October 30, 2013

FL's Ben Gamla charter school gets 10 million while former congressman, owner, lives in Israel.

Peter Deutsch, talking to reporters about Ben Gamla in 2007 in Fort Lauderdale, lives in Israel. Andrew Uloza / FOR THE MIAMI HERALD

Peter Deutsch, the driving force behind South Florida’s controversial Ben Gamla charter schools, is a six-term former Democratic congressman with a unique status: He lives more than 6,000 miles away in Israel as an expatriate.

Even so, Deutsch’s Ben Gamla schools have racked up hefty public funding — more than $10 million for nearly 1,800 students last school year alone.

In Broward, where the English-Hebrew charter schools have stirred the most controversy, Ben Gamla raked in $7.2 million from the state for five charter schools that operate at two sites, in Hollywood and Plantation. Those schools served more than 1,200 students.

Deutsch unintentionally fanned the flames this summer in comments to a reporter with the Israeli wire service JTA about Ben Gamla’s Hebrew language and Jewish culture studies. The news service reported that Deutsch said 80 percent of Ben Gamla’s $10 million collective budget serves Jewish communal purposes.

“To me, it is literally the best leverage that I’m aware of in Jewish communal stuff in the history of the Jewish people,” Deutsch said. “Jews need to be supportive of this endeavor.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/28/3717615/man-behind-ben-gamla.html

Hallandale Beach successfully fought him to prevent a school there.

He is facing another fight in Hollywood, Florida, where he wants a zoning exception to build a 600-student high school on Van Buren Street near City Hall that upset residents say is already choked with traffic from Ben Gamla’s existing, adjacent K-8 school.

Public schools are seeing the money that used to come to them now going to charter schools which often are religious schools. It is breaking the back of the traditional public school.

October 23, 2013

Theodore Roosevelt on criticism of the president.

October 22, 2013

So here we go again. House Dem Van Hollen says possible cuts to entitlements on the table.

He does say they won't happen unless the Republicans agree to raise new revenue by closing some tax loopholes. That would be nice to close some loopholes that allow the rich to get richer, but Medicare and Social Security should NOT be on the table.

Senior Democrat pushes firm line in U.S. budget talks

The article title is misleading, I think. He is not holding firm on entitlements. I wonder just what the Democrats will agree upon to make that deal.

Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, told the Reuters Washington Summit that he would be willing to consider some changes to big entitlement programs such as Medicare, the health insurance program for those 65 and older.

But Van Hollen said Republicans must drop their opposition to raising new revenue by closing various tax loopholes.

....Van Hollen said he would be open to finding savings in Medicare in ways that focus on giving care providers incentives to cut costs. He said he would want to avoid changes that reduce the benefits that Americans receive.

One idea that would be a tough sell with Democrats is a change in the way that cost-of-living increases are calculated in Social Security. The change would be made by adopting a less-generous gauge of inflation, known as the "chained Consumer Price Index," or chained CPI.

So Chained CPI is still on the table it seems.

Chained CPI is stealth cut to Social Security benefits. Not acceptable.

The Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) has published a brief on one of the proposed changes to Social Security under the “fiscal cliff” deal – this one known as the “Chained CPI.” The Chained CPI is a bit complex, but here’s the bottom line: it would cut benefits for Social Security recipients by shrinking annual cost-of-living adjustments.

CEPR calculates that it would equal a 3% benefit cut over 10 years, a 6% benefit cut over 20 years, and 9% after 30 years. For the average worker retiring at age 65, this would mean a cut of about $650 each year by age 75 and a cut of roughly $1,130 each year at age 85. This is especially significant given 3-out-of-5 seniors rely on Social Security for more than half of their income.

Some argue the Chained CPI is a more accurate calculation of inflation, but this is not the case for seniors. As we reported in an earlier post, seniors tend to spend more money on health insurance, hospitals, prescription drugs, and nursing care – expenses that are not taken into account by the current CPI calculation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which manages the CPI indices, has created an experimental index called the CPI-Elderly, which more accurately reflects the costs faced by seniors. The CPI-Elderly shows a rate of inflation about 0.3% higher than the current CPI calculation.

CEPR also reports the Chained CPI amount to a stealth tax increase on all Americans, but especially those at middle and lower incomes: “For example, workers with incomes between $10,000 and $20,000 would experience an increased tax burden of 14.5 percent, while those with incomes over $1,000,000 would just see an increase of 0.1 percent.”

It is not acceptable to put programs for seniors on the table.

October 21, 2013

Guess what snuck into the debt deal? Gift to Teach for America recruits in training.

They are now classified as "highly-qualified" teachers, though they are only given 5 weeks training. Yes, they are college graduates. So are traditional classroom teachers. It is misleading to parents to classify teachers in training this way. This label has now been extended for 2 years.

Senator Tom Harken admits this is his doing. Makes me wonder if anything else got slipped in involving Social Security and Medicare.

From the Washington Post:

The debt deal’s gift to Teach For America (yes, TFA)

Unobtrusively slipped into the debt deal that Congress passed late Wednesday night to reopen the federal government after 16 days and allow the United States to keep borrowing money to pay its bills is a provision about school reform that will make Teach For America very happy.

In language that does not give a hint about its real meaning, the deal extends by two years legislation that allows the phrase “highly qualified teachers” to include students still in teacher training programs — and Teach For America’s recruits who get five weeks of summer training shortly after they have graduated from college, and are then placed in some of America’s neediest schools.

Here is the wording in the bill:

SEC. 145. Subsection (b) of section 163 of Public 5 Law 111-242, as amended, is further amended by striking 6 ”2013-2014” and inserting ”2015-2016”.

Who would know what that really was without a lot of research?

Congress first approved legislation allowing student teachers and others with little training to be deemed “highly qualified” in late 2010, shortly after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the definition violated NCLB. In 2011 a coalition of more than 50 organizations — including education, civil rights, disability, student, parent, and community groups – urged Obama in this letter not to keep the definition, but it did anyway.

Unfortunately this will continue to harm career, experienced, capable teachers who are being laid off as public schools are called failures. Failures based mainly on one-size-fits all tests that many believe are intended to allow more schools to be turned into charter schools run by private companies.

Teach for America. A way to replace experienced, higher-salaried teachers?

As public schools are deprived of funding, TFA has gotten millions from the federal government.

Those who are thinking of participating in Teach for America with a social justice mission in mind should consider this. Although a far more daunting task for sure, those really interested in social justice should consider ways of solving problems like unavoidable unemployment and low-wage jobs.

On top of failing to make a dent in poverty, Teach for America actually detracts from social justice by hurting real teachers. Teach for America students take low, entrance-level pay while also receiving a government subsidy for their salary in the form of Americorps stipends. Schools lay off teachers and then hire Teach for America teachers to fill positions that real teachers would otherwise be filling. Teach for America teachers are undercutting the wage needs of real teachers and causing them to be laid off as a result.

Parents will need to ask themselves the true meaning of "highly-qualified" when it comes to the teaching profession.

This is going on throughout the country.

Last summer, Boston Teachers Union President Richard Stutman met with 18 local union presidents, “all of whom said they’d seen teachers laid off to make room for TFA members,” according to an article in USA Today. “I don’t think you’ll find a city that isn’t laying off people to accommodate Teach for America,” Stutman said.

October 17, 2013

Justice Scalia: Government is the minister of God with powers to "avenge" to "execute wrath" 2002

That statement is in the first two minutes of a Theocracy Watch video from 2006. This is a Supreme Court Justice saying those things.


Antonin Scalia

Justice Scalia: Government is the minister of God with powers to "avenge" to "execute wrath"

Joan Bokaer of Cornell University's Theocracy Watch gives a rundown on the growing danger of Dominionism, also known as Christian Reconstructionism, the ideology behind the scenes of Christian extremism in the United States and abroad. An important video for anyone who wants to understand the motives of the American Taliban and what's happening to American politics.

She quotes the words of Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court in this video about Dominionism.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia 2002:
"Government...derives its moral authority from God. It is the minister of God with powers to "avenge" to "execute wrath" including even wrath by the sword."

First Things May 2002

October 17, 2013

Video of Ted Cruz being anointed by anti-gay, pro-religion pastors.

Video: Ted Cruz Anointed By Pro-Religious War, Antigay Pastors

Tea Party potentate Ted Cruz is blessed by pastors who claim the Constitution is based on the Old Testament, appear to endorse biblical slavery, depict gay marriage as a socialist plot against the traditional family, and call for a Christian war on secular society.

Rand Paul was present at the same ceremony.

&feature=share&list=UUIRA8Sry6RDHvFm2_om9nMA

In the Video section of DU I posted a longer post about how Cruz was being anointed as part of the 7 Mountains strategy. They are not going to stop at this attempt to harm the government. They are dedicated and will never give up.

Ted Cruz' father indicates Ted anointed king as part of the 7 Mountains Mandate.

More about the 7 Mountains at the link. It is creepy and scary and very real.

October 17, 2013

Ted Cruz' father indicates Ted anointed king as part of the 7 Mountains Mandate.

This is truly creepy to me, this whole concept of dominionism. This is part of an article by Bruce Wilson at Talk to Action. Wilson indicated in an earlier article linked below that Ted Cruz "brings to the table his own formidable, even astonishing, elite connections that, in 1999, helped enable candidate George W. Bush's lock on the 2000 election Republican presidential nomination."

Cruz' Father Suggests Ted Cruz "Anointed" to "Bring The Spoils Of War To The Priests"

In a sermon last year at an Irving, Texas, megachurch that helped elect Ted Cruz to the United States Senate, Cruz' father Rafael Cruz indicated that his son was among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as "kings" to take control of all sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the "Seven Mountains" mandate, and "bring the spoils of war to the priests", thus helping to bring about a prophesied "great transfer of wealth", from the "wicked" to righteous gentile believers.

....Discussion of the now-notorious speech by Rafael Cruz has missed the fact that Ted Cruz was subsequently blessed and anointed by prominent dominionist pastors, in effect as a "king" in the political/governmental sphere, at a special blessing ceremony at the Marriott Hotel in Des Moines, Iowa, at a July 19th-20th 2013 rally designed to draw pastors into politics.

From Wilson's earlier article on Cruz:

Ted Cruz Worked With Religious Right Founder Paul Weyrich, To Elect George W. Bush

"We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about simply spreading the gospel in a political context." -- U.S. Senator Ted Cruz' late friend Paul Weyrich, in a 1980 Dallas speech to fundamentalist ministers. Weyrich is widely credited as one of the top architects of the new right and the religious right.

.... In other words, per Goeglein's account, Ted Cruz helped create the Bush Presidency. It's astonishing for an almost endless range of reasons, not the least of which is that it doubly true as well - Cruz also served on the Bush campaign's elite legal team that fought the legal battles over the vote recount in Florida which in turn led to the wildly controversial Bush v. Gore Supreme Court ruling that installed George W. Bush in the presidency.

But Cruz' ties to Paul Weyrich are nonetheless even more jaw-dropping than that considering who Weyrich was. How did Cruz earn the friendship of the man who helped create the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority, and the American Legislative Exchange Council, ALEC ?

Here is more about Paul Weyrich and his goals toward "liberals".

Right wing leader said they must be willing to be obnoxious.

If you read what Heubeck and Weyrich wrote about their new plans... you see ruthlessness.

Our movement must be highly provocative. The thing we have most to fear is that we will be ignored.

Cultural conservatives must understand the predicament we are in. We must be willing to take measures that perhaps we would be unwilling to take under different, more ideal circumstances. We will have standards--we will never try to justify dishonesty, destruction of the personal reputation of our opponents, cheating, assault, etc., in the service of victory for our movement. However, we will not consider ourselves above appearing "unseemly" or surrendering some our personal dignity. We must be willing to shake people out of their complacency--which means being obnoxious if the situation requires it--because given the fact that the dominant leftist culture is safely ensconced, complacency only serves the interests of our opponents.

It is not enough to say that conservative philosophy is more sensible than that of the Left. If we leave it at that, we will only attract "sensible" people to our movement. But "sensible" people do not go to the barricades, they do not make great sacrifices for a movement. And the experience of the conservative movement has shown this to be the case. We need more people with fire in the belly, and we need a message that attracts those kinds of people. As Plato said, "madness comes from God, whereas sober sense is merely human."

We have now seen their attacks on the left play out in real time. All we have to do is look back at their words years ago. All planned.

We will maintain a constant barrage of criticism against the Left. We will attack the very legitimacy of the Left. We will not give them a moment's rest.

We will use guerrilla tactics to undermine the legitimacy of the dominant regime. We will take advantage of every available opportunity to spread the idea that there is something fundamentally wrong with the existing state of affairs. For example, we could have every member of the movement put a bumper sticker on his car that says something to the effect of "Public Education is Rotten; Homeschool Your Kids." This will change nobody's mind immediately; no one will choose to stop sending his children to public schools immediately after seeing such a bumper sticker; but it will raise awareness and consciousness that there is a problem. Most of all, it will contribute to a vague sense of uneasiness and dissatisfaction with existing society. We need this if we hope to start picking people off and bringing them over to our side. We need to break down before we can build up. We must first clear away the flotsam of a decayed culture.

Seeing Ted Cruz in action recently brought back all these words of the founders of this movement for religious people to take over every aspect of the government.

In case you are unfamiliar with the 7 Mountains, here is a link to enlighten.

David Barton Advocates Seven Mountains Dominionism

October 12, 2013

Chained CPI. The cheaper the items seniors buy, the lower the cost of living raise. Not good.

Senator Harkin spoke about Social Security and the chained C.P.I. on the Senate floor and warned about the negative effects that it has on the budgets of seniors. Dec. 2012.

I fear this will be part of a deal with the GOP to end the shutdown and avoid default. The president has often pushed Chained CPI, so it does worry me.

Superlative CPI. Obama's version of Chained CPI. From ABC in December.

House Republicans have proposed indexing federal benefits, most notably Social Security, to a slower inflation rate known as the “chained Consumer Price Index (CPI).” That would slow the growth of Social Security benefits, which increase periodically with Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs), the next of which is scheduled for January.

The president has countered with his own inflation offer, a “superlative CPI” that the White House says would shield the neediest beneficiaries from the change. Liberals have cried foul about all of it.

...The best number to know is $130: That’s how much a typical 65 year-old would lose in yearly benefits, three years from now, under the GOP’s “chained CPI” proposal.

October 12, 2013

Rick Scott ain't buying you lunch, kids. From Creative Loafing.

I have a feeling Rick Scott does not realize he is on the wrong page even with his beloved Tea Party supporters.

No state funds shall be used to keep critical social programs running during the federal shutdown.

Florida will not buy food for poor women and young children, if federal dollars run out soon to pay for them.

That is the order from Republican Gov. Rick Scott, who told his agency directors on Thursday that no state funds shall be used to keep critical social programs running during the federal shutdown.

...Federal funds that pay for infant formula and healthy foods for pregnant women through Women Infants and Children (WIC) program will run out Nov. 1.

....Other entitlement programs at immediate risk include Vocational Rehabilitation and Blind Services and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. Overall, 35 percent of the state’s $74 billion budget comes from federal funds, according to CBS News.

I don't think we have a clue how much harm is being done to the state by Florida's Rick Scott Republicans. We will unfortunately learn about it in the future, I fear.

October 9, 2013

Watch Ed Schultz and his facial expression during this Alec Baldwin ad.

I think this is subtle but funny.