Education Reform Now.

"That's what reform means -- giving the taxpayers more for their money, in this case, the best teachers we have.

"The ball is now in Albany's court."

That's what "reform" means, Joe?

Really?

Lately "reform", at least in education circles, has meant top-down, corporate-driven changes that benefit for-profit school operators, test prep companies, and other education management organizations.

In the case of ending LIFO, "reform" means allowing the mayor to fire any teacher he wants any time he wants regardless of merit.

That's where the hedge fundies, the education "reformers" and Mayor Bloomberg want to take this.

This fight has NEVER been about keeping the "best" teachers in classrooms.

It has been about keeping the "cheapest" teachers in classrooms, while replacing as many teachers with computers as they possibility can.

This fight has been about labor costs.

And that's what's going on now.

That is why the mayor has slated $550 million for technology spending in the NYC public school system next year, but cut $300 million from teacher salaries at the same time.

That is why the mayor is renewing the Wireless Generation "School of One" contract for $4.5 million for the next three years.

That's why he is laying off 4,278 teachers but bringing in tons of new computers (and spending hundreds of millions on outside computer consultant contracts in the bargain.)

Bloomberg wants children sitting in front of computers and just enough cheap newbie teachers around to handle the classroom management and paperwork.

He believes the future of education lies in the computer, lies in technology, not in humanity, not in people.

He believes in "virtual" education rather than "authentic" interactions between "real" people.

And this fundamental shift in education isn't just taking place here in NYC.

It's happening all across the country courtesy of the Obama administration and their corporate funders.

That's why you see the Gates Foundation and Pearson Education putting in place national tests and a national curriculum that will all be computer-based.

That's why you see the Obama administration both spearheading this increased technological spending in education and cheering it.

Replace people with computers, hand out no-bid computer technology contracts by the score, make sure all these computer education programs have to be run on Microsoft, bust the teachers union's power by breaking seniority rules, give districts the ability to fire any teacher they want any time they want and head in to that BRAVE NEW WORLD.

That's what "reform" means these days, Hedge Fundie Shill Joe.

And that's what the mayor is attempting to do here with this layoff push.

Corporate reform cannot be completed so long as a reasonably strong union and reasonably strong work protections for teachers remain.

So the corporate reformers intend to end both of those.

And take us into that BRAVE NEW WORLD.

Corporate Fascist Control Comes To Michigan And New Jersey

Via Queens Teacher, here's the Rachel Maddow Show on what the future will look like when the autocratic corporate managers take over cities:



Maddow reports that the Michigan governor plans to have corporate managers take over 23 school districts in the state in addition to the one that has already been taken over.

Here's the rationale:

Mayor Virg Benero: "Billions of dollars at stake, billions of dollars being spent and Wall Street can't wait to sink their fangs into it. They couldn't get a hold of Social Security but by gosh they've got a way to get in. And even with a president and secretary of Education under the guise of "Waiting for Superman", they can come in and look like a savior but dig right into those piles of cash and at the same time help wipe out the public unions that are a part of the public school system."

Meanwhile Schools Matter points out that Governor Chris Christie plans to abolish school boards in New Jersey.

Another part of the corporatization plan for schools.

Take away any vestige of democratic control.

Give one man the power - whether it's the Mayor of Money in NYC or Christie in Jersey or a corporate manager in one of 24 school districts in Michigan.

One man, no democratic say from the community, no democratic say from voters.

This is fascism pure and simple.

Glad to see Maddow taking on this issue.

I WISH she had taken it on when it was Obama and Duncan laying the groundwork for this by demonizing teachers and schools and schools districts as "failing."

You think that the firing of all those teachers in Central Falls, Rhode Island and the codified teacher demonization that is the Obama Race to the Top policy (not to mention his No Child Left Behind blueprint) didn't lay the rationale for all this corporatization and privatization?

I think it absolutely did.

Unfortunately Maddow only seems to care when it's Repubs doing the privatizing.

Until "progressives" like Maddow become willing to take on corporate pols no matter the party, I am afraid the corporate fascism is going to continue.

Yes, Rick Snyder, Scott Walker, Michael Bloomberg and Chris Christie - Republicans all - are a big part of this problem.

But so are "Democrats" like Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, Rahm Emanuel, and Arne Duncan.

Take on THEM too, Rachel.

An Even Worse NCLB Blueprint Than Obama's

Yikes - the Fordham blueprint for NCLB reauthorization is even scarier than Obama's:

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an influential think tank with a couple former top federal education officials on its staff, has issued its preferred blueprint for reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act.

Some of the ideas they put forward have been kicking around Capitol Hill for awhile now—like the idea of setting tighter expectations for student learning but giving more flexibility for how states and school districts get there, and establishing more competitive federal funding for school improvement and innovation, rather than across-the-board mandates and formula funds.

Fordham's authors are obviously familiar with Beltway culture. They note that they've structured their document like the briefing books that Capitol Hill and U.S. Department of Education staffers deliver to their bosses.

The report calls for "a radical rethinking of the federal role in education," one that is "much more limited and focused than it is currently, and it should be tailored to Uncle Sam's capacity and expertise."

The recommendations cover a lot of ground. I'll touch on a couple of them, and I'll let you peruse the rest on your own.

Fordham, which has a favorable view of the "Common Core" state academic standards, says states should be required to develop standards at least as rigorous as those guidelines in order to secure federal Title 1 dollars. A external body (possibly a panel with members selected by both states and federal officials) would be review states' standards, to judge whether they're up to snuff.

States should also be required to set tough achievement levels—at least as tough as those set by the Common Core—and tests based on their academic standards, Fordham argues. States that choose not follow the Common Core would have to show a panel that their achievement levels are pegged to "college and career readiness."

Fordham also calls for doing away with No Child Left Behind's mandate that teachers become "highly qualified," saying it's done little to improve the system. They also don't like the idea of the feds imposing mandate on states to develop teacher-evaluation systems. Instead, the envision a competitive program that incentivizes states to develop their own, innovative approaches to evaluating teachers and encouraging them to improve.

One reviewer with a dim view of Fordham's vision is education researcher and blogger Jay Greene, who sees some of their suggestions as too fed-heavy, particularly on standards and tests, and others as too vague, such as judging states and students on "college and career readiness."

"Fordham folks have no idea what that phrase means," Greene writes, "No one knows what college and career ready means."

Greene punctuates his blog post with a photo of noted scholar John Blutarsky—which seems to sum up his skepticism on many levels.

More testing, more federal standards, Title 1 dollars tied to "reform," fast food industry regulations for teachers - gee, sounds great...

...If you're a corporate whore or a member of the Chamber of Commerce...

NY Times Poll: Americans Say Raise Taxes On People Making Over $250,000 A Year

Somebody tell Little Andy "No Taxes For Millionaires!" Cuomo - Americans want to tax rich people:

Americans are more pessimistic about the nation’s economic outlook and overall direction than they have been at any time since President Obama’s first two months in office, when the country was still officially ensnared in the Great Recession, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

At a time of rising gas prices, stubborn unemployment and a cacophonous debate in Washington over the federal government’s ability to meet its future obligations, the poll presents stark evidence that the slow, if unsteady, gains in public confidence earlier this year that a recovery was under way are now all but gone.

Capturing what appears to be an abrupt change in attitude, the survey shows that the number of Americans who think the economy is getting worse has jumped 13 percentage points in just one month. Though there have been encouraging signs of renewed growth since last fall, many economists are having second thoughts, warning that the pace of expansion might not be fast enough to create significant numbers of new jobs.

The dour public mood is dragging down ratings for both parties in Congress and for President Obama, the poll found.

...

Mr. Obama has considerable support for his proposal to end tax cuts for those earning $250,000 a year and more: 72 percent of respondents approved of doing so as away to address the deficit; 24 percent disapproved.

And, in what he can take as a positive sign for his argument the nation has a duty to protect its most vulnerable citizens, about three-quarters of Americans think the federal government has a responsibility to provide health care for the elderly and 56 percent believe it has a similar duty to the poor.

“Keep people’s taxes and give them medical benefits,” Richard Sterling, an independent voter of Naugatuck, Conn., said in a follow-up interview.

People don't want taxes increased on THEM.

But given how few people actually make over $250,000 a year, you can raise taxes on THOSE PEOPLE, reduce budget deficits, keep services AND run a country that isn't THIRD FUCKING WORLD.

And wouldn't that just be peachy?

But instead, "Democrats" like Little Andy Cuomo (or Christie-Lite, as Spitzer dubbed him yesterday) want to reduce taxes on millionaires, throw old people out onto the street with food or health care and slash school budgets to the bone so the only thing left being funded is the FUCKING STANDARDIZED TESTS.

This sounds like a fabulous plan to complete the feudalization of America.

It is NOT, however, a plan to "share the sacrifice," as Little Andy and other corporate pols claim.

Fascism Comes To Indiana

Bad news:

Today, the Indiana Senate concurred with the House version of Senate Bill 575.

It goes to Senator Mitch "Big Jerk" Daniels for his signature either this week or next. He will almost certainly sign it.

This is a huge loss for teachers here in Indiana. As I've been saying for some time the victory parties regarding union labor and public education in the Hoosier state were quite premature. In concurring with the House Version of this bill, the Indiana Senate approved measures that would:

* allow annual evaluations to be conducted by other teachers or contracted outside agencies

* eliminate the ability of a local associations to bargain or discuss the evaluation tool

* restrict collective bargaining agreements to wages and wage related benefits

* ban the bargaining of contractual hours or number of days worked.

* eliminate current contractual reduction-in-force processes

* eliminate contractual grievance procedures except in cases related to wages and wage related benefits.

I added the bold for the two worst elements of this bill. Do the parts in bold sound familiar?

They should, if you've been following the labor struggles in Wisconsin and Ohio.

I'm lucky in that my own local union was able to negotiate a two-year extension on my contract, and in that our union has a pretty good working relationship with the administration and the school board. Other locals were not so lucky, and will now see huge chunks of their contract left entirely to the mercy of the local administration and school boards.

Should such entities decide that teachers ought to work an additional forty-five minutes to an hour a day, at no additional pay, they will be able to insert that kind of language into the contract. And if the locals don't like that? They can get bent, as far as the state GOP is concerned.

This is a sad day for teachers in Indiana.

Indeed, it is.

But remember that it is NOT just Republicans doing this to unions.

Rahm "Corporate Whore" Emanuel in Chicago plans to unilaterally impose longer work hours and days now that the Illinois legislature has given him that power.

Gotta love a country where corporate contracts are sacrosanct, but employee contracts are worthless.

They call that kind of country a fascist country.

And the politicians who engage in this kind of politics are fascists - whether it is Mitch Daniels in Indiana, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Rah Emanuel in Chicago, Chris Christie in New Jersey, or Bloomberg/Cuomo in New York.

One Family Member Strikes, Whole Family Loses Gov't Support

Wow - this is really taking the war on unions nationwide:

All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking middle class Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street; they are attacking workers’ collective bargaining rights, which has provoked a huge Main Street Movement to fight back.

Now, a group of House Republicans is launching a new stealth attack against union workers. GOP Reps. Jim Jordan (OH), Tim Scott (SC), Scott Garrett (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), and Louie Gohmert (TX) have introduced H.R. 1135, which states that it is designed to “provide information on total spending on means-tested welfare programs, to provide additional work requirements, and to provide an overall spending limit on means-tested welfare programs.”

Much of the bill is based upon verifying that those who receive food stamps benefits are meeting the federal requirements for doing so. However, one section buried deep within the bill adds a startling new requirement. The bill, if passed, would actually cut off all food stamp benefits to any family where one adult member is engaging in a strike against an employer.

The bill also includes a provision that would exempt households from losing eligibility, “if the household was eligible immediately prior to such strike, however, such family unit shall not receive an increased allotment as the result of a decrease in the income of the striking member or members of the household.”

Yet removing entire families from eligibility while a single adult family member is striking would have a chilling effect on workers who are considering going on strike for better wages, benefits, or working conditions — something that is especially alarming in light of the fact that unions are one of the fundamental building blocks of the middle class that allow people to earn wages that keep them off food stamps.

Luckily President Obama (D- Corporate America) cut food stamps for many Americans so that he wouldn't have to cut money from his Race to the Top education privatization boondoggle, so not too many people will be affected by this anti-union provision.

Not too many except for the 42 million receiving food stamps.

I dunno who I find more venomous, the anti-union Republithugs in the House or President "Let's Cut Food Stamps" Obama.

Ah, screw it - a pox on ALL of them.

This Is NOT The Fault Of Pubic School Teachers

Via Political Wire:

Newsweek recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America's official citizenship test and found 29% couldn't name the vice president, 73% couldn't correctly say why we fought the Cold War, 44% were unable to define the Bill of Rights and 6% couldn't even circle Independence Day on a calendar.

This kind of thing is NOT the fault of teachers.

This kind of thing is the fault of stupid Americans.

Listen, we live in a country where nothing is too stupid, ephemeral or superficial to NOT make the news.

I take the PATH, a train system that is outfitted with NBC TV's. I am subjected to "news" headlines that often are promos for some of the dumbest shit imaginable - reality shows, idiotic sitcoms, melodramas so bad that I cringe watching 15 seconds of them.

And that's just the shit they show on the The Today Show.

That's supposed to be "news" with Al and Matt and whoever the fuck took Couric's place (some woman, I dunno, I don't care who the fuck it is.)

I went to the same high school as Al Roker and the couple of times I have seen him in person I have wanted to say, "Hey, Al, how the fuck do you sleep at night with the horseshit you put on TV? Seriously, do you understand that watching even five minutes of the crap you and Matt and the faceless woman whose name I do not know spew MAKES PEOPLE DUMBER.

Yeah, you make enough to pay for the ex wives and the liposuction, but seriously, there's a place in John Bunyan's hell for you when you're done with this mortal coil.

I can only hope they make you watch reruns of your Weather Channel show for eternity.

Until people turn this bullshit off - the "news" on the cable channels or the networks, the local "news," the conventional wisdom/drivel that passes for "news" on public TV and radio, the garbage in the papers (ALL of the papers - the News, the Post AND the Times) and say "ENOUGH!!!", they will keep feeding us this crap and more and more people will watch or listen or read or view on the Net or see it on Facebook or whatever and fewer and fewer will know what the Bill of Rights is or just how badly they're, in the words of George Carlin, "getting fucked by a system that threw them over 30 fucking years ago!"

But let me repeat - this is NOT the fault of teachers.

This is the fault of emotionally detached humans who would rather veg out with mindless corporate infotainment, corporate sports, corporate wars and other bullshit instead of protecting themselves from the oncoming New Feudal Order.

Sherrod Brown

I like Sherrod Brown, he's usually one of the good guys on labor issues, so this is nice to see:

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds there's been a fundamental shift in the Ohio political landscape over the last three months and it looks like the biggest beneficiary of that could be Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

In December Brown looked extremely vulnerable for reelection, now his leads against six different Republicans range from 15 to 19 points.

We'll have to see how many other labor-friendly pols get helped by the corporate fascism of Scott Walker, John Kasich, et al.

Our Consumer Society And Celebrity Culture

This Chris Hedges essay at Common Dreams really gets to the core of the problem in today's America:

Our consumer society and celebrity culture foster a frightening historical amnesia. We chatter mindlessly about something called the “American Dream.” And now that the oligarchic elite have regained control of all levers of power, and that dream is being exposed as a cruel hoax, we are being shoved back into the cage. There will be hell to pay to get back to where we were.

Slick public relations campaigns, the collapse of public education—nearly a third of the country is illiterate or semiliterate—and the rise of amoral politicians such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, who posed as liberals while they sold their souls for corporate money, have left us largely defenseless. The last vestiges of unionized workers in the public sector are reduced to protesting in Wisconsin for collective bargaining—in short, the ability to ask employers for decent working conditions. That shows how far the country has deteriorated. And it looks as though even this basic right to ask, as well as raise money through union dues, has been successfully revoked in Madison. The only hope now is more concerted and militant disruptions of the systems of power.

The public debate, dominated by corporate-controlled systems of information, ignores the steady impoverishment of the working class and absence of legal and regulatory mechanisms to prevent mounting corporate fraud and abuse. The airwaves are saturated with corporate apologists. They ask us why public-sector employees have benefits—sneeringly called “entitlements”—which nonunionized working- and middle-class people are denied. This argument is ingenious. It pits worker against worker in a mad scramble for scraps. And until we again speak in the language of open class warfare, grasping, as those who went before us did, that the rich will always protect themselves at our expense, we are doomed to a 21st century serfdom.

The electronic and much of the print press has become a shameless mouthpiece for the powerful and a magnet for corporate advertising. It makes little effort to give a platform to those who without them cannot be heard, instead diverting us with celebrity meltdowns, lavish lifestyle reports and gossip. Legitimate news organizations, such as NPR and The New York Times, are left cringing and apologizing before the beast—right-wing groups that hate “liberal” news organizations not because of any bias, but because they center public discussion on verifiable fact. And verifiable fact is not convenient to ideologues whose goal is the harnessing of inchoate rage and hatred.

Artists, who once had something to say, have retreated into elite enclaves, preoccupied themselves with abstract, self-referential garbage, frivolous entertainment and spectacle. Celebrities, working for advertising agencies and publicists, provide our daily mini-dramas and flood the airwaves with lies on behalf of corporate sponsors. The Democratic Party has sold out working men and women for corporate money. It has permitted the state apparatus to be turned over to corporate interests. There is no liberal institution left—the press, labor, culture, public education, the church or the Democratic Party—that makes any effort to hold back the corporate juggernaut. It is up to us.

To paraphrase Thomas Merton, we must pay homage to reality but calling things by their right name - right now, we are inundated with corporate sell-outs and whores in every major American institution.

The result is evident in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, New Jersey and New York - tax cuts for corporations and rich people, service cuts for working and middle class people, budget cuts for public employees.

Welcome to the New Feudal Order.

Last In, First Out Debate

Both the Post and NY1 are hailing a Q poll out showing that 85% of New Yorkers are opposed to using seniority over "merit" as the basis for teacher layoffs.

And of course the corporate whores at Gotham Schools roll with that story at the top of their education listings this morning.

The pushback on this "poll" is very simple - if seniority rules are displaced by "merit" rules for layoffs, school districts are ALWAYS going to lay off expensive, veteran teachers and keep cheaper newbies regardless of merit, talent, skill, or expertise.

Because the "merit" can always be ginned up just the way the principal in the Bronx tried to gin up "U" ratings against teachers she didn't like so that they could be rubber roomed or fired.

That's it - that's the deal.

So until some "objective" form of "merit" can be found to evaluate teachers - and value-added evaluation systems using student test scores that have 12%-35% margins of error are NOT that form - seniority MUST be kept in place or you will see a mass firing of good veteran teachers and a hiring of cheap 22 year old rookies.

That of course was not how the LIFO question was framed by the polling firm.

And that is why the results came back with 85% approving of ending LIFO.

You can be sure the corporate whores at the Post, the News, the Times, NY 1 and Gotham Schools will use this in the coming weeks to push their corporate-driven agenda to end seniority and tenure.

The framing of the pushback is simple - end seniority and there will be no more senior teachers because Bloomberg and his principals will fire them all and hire much cheaper, less knowledgeable and less experienced newbies - not to make the system better, but simply to save money.

Christine Quinn Knows Which Way The Political Winds Blow

And right now they are blowing AGAINST Scott Walker and the anti-union forces.

I saw that tonight on TV as I watched four shows on MSNBC for the first time in close to a year and heard actual TV people say actual nice things about actual unionized teachers.

You can see it in the poll numbers too - 61% of Americans oppose the Walker plan to bust the unions in the latest Gallup poll.

So now, Christine Quinn, ever the empty pants suit, has put her finger to the wind, seen which way it blows, and taken a stand on the Wisconsin situation:

City Council members joined labor leaders on the steps of City Hall this morning to condemn what they called concerted attacks on unions in Wisconsin.

Standing before a raucous crowd of union employees, speakers equated moves to diminish collective bargaining rights with an assault on the middle class and charged that such measures were motivated more by political calculus than by saving money.

"The conversation that is going on in Wisconsin is not a conversation," Council Speaker Christine Quinn said. "This isn't a discussion with municipal or state workers about how to balance a budget. This isn't a discussion about how to keep a pension system sustainable. This is a governor standing up and engaging in union busting."

Make no mistake, Christine Quinn doesn't give a shit about unions, union members or anything to do with the working class.

She does care about appearing to be on the right side of the issues, at least when everybody else is on that side too.

But the words from today do NOT erase who Quinn is and just who she works for.

She is a corporate whore, owned by the corporate class through and through, and does Bloomberg's bidding for him.

If you read this blog, I'm sure you already know that, but I'll make sure to remind you come 2013 or so.

Unless Bloomberg has already assumed dictatorial powers and had the Internets shut down by then.

The Significance Of The Walker Prank Call

Nice to see the Wisconsin governor exposed as the union-busting, corporate shill that he is.

I think the Washington Post's Ezra Klein gets the significance of the call right:

Gonzo journalist Ian Murphy noticed one of Wisconsin's Senate Democrats complaining that Gov. Scott Walker was impossible to reach on the phone. So Murphy came up with a prank call: He posed as right-wing financier David Koch and called Walker's receptionist. Shortly thereafter, he was on the phone with the governor himself. You can listen to the conversation here -- though the site seems overloaded by the traffic -- or read Adam Weinstein's summary here. Walker's office has confirmed the call was real.

...

if the transcript of the conversation is unexceptional, the fact of it is lethal. The state's Democratic senators can't get Walker on the phone, but someone can call the governor's front desk, identify themselves as David Koch, and then speak with both the governor and his chief of staff? That's where you see the access and power that major corporations and wealthy contributors will have in a Walker administration, and why so many in Wisconsin are reluctant to see the only major interest group representing workers taken out of the game.

The critique many conservatives have made of public-sector unions is that they both negotiate with and fund politicians. It's a conflict of interest. Well, so too do corporations, and wealthy individuals. That's why Murphy -- posing as Koch -- was able to get through to Walker so quickly. And it shows what Walker is really interested in here: He is not opposed, in principle, to powerful interest groups having the ear of the politicians they depend on, and who depend on them. He just wants those interest groups to be the conservative interest groups that fund him, and that he depends on.

Ostensibly billionaire David Koch is on the phone calling for Governor Walker?

Walker's on the line in seconds saying "Yes, master, what do you need me to do?"

It's like some twisted cartoon supervillain thing - only it's real and the supervillains - Koch and Walker - are real too.

Seriously, here is some of the transcript:

Koch: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers.

Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that —because we thought about that. The problem—the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this […]

Walker: [...] I went on “Morning Joe” this morning. I like it because I just like being combative with those guys, but, uh. You know they’re off the deep end.

Koch: Joe—Joe’s a good guy. He’s one of us.

Walker: Yeah, he’s all right. He was fair to me…[bashes NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who was also on the program.]

Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she’s a real piece of ass.

Walker: Oh yeah.

Thanks for suggesting crowd plants, Dave, but we've already thought of that and decided against because if we get caught, the public is going to go apeshit.

Ah, yes, the old dirty tricks - beautiful...just beautiful!

Gee, listening to this transcript sort of reminds of some of these transcripts.

And then how about Walker getting all teary-eyed and emotional about Reagan firing the air traffic controllers?

The most beautiful moment in Reagan's presidency.

Not that we didn't know this wasn't about the budget at all, that it was just about ideology and busting the unions, but the transcript and tape of the Walker phone call bares that for all to see.