Cuomo Said To Cancel Appearance To Avoid Protesters

From WWNY TV:

Governer Cuomo won't be coming to Massena Sunday after all, but Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will.

A source told 7 News Friday that Cuomo was expected to be in Massena Sunday to help promote the Evan Williams Bourbon Bassmasters Elite Tournament, which kicks off July 30 in Waddington.

On Saturday, Cuomo's office said the governor is not coming, but Lt. Gov. Hochul will be instead. No additional explanation was offered.

Hochul is expected to do some ceremonial fishing as part of the visit.

The New York Power Authority Hawkins Point Visitor Center and Boat Launch is closed Sunday until 6 p.m., in connection with the visit, according to a source.

Why the sudden cancellation on Cuomo's part?

Well, there's this:

(Anti-Safe Act protests were threatened) Cuomo Out, Hochul In For Sunday Massena Visit | WWNY TV 7 - http://t.co/hhth8JHsaY

— Fredric U. Dicker (@fud31) July 25, 2015

If true, this wouldn't be the first time Cuomo has tried to avoid protesters by canceling an appearance.

There was that whole Lake Placid charter school thing a while back, where Cuomo "apologized" to his charter school donors who had made him honorary chairman of their conference.

Cuomo had cancelled, claiming he was stuck in Albany, but the real reason was, an anti-Cuomo protest was planned for outside the conference.

Cuomo, like all bullies, is a coward.

When It Comes To Andrew Cuomo, There's A Lot To Protest

NYSUT is holding a protest demonstration outside the governor's mansion in Albany today:

The demonstration is ostensibly a protest against Cuomo's veto of the teacher evaluation "safety net" bill Cuomo himself had pushed prior to the election to shield teachers from Common Core test scores in their APPR evaluation ratings.

Cuomo made a deal with NYSUT over the "safety net" late in the spring, but never signed the bill into law.

Like many "deals" Cuomo has made lately (like the one he made with Working Families Party to push for a Democratic-controlled State Senate in return for the WFP ballot line), Cuomo had no intention of keeping his end of the bargain - that's why he never signed the "safety net" bill into law.

Cuomo waited until the end of the legislative session to veto the bill, using the mysteriously delayed release of the statewide APPR teacher evaluation ratings by NYSED as the excuse for the veto - he said so few teachers had been found "ineffective" by the APPR system that the "safety net" bill was not needed.

This veto came two days after Cuomo vetoed a Port Authority reform bill that had passed four houses in two different state legislatures, 612-0, that would have brought historic and much needed change to the way the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operates.

The PA has a budget larger than 26 states, but no accountability or transparency to the citizens of either state - it is entirely controlled by the NY and NJ governors.

Cuomo and his pal in crime and corruption, Governor Chris Christie, met last Tuesday to hatch a plan to veto the Port Authority reform bill and push their own "faux" reform that some astute observers believe has no chance to ever be enacted into law.

Cuomo, knowing that he would take a political hit for vetoing the PA reform bill, tried to hide the veto by issuing it on Saturday night during Christmas weekend, a time when few would be paying attention to politics.

Even more damning, when Cuomo released a press statement on Saturday night about the "faux reforms" he and Christie were pushing for the Port Authority, he hid the news of his PA reform bill veto in the last paragraph of the press release - so deep down in the statement that NY 1 staff couldn't figure out if he had actually vetoed the legislation or not.

How's that for a profile in political courage from Andrew Cuomo?

While Cuomo and Christie were hatching this plan to maintain the PA as their personal fiefdom and piggy bank, Cuomo was also planning to veto a bill that would extend tax credits to remediate toxic waste sites.

This tax credit extension veto, like the "safety net" bill veto, was a reversal of course, since Cuomo had said six months before that he would approve the extension while pushing for "reforms" to the program in the next legislative session.

It's an amazing amount of damage that Governor Andrew M. Cuomo has done to the State of New York (and New Jersey, for that matter) in the course of just a few days time.

He has broken promises twice - once to teachers over the "safety net" bill, once to citizens of New York over the environmental clean-up tax credit extension - and has destroyed reform legislation for the Port Authority that was passed 612-0 by legislators in two states and pushed his own "faux" reform plan that has little chance to pass.

He has tried to hide his dirty deeds by pulling them at the end of the year, between Christmas and New Years, when many people are engaged with family and not paying attention to the political landscape, but teachers were paying attention and they intend to let Cuomo know it today at the Executive Mansion when Cuomo holds his annual New Years Eve Open House.

This is the right strategy - to take Cuomo on directly.

The only way to deal with a criminal and a bully like Andrew Cuomo is to take him on, right to his face, and keep on taking him on.

Cuomo does not understand compromise (he views it as weakness), his promises are worthless (as we have seen demonstrated twice in the last week alone) and he will never do the right thing for the citizens of the State of New York unless he is forced to do it by political pressure.

Cuomo himself indicated this when he said it was the constant badgering and haranguing by anti-fracking protesters that helped bring about the anti-fracking ban in New York State.

There's a terrific lesson in how the anti-fracking movement pushed Cuomo on the issue and made him do the right thing.

Cuomo feared the anti-fracking protesters and in the end, after years of being followed all around the state by anti-frackers with placards and signs, ceded ground on that issue.

If parents and teachers mount protests against Andrew Cuomo again and again, wherever he appears, hitting him on his hypocrisy over Common Core, over the Endless Testing regime he is pursuing in this state, over the evaluation system that causes so much of the overtesting to begin with, over his deliberately underfunding many school districts while the state imposes more and more mandates on them, and over his taking millions from charter school advocates and operators and pushing to greatly expand charter schools around the state, you will see an Andrew Cuomo in fear, an Andrew Cuomo on his heels, and Andrew Cuomo shrinking from the fight - just as you did in the fracking battle.

Andrew Cuomo is a bully and the only way to handle a bully is to stand up to him directly in a fight.

Today's anti-Cuomo protest at the Executive Mansion in Albany is ostensibly about Cuomo's veto of the "safety net" bill, but it's really about so much else too - his attacks on the public education system, his disdain for parents and teachers, his promotion of the Common Core and testing (even as he claims to be on the side of parents on this issue), his advocating for charter schools as he sucks up millions in charter school supporters campaign donations, his criminality and corruption.

When it comes to Andrew Cuomo, there's a lot to protest - so have at it, folks.

It's #CallOutCuomo time.

Cuomo Has Protesters Penned Up For State Of The State Speech

Sheriff Andy brooking no dissent reports Capital NY's Scott Waldman:

ALBANY—The state's biggest anti-fracking demonstration of the year on Wednesday has been supplanted by New York apple cider, bobsleds and engines made in New York.

A wide array of tourist billboards and display booths are being set up in the concourse around the Empire State Convention Center, where Governor Andrew Cuomo will deliver his State of the State speech on Wednesday. The tables are occupying the area where hundreds of anti-frackers protested last year.

Cuomo's office reached out a week ago to invite members of the state's regional economic development councils to set up informational booths at the plaza. The invitation came after a coalition of protesters announced that more than 100 state and national environmental and public health organizations were bussing in members from around the state to demonstrate against fracking. Last year, the protestors, which included folk legend Pete Seeger, produced a deafening noise in the corridor and drew more than 1,000 people. This year's rally is expected to be bigger.

...

Environmental groups have been told by state officials that they will still be allowed to protest on Wednesday, but in a contained area. Those who leave the designated area, which is expected to hold about 1,000 people, will escorted back inside or could face arrest.

That's Sheriff Andy for you - not interested in hearing from New Yorkers opposed to fracking, not interested in hearing from New Yorkers opposed to his policies, and always looking for a way to quash dissent.

Will he do the same this re-election year as students, parents and teachers around the country protest his education reform agenda?

Today's Protest Against Tisch And King At Ward Melville High School

Mark Naison writes:

Woke up this morning in a GREAT MOOD, ready to join THOUSANDS of Long Island parents, teachers and students at 5:45 protesting another closed forum sponsored by NY Ed Commissioner John King at Ward Melville HS in East Setauket. Since Commissioner King seems constitutionally incapable of actually listening to parents, teachers and principals, I doubt if this demonstration will have any immediate effect on State Education policy, but it will send a powerful message to elected officials that King and Regents Chair Merryl Tisch need to go; and if those politicians don't listen, will lead to a Test Revolt and Opt Out movement of EPIC PROPORTIONS next spring. Equally important, this demonstration, which is likely to be quite large, will give a shot in the arm to people all over the nation fighting the insane tests and assessments that have descended upon the nations public schools

There will be pictures and videos forthcoming- and maybe someone will even live-stream the rally. As for me, it's a chance to reconnect with heroes of the Long Island Test Revolt from last April, as well as meet new heroes who have stepped forward this fall!!

It's true - students, parents, teachers and administrators from Long Island, along with students, parents, and teachers from areas upstate and in Western New York, have been leading the revolution against the state education reform agenda.

And while I, like Naison, do not think these protests will have any effect on Commissioner King and SED officials or Chancellor Tisch and the Board of Regents, you can bet the politicians are paying attention.

In the end, that's where  these protests are aimed - at the politicians who put the people pushing the state education reform agenda into positions of power.

With Cuomo's re-election campaign coming up next year and with his sights on the White House in 2016, he is looking to run up the score in 2014 in order to launch a viable 2016 presidential campaign.

He cannot afford to have a state-wide student, parent, teacher and administrator-led revolt against his education policies cut into his re-election numbers or dominate his re-election year press coverage.

If ever we were poised to force Sheriff Andy to comply with the will of the people rather than the plutocrats he serves, this would be the year.

So let the protests go long and and let them be loud, let Newsday and the upstate papers cover them even as the city media ignores the whole thing or, worse, smears the revolt as "special interest-led."

Outside of NYC, this revolution is getting notice from the powers that be and they are desperate to put the fires out.

But the more they try and suppress criticism and opposition, the more they fan the flames.

Washington Post: Opt-Out Movement Growing

It's good to see this kind of coverage:

A decade into the school accountability movement, pockets of resistance to standardized testing are sprouting up around the country, with parents and students opting out of the high-stakes tests used to evaluate schools and teachers.

From Seattle, where 600 high school students refused to take a standardized test in January, to Texas, where 86 percent of school districts say the tests are “strangling our public schools,” anti-testing groups argue that bubble exams have proliferated beyond reason, delivering more angst than benefits.

...

The opt-out movement is nascent but growing, propelled by parents, students and some educators using social media to swap tips on ways to spurn the tests. They argue that the exams cause stress for young children, narrow classroom curricula, and, in the worst scenarios, have led to cheating because of the stakes involved — teacher compensation and job security.
 
Standardized testing is one of the most controversial aspects of the accountability movement that began in earnest in 2002 when President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act.

...

 Some say the Obama administration has pushed the stakes even higher through its Race to the Top program, which encourages states to use the standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. In some states, as much as half of a teacher’s job evaluation is now determined by student scores on standardized tests.

The resulting pressure is distorting education, anti-testing activists say.

It's a pretty good article - it lays the blame for the testing craze on both Bush and Obama, it notes that while Obama said in 2011 there may be too much reliance on testing in education, his policies actually promote exactly that, and it shows how more and more parents are joining the op-out movement.

It also gives us some scary figures that should give us some pause:

In 2001, states spent $552 million on testing.

In 2012, states spent $1.7 billion on testing.

Most states haven't even begun to implement the Common Core tests in every grade in every subject in order to evaluate teachers, as Obama's Race to the Top policy requires.

Just wait until the testing price tag then.

No wonder News Corporation and Microsoft and many other corporations are putting the hard sell on Common Core on the radio and TV these days.

They stand to make billions off this.

Occupy Wall Street Day of Action

"Day Of Action" Schedule

"Shut Down Wall Street" — 7:00 a.m.
Protesters will gather at Liberty Square to "confront Wall Street."

"Occupy The Subways" — 3:00 p.m.
Protesters will gather at subway stations across the five boroughs and rally on trains.

• Bronx
- Fordham Rd
- 3rd Ave, 138th Street
- 163rd and Southern Blvd
- 161st and River - Yankee Stadium

• Brooklyn
- Broadway Junction
- Borough Hall
- 301 Grove Street
- St Jose Patron Church,185 Suydam St, Bushwick

• Queens
- Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Ave.
- Jamaica Center/Parsons/Archer
- 92-10 Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights

• Manhattan
- 125th St. A,B,C,D
- Union Sq. ("Mass student strike")
- 23rd St and 8th Ave

• Staten Island
- St. George, Staten Island Ferry Terminal
- 479 Port Richmond Avenue, Port Richmond

"Take the Square" — 5:00 p.m.
"Tens of thousands" of protesters will gather at Foley Square.

100,000 Protesters In Madison

And they barely got coverage in the media.

Maybe if they had brought tea bags and powdered Founding Father wigs with them?

More protests tomorrow - including one in Union Square.

British Police Want To Catch Protesters Who Jostled Prince Charles And Camilla

Working for the Clampdown:

Solving this one may not be elementary, my dear Watson.

British police released fuzzy footage of several suspects wanted in connection with an attack by irate student protestors on Prince Charles and his wife Camilla's royal car last month.

The video, which aired on CCTV Tuesday, shows the Rolls-Royce convoy, led by several cops on motorcycles, slowing down as it approaches an angry mob.

Officials said the protesters at one point made contact with Camilla and poked her in the ribs with a stick through the window of the car.

"Although the images are grainy, officers believe members of the public will be able to recognize the individuals featured," Scotland Yard said in a statement, urging those who recognize the suspects to come forward.

The images and footage show a young woman in a black coat and glasses following the car and hitting the back of the royal car. Cops are also looking to question two other hooded men identified in the video.

The Dec. 9 London protest against a government-approved plan to triple university tuition, resulted in attacks against police officers and vandalism of stores and buildings.

"We understand the importance of the right to protest, but people who break the law and endanger those who wish to protest peacefully by committing criminal offenses must face the inevitable consequences of their actions," police said.

The statement added those convicted "will have to have to face the consequences of having a criminal record, which could have a potential impact on their future employment and travel."

According to London's Telegraph, officers have set up a special team to identify those involved in the protest. The investigation, known as Operation Malone, has led to the arrest of more than 180 people, most between the ages of 17 and 25.

Maybe the British Police can put the protesters in the same cell with "sex criminal"/Wikileaks founder Julian Assange after they finish convicting him of a trumped-up charge?

Frankly they ought to give these protesters a medal - they made their point without really hurting the prince or his consort.

Let's be honest here - the screw up is that the authorities let protesters get that close to Charles and Camilla.

The jostling of the Royal Limo-Riders shows just how shitty the British "security" apparatus really is.

Imagine if an Al Qaeda suicide bomber got that close to the prince and his wife...

Good Old Days

The Times looks at the difference between protests of today and protests back in the day:

Faced with a 5 percent tuition rise and the likelihood of future increases, students at the City University of New York did not take over a building. They did not try to roll over a black SUV with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg inside. Instead, a half-dozen of them trooped down to State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Friday and filed a lawsuit.

Still, even the most eloquent legal brief lacks the visceral power of May 1969, when 200 Brooklyn College students broke into the president’s office. Fired up by the civil rights movement and demands for open admission at CUNY, the students protested by throwing a lampshade from the second-floor balcony, setting mail on fire, smashing an end table and ripping out phone wires. They escaped before the police arrived.

CUNY colleges once were known as theaters of unrest. In 1970, students shut off elevator service at Hunter College and liberated the cafeteria by serving free food. Helmeted police officers were called, and classes were suspended. In 1976, as CUNY finally faced an end to free tuition, students marched in the streets of Harlem and boycotted classes for three days, while 13 members of the English faculty started a hunger strike.

In 1989, the possibility of tuition increases led students at City College to pour glue and stick toothpicks into the locks of 400 classrooms. Students seized administration buildings and blocked traffic across the city. In 1991, another series of protests prompted classes to be canceled and commencement to be delayed.

More recently, students have organized marches and rallies and shouted at meetings, but have mostly stayed within the confines of law and order.

Frances Fox Piven, a professor of political science and sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center, said it could be that students of today were just discovering their inner militancy. “I think they are more militant than in ’75-’76,” the years of fiscal crisis when CUNY finally went from being a free university to charging tuition, Dr. Piven said.

But compared with 1969, “I think not yet, not yet,” she said. “But movements have a very distinctive dynamic. They can escalate very quickly. It’s not as if all the ideas that are associated with protesters are in place when the protest starts. It’s the protest itself that changes people’s ideas, that engages them and that in a sense educates them.”

I graduated high school in 1985. People don't really think of the 80's as a time of real social activism, but we had some real rip-roaring protests back in the day.

I went to Stony Brook for a time in the late 1980's.

There were anti-Apartheid protests, anti-Contra protests, a work stoppage by humanities graduate students over stipend payments, protests when the chancellor denied Professor Ernest Dube tenure, the creation of a tent city to protest the administration's treatment of graduate students, a firebombing of that tent city (allegedly at the behest of Stony Brook President John Marburger, though that has never been confirmed), the creation of Tent City II, and protests over safety issues for female students.

And those are the ones I remember - I must admit, some of those years are a bit hazy, if you know what I mean...

Now the sixties it wasn't, but it sure felt more radicalized than the current day and age when the banksters and hedge fund criminals are literally stealing the world and the corporate politicians in both parties are helping them.

There is SO much to be outraged at these days - from the bank bailouts to the austerity measures aimed ONLY at working and middle class people to the free trade movement that sells out working people for corporate profit to tax cuts for rich people to the demonizing of teachers and the privatization of public education to the Forever Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to mortgage fraud/fraudclosure from the banks.

So much to be angry at, yet so quiet they are on the campuses and in the streets.

Until the hedge fund criminals and politicians and banksters feel FEAR over what they're doing, they're going to keep doing it - raising tuition, raising fees, privatizing everything, cutting taxes on millionaires and billionaires, allowing hedge fund criminals to pay 15% in tax, cutting corporate taxes and benefits for gov't workers.

18,000 Students Support Teachers In New Jersey

Every once in a while there is a story about education that actually warms my heart.

18,000 students walked out of New Jersey classrooms yesterday to protest Governor Christie's budget cuts to education.

They carried signs like "We are the future" and "We love our teachers."

They marched to City Hall in Newark to chant "No More Budget Cuts!"

They made their voices heard.

They think Chris Christie and the other education deform wankers demonizing teachers and teachers unions are WRONG. They think the "fiscal conservatives" trying to balance state budgets with education cuts while refusing to raise taxes on people making over $400,000 a year are WRONG.

But of course Governor Christie didn't hear any of it:

Michael Drewniak, the governor’s press secretary, released a statement on Tuesday saying that students belonged in the classroom. “It is also our firm hope that the students were motivated by youthful rebellion or spring fever,” Mr. Drewniak said, “and not by encouragement from any one-sided view of the current budget crisis in New Jersey.”

Spring fever? Youthful rebellion?

When tea partiers show up in Washington on Tax Day to protest having to pay taxes (even though we now pay the lowest level of federal taxes in generations), you never hear a Republican say "Gee, I hope they're just inspired by spring fever or youthful rebellion."

Instead you hear how the tea partiers are channeling Tom Paine and Sam Adams and other "patriots" who protested unfair tax policies back in the day.

But when students - 18,000 of them - come out to protest Governor Christie's budget cuts to schools and demonizing of teachers, those same Republicans say "Oh, it's just spring fever...it's just youthful rebellion...they'll be back to playing video games tomorrow..."

Well, maybe. But maybe not:

Not every school had students walk out. Nancy Dries, a spokeswoman for the top-ranked Millburn district, which has used surplus money to avoid major cuts, said it was “business as usual” there.

But in many other places, students came to school ready to make a political statement. Emma Wolin, a junior at Columbia High, walked out of second-period Spanish with several classmates, even though the school had warned that they would face detention

They certainly did make a political statement yesterday. I hope Christie and Obama and Duncan and all the other eduwankers heard it.

But I doubt they did.

There will have to be more political statements made in the future.

We will start this November by letting Democrats who sign on to Obama's education plans to close schools, turn them into for-profit charters and scapegoat/fire thousands of teachers know how we feel about those policies.

The mood is already the most anti-incumbent since 1994.

Just wait until all those teachers who voted for Democrats sit out this fall.