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March 31st, 2015

3/31/2015

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I am speaking these few days on education policy but I had to stop to post this Maryland Assembly Bill being introduced with a flood of last minute bills-----


This is how all of Maryland Assembly laws are written now-----every tax law is now subject to specific exceptions as taxes grow for the middle and working class because corporations and the rich pay no taxes and corporate subsidy is growing. Keep in mind that Maryland's Constitution states that taxes will be uniform; LAWS WILL NOT BE WRITTEN TOO VAGUE----the Maryland Assembly is passing law that circumvents that uniformity and I will be taking this to court to challenge this constitutionally.

IN MARYLAND----IT IS 'CERTAIN' CERTAIN' CERTAIN'


WE NEED THE 80% OF MARYLAND VOTERS NOT VOTING TO GET OUT AND RUN FOR ALL OFFICES IN PRIMARIES TO GET RID OF THESE CORPORATE POLS!  KNOW THESE CANDIDATES AND VOTE FOR THE ONES MEDIA DOES NOT ALLOW ACCESS

Tax Amnesty Program
2
FOR the purpose of requiring the Comptroller to waive certain penalties and interest
3
imposed for the nonpayment, nonreporting, or underreporting of certain taxes under
4
certain circumstances; establishing a period during which the Comptroller shall
5
grant am
nesty; authorizing the Comptroller to enter into certain agreements to
6
provide a certain waiver under certain circumstances with respect to certain taxes
7
that a taxpayer agrees to pay in accordance with certain terms and a certain
8
schedule;
providing that
the amnesty program does not apply to certain taxpayers
9
under certain circumstances;
requiring the Comptroller to submit a certain report
10
on the tax amnesty program; and generally relating to a tax amnesty program for
11
certain taxes.


_________________________________________
Here is a typical conversation on social media where Americans have no idea that Race to the Top is the installation of a global neo-liberal education policy having nothing to do with public education.  The common meme for Common Core is a picture of a simple subtraction problem turning into a multi-step process that makes no sense to Americans.  The friend posting this meme asks WHY are they doing math this way:

  • They do this because this is the way math is done in China---they want US students prepared to work with the Chinese.

  • Really?

  • yes.....21st century education to Clinton neo-liberals is all about preparing US citizens to live as ex-pats just as the days of the British empire.


    Again, I ask ...why?


Neo-liberalism is about creating global corporate empires -----it is also about creating the cheapest labor pool around the world. US citizens have rights as citizens in the US ----but they don't in an overseas nation. As well, foreign immigrants coming to the US to work have no rights as citizens here and can be worked anyway a corporations wants. It is called mass migration of human capital and it is what 21st century economy is about. This is what Trans Pacific Trade Pact is about and Race to the Top and education privatization is simply installing this global corporate policy. Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are installing this and this is why the American people need to stop this reform and get rid of these global coporate pols!

Well how on Earth does the FREE Enterprise System fit into this equation?

The idea is to have the same education systems around the world especially with nations connected to free trade pacts---neo-liberal education is being pushed in Mexico and the entire nation has protested it for the last few years----they are installing the same education policies in South America---all the same testing, evaluation, Common Core. It has nothing to do with public education---it is all vocational tracking and a global job pool.


//In the past, math was learned as a series of memorized facts, formulas and shortcuts or tricks. The result, experts say, is that U.S. students struggle with math.

Nearly two out of every three U.S. fourth-graders and eighth-graders were not proficient on recent national math tests.

The Common Core standards differ from that previous approach in that they emphasize the concepts behind mathematical operations and stress that there are multiple ways to arrive at the same answer.//


Andrew----people consider the narrowing of instruction in our public schools and the tying of children to online lessons written by corporations a dumbing-down. Focusing on math and reading to the exclusion of humanities and liberal arts and tracking vocationally as early as elementary school is taking away choice and opportunity. America fell behind in education because of the education reforms by Reagan Clinton in which students were allowed to learn math using calculators. We need our students to grasp the basics of math before moving to these alternative approaches.

Also Andrew, Common Core is about controlling information. If you are not aware---the exact education reform is happening in nations around the world using the same testing and evaluation----the same Common Core. Common Core is a Republican policy developed in the Bush Administration meant to hand the information taught in our classrooms to a few at the top. Centralized information is what makes autocratic dictatorships as does global corporate tribunals brought by Trans Pacific Trade Pact. So, we need to WAKE UP----look at the goal of these policies. Education reform is tied to global markets and moving US citizens globally. We had a thriving first world domestic economy until Reagan Clinton neo-liberalism.


Peru's government joined the Trans Pacific Trade Pact and has handed the country to global corporations as the US politicians are doing.


Peru’s largest teachers’ union, SUTEP, has voted for an indefinite general strike against the neo-liberal education policies of the government.

February 24, 2015 Teacher Solidarity South America, Education

Delegates at the conference of the largest teaching union in Peru, SUTEP, meeting this weekend in Lima, have voted overwhelmingly for an indefinite general strike against the neo-liberal education policies of the government. The strike will start on the 27th May.

In particular the union is fighting the increasing privatisation of education in Peru, which they say goes against the agreement across the Americas for free and universal public education. More money is being spent on private than on public education in the country, which as SUTEP says: ‘has a damaging effect on students, parents and teachers.’ Moreover the government is attacking the labour rights of teachers, using and dismissing temporary teachers and they have been aided in this by the pro-government union CEN SUTEP which has signed agreements on the topic.

SUTEP has called on parents, students, Peruvian intellectuals and teachers in general, to stand against these developments and support the general strike which will also involve protest marches, pickets and sit-ins.

While the government has increasingly promoted the introduction of ‘accountability’ mechanisms like performance related pay and the commodification of education, SUTEP has been struggling to develop an alternative pedagogy, particularly in remote rural areas, based on the principles of educationists like Vygotsky and Freire, to improve public education and make schools into truly democratic places which are at the centre of their communities.


________________________________________
Everyone understands that this testing and evaluation education policy is bad----parents, students, teachers, academics, and justice organizations.  So, why do they continue to install it in states like Maryland?  Because Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are working for global corporations and global markets and only see what works for them---not the American people.  These Clinton neo-liberals

DO WHAT THEY ARE TOLD--THEY DO NOT LEAD.


Most of these pols running as Clinton neo-liberals do not understand the goals of these policies---the goal is to get rid of old-school teachers and install newly graduated teachers from teacher's programs developed around these policies.  That is why we are seeing mass firing of teachers and conditions that make teachers quit---

Disadvantages of High Stakes Testing in Elementary Schools


by Amy Pearson, Demand Media



There are many disadvantages of high stakes testing in elementary schools.

High stakes testing has become common in elementary schools across the United States, as governments and schools try to work together to improve standards, teaching quality and learning. In elementary schools, there are serious consequences for students and schools who perform poorly on tests. Disadvantages to high-stakes testing are easily identified, yet teachers and schools are held responsible if scores are not acceptable.

High Pressure on Elementary Students

Pressure to succeed on high stakes tests is felt by students, resulting in anxiety for young children. Major decisions are often made based solely on the results of high stakes testing. Elementary students suffer as the pressure to succeed weighs heavily on them. Children who do not perform well on tests may suffer from lack of self-esteem and reduced self-worth. According to Sociology of Education, self-concept is strongly related to perceived intellectual abilities.

Low Morale

Elementary students, teachers and parents all experience stress and anxiety over standardized testing. If scores are low, teachers may begin to lose motivation to try to help students succeed. Students often feel frustrated by high stakes testing. Parents become frustrated as they are unable to help or remedy the situation.

Consequences for Low Scores

Elementary schools with poor test scores are at risk of losing federal and state funding. If scores do not improve within a set amount of time, the school may be forced to submit to government takeover or major restructuring, according to a report from the Center for Comprehensive School Reform and Improvement. Teachers often fear repercussions if students do not pass high stakes testing, leaving educators tempted to succumb to corruption or to cheat, according to The National Association of School Psychologists.

Teaching to the Test

To help students pass high stakes standardized testing, schools are forced to eliminate subjects that will not be tested. Music and art are often reduced or eliminated, in favor of increasing instructional time in reading or math. Elementary schools are already pressed for time to accommodate all of the daily requirements and responsibilities. To cover material needed to pass a high stakes standardized test, teachers are forced to wait to teach other topics until the testing is complete. Others remove additional topics from the curriculum completely.

Poor Design

High stakes tests generally do not assess higher order thinking or reasoning. Computerized grading is often used to score the exams. Children with special needs or children with different styles of learning are not adequately assessed using these styles of tests, or simply not tested at all. The National Center for Learning Disabilities states that standardized tests are some of the worst ways to assess children with learning disabilities. Accommodations can be made to assist special needs children, but all children suffer from the generalized nature of the tests.

______________________________________
Why is Forbes Financial worried about foreign language in elementary schools?  It's Trans Pacific Trade Pact that seeks to send US workers overseas to work and this language training is growing in Hispanic and black schools with the goal of doing just that.  Immigrants being brought from around the world are taking more and more of the white collar jobs in the US and the low-wage jobs are going to immigrants as well.  So, as the US labor market is flooded with immigrant labor----Americans will be sent overseas to work.  Already, European nations are seeing their youth taking jobs overseas as well as the US as global corporations and their pols deliberately keep the economy stagnant and domestic unemployment high-----we have never had so few participants in the workforce since 1960s----63% of Americans of working age are working.

Below you see what the 21st Century economy looks like to Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons and the US economic situation and public policy is written just to create this movement of human capital globally.  This is what Race to the Top expanded around the world prepares for.

REMEMBER, WE SIMPLY NEED TO GET RID OF THE CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS MAKING UP ONLY 20% OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO GET BACK TO HAVING A THRIVING DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND FIRST WORLD QUALITY OF LIFE.  IT REALLY IS EASY PEASY IF PEOPLE WOULD ENGAGE IN POLITICS!


Youth work abroad: Youth work abroad

| 19 September 2006 Children and Young People Now--UK


  • Youth work isn't traditionally viewed as a career with job prospects abroad. But there are opportunities out there, as Patrick McCurry discovers. Working overseas can take your career in unpredictable directions.

Some people love it and make a life abroad, while others can't wait to return home or only do it for a short period.


Spanish youth urged to seek work abroad -

The Globe and Mail
    • www.theglobeandmail.com
    •   › …
    •   › European Business
    Spanish youth urged to seek work abroad Add to ... As an increasing number of educated young Spaniards leave to seek work abroad, ... Europe rethinks austerity moves ...


Over half of young adults in Europe want to move abroad to work

www.expatforum.com/european-union/over-half-of-young...
CachedMay 22, 2011 ·

More than half of young adults in Europe are willing or would like to live abroad with Iceland having the largest number destined to become expats, a new


More Americans Moving Overseas to Find Jobs

jobs.aol.com/.../more-americans-moving-overseas-to-find-jobsCachedJan 04, 2011 ·

More Americans Moving Overseas to Find Jobs. ... mostly from new American Ph.D.s. Will working abroad become a mainstream option for American job hunters?



This is the goal of the 21st century economy Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons always speak---and installing foreign languages in elementary schools is driven by this goal.  We all love languages----it is progressive to have languages in elementary schools---but the goal of creating an ex-pat society for America is not progressive and it will kill end US sovereignty and our rights as citizens as Trans Pacific Trade Pact does.


Southern states like Georgia and South Carolina lead in teaching language in elementary and again---it is the low-income schools having this installed the most.  I guess if they cannot send their low-income citizens to the military---they will send them to this global work pool.  Remember, over 70% of Americans are at or near poverty and the coming economic bond market crash will cause that to rise to 80%.  So, these policies will hit 90% of Americans!

 8/27/2012 @ 6:19AM 

America's Foreign Language Deficit


  When elementary and secondary schools and colleges around the country open for the fall semester, millions of students will not be studying a foreign language.  Not necessarily for lack of interest.  They won’t be able to.

In a shrinking world this reality constitutes a threat to our national security.  “To prosper economically and to improve relations with other countries,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared in 2010, “Americans need to read, speak and understand other languages.”  Unfortunately, Duncan pointed out, only 18% of Americans report speaking a language other than English, while 53% of Europeans (and increasing numbers in other parts of the world) can converse in a second language.

More and more students and their parents understand the need to communicate with friends and foes in other countries, and not just on our terms.  Demand for and enrollment in foreign language courses is at its highest level since 1968.  At public K-12 schools, course enrollment in 2007-2008 reached 8.9 million individuals, about 18.5 percent of all students; between 1995 and 2009, it increased 47.8 percent at colleges and universities.

At the same time, however, schools at every level are balancing their budgets and offsetting reductions in government allocations by cutting their offerings and/or eliminating foreign language requirements.

Consider this:

- The percentage of public and private elementary schools offering foreign language instruction decreased from 31 to 25 percent from 1997 to 2008.  Instruction in public elementary schools dropped from 24 percent to 15 percent, with rural districts hit the hardest.

- The percentage of all middle schools offering foreign language instruction decreased from 75 to 58 percent.

- The percentage of high schools offering some foreign language courses remained about the same, at 91 percent.

- About 25 percent of elementary schools and 30 percent of middle schools report a shortage of qualified foreign language teachers.

- In 2009-2010, only 50.7 percent of higher education institutions required foreign language study for a baccalaureate, down from 67.5 percent in 1994-1995.  And many colleges and universities, including Cornell, have reduced or eliminated instructional offerings in “less popular” languages.

We should care – a lot – about our foreign language deficit.  We need diplomats, intelligence and foreign policy experts, politicians, military leaders, business leaders, scientists, physicians, entrepreneurs, managers, technicians, historians, artists, and writers who are proficient in languages other than English.  And we need them to read and speak less commonly taught languages (for which funding has recently been cut by the federal government) that are essential to our strategic and economic interests, such as Farsi, Bengali, Vietnamese, Burmese and Indonesian.

There have been some positive recent developments:

- Over the past decade, the Chicago Public Schools have expanded instruction in Chinese to include 43 schools and serve 12,000 students.  Many of these students are Hispanic and will be trilingual.

- The Arlington, Virginia, public schools offer after-school instruction in Chinese and Arabic to middle and high school students.

- Columbia, Yale and Cornell are developing video-conferencing courses to share – and spread – instruction in less-taught languages.

But we need to do more.  Much more.  We ask parents to urge their children to attain proficiency in a foreign language, whether or not schools require them to do so; PTAs to lobby school boards; faculty members and deans in colleges and universities to re-visit foreign language requirements; readers of Forbes to write to their elected representatives.

The message is simple: in 1957, after the Russians launched Sputnik, Congress passed and President Eisenhower signed the National Defense Education Act, which provided federal support for foreign language instruction as well as science education.  We may not be quite as frightened as we were during the height of the Cold War, but we must be just as resolute in designing a comprehensive approach to foreign language acquisition that will prepare the next generation of Americans for success in a highly competitive, tightly interconnected world.

___________________________________

You see why Baltimore and Maryland has such a captured system installing these education policies-----besides Johns Hopkins as the neo-conservative driver of installing this education privatization of K-college----we have the Clintons connecting to local universities----Towson and MICA----in creating this global education and neo-liberal expansion.

I talk all the time with Hopkins students caught in this process----they are generally from affluent families and are being directed into this American as ex-pat lifestyle and

EVEN THOSE PEOPLE AT THE HIGHER EARNING LEVELS HATE WHAT IS HAPPENING TO AMERICAN SOCIETY.  THEY DON'T WANT TO SPEND THEIR LIVES AWAY FROM FAMILY.


So, no one wants this policy and yet---we cannot shake these Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons out of our Democratic and Republican Parties and it starts with the election fraud I showed existing in Maryland politics-----the state Democratic committees are captured by these neo-liberals and they are rigging elections illegally.  So, fight your way into this process and CHANGE IT----WE CAN CHANGE IT.

This is why Baltimore is flooded with private non-profits that organize and promote single issues but none of them educate on what is happening with global 21st century economic policies.


This is Clinton bringing back to the US what he created overseas------a system of global corporations working in developing nations using their citizens as sweat shop labor and devastating that nation's environment while making a few people rich.


Building on the successful model of the Clinton Global Initiative, which brings together world leaders to take action on global challenges, President Clinton launched the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) in 2007 to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world.



Each year, CGI U hosts a meeting where students, university representatives, topic experts, and celebrities come together to discuss and develop innovative solutions to pressing global challenges. President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and Chelsea Clinton hosted CGI U 2015 at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida from March 6-8, 2015. The meeting brought together more than 1,100 students to make a difference in CGI U's five focus areas: Education, Environment and Climate Change, Peace and Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health.


But CGI U is more than just an event. It is a growing community of young leaders who don't just discuss global challenges - they take real, concrete steps toward solving them. Throughout the year, and as a prerequisite of attending the CGI U meeting, students develop their own Commitments to Action: new, specific, and measurable initiatives that address pressing challenges on campus, in local communities, or around the world. Commitments range from manufacturing wheelchairs for developing countries to establishing campus bike share programs, from creating free vision clinics to developing e-learning applications for mobile phones.

Throughout the year, students are also invited to apply to become CGI U Campus Representatives. Colleges and universities can engage with CGI U by joining the CGI University Network to support and mentor innovative student commitment-makers from their respective campuses by providing seed funding for new projects and initiatives.

CGI U is proof that young people have the power to make a significant impact by confronting some of the world's most urgent challenges. Since 2008, students have made more than 5,500 Commitments to Action, and nearly $2 million in funding has been awarded to these commitment-makers through CGI U.



2015 Members
Current members of the CGI University Network are listed below. These 70 schools have pledged more than $800,000 to support CGI U 2015 student commitment-makers. If your school is a University Network member, contact your campus liaison to learn more about applying for travel assistance and seed funding.

If you are a university administrator or faculty member interesting in learning more about joining the CGI University Network, contact the CGI U team at cgiu@clintonglobalinitiative.org or 212.710.4492.

American University in Dubai Arizona State University Babson College Boğaziçi University Brown University California State University, East Bay California State University, Fresno Carnegie Mellon University, Heinz College Chinese University of Hong Kong Clark Atlanta University Clinton School of Public Service College of Wooster Cornell University Duke University Fashion Institute of Technology Feather River College George Mason University George Washington University Hamilton College Hong Kong Polytechnic University Illinois College Jarvis Christian College Johnson C. Smith University Kean University Lamar University Loyola Marymount University Maryland Institute College of Art Miami Dade College Middlebury College Mount Holyoke College Nazareth College New York University North Carolina State University North Dakota State University Northeastern University Northern Arizona University Northwestern University Ohio State University Oregon State University Purdue University Rutgers University Southern Methodist University St. Cloud State University Stanford University State University of New York at Geneseo State University of New York, Westchester Community College Tomsk State University Towson University Tufts University University College London University of Alabama at Birmingham University of Arkansas, Fayetteville University of California, Berkeley University of California, Davis University of California, San Diego University of Central Florida University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy University of Delaware University of Edinburgh University of Fortaleza University of Houston University of Kentucky University of Lausanne University of Miami University of Nebraska at Omaha University of St. Andrews University of St. Thomas University of Virginia Washington University in St. Louis Widener University  



____________________________________


Neo-liberals went out and built the South Korean neo-liberal model of education while they dismantled the American Democratic public education model embraced by Finland several decades ago----now Finland has a #1 ranked education system in a first world Democratic society and South Korea is an autocratic corporate controlled repressive society with a neo-liberal education structure that Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are now pushing on Americans.  So, we simply need to go back to the original US model now used by Finland to return to a first world Democratic society.


An Ohio teacher visits Finland schools – and sees why they have a #1 worldwide ranking in education. 

The comparisons with #17 USA are stunning.
Posted on March 11, 2015 by Don R

Here’s a refreshing change of pace – an uplifting view about the state of education!  Thanks to a wonderful submission sent in by Suzanne G., a math and special education teacher from Ohio, we have the chance to visit a classroom in the country ranked at the top of worldwide education performance.  It is an engaging picture of what classrooms can be, and what they once were across the USA.

(Another outstanding teacher story follows this introduction, as part of
our BeHEARD! initiative to let YOUR classroom voice be seen nationwide.
If you did not know about BeHEARD! – please click here.)

Several respected researchers estimate educational performance by country each year.  Depending upon what survey you accept, Finland is usually seen as ranking #1 or #2 (alternating with South Korea) in terms of “cognitive skills and educational attainment.  The lowest ranking I found was #5.  Meanwhile, the USA, by these same researchers is usually #17, with #14 the highest published result.

Suzanne found a very different environment than all of us find in our classrooms.  Several things really stood out to me:

  • Small classes
  • Time for, and encouragement of, collaboration between teachers
  • Senior teachers actively helping new teachers
  • “Gym” not being forced out by test prep
  • Curriculum aimed at all ends of the spectrum – not just a forced, dumbed-down, middle road
  • Electives were equal priority with core subjects.
A few things didn’t surface in this blog, but became evident when I visited her blog and looked at the photos on her site.  There was an atmosphere of friendliness and “brightness” that really jumps out.  Classrooms seemed to be a place you would love to teach in, and would be proud of.

Enjoy a look at the classrooms we all remember from 20 years ago, before all the destructive mandates.

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(Suzanne G. is a high school math and special education teacher from Ohio.  She took a year’s sabbatical to visit other schools, and is blogging her way through the classrooms of Europe.  Please visit her blog at  sgenillier.wordpress.com to enjoy being part of the trip!)

I am currently on sabbatical observing schools in the French-speaking world, with one exception, Finland, for I was curious to discover the secret to their success. What I saw was enlightening! A philosophy of less is more when it comes to teaching.

Kids don’t start school till they are 7 years old.   Each 45 minute class is followed by a 15 minute break during which all students have to go outside no matter what the weather (I observed an IB Middle School), while teachers get a chance to collaborate in the teacher’s lounge.   I saw small classes (around 15 students), often with two or three teachers (the main teacher, a teacher who helps with special need kids and, if the main teacher is new he collaborates with a veteran teacher with whom he co-teaches three or four times a week).

I saw a curriculum that was meant for all students (not just the highly academic ones) including mandatory classes such as home-economics where students cooked and ate their own meal, workshop, during which students were building their own bike, textile where students could experiment with sewing machines, looming machines or do a knitting project.  I saw student-centered classes that looked more like study halls – with students working in collaboration while the teacher(s) walked around to help as needed.

But, I didn’t see students and teachers being overworked, over-tested, or constantly asked to do more with less means and less time to teach. I saw what “no child left behind” meant in a school system that offers choices between technical HS and main stream (the average is 50/50 in the country).

I understand that some of their success can be attributed to different social conditions and a more homogeneous population (though I saw diversity in the classrooms I observed).  But this is no by mere chance – they make sure to provide for each child so no one has to come to school hungry or worry about not being able to afford their transportation fee. No matter what the conditions are, their school system, where the well-being of the child and the teacher is a priority, makes a lot of sense and has proven successful.

If you want to read more about my experience and see a few pictures, I have kept a blog of my experience at sgenillier.wordpress.com




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March 30th, 2015

3/30/2015

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O'Malley/Brown spent their entire time in office privatizing public K-university as Obama has  because they are both Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals and install neo-conservative policy.  O'Malley/Brown used Baltimore as the platform for this charter expansion because Baltimore's politics is captured by Johns Hopkins' neo-conservative politics.  Whether Brown won or Hogan---the next step is to bring in the CLOWNS---or national charter chains.

Each Maryland Assembly session the teacher's union is placated by policy that allows unions in charters for example but this session showed O'Malley's real intent when the Assembly filled the education gap from Hogan's cuts with public pension funding.  This is supposed to be a save for public education funding but it was used just to justify setting teacher's pensions up for elimination with the coming bond market crash.  Underfunded and invested in the collapsing bond market---so, did Hogan really fail in bringing national charter chains to Maryland?  Of course not----he placed Kieffer Mitchell from Baltimore in charge of charter schools and they are exploding in Baltimore.  They are continuing to build the private charter platform in Baltimore while other counties are restructuring their school systems for the same.



I just finished watching this movie and it fits perfectly with the anti-corporation/autocratic structures that we have addressed with labor and corporatization of education. The unlikely protagonist is the union plumber who is committed to any job that pays time and a half. He is temporarily won by the autocratic leader of an apprenticeship for children that allows these children to focus on one skill set-----in this case the piano. Dr. Seuss was writing right after the war when all of these corporate structures and the fear of apprenticeship takeover of our public school system was on the rise. Neo-liberalism first hit Japan after WW2 and then was installed in Korea and Viet Nam after those wars. This was then extended by Nixon and his visit to China. Fast-forward to Reagan Clinton and Dr Seuss's satire comes to America. It is very realistic in that children are exposed to being the best at one thing to the exclusion of all others. Children do lose the ability to be children as we see happening with this vocational K-college job training education reform. The union plumber was sidetracked by simply wanting work---but the boy makes him an honorary blood brother to the cause of escaping the autocratic apprenticeship and the union plumber takes the lead----IT IS A GREAT MOVIE SATIRE FOR TODAY'S SOCIAL STRUCTURES FORCED ON US BY GLOBAL CORPORATIONS!

I shared what Asian nations tied to this neo-liberal education policy endure----their education is so autocratic---driven by such a level of competition with families spending all their money on private tutor corporations and private after-school programs creating a tiered education system where families with the most money to spent get their children into the best universities with very few spaces available----ergo--the competition.  Any of these Asian families will tell you they hate this and they have fought for years to end this neo-liberal education policy installed by the very people now bringing it to America---Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons.





#195) THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR.T (1953) MADWORLD1427 4,231 22,274 Uploaded on May 8, 2010

THE 5,000 FINGERS OF DR.T (1953) http://www.youtube.com/group/another1001 DIRECTED BY ROY ROWLAND, STARRING TOMMY RETTING, HANS CONRIED, MARY HEALY, AND PETER LIND HANES..SCREENPLAY BY THE ONE AND ONLY DR. SUESS





Consolidating school boards to executive appointment is the first step as Mayors and County Executives are all Clinton neo-liberals wanting corporatization of schools.  Baltimore County and Prince Georges County as are some of the Republican counties are all making those changes.  They then appoint a corporate school board.  All of the school testing, evaluation, and teacher replacements lead to this privatized national charter chain structure.  Even Republican voters are seeing through this community charter vs the national charter chain----Republicans are more protective of controlling their own schools then Democratic voters fighting to keep strong public schools.


MARYLAND'S ELECTIONS ARE SKEWED SO THAT ONLY BUSH NEO-CONS AND CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS ARE LABELED 'STRONG PUBLIC SUPPORT' WHEN IN FACT THEY DO NOT HAVE THAT SUPPORT.  ONLY THOSE CANDIDATES ARE ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN PRIMARY ELECTION EVENTS OR RECEIVE MEDIA COVERAGE AND THAT IS WHY WE CANNOT SHAKE THESE BAD POLS.  THIS IS ILLEGAL.


Are Charter Schools Todays Version of Sub Prime Mortgages?

I'm Talking 2 You Bill Gates
Published on Jul 15, 2014

Mark Naison debunks Charter School mythology in this episode of Education News. Comparing the Charter School explosion to the subprime mortgage collapse, Naison reveals the startling failures and false promises of the Charter mystique.



Saturday, Mar 28, 2015 10:45 AM EST

We’re educating our kids all wrong: The progressive argument against standardized-test mania Backlash against overtesting, "accountability" and Common Core is right on. Here's how we empower teachers and kids

Tom Little and Katherine Ellison




I’ve been delighted to watch a popular backlash building against an educational “accountability” movement that has robbed students of opportunities for meaningful and lasting learning—not to mention a decent lunch hour. In 2013, teachers at six Seattle high schools refused to administer a new standardized test they said was useless. Students in sixteen states boycotted standardized tests based on the new Common Core curriculum.

And the New York State United Teachers’ union demanded a three-year moratorium on high-stakes testing. In the midst of all this, a movement calling itself the Badass Teachers Association (BAT) and claiming 20,000 members announced its support for “every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests, and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.” Whipping up the anti-test fervor even more over the past four years have been thousands of screenings, at schools throughout the nation, of the 2009 documentary “Race to Nowhere: The Dark Side of America’s Achievement Culture,” which features stories of hard-driven students with stress-related illnesses—including that of a perfectionist thirteen-year-old girl who committed suicide.

The New York Times has denounced America’s “testing mania.” From the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind law in 2001 through the Obama administration’s 2009 Race to the Top initiative, federal, state, and local officials have demanded that schools demonstrate success with results on standardized tests. But many educators protest that today’s tests are so poorly designed and developmentally inappropriate that they are making students fear and hate going to school.

In late 2013, Carol Burris, an award-winning New York City high school principal, wrote a scathing review of a test for first-graders, focusing on a question that offered four choices to a problem asking, “Which is a related subtraction sentence?”

Burris noted that her nephew’s wife, who teaches calculus, was stumped by the wording. On her blog, she posted a copy of the test, which had been given to her by a distraught mother. The woman’s son, after dutifully answering the first several questions, had collapsed toward the end into writing big awkward “X’s” through the problems, clearly giving up hope of answering them correctly.

Now, we progressive educators have no objections to accountability, per se. Scientists have shown that the occasional test can help students learn. It’s also clear to us that some teachers, schools, and even states truly ought to be held to higher standards.

Yet we’re convinced that our national testing mania is doing more harm than good. We’re also dismayed by increasing evidence that the nationwide increase in standardized tests has done the most harm to minority and low-income students, widening the income equality gap. And we question some of the motives driving the trend.

In recent years, educational testing has become a multibillion-dollar industry, driven by big international corporations such as Pearson and Educational Testing Services. Simultaneously, both the number and frequency of standardized tests have been ratcheting up, as many school districts have been adding their own tests to prepare students for the federally mandated ones.

Today’s college-bound students find themselves undergoing a continuous stream of these high-pressure tests, including not only the mandated exams to track schools’ progress but SSATs (for private school applicants), PSATs, SATs, ACTs, and four-hour-long Advanced Placement tests, on top of the usual bevy of spot quizzes, mid-terms, and finals.

New laws in many states have tied teachers’ salaries and even jobs to students’ scores. As a result, what used to be a thoughtful, creative profession has become more like working in a factory. Educators are told: Here is the text. This is what we want you to teach; this is how long you can spend teaching it; and this is how we’ll judge your performance. For students, the changes are making many of today’s classrooms seem ever more like the harsh, boring schoolrooms of the early twentieth century.

In my more than a hundred hours of conversations with progressive teachers and principals over the past year, I’ve heard a rise in anxiety that many of us now share with our colleagues in conventional schools.



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This is just the example of why Maryland struggles with academic achievement.  For decades public schools have allowed for this grade-juking that makes students feel entitled to this artificial bump and it does indeed make students lazy. Nancy Grasmick installed that Reagan/Clinton education reform that dumbed-down American student achievement and that included allowing children just learning math to use calculators in classrooms.  Doing math now online with online lessons that offer little interaction or discussion about math logic and hearing what problems one child has so other children can expand how to approach solving these problems will make this achievement worse---

Montgomery County is indeed the canary because it is largely middle-class with schools better funded than most.  So, we need to look at the methods of instruction and not assume our children are unable to learn math.  I am hearing that nationally they are thinking of removing basic algebra from high school which will limit Americans from some of the best jobs in the future.  IT IS THE WAY MATH IS BEING TAUGHT THAT IS THE PROBLEM FOLKS----NOT THE CHILDREN'S ABILITY!


PREP TIME FOR NEW MANDATED TESTS-----TEACHING TO THE TEST TAKES OUT ORDINARY INSTRUCTION!


Montgomery County schools adjusts final Algebra grade after more than 80 percent fail exam

by Kendis Gibson July 1, 2014 - 11:12 am
  (WJLA) – In less than a minute, high school senior Naomi Noubossie was able to tackle a simple Algebra 1 equation, but it is the sort of formula that stumped many Montgomery County middle and high school students this year.



So many students failed their Algebra 1 final exam that the school district added a 15 percent bump to their grades.

“It just makes you more lazy, it doesn’t make you work harder. It’s just a way to pass,” said Noubossie.

Of the 4,545 Montgomery County high school students who took the final algebra 1 exam this past year, about 82 percent failed the test.

The district says there were many factors behind the high failure rate, including the loss of more than 20 days due to prep time for new state mandated assessment classes.

“We didn’t make it easier, we didn’t make it harder, we just recognized there were extenuating circumstances at play. It had to be done, and we handled it,” said Dana Tofig, public information officer for Montgomery County Public Schools.

The report cards for thousands of students were also delayed while grades were recalculated in order to include the new algebra grades.

“I don’t appreciate it. I don’t agree with it. I think if a child wasn’t able to make a grade that child needs to step up and regroup and try to make that grade,” said Toby Suarez, a Montgomery County parent.

The grade change was also upsetting for some students who have taken the class in the past and fought hard to get passing grades.

Despite the grade boost, the school says the majority of the students were going to pass the class anyway before the final exam results.


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America had rigor in classrooms before the Reagan Clinton education reforms that took text books out of the classroom and made teachers stop using red pens or fail children giving us this passing children on procedure. That was not done in my generation and children managed to graduate with the basics they needed without this testing and evaluation. You have tracking in high school that allows children more advanced to receive more difficult material. Children from underserved communities have gone without funded and resourced schools for too long to have children jump into this kind of rigor----the pendulum is swinging from neglect to extreme BIG BROTHER. We already have standardized testing in grades of transition to assess where our children strengths and needs lie---we do not need this expanded data collection process.


The problem with PARCC: Children should not be leaving standardized tests in tears PARCC is too hard, poorly designed and technologically not ready for prime time.


The author of the Baltimore Sun's editorial, "No 'pause button' for PARCC" (March 13) seems puzzled by a growing number of parents questioning the use of this controversial assessment. As the testing coordinator at a Baltimore City public elementary/middle school, perhaps my direct experience can provide some insight into why this test is so troubling.

State to delay testing graduation requirement

I understand the use of standardized testing as a way of assessing students. What I don't understand is the
purpose of the PARCC. I have watched class after class come in happy and ready for testing to watch them leave defeated and some in tears. My breaking point was when one of the most engaged students, who always comes to school to do her best, left my testing room in tears after finishing a math section. She asked me why it was so hard; I had no answer. This bright student is on grade level according to several other reliable measures. I had 7th grader so angry about the questions that she wrote an essay to Pearson (the company that produces the test) on her last math question. Again, this is a student who is working above her grade level who gave up on this test. But for students who struggle, they are desperate for the testing to be over, and I watch their confidence and self esteem plummet. I have seen anger, defeat, frustration, tears and students just giving up. No child should ever leave a testing situation with these feelings. I need to repeat that it is not just one or two students; this is majority of my students.

Debates about the developmental appropriateness of this test aside, the technology issues alone are enough to warrant a closer look at PARCC. There are so many glitches and hoops to jump through to keep the test running. The test will randomly shut down, resulting in a having to restart the main computer so the student can log in again. This interrupts the student's thought process and causes anxiety. There is also a programming issue with using JAVA. The test can only run using a certain version of JAVA and if it is updated, the test won't run. Why the programmers haven't fixed this is beyond me. If JAVA does get updated, that testing computer is no longer available for testing until tech support can be called.

Moratorium sought on school testing On the first go round with the language part of the test we did not pay close attention to whether the sound button was on or not for the main group of testers (since they did not have the text to speech option available to them). Much to our surprise there is a video portion of the test for some of the students. My favorite part is that we couldn't just turn the sound on; we had to log the student out of the test, turn the sound back on, and then resume the test.


Once this go round is done, we have a couple of weeks off, and then we do it all over again. The students will sit for another 7 to 8 hours of testing. I cannot image that they will be inclined to do their best. The damage being done to these students for a test that won't count for anything is unconscionable. I wish public school funding was not tied to this so we could opt out and use an assessment that would accurately measure growth. I do not feel comfortable torturing the students with this misguided, poorly constructed "test."

As I sit here and reflect after administering the PARCC for the 13th day, I find that I am having an extremely difficult time convincing myself to come in again tomorrow and do it all over again.

Wendy Boyer, Baltimore


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We are glad to see the movement against privatizing K-12 growing even as Wall Street markets K-12 corporations as hard as it can. The American people will fight for their public education as they learn more about the goals----it's not about improving education---it is about cheapening it!



Why Pearson Tests Our Kids


Posted: 06/11/2014 1:00 pm EDT Updated: 08/11/2014 5:59 am EDT Huffington Post


Pearson invited me to breakfast. Well not just me. I received an email inviting Long Island educators to a free "Breakfast Briefing" promoting "Pearson Personalized Learning" that would empower me to "Turn your traditional student learning into Student-Centered learning by delivering the right curriculum to the right student, at the right time." I checked out Pearson's personal learning products online and then decided that the free breakfast and the opportunity to annoy them was not worth the trip.

Pearson is promoting GradPoint, "an easy to use web based solution for grades 6-12" that "includes over 180 rigorous courses (Core, Electives, AP and Foreign Language & CTE).;" iLit, "a tablet-based reading intervention for students in grades 4-10" which promises "it has everything your class needs to gain two years of reading growth in a single year;" and aimsweb, "the leading assessment and RTI solution in school today-a complete web-based solution for universal screening, progress monitoring, and data management for Grades K-12."

I thought calling their literacy program iLit was pretty funny, but otherwise I find their promotion scary. "Pearson Personalized Learning" is not about supporting schools; it is about replacing them. And it is about replacing them without any evidence that their products work or any concern for the impact of their products on schools and student learning.


Pearson executives Sir Michael Barber, Saad Rizvi and John Fallon call their global market strategy "The Incomplete Guide To Delivering Learning Outcomes." Fallon, Pearson CEO, has been with the company for most of his professional career. He is behind the push for "efficacy," the corporate buzzword, which in practical terms translates into the constant assessing of student performance who are using Pearson products. The testing strategy tied into common core in the United States is neither an accident nor an accessory. Testing is the core of common core.

I find Barber and Rizvi even more interesting than Fallon for understanding Pearson's marketing strategies. Barber is Pearson's chief education strategist and leads its three-pronged assault on education around the world through what Pearson calls efficacy, affordable learning, and the Pearson Knowledge and Research Centre. Efficacy is supposed to be about what works in education based on research done at the research centre, but everything is actually organized around the Pearson goal of "finding business models for affordable schools" that they will be selling, especially in "developing areas of the world."

If you want to know how Pearson plans to operate, you have to look at McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm and advisor to some of the world's leading businesses, governments, and institutions. Before joining Pearson, Michael Barber had a similar role at McKinsey where he was a partner. Saad Rizvi, who is Pearson's Senior Vice President for Efficacy and head of its Catalyst for Education team, was a consultant at McKinsey. McKinsey & Company's clients include 100 of the top 150 companies in the world. It has advised the Bank of England, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, and the German government.

The main job of McKinsey is to help companies maintain profitability by closing subsidies, selling assets, shifting production, and laying off workers. McKinsey has had its share of mishaps. Former employees include Jeff Skilling, the disgraced chief executive of Enron and Rajat K. Gupta, who was convicted of insider trading. Other disasters include advising Time Warner on its ill-fated merger with AOL, advising General Motors on how to compete with Japanese automakers, and advising AT&T not to be concerned about cellphones. A top McKinsey partner dismissed these failures saying "We are advisers, and it is management's job to take all the advice they receive and make their own decisions. Not to say that McKinsey told me to do this."


I think a fair question to ask is, do we want the business model that led to the Eron scam and these other corporate disasters employed in operating American schools and McKinsey's no-fault attitude toward advising local, state, and federal governments on educational policy?

Pearson's Affordable Learning division currently focuses on emerging markets in Africa and India, but it is the model for Pearson business worldwide. It includes eAdvance (South Africa), which sponsors a blended learning chain called Spark Schools; Omega, a chain of thirty-eight private schools in Ghana; Bridge International Academies in Kenya; and Zaya, an educational technology and service company contracted to operate twenty-seven schools; Suiksha, a chain of pre-schools; Experifun, which markets science learning products; Avanti, after-school test prep; and Village Capital (Edupreneurs) promoting private education start-up companies, all based in India. The blurb for eAdvance's Spark Schools give some sense of what Pearson is trying to do in Africa, India and worldwide - under price the market to disrupt existing educational institutions so Pearson companies can move in, take over, and gobble up profits.

"SPARK Schools has bold aspirations to disrupt the South African education system through introducing an innovative learning methodology to the African continent. In the SPARK Schools model, students split their time between digital content that adapts in difficulty to their learning and classroom interaction based on best practice pedagogy. Importantly, the blended model also allows eAdvance to deliver high quality education at an affordable price." It will "build eight low-cost blended learning schools over the next three years, and more than 60 in the next ten."

Pearson is also using mergers to expand its markets and influence. In December 2013, Pearson agreed to purchase Grupo Multi, an English-language training company in Brazil, to accelerate growth in Latin America.

Pearson uses the desperation of Third World countries to modernize to get its foot in the door and to act without regulation or oversight. Up until now, about sixty percent of Pearson's sales were in the United States, however expansion stalled in this country because of lower freshman enrollments in U.S. colleges and a slowdown in textbook markets. Sales also suffered in Great Britain because of curriculum changes and the company spent about $200 million organizing its push into foreign digital markets.

As a result of these issues, Moody's Investors Service, a ratings agency, lowered its evaluation of Pearson from stable to negative. "We are changing the outlook to negative as Pearson's debt protection metrics for fiscal year 2013 are likely to weaken considerably," says According to Gunjan Dixit, a Moody's Assistant Vice President-Analyst, "This view reflects Pearson's tough trading conditions, particularly in North America and the UK; the greater-than-originally-anticipated spending on restructuring; and certain start-up costs for new contracts in higher education and increased provisions for returns." According to Moody's, key challenges for Pearson in the future include (1) the fiscal health of U.S. states and international government funding bodies, in its schools and higher education businesses; (2) difficult market conditions in the U.S. education market; (3) the vulnerability of its Financial Times group; and (4) the accelerating transition of trade book publishing to electronic formats. Pearson stockholders were so disappointed in the company's financial performance that in April 2014, shareholders protested against excessive executive bonuses.

In the United States, Pearson faces other problems that may be related to over expansion, the inability to deliver what was promised, and possible under the table agreements on contracts. In Florida, state officials blamed Pearson Education when at least a dozen Florida school districts were forced to suspend online testing this April because students had trouble signing in for the test. for the situation. Other problems included slowness when students tried to download test questions or submit answers and an inexplicable warning message that students should notify their teacher or proctor about a problem that did not exist. "State Education Commissioner Pam Stewart complained to Pearson that the "failure is inexcusable. Florida's students and teachers work too hard on learning to be distracted by these needless and avoidable technological issues."

Pearson blamed the test problems on a third-party hosting service provider. However, in recent years Pearson has had similar problems with computerized tests in Florida before as well as in other states. In 2011, Wyoming fined Pearson $5.1 million because of software problems and then switched back to paper tests. In April, Pearson was also forced to acknowledge and apologize for "intermittent disruptions to some of our online testing services." This time they blamed a different sub-contractor.

In the meantime, the American Institutes for Research is challenging the awarding of a lucrative common core test development contract to Pearson. While the complaint is being brought in New Mexico, it has national ramification. The contract is for developing test-items, test delivery, reporting results, and analysis of student performance for states that are part of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, one of two main consortia designing tests linked to the common-core standards. The plaintiff claims the process for awarding the contract was designed to specifically benefit Pearson, which ended up being the only bidder, and was therefore illegal.

In New York State, parents and teachers are outraged because teachers and building administrators are forced to sign statements promising not to discuss or release questions about new Pearson "Common Core" aligned high-stakes tests. In the past, questions from past state high school "Regents" exams were posted on the State Education website. Now Pearson, which is paid $32 million by New York State to create the tests is demanding a payment of an additional $8 million to permit the state to post the questions.


In New Zealand, a group called Save Our Schools NZ is protesting the misuse of PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment) tests and rankings by national education departments. They charge "Pisa, with its three-year assessment cycle, has caused a shift of attention to short-term fixes designed to help a country quickly climb the rankings, despite research showing that enduring changes in education practice take decades, not a few years, to come to fruition." Pearson holds the contract to prepare PISA assessments starting in 2015.

For all its claims about efficacy, Pearson is not a very efficient company. For all its claims about valuing education, the only thing Pearson appears to value is profit.









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March 29th, 2015

3/29/2015

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Let's talk politics today!  We see O'Malley traveling the US shouting he is all about breaking up and regulating Wall Street banks and protecting low-wage workers.  O'Malley works for Johns Hopkins---if people don't understand Hopkins is neo-conservative just look at their commitment to global expansion, war, surveillance, security, and spying and the extreme belief in THE POOR WILL REMAIN POOR.  No one does it better than Hopkins and no one works harder for Hopkins than O'Malley.  When I talk Maryland politics it becomes so hard because O'Malley is the neo-conservative Mayor of Baltimore but he becomes the neo-liberal Governor of Maryland as Montgomery County is heavily Clinton to Baltimore's neo-conservative Hopkins.  The point is that neo-conservative and neo-liberal are now one and the same---this is why talking about it is so confusing.  Neo-cons and neo-liberals work for global corporations and global tribunal ----not Americans.  They both are Trans Pacific Trade Pact and ignoring the current US Constitution.  That is why we have the mess in the US ----and Maryland ----we have today. Hopkins is very Woodrow Wilson and not just because Wilson attended Hopkins for a few years!

Neo-conservatives often refer to their ideology as 'Wilsonian' (after President Woodrow Wilson).


Neo-conservatism: Irving Kristol’s living legacy

Cas Mudde
23 September 2009

'Indeed, while many commentators have identified the Ronald Reagan era as the highpoint of neo-conservative power (notwithstanding contemporary criticism of the "feelgood president" from the ideological right), there is a case for arguing that Bill Clinton's administrations in the 1990s were a closer fit with the formative neo-conservative agenda of conservative liberalism. More generally, virtually all administrations since Reagan's have based their domestic agenda on the key values of initial neo-conservatism: including a strong belief in the market coupled with a conservative welfare state, as forces that together are expected to regulate socio-economic change and socio-cultural manners'.

A Neoconservative is a conservative neoliberal


Economically, there is little or no conflict between the neo-cons and other advocates of the neoliberal political economy which underlies corporate globalization. In general, neo-con supporters are drawn post-facto from those who support that system.


O'Malley is the perfect CHAMELEON for this neo-con/neo-liberal mix----he takes whatever issues he needs to to win an election but he is tied tightly to global corporate rule.



Here is the Associated Press simply stating what O'Malley says-----it doesn't let you know O'Malley has spent his entire political career working for Mayor Bloomberg of Wall Street and moved billions of dollars of Maryland's public assets and citizen wealth to Wall Street. This is how we got Clinton and Obama----the media sells them for what they are not---and then hides the bad that they are!



O'Malley points to financial regulation as a campaign issue


Published March 01, 2015 MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. – Associated Press Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is considering entering the Democratic presidential race, said Saturday that financial regulation needs to be at the forefront of the 2016 campaign and suggested big banks need to be broken up if they might harm the nation.

"If a bank's too big to fail without wrecking our common good, then it's too big and we need to take lawful measures to ensure our country's common good is not imperiled," O'Malley told reporters during a conference sponsored by the South Carolina Democratic Party.

Reflecting on Democratic losses in 2012, O'Malley said that one of the lessons of last year's campaign is that "triangulation" is not a winning strategy. Some liberals criticized the use of triangulation -- adopting some of an opponent's ideas -- during President Bill Clinton's two terms in the 1990s.

"You're never going to please all the people all of the time," O'Malley said. "Finding the middle ground between a reasonable approach and an extreme approach isn't going to serve to solve the problem."

The observation could be taken as a criticism if not a warning regarding the views of Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, considered the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination if she decides to seek the White House again.

O'Malley said the plans of other potential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, will not affect his own and that he expects to reach a decision this spring.

He has traveled to South Carolina nine times in two years. His visit Saturday came almost a year to the day before the state's presidential primary.


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Here is an Iowa Democrat making it clear----she doesn't like O'Malley because she believes Dodd Frank has been installed and is protecting the US from the coming economic crash.  So, you have a Wall Street politician pretending to want to hold banks accountable and a Democratic voter who still thinks Congress really did something with the financial reform. 

THIS IS WHY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS CAPTURED----ALL OF THE INFORMATION PEOPLE GET IS CORRUPTED.


Just about every financial analyst and academic agree that not only did Dodd Frank do nothing for Too Big To Fail---but we are heading for an economic crash from the same reasons with taxpayers and citizens wealth being lined out for bank bailout.  This Iowan Democrat did not like O'Malley because he pretended to support bank regulation.


O'Malley has a long history of placing citizens around him in harm's way when it comes to Wall Street fraud and the damage from its crashes----


ALL OF THIS DIS-INFORMATION IS WHAT KEEPS NEO-CONS AND NEO-LIBERALS IN OFFICE


I have shared lots that show TPP will end all bank regulation and that the economic will crash again because none of these bank regulations were installed.

I'm Not Buying O'Malley on Wall Street Reform

Friday, March 20, 2015

It is clear that Gov. Martin O'Malley is trying to position himself with people like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and portray himself as a "populist Democrat." To do so, he wrote an op-ed in the Des Moines Register titled: Prevent Another Crash, Reform Wall Street. I'm sorry to say that all he's done is demonstrate that he doesn't understand what caused the financial crisis of 2008 or the Wall Street reforms that have already been enacted.

O'Malley suggests the need for two structural reforms: (1) reinstatement of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, and (2) break up the "too big to fail" banks.

In order to understand why those two reforms are unnecessary, we have to understand what happened to create the Great Recession of 2008. Financial institutions (some of which included commercial banks and some who didn't) made a lot of risky investments without the capital to back them up if those investments failed. When they did fail, it became necessary for taxpayers to bail them out or run the risk that the entire global economy would collapse.
Dodd/Frank did two things in regards to these large financial institutions:
  1. It gave a special council the ability to identify those who are "too big to fail" and label them "systemically important financial institutions" (SIFI). They are now required to maintain enough capital to survive the kind of market failures that led to the Great Recession. In order to ensure that happens, they must pass annual "stress tests" that are designed to replicate those conditions. 
  2. It gave the government "orderly liquidation authority" - or the legal right to seize complex financial institutions in times of crisis. This is something the government has had the ability to do with failing commercial banks since the Great Depression. Dodd/Frank ensured that, even if a SIFI were to fail, rather than have taxpayers bail them out, the government could take them into receivership.
I noted recently that, as a result of the capital requirements included in Dodd/Frank, the too big to fail institutions are already shrinking. Last week the Federal Reserve released the results of their stress tests on SIFI institutions and all U.S. banks passed (with an asterisk for Bank of America).

In light of all that, Gov. O'Malley needs to explain how Glass-Steagall and breaking up the "too big to fail" banks will improve things. My cynical self says he's playing on our anger at bailing out the banks 7 years ago and hoping we don't understand the success of Dodd/Frank in preventing it from happening again.

Posted by Nancy LeTourneau


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LOOK AT THE COMING 2016 ELECTION FOR DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES AND IT STARTS WITH THE SAME FACES THAT NO ONE VOTED FOR LAST TIME.

WHERE ARE THE REAL DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES CHALLENGING THESE CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS???


No one has been an more of an Obama supporter than Edwards-----she is the Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal extraordinaire!  She never mentions Maryland installing Trans Pacific Trade Pact over these few decades---never mentions the billions of dollars lost to Maryland coffers through fraud and corruption---she is right there with it.  The idea that people living near National Harbor liked that development that brought poverty wage jobs and temporary construction jobs is ridiculous.  Donna doesn't seem to think outing Obama for privatizing Social Security and gutting Medicare of funding is important to keeping these programs strong.  Maryland exempted itself from Medicare oversight just so it could by privatized and made into tiered levels of access and this is why life-expectancy for low-income and working class is so low in Baltimore and Maryland.  So, Donna does not fight to protect any of what she says she does.  Donna Edwards is Obama and she will serve right of center just as Clinton neo-liberals do.  Make no mistake----everyone else lined up for this Senate race is as well.  When someone tells me they will vote for Donna because she is black or a woman I think-----PEOPLE CANNOT POSSIBLY NOT HAVE LEARNED FROM THE OBAMA POSING!  Maryland needs a REAL Democrat to replace Johns Hopkins' pol Mikulski!

Will the only black pol in this race be about keeping the status quo in killing Equal Protection, Rule of Law, giving global corporations more power, security and NSA control of communities?  REALLY???



Edwards jumps into Maryland Senate race

By Kyle Cheney

3/10/15 11:23 AM EDT

Updated 3/10/15 1:06 PM EDT

Rep. Donna Edwards formally announced her campaign for Maryland’s open Senate seat Tuesday with a pointed pledge to protect Medicare and Social Security at all costs.

Edwards, who’s preparing for a difficult primary against fellow Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen, said in a two-minute announcement video that she wouldn’t compromise on the entitlement programs — “no ifs, ands, buts or willing to considers.” It’s a likely preview of the way she’ll hit Van Hollen, who progressives have argued has been open to cutting Social Security because of his support for a federal budget deal like the now-defunct Simpson-Bowles plan.

Van Hollen allies say the line of attack isn’t accurate — and that he’s voted repeatedly to preserve and strengthen both programs. But groups like Democracy for America and MoveOn.org, who claimed credit for drafting Edwards into the race, have highlighted the issue as a potential wedge in the upcoming primary fight.

In her announcement, Edwards promised to be a voice for the middle class.

“I’ve lived the American dream, the middle-class American dream, the one you have to work hard for just to hold on to, the one that’s slipping away for far too many Maryland families,” she says in the clip, filmed at National Harbor in Prince George’s County. She touted her work to keep the National Harbor shoreline accessible to residents, her work to secure investments for historically black colleges and efforts to protect “women’s reproductive rights from tea party attacks.”







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March 27th, 2015

3/27/2015

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I spoke about the women's organizations like NOW and Emily's List being led by Clinton neo-liberal national leaders that always come out for women neo-liberals----the opposite of women's rights as neo-liberalism breaks down all labor and justice laws and War on Poverty and New Deal programs and Equal Protection and Rule of Law----all of which send women and children into poverty in the greatest numbers.  This is why we do not have women justice organizations educating against neo-liberalism.  The same goes with national organizations for people of color----NAACP and NAN for instance.  Ben Jealous was paid to take NAACP to Wall Street while all of Equal Protection and attacks on people of color in jobs and personal wealth occurred.  Al Sharpton of NAN is the biggest Wall Street cheerleader around.  This is why the US has no justice organizations shouting against neo-liberals.  This is why Obama was sold as a community organizer---we thought for progressive issues when he organized for Wall Street issues.

Reagan and Clinton neo-liberalism took the US from a thriving first world nation with the highest level of income equity and people of color entering the middle-class to second world status and now Trans Pacific Trade Pact seeks to take the US to third world status and that is what these corporate-captured women and justice organizations support.

ALL OVER THE WORLD NATIONS ARE RIGHTING THESE TRADE PACT OFF BECAUSE LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS EDUCATE THE PEOPLE AND GET THEM PROTESTING THE THROWING NEO-LIBERALS OUT OF OFFICE.  IN THE US----THESE GROUPS ARE SILENT AND WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.

That is what this session of the Maryland Assembly represents.  Complicity by groups in Maryland that should be leading the way against this global structure being installed.

Playing on 'the first black President' we got Obama who served to the right of Bush....now we are hearing 'the first women President' who will serve to the right of Bush.  Make no mistake--neo-liberals are the face of global corporate tribuals and court that end US sovereignty and our US Constitutional rights---including equal protection for women and social programs as safety nets that protect women and children the most.

NEO-LIBERALS SAY------AMERICANS ARE SO DUMBED DOWN AS TO SIMPLY VOTE ACCORDING TO GENDER AND RACE-----FORGET THAT NEO-LIBERALS ARE KILLING US!





Press Release - Clinton Endorsed by National Organization for Women During Day of Women's Outreach

March 28, 2007


 Hillary Clinton was endorsed by the National Organization for Women's political arm and sports legend Billie Jean King during a day of women's outreach that included a live web chat for supporters with the women running Hillary's campaign.

"At this time in our history, this country needs a strong, experienced and principled leadership to restore faith in our government and repair its credibility at home and abroad," said Kim Gandy, chair of NOW PAC. "Senator Clinton has a long history of support for women's empowerment, and her public record is testimony to her leadership on issues important to women in the U.S. and around the globe."

As part of its endorsement, NOW PAC will launch a "Make History with Hillary" campaign to raise money and mobilize its membership to support Hillary's historic candidacy. The largest feminist advocacy group in the country, NOW has more than 500,000 members in all 50 states and has been a leading advocate for women's rights for more than 40 years.

Tennis great and social activist Billie Jean King also endorsed Hillary today, calling her "A winner who has the vision, the drive and the knowledge to lead this country."

"It's an honor to be supported by these accomplished women," Clinton said. "No one has been more committed to equal rights and ending discrimination in our society."

To cap off the day of outreach to women voters, the campaign sent an email from former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro urging supporters to help Hillary finish the first fundraising quarter strong, while the women running Hillary's campaign fielded questions during a live web chat.

Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle, Director of Policy Neera Tanden, Senior Adviser Ann Lewis and Senior Policy Adviser Leecia Eve said the women's vote in the 2008 election would be crucial and explained how supporters could get involved in the campaign. Women are expected to be the X-factor in this election, making up 54 percent of all voters.




Clinton run charges up Emily's List ahead of 2016

By Dan Merica, CNN

Updated 5:08 PM ET, Tue February 24, 2015


Story highlights
  • Emily's List, energized with the prospect of electing the first woman president, is preparing to go big in 2016
  • The group plans to make the election cycle their most expensive to date -- spending over $14 million
  • "We are going to play a bigger role than we have ever played," said the operative tasked with leading the effort
Washington (CNN)For a group with the chief purpose of helping to get Democratic women elected into higher office, Emily's List enters 2016 closer to the top prize -- the presidency -- than ever before, and with fewer restrictions than what faced political organization the last time Hillary Clinton ran.

Senior operatives at the Democratic operation are pledging that 2016 will be Emily's List's most active election to date, one where they hope the group's deep connections to Clinton -- the expected favorite for the Democratic nomination -- will magnify their efforts.

Emily's List was very active in the race in 2008 during Clinton's first bid, but election laws have changed vastly since then -- mostly thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizen's United decision in 2010 -- making it possible for the group to play a bigger role.

The former secretary of state herself will headline the group's 30th anniversary gala in Washington, D.C next week, a nod to their importance to both the former first lady and to Democratic 2016 scene.

Denise Feriozzi, the political director at Emily's List has been tapped to lead the group's independent expenditure effort in 2016, expected to outpace their most expensive cycle to date -- $14 million last year.

The group, which raised more than $60 million for Democratic women in 2014, expects that with Clinton atop the ticket -- and energy among other women candidates to run -- they will easily break through those fundraising numbers.

"We are going to play a bigger role than we have ever played," Feriozzi said about the group. "There is going to be a level of excitement for our Emily's List community and from women and men around the country to elect the first women president and, more importantly, to elect the right person."

Stephanie Schriock, the president of Emily's List, has left the Priorities USA board so that she can work closer with the Clinton campaign and still comply with election coordination rules.

Clinton, then secretary of state-designate, attends an Emily's List luncheon in 2009.Feriozzi will take Schriock's seat on the super PAC board, a body that has long been seen as the center of the pro-Clinton world, where leaders from the different organizations can meet and coordinate efforts to help boost Clinton's campaign efforts.

The group's will not be just about boosting Clinton and female Democrats. As it has been in the past, Emily's List's 2016 plan will also focus on trying to define Republican candidates as bad for women across the country.

Some of these efforts have already started. Earlier this month, Emily's List launched "GOP 2016: Insult & Injury," an interactive graphic that will "chronicle Republicans' out of touch agenda for American women." This kind of messaging is common for Emily's List, but with Clinton atop the ticket, advisers for the group expect the contrasts to be more defined.

The focus is on ensuring that the gender gap for a likely Clinton campaign is as big -- if not bigger -- than the 12-point margin that Obama enjoyed in 2012.

"That is our niche, that is our role, and that is what we are going to do here," Feriozzi said, stressing that the group will be targeted and strategic about their investments.

That will be critical, because spending in the 2016 election is expected to break all previous records. Sources have told CNN that Priorities, the keystone Democratic Super PAC going into the next election cycle, hopes to raise $300-$500 million for 2016, while the Koch brothers, uber-Republican donors and businessman, have said they will spend $898 million during the election.

Emily's List's pockets are considerably smaller, but Feriozzi and others said their money will be more focused than scattershot.

"I am not going to say what we are going to do and what we are not, but we, as a progressive community, have got to be more targeted and smarter," Feriozzi said. "We are going to figure out what that is."

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Does a candidate need to be Socialist to protect the 80% of labor and justice?  Of course not.  Social Capitalists like FDR and Johnson----Bernie Sanders -----also hold corporations accountable to being good citizens and creating a healthy economy.  So, what are National Urban League, NAN, and NAACP doing running against a Socialist in a very global corporate city of Seattle?  They are shouting----we are Wall Street and global free markets, which they have been since Clinton started appointing national leadership.

Urban League is of course all about transferring cities from working class and poor to corporations and affluent.  There is nothing wrong with gentrification but as everyone in cities around America knows-----it is being done full of fraud, corruption, and injustice and THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN.  It is being done as well in ways that seek to impoverish the people working in these cities whether immigrant or domestic worker----AND THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN.  It happens because groups like NAACP, NAN, and Urban League are not working for people of color----they are advancing the wealth of a few rich people of color.  No justice going on with these groups!

Do you take out a Socialist who would protect the 80% of labor and justice and risk a Clinton neo-liberal to come in that place?  YES, SAYS BEN JEALOUS, AL SHARPTON, ET AL who are those Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals!


THIS IS WHY WE HAVE NO JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS EDUCATING AND SHOUTING AGAINST CLINTON NEO-LIBERALISM!


Urban League To Run Against Socialist City Council Member

Educate! Democracy, Elections
By Bruce A. Banks, www.blackagendareport.com
March 20th, 2015



In its 105 years, the National Urban League has done a lot of indisputable good, not just for the reputations of its founders and funders, but also for the actual communities it claims to serve. But lately, like the NAACP, NAN, and the whole lot of corporate funded dinosaur civil rights organizations, the League seems to pay a lot more attention to what its corporate donors need, as opposed to its constituents.

There’s the Urban League’s lucrative embraces of Common Core, high stakes testing, charter schools and privatizing public schools. The League receives generous gifts from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, now chairman of the Gates Foundation, whose consultants helped write the president’s privatizing Race To The Top program. The League is solidly behind the drive to turn public schools in poor neighborhoods into privatized, heavily policed and often remotely instructed holding tanks. In return for speaking out against teachers, communities, standing up for privatization, and a little aggressive flattery, the Urban League gets handsomely rewarded. The 2012 keynote at the National Urban League’s annual affair was a “dialog” between Skip Gates and Bill Gates, whom the professor called his “brother”.

Bill Gates is a major investor in Monsanto, another generous giver to the Urban League. Monsanto wants to hijack the food supplies of Africa, Latin America and even the US, so when California voters put a 2012 referendum on the ballot that would have required GMO foods to be labeled, the Urban League took Monsanto money to campaign against that as well. The Urban League, NAN, NAACP, Operation PUSH earned their gifts from Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and others by testifying against network neutrality, in favor of corporate mergers and the digital redlining of their own communities, and with them, requested that they not be required to mention it when they testify on matters affecting their funders.

The list of policy positions and actions undertaken by the League in the interest of its funders, often against those of its presumed constituents, is quite a long one, and about to get longer still. The latest League atrocity is in Seattle Washington, where voters in a city council district elected a socialist three years ago. That council member, Kshama Sawant helped lead a multi-year effort to raise the minimum wage in Seattle. The CEO of Seattle’s Urban League, a longtime political insider with great fundraising connections wants to run for local office. Apparently there are no neoliberal pension-cutting Democrats for her to go after in Seattle, and no neolithic Republicans worth dethroning either.

The number one and only target of of Seattle Urban League CEO’s Pam Banks’ campaign for office will be the socialist, because she knows things. Pam Banks knows that while you can never have too many Republicans or Democrats in office, even one socialist is way too many. CEO Banks knows that while you can never have too many corporate funded politicians, even one elected official that doesn’t take the corporate cash makes everybody else feel nervous and look bad. Banks knows that when gentrification is a problem, rent control is probably not a solution her funders would appreciate, even though it makes perfect sense to residents in danger of displacement. Banks knows that any run against a socialist incumbent will be well funded by forces who already call the League, and her, their good friend. They just might not be friends of the people of Seattle.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Bruce Dixon. Find us on the web at www.blackagendareport.com.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and serves on the state committee of the GA Green Party. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com. Click here to download this audio commentary.


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Lastly we have labor unions and their commitment every election to supporting Clinton neo-liberals.  National labor union leaders do this for two reasons----they are trying to protect labor union rights that Clinton neo-liberals are threatening as much as Republicans-----and they have structured these unions internationally so they operate like global corporations profiting off of labor and justice exploitation through Wall Street financial investments/Union Credit Unions.

The International AFL-CIO sat in on TPP negotiations through Bush years and Obama's first term to 'have labor voice at the table'.  They knew how bad these trade deals would be for US workers and they knew that TPP seeks to restructure the entire American government and re-write the US Constitution to the detriment of the American people.  What national AFL-CIO leaders got from sitting at the table was an agreement that unions would be allowed to organize the immigrants brought to the US under TPP and to organize in more nations in the developing world. 

INTERNATIONAL UNIONS NEGOTIATE NOT ON WHAT IS BEST FOR AMERICAN WORKERS---BUT WHAT IS MOST PROFITABLE FOR THESE INTERNATIONAL UNIONS----JUST LIKE A GLOBAL CORPORATION.

That is why the unions are making all kinds of concessions that are corporate-friendly and it is why they support Clinton neo-liberals busting public sector unions as hard as they can---AFL-CIO knows that TPP requires all public subsidy -----Federal Trusts like Medicare and Social Security---all Federal subsidy like Food Stamps and Welfare will be eliminated.  TPP does not want revenue going to public subsidy.

European unions and South Korean unions are all successfully fighting off TPP and getting rid of neo-liberals---US unions are partnering with them.

This is what I mean when I say----we must get rid of this global corporate structure for international unions and bring unions back to grassroots and domestic level.  To do that we need to get rid of Trumka and Hoffa and these other international union leaders partnering with TPP and global corporations with the idea they may get to organize third world poverty and immigrants.

WE NEED UNIONS AND ORGANIZED LABOR----BUT IT MUST BE HEALTHY AND WORKING FOR THE INTERESTS OF LABOR AND NOT ONLY THE UNION.
Below you see the model Americans need for unions----we know the National Labor Board will be dismantled so we need unions to stop thinking about saving rights and paying union leaders----get back to basics where people were labor activists for no pay and we will win those rights back again---

Meet the new workers' movement that is terrifying the wealthy and the powerful


Jeff Spross (Ikon Images/Corbis) March 23, 2015

On Thursday, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) re-introduced legislation to torpedo "micro unions," the latest labor movement to terrify business management, right-wingers, and capitalists in general. They aren't actually anything new, just a variation on long-standing labor-organizing practices that have come back into prominence. "Micro union" is a recently coined term of art for bargaining units that encompass one category of workers at a business — the cosmetics workers at a Macy's, for example — instead of the more traditional model of organizing all the workers for the business into one single bargaining unit.

In 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decided a group of certified nursing assistants at a nursing home constituted an appropriate bargaining unit in themselves, in a decision called Specialty Healthcare.
In 2013, that decision got the stamp of approval from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 2014, the NLRB applied its logic to the aforementioned Macy's cosmetics workers.

Since then, union critics and business interests have been scrambling to respond. Retail industry groups told The Hill that the NLRB’s Macy's decision would "pave the way for micro unions at thousands of retail stores around the country." Isakson has made multiple attempts to pass his bill rolling back NLRB's decisions, with the backing of GOP heavy-hitters like Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

What's particularly interesting is the way the arguments made by micro-union critics run headlong into the arguments made by fans of right-to-work laws, which seek to prevent unions from coopting workers.

"The problem with Specialty Healthcare is not the smallness of the unions, but the way the lines are gerrymandered within a workplace," Jim Plunkett, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s director of labor law policy, told The Hill in 2014. "They're allowed to cherry pick the employees in the workplace that they know will be supportive of the union."

But recall that the argument for right-to-work laws is that, even if they weaken unions, they also prevent unions from negotiating contracts that would force every worker covered by the bargaining agreement to join a union and pay dues. This critique implies that picking the employees in the workplace you know will support the union and organizing just them into a bargaining unit is perfectly fine, yes?

Yet when business groups and other opponents aren't calling it "gerrymandering," they're arguing that lots of small bargaining units will make management a lot more logistically difficult than having one big bargaining unit to deal with!

Unions appear to be damned if they do, and damned if they don't.

Jerry Howard, the CEO of the National Association of Home Builders, said, "We'll do our best to discourage these things from getting into our sector."


"It lets the union get their nose under the tent," said Michael Lotito, a management-side attorney in San Francisco. To put it bluntly, this is not how people would talk if they were concerned about maximizing the common economic good and basic fairness — which is how union critics often paint their efforts. Right-to-work fans insist they're fine with unions as long as the workers themselves want the union, and see it as in their own best interests. If that's your logic, there's no intrinsic reason a non-unionized sector shouldn’t become unionized.

Of course, what this talk does sound like is people who recognize they're in a zero-sum battle over irreconcilable interests.

Under free market capitalism, people are not paid for how productive they are — as the theory of marginal productivity claims — but for how replaceable they are. Say the marginal productivity a worker brings to a firm is $40,000 a year. But let's say that worker is scared because the economy recently went through a big collapse and there are more people looking for work than there are jobs available. (You know, just for the sake of argument.) So they settle for $35,000 a year. The employer isn't going to then say, "Oh wait, that’s not fair! Here, let me pay you the other $5,000 too." They're going to pocket the $5,000 as profit.

If employers can get away with lower pay, with unsafe or degrading working conditions, or by squeezing demeaning emotional labor from their employees, they will do so. It increases the amount of revenue they can take home as profit, as opposed to pumping it back into better wages. And it increases their power to run their workplaces in whatever manner they see fit, regardless of what the workers themselves think.

Bargaining power is everything, and unions increase it for workers.

Employers "feel like the deck is stacked against them," said Amanda Wood, director of employment at the National Association of Manufacturers.

I'm sure they do. But unless we're expected to believe employers and business owners are the underdogs in the grand socioeconomic sweep of American life, and everyday workers are some colossus bestriding the landscape, seeing all their most petty desires met, it's unclear why we should prioritize employers' wounded feelings.


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In the US Congress chose austerity over recovering tens of trillions of dollars in corporate fraud and our social programs and public Trusts are being gutted of funding as to offer no real protection when needed.  They did this with US unions supporting the same Clinton neo-liberals committed to partnering with Republicans to do this.  Neo-liberal states were worse than Republicans in all of this corporate fraud and it is behind the wealth inequity---California, New York, Washington State, and Maryland are the worst for the wealth inequity from fraud not yet recovered.  Unions in Europe and South Korea have been central from the start in educating against the austerity taking the people's wealth----



Belgium unions protest against austerity cuts  Strike being observed against government policies that will extend pension age, limit wages and cut public services.

15 Dec 2014 11:44 GMT | Europe


Labour unions in Belgium have begun a 24-hour nationwide strike against government policies that will extend the pension age, contain wages and cut public services.

Angry strikers gathered on Monday to protest against what they called the government's lack of support for the Belgian economy.

An activist stood at one picket line in the capital Brussels for the country’s CSC trade union, saying protesters are here on a common front to denounce government measures.

"Austerity measures imposed by the government will cost the economy $2.5bn, and we are denouncing it because the SNCB will not be able to support this debt, this economy," he said.

Train services like Eurostar and flights standstill, causing inconvenience for travelling passengers who thought they could catch an early escape before protests erupt.

Cancelling flights across the country, Belgian air traffic control, Beglocontrol, also took part on the strike.

Check-in counters remain empty as 600 flights had been cancelled affecting 50 thousand passengers, said a spokesperson for Brussels Airport.

The Belgian government says it is forced to push through firm austerity measures to maintain the budget deficit within the European constraints, and it insists businesses need tax policies they could tolerate to become more competitive in the global market.

Monday’s strike is part of a month-long campaign against a free-market liberal coalition.

Trade unions say government policies only aim to target workers with extended pension age limits, a freeze of the automatic link between wages and inflation, and cuts in public services that will hit the population as a whole.


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The US has seen Ports privatized, transportation being privatized, and now water and waste privatized, along with public education K-university with no union protests of any size.  When a union supports a Clinton neo-liberal having public private partnerships as a platform issue and then comes out to protest privatized water----knowing that is exactly what that neo-liberal promised to do----THEY ARE NOT PROTECTING THEIR MEMBERSHIP.  The working and middle-class are the unions and these are the groups killed by all this privatization.

Note that Kreolis French global corporation is the same as VEOLA------here in the US



Unions protest against threat of rail privatisation across Europe


date: 24 February 2014

embargo: 00.01hrs Tuesday 25 February 2014

Unions protest against threat of rail privatisation across Europe

The UK’s rail unions will join colleagues from across Europe in Strasbourg today (Tuesday) to protest against European Commission (EC) plans to impose the privatisation of rail passenger services across Europe.

Today and tomorrow (Wednesday) MEPs in Strasbourg will be debating and voting on the Fourth Railway Package. Proposals in the package include making the tendering of rail passenger services obligatory, and imposing the separation of train operation from infrastructure management in every EU member state.

The demonstration against the Fourth Rail Package will take place in front of the European Parliament at 1pm and representatives from the unions’ Action for Rail campaign – including the ASLEF, the RMT, TSSA and Unite – will all attend.

The EC’s proposals could permanently expand the control that overseas rail companies will have over the UK’s rail services, Action for Rail warns, and will impose the UK’s model of privatised and fragmented rail passenger services – that has created huge inefficiency and escalated costs – across Europe.

Action for Rail also believes that the package will make it impossible for any UK government to adopt an alternative to privatisation, ruling out successful publicly-owned and run services such as the East Coast Mainline. Customer satisfaction rates for the line are amongst the highest for train operating companies in the UK, the company provides an income of up to £800m to the Treasury and since 2011 it has received 35 industry awards.

While the UK government has ruled out public ownership of the railways at home, Action for Rail is concerned that foreign state-owned rail companies are using this as an opportunity to make a profit. Of existing UK rail companies, Arriva is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German national rail company Deutsche Bahn, Keolis is majority owned by the French national rail operator SNCF, and Abellio is owned by the Dutch state operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen.

According to a recent study by the Centre for Research on Socio-Economic Change for Arriva Trains Wales, subsidy exceeds private revenue from fares, with the state contributing 60p in every £1 of revenue. The report finds that privatisation is not value for money for UK taxpayers as Virgin West Coast Trains would not make a profit from the West Coast Mainline without state support, and Arriva Trains Wales would not run at all. Since the start of the franchise in 2003, Arriva and Deutsche Bahn (Deutsche Bahn AG acquired Arriva in 2010) have extracted £75 million in dividends.

Government plans to privatise East Coast Mainline could see the company taken over by Keolis and Eurostar through their joint bid. Action for Rail argues it would be far more efficient for rail services to be directly run and operated by the public sector.


Action for Rail argues that the emphasis on privatisation goes against public demand. A YouGov Poll from November 2013 found that two-thirds (66 per cent) of respondents wanted the railways to be run by the public sector, compared to less than a quarter (23 per cent) wanting it to be run privately. Former Secretary of State for Transport, Lord Adonis, has spoken in favour of the East Coast Mainline remaining in public hands and Alastair Campbell has recently suggested that the Labour Party should re-nationalising the railways.

Chair of Action for Rail and TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Imposing the rail privatisation system that is so clearly failing in the UK across Europe would be a disaster for passengers and taxpayers alike.

“Today we are urging MEPs to vote against the damaging Fourth Railway Package which will entrench and extend UK rail privatisation and overseas control of the UK’s railways.

“We have real concerns that if these proposals are adopted future UK governments will be unable to create a publicly-owned railway that puts passengers and public first like the successful East Coast Main Line.”

ASLEF General Secretary Mick Whelan said: ‘In the UK we are still learning and suffering from the harsh lessons of the flawed model that the European Commission now wants to impose on Europe. In the interests of passenger safety, proper investment, a properly integrated and publicly-accountable railway network, I urge MEPs to reject these proposals.”

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “This rail package demands that the disastrous rail privatisation experiment that started in Britain 20 years ago is now imposed on the rest of the EU through compulsory competitive tendering, fragmentation and open access competition.

“As a result of this EU business model Britain now has the highest rail fares in Europe, a culture of cuts and profiteering and the growing use of contract labour and zero-hour contracts.


“That is no future for public transport here or anywhere else in Europe. We need publicly-owned and accountable transport services that serve people before profit.”

TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes said: “Rail passengers in the UK are still paying dearly for the Tories disastrous sell off of our public railway 20 years ago. Fares have more than doubled and are now the highest in Europe.

“Our fragmented private network has turned into a taxpayer funded junkie, needing over £4 billion a year in public funding fixes just to keep going. It would be economic madness if the rest of Europe now adopted this disfunctional system.”

Unite National Officer Julia Long said: “UK commuters spend over three times more of their salary on rail fares than European colleagues. Why on earth is the EC now planning to impose the privatisation of rail passenger services across Europe?

“MEPs must vote against these alarming and misguided proposals and tell the Commission it is on the wrong track.

“British commuters are being ripped off by sky high train fares which have been caused by privatisation.
These proposals are bad news for commuters across the rest of Europe and could prevent the UK from looking at alternatives to privatisation.”






0 Comments

March 26th, 2015

3/26/2015

0 Comments

 
Let's look at labor and wage laws in the Maryland Assembly. 

As I said, Maryland is creating a K-career college apprenticeship program to replace public schools and public education.  So, all that used to be union apprenticeships are now being made career college apprenticeships---a shortened version of the unions' world-class apprenticeship.  Casino employees are being trained by career colleges paid for by taxpayers and now we see IRONWORKERs apprenticeships coming to career colleges in Maryland.  Keep in mind the Sparrow's Point Steel Mill was sent into bankruptcy just a few years ago with all those Steel Mill union members and an apprenticeship in place.  Now that the Steel Mill is closed it's time for IRONWORKER apprenticeships says Senate Bill 907 by Senator Klausmeier......
Baltimore County.


This ties with the Baltimore City bill that requires any corporation bidding for Prevailing Wage contracts to have their workforce trained at one of these career college programs.  Small businesses will not do this and national and global corporations will not be made to do this so Maryland is setting up a Maryland Apprenticeship and Training Council to oversee what was totally in the venue of trade unions.  BYE BYE TRADE UNIONS.

What is important to remember is that Trans Pacific Trade Pact will allow global corporations to bring their own labor from developing nations and those nations do not have these kinds of programs-----no matter, these career colleges will be open to any worker and global corporations will share costs of training their employees with US taxpayers.


Mind you----I don't mind trades training----it simply used to be paid for by unions and corporations and it was a 4 year apprenticeship that everyone agrees was quality.  Why are we diluting the training while having taxpayers foot the bill?

Republicans have historically fought the trade unions and apprenticeships shouting employers will decide what they want.  Now, we are seeing requirements that only the best positioned corporation will be able to afford----it is very BIG CORPORATION AT THE EXPENSE OF SMALL BUSINESS on the taxpayer dime.  Keep in mind these laws are for all work done with the state and local government.  Keep in mind as well we are getting ready to have an infrastructure bill that will have a national infrastructure project with global corporations taking all the work -----subcontracting to American contractors.  Who will be able to bid for these projects?  That's right----the big guys. 


WHAT IS AN IRONWORKER APPRENTICE?  Local Union 550

Apprentices earn while they learn, attending school seven weeks a year for technical and basic hands on training in the trade. While not attending school they are available for work in the field, learning from skilled Journeymen on the job. Apprentices begin earning 60% of Journeyman wages and earn a 5% increase each six months throughout a four year apprenticeship. The cost of the training includes books, which averages $550.

All Apprentices are expected to:

  • Present yourself as a professional at all times
  • Attend, on time, all school days as attendance is mandatory
  • Complete all training requirements and assignments
  • Report on time and ready for work every day
  • Perform all job tasks diligently and to the best of your ability
  • Remain with an assigned contractor until laid off
  • Remain drug free and current under the required testing program(s)
  • Remain alcohol free during any activities associated with the job or school
  • Abide by all provisions of the Standards, Guidelines, and other policies of the program
With Journeyman status comes many benefits including: membership in one of the most respected construction trades Unions, the security of being recognized throughout the U.S. and Canada as a qualified Journeyman Ironworker, having the ability to work anywhere in the country, and Journeymen completing an apprenticeship are eligible for up to 34 College credits. With apprenticeship training, field experience, a degree, and lots of hard work your opportunities are endless.

WHO REGULATES AND OPERATES THE APPRENTICESHIP?

Apprenticeship programs are approved and regulated by the Department of Labor and the Office of Apprenticeship. They monitor approved programs for compliance with Federal regulations, Standards, and equal employment opportunity compliance.

The Ironworkers Training Center is set up under a collective bargaining agreement between the contractors and the union. Funding for the program is provided by a contractual hourly contribution to the Training Fund which is administered by a the JAC. The Ironworkers Joint Apprentice Committee is responsible for establishing procedures, rules, regulations, and the Apprenticeship Standards. They also hire a Training Coordinator, Instructors, and staff to run the day to day operations of the training program.

_____________________________________________

I was the progressive Democrat shouting out against this job training as community college format and as we see below----free two years in community college simply makes free of cost to corporations all those 'apprenticeship programs'.  So, all the money that went into Federal student loans for citizens going anywhere they want now goes to these job training certifications.

Think a little further into the future if Trans Pacific Trade Pact is installed and global corporations are bringing their labor from develoing nations for cheap third world labor how these immigrants will simply move through these free community college job training programs.  US taxpayers will in fact be paying for job training for any worker in the world brought to the US to work on Federal and state jobs awarded to global corporations.  After that certification that global corporation then will be allowed to work those foreign immigrant workers for what they pay them in that developing world nation.

So, what does that mean for American workers and unions?  Well, if you want to work on a Federal, state, or local job awarded to a global corporation----you will work for what that global corporation pays its developing nation worker. 

AMERICANS GET TO FOOT THE BILL FOR CERTIFYING THESE TRADE CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS AND THEY GET TO WORK ALONG SIDE FOREIGN WORKERS BEING TREATED JUST AS THEY WHERE WORKING IN THAT DEVELOPING NATION.


Now, Hispanic workers in the US had better think----I'm already getting my wages stolen and workplace abuse because I have no rights as citizens----now I get to work alongside an African or Asian worker earning far less than I do now----IT'S POSSIBLE!  THAT IS THE GOAL.  It is not good for any worker----whether foreign or domestic.

This Bill 907 and the other Apprenticeship Bills along with Obama's policy of free community colleges all tie to Trans Pacific Trade Pact====TPP and are geared to taking American workers to third world status.




Senate Bill 772------Apprenticeship Pilot Program-----Apprenticeship Maryland

Mike Miller, Astle, Benson, Conway, Currie, DeGrange, Edwards, Feldman,Ferguson, Guzzone, Jennings, Kagan, Kasemeyer, King, Klaismeier, Lee, Madaleno, Mathias, McFadden, Middleton, Miller, Peters, Pinsky, Pugh, Ramirez, Rosapepe, Serafini, Simonaire, Waugh, and Young.

See why Maryland Assembly Mike Miller said a few years ago that the State will not be funding public education soon----it is all tied with these vocational tracking of children and these apprenticeship programs controlled by corporations---and global corporations at that-----all determined by testing and evaluations.  Now, I don't know why any Republican voter would want this for their school options since they are as set on having a voice in what happens in local schools as progressives are -----but the list of characters above show the Clinton neo-liberals teamed with Republicans and Baltimore City neo-conservatives to create one big K-career college vocational training reporting to global corporations and their needs.


Obama’s free community college tuition plan: Four questions
Obama announces free community college plan

(4:44) President Obama discussed a proposal to provide two years of tuition-free community college to "everybody who’s willing to work for it" on Friday in Tennessee.

(WhiteHouse.gov)
By Nick Anderson January 9

President Obama’s proposal for tuition-free community college could be “a game-changer,” some education leaders say, if it entices students who hadn’t thought seriously about going to college to reverse course and pursue a degree.

For decades, the federal government has helped students get money for college through Pell Grants and student loans. That has become a cornerstone of college access. Now Obama is urging an unprecedented focus on two-year public colleges with open admissions policies that are already a low-priced gateway to higher education for millions of Americans.

“Put simply, what I’d like to do is to see the first two years of community college free for everybody who’s willing to work for it,” Obama says in a video the White House released Thursday. “That’s right. Free for everybody who’s willing to work for it.”

IT'S CALLED A UNION APPRENTICESHIP OBAMA!

But the plan, which the president outlined Friday at a community college in Knoxville, Tenn., faces numerous hurdles in Congress, statehouses and even, conceivably, within the higher education community. Here are four big questions.

1) Will Congress approve funding? On Thursday, White House officials declined to answer repeated questions about how much the federal government would have to spend to fulfill the promise of free tuition for qualified students. Then on Friday afternoon, White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters the plan would cost the federal government roughly $60 billion over 10 years.

President Obama delivers remarks at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Md., in September 2013. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) The White House says that the federal government would foot three quarters of the bill and participating states the rest.

The White House also says the plan’s benefits would be the “first dollars” provided as students assemble the resources they need to pay for college. That means other financial aid would augment the plan, helping students pay for books, fees, housing and other expenses.

With Republicans now in charge of both houses of Congress, any new federal program of this magnitude faces a steep path to enactment. “Unless the president has a responsible plan to meet our existing commitments, he shouldn’t be making new promises the American people can’t afford,” said Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee.

2) Will states push back? Obama says his plan is modeled in part on a program in Tennessee enacted under Gov. Bill Haslam (R). The Tennessee Promise, as it is called, is just getting underway. The first beneficiaries of the state’s tuition-free guarantee will enroll in community college in the next school year. There has been big interest among high school seniors, and the state expects thousands to participate.

But the Tennessee program is a “last-dollar” initiative. That means the state provides qualified students the difference between the community college tuition and whatever other grants and scholarships students obtain. It is, as a result, far less expensive than what Obama proposes. And it does not help cover fees, books, housing, transportation and other expenses.

The federal government, in return for its investment, would ask states to share about a quarter of the cost of Obama’s plan.

Obama, according to a White House fact sheet, also wants states to “commit to continue existing investments in higher education; coordinate high schools, community colleges, and four-year institutions to reduce the need for remediation and repeated courses; and allocate a significant portion of funding based on performance, not enrollment alone.”

In other words, there would be some federal conditions if states participate. Whether states would go along with all this is an open question.

3) Will higher ed embrace this? Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, which represents college presidents, called Obama’s plan “an extremely bold proposal, a potential game-changer that could encourage millions more students to consider, apply and enroll in postsecondary education.”

She added: “There is still much we do not know about the details of this ambitious plan, such as institutional eligibility criteria and the requirements that would be imposed on states that want to participate. But we look forward to working with the Obama administration and Congress to find the best and most effective ways to dramatically boost higher education access and completion rates, especially among low- and lower-middle-income students.”

Community college advocates were thrilled with the announcement because the sector often does not get the attention it merits, considering that public two-year colleges serve nearly 40 percent of all undergraduates.

But many colleges and universities are not directly targeted through this plan.

Andrew P. Kelly, a higher education analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in Forbes that an exclusive focus on public colleges “could crowd out promising innovations from the private sector.”

The for-profit sector, which operates many two-year colleges and has strong allies on Capitol Hill, would not be covered under the plan, administration officials said. Four-year colleges, public and private, get little mention in the president’s plan even though some institutions now offer both associate’s and bachelor’s degrees, as well as one- and two-year certificates.

Viewed from another angle, four-year colleges would reap significant indirect benefits from a stronger community college system. The two-year colleges are a huge pipeline for transfer students seeking bachelor’s degrees.

Administration officials said as well that their plan would give states some flexibility to steer additional funding to four-year schools in certain circumstances.

Still, the question is whether higher ed as a whole will get behind a plan that targets primarily one sector, albeit a crucial one. For many higher ed leaders, the perennial and preferred vehicle for expanding student access is clear: The federal Pell Grant. Obama in past years has expanded funding for the Pell Grant significantly. But now he is seeking to do something else.

4) How will the public react? Obama is asking the country to think about education in a new way — to make two years of college “as free and universal as high school,” in the words of the White House. That potentially has a powerful appeal.

“This type of proposal tells a kid in loud and clear terms you won’t be shut out of college because of tuition,” said Michael Dannenberg of Education Reform Now, a Democratic-leaning think tank.

This is a Clinton neo-liberal and not a Democratic-leaning think tank!
__________________________________________

This is what these apprenticeship programs are tied to-----global apprenticeship programs that global corporations are using to select workers from around the world.  It has nothing to do with helping low-income communities and families----it is simply to create a pool of workers from which global corporations will select for employment and then send that worker anywhere in the world to work...INCLUDING AMERICAN WORKERS.

SO THIS IS WHAT THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY AND GOVERNOR O'MALLEY HAVE WORKED SO HARD TO  BUILD---THE TPP GLOBAL APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAM -----NOW LARRY HOGAN LOVES THAT IDEA!

Think most apprentices will come from local citizens????? REALLY???


Rolls-Royce culls from global youth for apprenticeship program


By Joe McCarthy December 4, 2013

Rolls-Royce

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is opening up its annual apprenticeship program to welcome a new group of aspiring craftsmen and women.

Selected candidates will work alongside employees skilled in leather, wood, paint, engineering and assembly roles beginning August 2014. The brand’s ability to replenish its apprenticeship program acts as a tangible verification of its strong sales numbers and paints the automaker in a favorable light amid a still straggling economy.

“We seek the very best candidates,” said Andrew Ball, corporate communications manager of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Goodwood, Britain.

“Since the launch of the program in 2006, our selection process has been successful in delivering exceptional apprentices, the vast majority of whom have subsequently been employed by the company.”



Employing youth
The apprenticeship program is open to individuals around the world aged 16-24, but the location of the factory in Goodwood, Britain likely means that the majority of applications will be British.



Rolls-Royce Wraith

Those who are accepted may spend up to four years in the apprenticeship, receiving on-the-job training and studying for qualification exams that meets the standards of the Learning Skills Council and several local colleges.

Rolls-Royce employed 60 men and women in 2013  for industrial placements that range from six to 12 months, a flexible offer that may be available next year.


Rolls-Royce Wraith

The apprenticeship program is also joined by a graduate program that accepts new candidates each year.

Similar to Rolls-Royce, many luxury brands have training programs that bring in hundreds of young applicants a year, which does not indicate a diminishing industry.

Audi employs 2,400 apprentices, who range between 15 and 18 years old. Each year, 715 apprentices complete their education and start a career at Audi, and they’re replaced by 715 more; their retention rate is 100 percent, according to Core77. The article explains that the Audi factory in Ingolstadt, Germany employs 35,000 employees.

Technicians are still widely sought after by luxury automotive brands. Mercedes-Benz offers Elite Start and Elite Advanced programs for aspiring technicians to hone their skills and learn valuable industry knowledge.


BMW plant in Leipzig, Germany

Aston Martin is accepting applications for its graduate engineering and business programs until Nov. 29 (see story).

Long distance
Rolls-Royce will likely receive applications from around the world due to its active global presence.

For instance, Rolls-Royce is celebrating the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Horse in 2014 with a bespoke “Majestic Horse Collection” that features Ghost models and draws on traditional art.

Although the collection will be available to consumers around the world, it is hard to imagine that the demand from other countries will match the demand brewing in China. The collection is also emblematic of a 103 percent surge in bespoke commissions from the year-ago period in China and likely indicates that these numbers will continue to rise (see story).

Also, Rolls-Royce Motors Cars in Monaco gave prospective consumers an interactive bespoke experience with a studio in Cannes, France that delved into the brand’s history and showcased key models.

The studio aimed to drive people to the showroom in Monaco where they set up test-drives. Setting up a summer studio allowed the automaker to shadow consumers as they travel for vacation while cultivating its reputation in a growing region (see story).

While the apprenticeship program provides young people with viable training, Rolls-Royce benefits from gaining skilled employees.

“Our apprenticeship program is open to all applicants worldwide and we seek the very best candidates,” Mr. Ball said.


“However, many of our apprentices are relatively local, primarily for practical reasons such as travel, work permits, etc.”

Final Take
Joe McCarthy, editorial assistant on Luxury Daily, New York


_____________________________________________
THINK THE MINIMUM WAGE IS GOING UP????? THINK AGAIN.  THIS WAS WRITTEN FOR BALTIMORE CITY SPONSORED BY A REPUBLICAN.

Senate Bill 3--------State Minimum Wage Rate---Exceptions----Social Services Non-profit Organizations.


Senator Getty


Authorizing nonprofit organizations that provide social services to residents of the State and have an annual operating budget of $250,000 or less to pay employees 85% of the State minimum wage or $7.25 per hour; etc.


This is so ridiculous ----it brings more and more Maryland citizens down to third world wages-----if you think $7.25 an hour is bad and if you are already mad that restaurant and hotel workers are being paid a few dollars an hour wage with tips-----look at this bill that seeks to move all of the privatized public sector to this same extremely low wage.  Remember, Social Services used to be a public sector job being paid a good wage with benefits----now places like Baltimore have privatized all of social services to these private non-profits representing a huge number of workers----and this bill wants them paid----85% of $7.25.

This is how you bring US workers to third world poverty----job sector by job sector-----Know where this bill will hit the hardest?  BALTIMORE CITY.  Know who pretended to fight for a higher minimum wage?  BALTIMORE.  Know who will vote for this bill?  WATCH NOW-----ALL OF BALTIMORE CITY POLS!


Eliminating the public sector employees and setting wages at an all-time low.  Think the minimum wage laws will go into affect with the coming bond market crash?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!


Between restaurant workers and now former public sector workers I'm not seeing much difference between what an American worker and an Hispanic worker earns----now, we need to go towards what an African and Asian worker earns for both American and Hispanic workers say the Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City pols!


THINK OF HOW MANY BALTIMORE CITIZENS WILL FALL UNDER THESE CATEGORIES!  THESE PRIVATE NON-PROFITS ARE SIMPLY NATIONAL CORPORATIONS FOR THE MOST PART!


SENATE BILL 3

By: Senator Getty
Requested: October 8, 2014
Introduced and read first time: January 14, 2015
Assigned to: Finance

State Minimum Wage Rate – Exceptions – Social Service Nonprofit  Organizations

FOR the purpose of authorizing certain nonprofit organizations to pay employees a certain  wage; making a stylistic change; and generally relating to exceptions to the State  minimum wage rate.

SECTION 1. BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND,  That the Laws of Maryland read as follows:
Article – Labor and Employment
3–413.
(a) In this section, “employer” includes a governmental unit.
(b) Except as provided in subsection (d) of this section and § 3–414 of this subtitle,  each employer shall pay:
(1) to each employee who is subject to both the federal Act and this subtitle,  at least the greater of:
(i) the minimum wage for that employee under the federal Act; or (ii) the State minimum wage rate set under subsection (c) of this 1 section; and
(2) each other employee who is subject to this subtitle, at least:
(i) the greater of:
1. the highest minimum wage under the federal Act; or
2. the State minimum wage rate set under subsection (c) of  this section; or
(ii) a training wage under regulations that the Commissioner adopts  that include the conditions and limitations authorized under the federal Fair Labor  Standards Amendments of 1989.
(c) The State minimum wage rate is:
(1) for the 6–month period beginning January 1, 2015, $8.00 per hour;
(2) for the 12–month period beginning July 1, 2015, $8.25 per hour;
(3) for the 12–month period beginning July 1, 2016, $8.75 per hour;
(4) for the 12–month period beginning July 1, 2017, $9.25 per hour; and
(5) beginning July 1, 2018, $10.10 per hour.
(d) (1) (i) Except as provided in paragraph (2) of this subsection and  subject to subparagraph (ii) of this paragraph, an employer may pay an employee a wage  that equals a rate of 85% of the State minimum wage established under this section if the  employee is under the age of 20 years.
(ii) An employer may pay to an employee the wage provided under  subparagraph (i) of this paragraph only for the first 6 months that the employee is  employed.
(2) (i) This paragraph applies only to an employer that is:
1. an amusement or a recreational establishment, including  a swimming pool, [if the employer] THAT:
[1.] A. operates for no more than 7 months in a calendar  year; or[2.] B. for any 6 months during the preceding calendar 1 year, has average receipts that do not exceed one–third of the average receipts for the other  6 months; OR
2. A NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION THAT:
A. PROVIDES SOCIAL SERVICES TO RESIDENTS OF THE STATE; AND
B. HAS AN ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET OF $250,000 OR  LESS.

(ii) An employer may pay an employee a wage that equals the  greater of:
1. 85% of the State minimum wage established under this  section; or
2. $7.25.
SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED, That this Act shall take effect July 14 1, 2015.




0 Comments

March 25th, 2015

3/25/2015

0 Comments

 
Let's talk labor and wages and the Bills the Maryland Assembly have in this session.  Maryland is the most repressive and regressive of states in wage and workplace protects in the nation and yet-----labor union leaders support the Clinton neo-liberals killing labor and justice every election.  I spoke earlier of the Baltimore pol sponsoring the Bill killing Prevailing Wage and small business contractors bidding for state and local jobs.  Very few categories of jobs fall under Prevailing Wage and we have a Bill that will create loopholes to avoid paying any Prevailing Wage.

Below you see what is a very, very, very bad bill for labor although it seems as if it might be good because it says it seeks to protect Maryland from the effects of free trade and currency manipulation, and protect state sovereignty.

YET IT NEVER MENTIONS TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT AS ASSURING ALL OF THE ABOVE WILL BE AFFECTED ADVERSELY.  This bill is written because of Trans Pacific and Trans Atlantic Trade Pacts but it doesn't seek to stop them---it pretends that Maryland can protect against any harmful effects...AND IT CANNOT.



What the US practices today is naked capitalism----win profits any way you want no rules bar.  It is full of fraud, corruption, crony subsidy, choosing of winners and losers. 

MARYLAND IS #1 IN THE NATION IN NAKED CAPITALISM---NO FREE TRADE GOING ON IN MARYLAND.


Features of free trade Free trade policies generally promote the following features:

  • Trade of goods without taxes (including tariffs) or other trade barriers (e.g., quotas on imports or subsidies for producers)
  • Trade in services without taxes or other trade barriers
  • The absence of "trade-distorting" policies (such as taxes, subsidies, regulations, or laws) that give some firms, households, or factors of production an advantage over others
  • Unregulated access to markets
  • Unregulated access to market information
  • Inability of firms to distort markets through government-imposed monopoly or oligopoly power
  • Trade agreements which encourage free trade.

So, Senator Manno wants to create a commission on Free Trade and protecting Maryland sovereignty even as Obama has spent several years pushing Trans Pacific Trade Pact that ends national sovereignty and sends all the power of writing policy and enforcing law to global corporate tribunals and is now pushing the passage as hard as he can.  Maryland has said nothing about Trans Pacific Trade Pact and Maryland labor unions have been silent in educating against TPP.  Unregulated markets is what led to today's free-for-all.  It end enforcement of labor laws so it is really bad for labor unions.  It moves jobs to where labor is cheapest and if labor is brought back to the US wages will fall dramatically with TPP and free trade.  So, labor unions would not want to be seen in this kind of commission. 

YET THERE THEY ARE----MARYLAND AFL-CIO, AFSCME, AND MARYLAND EDUCATION ASSOCIATION. They are keeping their union organizing rights while being used to bring US labor to third world status and they know that is what is happening.

This is why labor unions in Maryland have not said a word over several years against TPP.....they are tied to all of these global mechanisms while knowing it will kill their membership and quality of life for labor.


THIS BILL SEEKS TO INSTALL ALL THAT IS NECESSARY TO MOVE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT FORWARD IN THE STATE OF MARYLAND WHILE IT PRETENDS TO PROTECT THE STATE'S SOVEREIGNTY.


SENATE BILL 893

By: Senator Manno

Introduced and read first time: March 3, 2015

Assigned to: Rules

A BILL ENTITLED AN ACT concerning Commission on FreeTrade, Currency Manipulation,and State Sovereignty–


Establishment FOR the purpose of establishing the Commission on FreeTrade, Currency Manipulation, and State Sovereignty; providing for the composition, chair, and staffing of the Commission; prohibiting a member of the Commission from receiving certain compensation, but authorizing the reimbursement of certain expenses; requiring the Commission to conduct a certain annual assessment, provide a certain mechanism for certain input,work with certain groups for a certain purpose, and develop certain recommendations under certain circumstances; authorizing the Commission to recommend certain legislation; requiring the Commission to submit recommendations developed under a certain provision of this Act to certain persons; requiring the Commission to submit a certain annual report to certain persons; defining a certain term; and generally relating to the Commission on FreeTrade, Currency Manipulation,and State Sovereignty


SENATE BILL 893.   Sponsored by Manno

(A)(1)IN THIS SECTION,“INTERNATIONALTRADE AGREEMENT”MEANS A TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND A FOREIGN COUNTRY.(2)“INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENT”DOES NOT INCLUDE A TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE STATE AND A FOREIGN COUNTRY TO WHICH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT A PARTY.

(B)THERE IS A COMMISSION ON FREE TRADE,CURRENCY MANIPULATION, AND STATE SOVEREIGNTY.

(C)THE COMMISSION CONSISTS OF THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS:

(1)THE CHAIR OF THE SENATE FINANCE COMMITTEE,OR THE CHAIR’S DESIGNEE;

(2)THE CHAIR OF THE HOUSE ECONOMIC MATTERS COMMITTEE,OR THE CHAIR’S DESIGNEE;

(3)THE SECRETARY OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT,OR THE SECRETARY’S DESIGNEE;

(4)THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,OR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S DESIGNEE;AND

(5)THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR:

(I)A REPRESENTATIVE OF A NONPROFIT ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATION;

(II)A REPRESENTATIVE OF ORGANIZED LABOR APPOINTED FROM A LIST PROVIDED JOINTLY BY THE MARYLAND STATE AND DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA AFL–CIO,MARYLAND STATE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION,AND AFSCME MARYLAND;

(III)A REPRESENTATIVE OF AN EXPORT BUSINESS LOCATED IN THE STATE;

(IV)A REPRESENTATIVE OF A BUSINESS LOCATED IN THE STATE THAT IS ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE;AND

(V)A REPRESENTATIVE OF A MANUFACTURER LOCATED IN THE STATE

__________________________________________

While national labor union leaders are joining commissions to install Trans Pacific Trade Pact, Obama and Congressional neo-liberals are sending out black leaders to sell the idea of global corporate rule to black pols and voters.

Remember, suspending Rule of Law and Equal Protection----no civil rights and liberties----are all part of TPP and while everyone loses with these policies----people of color and women lose the most.  THIS IS TO WHOM OBAMA AND CONGRESSIONAL NEO-LIBERALS ARE GOING TO SATURATE WITH LOBBYING.  Mind you----Obama has only used his bully-pulpit for promoting education privatization, Trans Pacific -tied Immigration Reform-----but now he is pulling out the stops to promote TPP.


This issue is not really a liberal one---or a labor and justice one.  Republicans are just as angry at the push to end US sovereignty and our US Constitution so calling this a liberal action against TPP is wrong.  Bush started TPP and Obama is trying to finish it because they are both the same politicians----Wall Street global corporate politicians.



Expose the TPP - USA

NEW PRO-TRADE BOARD CREATED BY OBAMA ALLIES

“The effort will sharpen differences between the Democratic Party's liberal and pro-business wings, especially in New England. And it could accelerate the effort to woo black lawmakers, a key target in the House.

"Heading a pro-trade advisory board being announced Tuesday are former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and former US. Trade Representative and Dallas mayor Ron Kirk.”

REGARDING WYDEN

“Liberal groups have picketed the home — and threatened a 2016 Democratic primary challenge — of Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, which handles trade. Pro-trade groups have advertised in Oregon to defend Wyden, who says he hopes trade legislation will pass.”

FULL ARTICLE: http://bit.ly/1EF0X1Y


____________________________________________

The US is the greatest currency manipulator in the world-----the FED under Bush and especially Obama has created one economic crash after another all while manipulating major economic policy.  China learned how to manipulate from the US Wall Street banks.

So, when Maryland Senator Manno has a Bill that creates a Commission to guard against currency manipulation----IT IS BOGUS.

  I HAVE HEARD NOTHING FROM MANNO OVER SEVERAL YEARS OF THE WORST US CURRENCY MANIPULATION KILLING THE WEALTH OF AMERICANS.

So, when Maryland Assembly pretends it is protecting Maryland citizens or Maryland sovereignty with a Commission like this he is lying-----this Commission is being created to install TPP policy in Maryland.

Currency Manipulation: US Hypocrisy Apparent in Warning to Japan

Written By: James West

| April 12, 2013

The United States warned Japan today that it would henceforth be monitoring Japan’s economic policy to ensure it does not constitute an intentional devaluation of the yen to obtain economic advantage.

In its semi-annual report that identifies nation trade partners engaged in the same manipulative currency devaluation practices as itself, the United States Treasury made a point of hypocritically implying that both China and Japan were engaging in practices with respect to their currencies that the United States regards as its exclusive domain.

The United States has been engaged in a systematic and incremental devaluation of its currency since 2008 when it began asset purchase programs under the guise of economic stimulus.

This is not just a position of this publication, but is shared by other nations who are not excessively beholden to the US for financial support.

Since the 2008 crash, Brazil has accused the US of currency manipulation by using quantitative easing to devalue the dollar.

Even CNN publicly accused the US of currency manipulation back in 2011, when correspondent Paul La Monica, in a piece entitled “Currency Manipulation? US Must Look in the Mirror” wrote:

“NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — A newsflash to the legislators in Washington who suddenly want to act tough against China for currency manipulation: Have you looked in the mirror lately?

How can anyone with a straight face declare that China needs to be punished for keeping the yuan artificially low when the United States is also aggressively trying to devalue the dollar with its monetary and fiscal policies?

The righteous indignation and holier-than-thou attitude is comical at best. The Federal Reserve, through two rounds of quantitative easing and now Operation Twist, has helped push the dollar lower.

Simply put, buying up U.S. Treasuries as if they were Missoni apparel at Target leads to lower interest rates and a weaker currency.”

The Wall Street Journal also published a piece in October 2012 titled “Ben Bernanke: Currency Manipulator”.

So there is no denying the the U.S. is possibly the worst offender when it comes to manipulating its currency downward to obtain global advantage.

For now, the US says it will monitor both Japan and China, and stops short of outright labelling of the two countries as currency manipulators.

Rightfully so. The whole world knows it would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
And the U.S., contrary to what they would have us believe, hates comptetition.


______________________________________
We were told over and over by free trade and global market cheerleader Bill Clinton that these South Korean Trade Pacts would bring JOBS JOBS JOBS but we already know we are losing hundreds of thousand of jobs with this latest Trade Pact under Obama.  So, there is no way national labor union leaders can pretend that Trans Pacific Trade Pact will be different and especially as any global corporations coming to the US will bring developing world wages and work conditions with them.

All national labor and justice organizations should have been shouting these several years while Obama worked on TPP and now, we see them partnered with the Commissions and Wall Street institutions moving to install these policies.  It is not worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater to save union rights while Americans are being taken to third world status with labor unions not having a chance of surviving global corporate rule.

  • NAFTA Jobs Losses Continue to Mount 


  • May 03, 2011   Dustin Ensinger

    No state has been spared the wrath of the North American Free Trade Agreement, with all 50 losing jobs due to the bilateral trade pact, according to a new report by the Economic Policy Institute.

As of last year, the U.S. had amassed a $97.2 billion trade deficit with Mexico, resulting in the loss of 682,900 jobs.

Of those jobs lost, 415,000, or 60 percent, were in manufacturing industries. Computer and electronic parts, and motor vehicles and parts were the two hardest hit industries. Over the years, 150,300 jobs in the computer industry have been lost to Mexico, along with another 108,000 in the auto industry.

All 50 states have had to share the burden, but none more so than Michigan, which lost one percent of its total jobs due to barrier-free trade with Mexico. As of 2010, the state has lost 43,600 jobs because of NAFTA’s failures.

“From a standpoint of the business community, NAFTA’s most important achievement was that it made Mexico a much safer and more attractive location to invest and outsource U.S. manufacturing production,” the report said.

The states with the most jobs lost in terms of sheer numbers are California (86,500), Texas (55,600), Michigan (43,600), Ohio (34,900), Illinois (34,700), New York (34,300), Florida (28,800) and Pennsylvania (26,300).

The report mainly focuses on the impact of Mexico’s involvement in NAFTA. The other party involved, Canada, has not been nearly as problematic for the U.S. because its economy is very similar. Canada also has a currency that is stronger than the dollar.

“U.S. trade with Canada in non-oil goods is no longer a significant source of job displacement for the United States,” the report found.

Mexico, on the other hand, can lure American companies south of the border with a promise of an abundance of cheap labor.

In the U.S., the average factory worker makes roughly $18 per hour while his Mexican counterpart earns just $3 per hour. This has encouraged a “race to the bottom” in which American companies are frequently relocating production facilities across the border. Iconic American companies such as Coca Cola, Ford, RCA, General Motors, General Electric and Nokia have all opened up assembly plants in Mexico.

Apparently, American policymakers have never heard the saying about being doomed to repeat history if you do not learn from it because they are on the verge of entering the U.S. into a bilateral trade pact with South Korea.

According to the report, it will be as bad, if not worse, than NAFTA. In the first seven years of the deal alone, the agreement is set to cost the U.S. 159,000 jobs.

“Mexico and South Korea are different countries, but there are striking similarities in the U.S. trading patterns with both,” the report says.

“Like NAFTA, the KORUS FTA is likely to result in growing U.S. trade deficits and job displacement, especially in the motor vehicles and parts and the computer and electronics parts industries.”


________________________________________


If TPP destroys our national sovereignty----how is Manno and this Commission going to protect Maryland's sovereignty?  It will not.  TPP allows global corporations to operate as they wish regardless of national, state, or local laws or zoning.

So, if Manno was looking to protect Maryland's sovereignty---he would have been out there several years ago shouting and organizing against TPP.  Maryland has restructured government according to TPP for a decade or more.

'Obama is negotiating a trade pact that would constitute a judicial authority higher than even the U.S. Supreme Court that could overrule federal court rulings applying U.S. law to foreign companies. That is unconstitutional. The U.S. cannot be allowed to enter a treaty that would abrogate our Constitution.”'


Don't you think it strange that Republicans are shouting this is illegal and unconstitutional and yet none of the labor and justice organization leaders are calling it illegal and a COUP against the American people.  Shouting TPP is bad and shouting it is illegal are two different things.  We need to be sure everyone understands these Trade deals are illegal because they seek to restructure our government and end sovereignty and our rights as citizens.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Would Destroy our National Sovereignty


December 28, 2013
  Michele Nash-Hoff

In his State of the Union address, President Obama declared in his intent to complete negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The Obama administration has pursued the TPP through the offices of U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk instead of under the auspices of the Department of State.

This was the first time negotiations to create a free trade zone with Pacific Rim countries were made public although 15 rounds have been concluded. Eleven nations are participating: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam. Although Japan and China are not presently participating in TPP negotiations, “docking provisions” being written into the TPP draft agreement would permit either Japan or China to join the TPP at a later date without suffering any disadvantage.

To implement the TPP free-trade agreement, Congress will be asked to surrender its responsibility under Section 1, Article 8 of the Constitution to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and grant President Obama extra-constitutional “Trade Promotion Authority” to negotiate the final TPP agreement. The administration seeks to gain “fast-track authority,” a provision under the Trade Promotion Authority that requires Congress to review an FTA under limited debate, in an accelerated time frame subject to a yes-or-no vote by a simple majority vote rather than a two-thirds vote, as required for the ratification of a formal treaty.

Under fast-track authority, there is no provision for Congress to modify the agreement by submitting amendments. Fast-track authority also treats the FTA as if it were trade legislation being negotiated by the executive branch. The purpose is to assure foreign partners that the FTA, once signed, will not be changed during the legislative process.

A report released Jan. 24 by the Congressional Research Service, “The Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations and Issues for Congress,” makes clear that the present negotiations are not being conducted under the auspices of formal trade promotion authority as the latest TPA expired July 1, 2007. However, the Obama administration is acting as if fact-track authority were in effect already.

The report states that the TPP is being negotiated as a regional free-trade agreement that U.S. negotiators describe as a “comprehensive and high-standard” FTA. The U.S. hopes the agreement “will liberalize trade in nearly all goods and services and include commitments beyond those currently established in the World Trade Organization (WTO.)”

Opposition to the TPP ranges from one end of the political spectrum to the other ─ from the liberal Public Citizen non-profit, consumer rights advocacy group founded by Ralph Nader in 1971 to the far-right, conservative news organization, World Net Daily founded in 1997 by Joseph Farah.

Lori Wallach of Public Citizen has written several articles warning about the dangers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to her review of TPP, foreign firms would gain the follow privileges:

  • Risks and costs of offshoring to low wage countries eliminated
  • Special guaranteed “minimum standard of treatment” for relocating firms
  • Compensation for loss of “expected future profits” from health, labor environmental, laws (indirect or “regulatory” takings compensation)
  • Right to move capital without limits
  • New rights cover vast definition of investment: intellectual property, permits, derivatives
  • Ban performance requirements, domestic content rules. Absolute ban, not only when applied to investors from signatory countries
Ms. Wallach opines that U.S. multinational corporations have the goal of imposing on more countries a set of extreme foreign investor privileges and rights and their private enforcement through the notorious “investor-state” system. “This system elevates individual corporations and investors to equal standing with each TPP signatory country’s government- and above all of us citizens.” This would enable “foreign investors to skirt domestic courts and laws, and sue governments directly before tribunals of three private sector lawyers operating under World Bank and UN rules to demand taxpayer compensation for any domestic law that investors believe will diminish their ‘expected future profits.’ Over $3 billion has been paid to foreign investors under U.S. trade and investment pacts, while over $14 billion in claims are pending under such deals, primarily targeting environmental, energy, and public health policies.”

This opinion was confirmed by Jerome Corsi in an article last week on World Net Daily, in which he reported that a “leaked copy of the TPP draft makes clear in Chapter 15, ‘Dispute Settlement,’ that the Obama administration intends to surrender U.S. sovereignty to an international tribunal to adjudicate disputes arising under the TPP. Disputes concerning interpretation and application of the TPP agreement, according to Article 15.7, will be adjudicated by an “arbitral tribunal” composed of three TPP members.

He states, “Because the TPP agreement places arbitral tribunals created under TPP to be above U.S. law, the Obama administration’s negotiation of the Trans-Pacific pact without specific consultation with Congress appears aimed at creating a judicial authority higher than the U.S. Supreme Court. The judicial entity could overrule decisions U.S. Federal District and Circuit courts make to apply U.S. laws and regulations to foreign corporations doing business within the United States. The result appears to allow foreign companies doing business within the United States to operate in a legal and regulatory environment that would give the foreign companies decided economic advantages over U.S. companies that remain subject to U.S. laws and regulations.”

Another group opposing the TPP is Americans for Limited Government , a lobbying group and advocacy organization which describes itself as a non-partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free-market reforms, private property rights and core American liberties. President Bill Wilson states,”This new trade agreement will place domestic U.S. firms that do not do business overseas at a competitive disadvantage. Foreign firms under this trade pact could conceivably appeal federal regulatory and court rulings against them to an international tribunal with the apparent authority to overrule our sovereignty. If foreign companies want to do business in America, they should have to follow the same rules as everyone else. Obama is negotiating a trade pact that would constitute a judicial authority higher than even the U.S. Supreme Court that could overrule federal court rulings applying U.S. law to foreign companies. That is unconstitutional. The U.S. cannot be allowed to enter a treaty that would abrogate our Constitution.”

Read the full article on tradereform.org





0 Comments

March 24th, 2015

3/24/2015

0 Comments

 
THIS SESSION MARYLAND ASSEMBLY POLS ARE FURTHER DEREGULATING BGE/EXELON AND PRETENDING TO BE ADDRESSING SMART METER PUBLIC RAGE WITH BILLS THAT WILL DO NOTHING.

No one knows the catastrophe of deregulating and privatizing public utilities like BGE than Maryland.  Citizens have lobbied for decades trying to get our BGE regulated and public but under Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal O'Malley-----it got much worse as he pushed the merger with a national energy corporation that now uses Maryland citizens as profit-makers---Exelon profits have never been greater with Maryland ratepayers paying all operational and infrastructure costs!  Add SMART METERS and we can end public subsidy for low-income citizens and start rationing energy to what these families can pay.  All of these policies come to us from our Maryland Public Service Commission that is staffed with appointments from the Governor---in this case O'Malley.  A Clinton neo-liberal appoints staff that maximize corporate profit on the backs of people.  Who supports Clinton neo-liberals every election?  Maryland labor union and justice organization leaders.  Who is killed by this corporate energy/services policy?  Labor and justice citizens.


I've studied some of the history of BGE taken from public to private and the mergers over the years.  The frauds committed against ratepayers along with the price paid by the first privatization transfer sits in a Public Trust that no one ever hears about and it is likely empty.  There should be a billion dollars or more in this Trust.  Each merger the ratepayers get a hundred dollar check and then the rates are increased 50-70% erasing all of that rebate.
  Baltimore is of course the county with the greatest poverty and therefor subsidy for energy-----where does the corporate-friendly policy for energy originate? 

IN THIS CASE----BALTIMORE.



I will give Senator McFadden this plus in addressing SMART METERS----but as you read this bill you see it is enacted in 2015 and a report scheduled for 2017 shows this may very well be a temporary stopgap.  People not liking SMART METERS for health issues do not understand the largest problems with SMART METERS.  The health issues are not very relevant but a study is not a bad thing.  I am sure they will find no health risks and as this bill looks squarely at that issue---it seems likely they will simply reinstate this Smart Meter policy.  The problems around the world with SMART  METERS is that the global corporations allowed to install and operate this privatization of our water and energy has been found to soak customers with loaded bills with no recourse for these ratepayers.  Lawsuits in California and Texas right now have citizens fighting and often with no route to justice over having energy turned off as they protest over-billing.  Then you have targeted energy turnoffs of appliances; people forced to use energy only at certain times of days----these are the policy problems that need be discussed and McFadden seems to focus on the health issues that will ultimately be found not to exist.


HAS YOUR POLS EDUCATED YOUR COMMUNITIES ON ANY OF THESE ISSUES REGARDING SMART METERS?  NOT A WORD IN MARYLAND.

So, it is not bad to demand these kinds of information from the use of Smart Meters---it just does not address the real problems and will only act to delay installation.
  Citizens of Maryland are now paying a few hundred dollars a year just to opt out of SMART METER installation. 

Clinton neo-liberal O'Malley pushed that penalty policy!


SENATE BILL 9
C5, J1
5lr0367
(PRE–FILED)
By: Senator McFadden
Requested: August 26, 2014
Introduced and read first time: January 14, 2015
Assigned to: Finance
A BILL ENTITLED
AN ACT concerning 1
Gas and Electricity – Smart Meters – Customer Rights and Required Reports


SECTION 2. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED,

That on or before January 1, 2016, 8 and again on or before January 1, 2017, the Public Service Commission shall report to the Senate Finance Committee and the House Economic Matters Committee, in accordance  with § 2–1246 of the State Government Article, on:
(1) any savings realized through the use of smart meters by utility  companies or utility customers in the State; and
(2) any breaches to a utility company’s cybersecurity infrastructure,  significant consequences of the breaches, and corrective actions taken.


SECTION 3. AND BE IT FURTHER ENACTED,

That:
(a) On or before January 1, 2017, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene  and the Public Service Commission jointly shall report to the Senate Finance Committee  and the House Economic Matters Committee, in accordance with § 2–1246 of the State  Government Article, on the public health impact of smart meter deployment in the State.
(b) The report required under this section shall include, at a minimum:
(1) a summary of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s  activities assessing the health effects of smart meters in the State;
(2) a representative sample of radio–frequency levels measured at  premises where smart meters have been installed; and
(3) evidence–based recommendations relating to the potential health  effects of smart meters.



________________________________________
You can see this Bill on Smart Meters addresses the inspections for accuracy and gives consumers a pathway for seeking redress from faulty charges.  Carter/Conaway is the only Baltimore pol sponsoring this approach.

HOUSE BILL 508
C5
5lr2333
By: Delegates Glass, Aumann, Carr, Carter, Conaway, Fisher, Gutierrez, C. Howard, Impallaria, Kittleman, McConkey, McDonough, McMillan, Metzgar, Pena–Melnyk, S. Robinson, Rosenberg, Saab, Simonaire, Smith, Sophocleus, and Vallario
Introduced and read first time: February 11, 2015




7–302. 29
(a) (1) By written request, a consumer may compel the Commission to inspect  and test the consumer’s electric meter or gas meter.
(2) The consumer is entitled to be present for the test.


(b) (1) The Commission shall set a percentage tolerance limit for the accuracy 1 of an electric meter or gas meter.
(2) The Commission shall order a gas company or electric company to  replace, [a meter] at the company’s expense, A METER PROVIDED BY THE COMPANY if  the meter is incorrect to the prejudice of the consumer by more than the percentage  tolerance limit set by the Commission.
(c) (1) The Commission shall set a uniform reasonable fee for meter test services under this section.
(2) (i) If the test indicates that [the] A meter PROVIDED BY THE  COMPANY is within the percentage tolerance limit set by the Commission under subsection  (b)(1) of this section, the consumer shall pay the test fee.
(ii) [If the test indicates that the meter is not within the percentage  tolerance limit set by the Commission] IN ALL OTHER CASES, the Commission shall  refund the fee.



_______________________________________

As you see below, the evidence so far on health issues comes down as not harmful---and as McFadden knows-__Johns Hopkins will find Smart Meters not a health risk.  This article shows who the people fighting Smart Meters to be----educated and upper economic citizens.  They are worried more about the BIG BROTHER data information on all citizens home life----

THAT IS THE ISSUE FOR MOST AMERICANS....NOT HEALTH

The data collected by Smart Meters can be sold and it will tell what appliances you use and how much----when you are home during the day----whether you conserve water and energy or not----THIS IS THE PROBLEM!  This data is already being used for social services/policing to identify people as being home and/or not working etc.

So, McFadden et al are pretending to address citizen complaints with a temporary measure and the second bill doesn't mention choice in selecting out of Smart Meters---ergo, Maryland has no one pushing to allow consumers the right to opt out period.



Smart Meters, Dumb Science

Posted: 02/28/2013 12:23 pm EST Updated: 04/30/2013 5:12 am EDT


On February 21, 2013, the city council of Sebastopol, California (a small suburb north of San Francisco) adopted a resolution attempting to ban the installation of smart meters by Pacific Gas and Electric, claiming that the devices pose "potential risks to the health, safety and welfare of Sebastopol residents." In taking this measure, Sebastpol officials followed the lead of Marin County (hardly a traditional bastion of conservative pseudoscience), which in 2011 passed a similar resolution. To date, PG&E has ignored both, claiming that only California's Public Utilities Commission has jurisdiction in the matter, but debate continues at several levels.

Those promoting these bans cite health risks. Some claim "electromagnetic hypersensitivity," or in other words that radiation from devices such as smart meters cause dizziness, fatigue, headaches, seizures, memory loss or other maladies. Others claim that smart meters cause cancer.  Similar episodes have occurred in the UK, Canada and elsewhere, but on this as with many similar issues, pseudoscience is making the greatest inroads in the United States.

Scientific facts

So what are the scientific facts here?

To begin with, smart meters use basically the same wireless technology as cell phones. The FCC, after reviewing many scientific studies, has set wireless radiation standards, with which all manufacturers of smart meters easily comply. The frequency of cellular technology microwave radiation corresponds to a wavelength of approximately 30 centimeters, or roughly one foot. This wavelength is thousands of times larger than structures in the brain responsible for mental processes, and so claims that wireless radiation can cause maladies such as "dizziness" or "memory loss" are absurd.

But what about other claims of smart meter health effects? What about claims of cancer? Here again, the scientific evidence is quite clear.

In 2010, a 13-nation study commissioned by the World Health Organization found at most a very minimal and partially contradictory link between cancer risk and heavy cell-phone usage. Along this line, concerns that cell phone usage by pregnant mothers endangers their fetuses are wildly exaggerated.

It is also instructive to compare the radiation levels of smart meters with those of other wireless devices. Smart meters only transmit data for roughly 1.4 seconds per day, at very low wattage. And even if one stands less than one meter (3 feet) from a smart meter when it broadcasts its data, the resulting microwave exposure is 550 times less than standing in front of an active microwave oven, and 1100 times less than holding an active cell phone to one's ear.

But even these reckonings are extremely conservative, because no one spends his or her life camped within three feet of a smart meter. Instead, such devices are typically on the outside of a residence, many feet from humans. Thus, given the incontestable law that microwave intensity decreases as the square of distance from the source, this means that exposure from smart meters is hundreds or thousands of times less than the figures in the previous paragraph. Indeed, 20-year exposure to radiation from smart meters is no greater than a single 30-minute cell phone call.

Several high-level governmental bodies have sponsored blue-ribbon panels to study the issue, but have found no cause for concern. As a 2011 report by the California Council on Science and Technology concludes, "Exposure levels from smart meters are well below the [FCC's established standards] for such [health] effects," and "There is no evidence that additional standards are needed to protect the public from smart meters."

With regards to cell phones, in a 2008 Congressional hearing, Robert Hoover (Director of the National Cancer institute's Epidemiology and Biostatistics Program), declared that the effect of cell phone radiation "appears to be insufficient to produce genetic damage typically associated with developing cancer." Numerous other studies are summarized at the National Cancer Institute website, which finds "no appreciable link between cell phone use and cancers of the brain, nerves, or other tissues of the head and neck." The NCI did recommend additional research, because cellular technology is changing, but found no reason for major concern.

Summary

In short, the health risk to radiation by smart meters is hundreds or thousands of times less than that of cell phone usage, which in turn is so small as to be barely measurable even in large multi-nation studies (if it exists at all).

So why do people still oppose smart meters? Are they ignorant of the scientific facts? At the very least, both leaders and followers of the anti-smart meter movement are being inconsistent. After all, if they truly are convinced that microwave radiation constitutes a material threat to good health, even at extremely low levels, then they should:
  1. Not even carry, much less use, a cell phone, smart phone or tablet.
  2. Not permit anyone else coming to their residence to carry or use a cell phone, smart phone or tablet.
  3. Avoid Bluetooth technology for earphones, printers and computer mice.
  4. Not visit any business establishment (almost all) that has public or private WiFi in use.
  5. Not visit any business establishment (almost all) that permits customers to carry or operate cell phones.
Needless to say, we hardly expect that the opponents of smart meters in upper-middle-class Marin County will stop shopping, toss their cell phones, quit connecting their laptop to WiFi, or discontinue regular lunches with friends at local WiFi-enabled cafes. Nor do we expect them to discontinue driving, which is many thousands of times more dangerous, or to give up bad habits, such as smoking or heavy drinking, that are far more dangerous still. And therein lies the problem -- opponents of smart meters are either massively uninformed as to the scientific risks relative to other forms of risk in daily life, or else they are being highly disingenuous.Either way, it does not speak well for the level of scientific education worldwide that such movements can gain traction with the public. We can only hope that the broader press will challenge these movements and portray them in their true light.



________________________________________


Here you see why Maryland has handed so much control of our utilities to corporations and empowered the Public Service Commission to cede more and more control to the corporations.

Somehow it is modernization to deregulate the requirements of energy corporations to file and list changes that will affect the ratepayers----and gives these corporations more power to enact changes without the Maryland Public Service Commission's OK.  This is Baltimore's Pugh working for Johns Hopkins in deregulating and eliminating oversight and accountability.


Please glance through-I don't include detailed instructions regarding how these energy corporations can interact with other corporate entities financially and operationally without involving our Public Service Commission. 

Exelon has already merged with yet another energy corporation and our Maryland Public Service Commission is being taken out of the loop as to having voice in what these mergers and partnerships look like and that is VERY, VERY, VERY BAD.


Who is hurt most by further deregulation of growing national energy corporations besides EVERYONE?  Low-income communities of color who are Sheila Pugh's major constituents. 

I WORK FOR JOHNS HOPKINS SAYS PUGH, NOT PEOPLE IN MY DISTRICT!

Public Utilities----Telecommunications Law----Modernization sponsored by Senator Pugh

SB 577----

FOR the purpose of providing that a telephone company is not required to file with the  Public Service Commission a certain tariff schedule for certain retail services except  under certain circumstances; requiring a telephone company to post on a certain Web  site certain rates and charges for certain retail intrastate wireline telephone  services; limiting the types of services for which a telephone company may not  establish a new rate or change in rate under certain circumstances to only rates for  services that the telephone company files in a certain tariff schedule; allowing a  telephone company to discontinue or abandon a certain regulated retail service  under certain circumstances after providing certain notice; providing that prior  authorization of the Commission is not required for certain transactions involving a  certain franchise, capital stock, or obligations or liabilities between a certain  telephone company and a certain entity under certain circumstances; prohibiting the  Commission or any other State unit or local government from restricting in a certain  manner a telephone company’s choices to use a certain technology or facility to  provide services; allowing a telephone company to satisfy certain statutory and  regulatory obligations through the use of certain technology or facility of its choosing;  providing that the use of certain technology or facility by a telephone company to  provide certain services may not confer a certain jurisdiction or authority; defining  certain terms; and generally relating to modernizing the telecommunications law for  services provided by telephone companies.


(2) (I) NOTWITHSTANDING SUBSECTIONS (A) AND (B) OF THIS  SECTION, § 4–501 OF THIS TITLE, OR ANY OTHER LAW TO THE CONTRARY, EXCEPT  AS PROVIDED UNDER SUBPARAGRAPH (II) OF THIS PARAGRAPH, A TELEPHONE  COMPANY IS NOT REQUIRED TO FILE WITH THE COMMISSION A TARIFF SCHEDULE  OF ITS RATES AND CHARGES FOR ITS RETAIL SERVICES, INCLUDING A RETAIL  SERVICE THAT IS REGULATED USING AN ALTERNATIVE FORM OF REGULATION  UNDER § 4–301 OF THIS TITLE.
(II) SUBSECTIONS (A) AND (B) OF THIS SECTION SHALL APPLY  TO:

1. A REGULATED RETAIL TELEPHONE SERVICE OF A  TELEPHONE COMPANY TO AN INMATE; AND
2. A REGULATED SELECTIVE ROUTING, AUTOMATIC  NUMBER IDENTIFICATION, AND AUTOMATIC LOCATION IDENTIFICATION SERVICE  OF A TELEPHONE COMPANY TO A PUBLIC SAFETY ANSWERING POINT.
(3) (I) EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN SUBPARAGRAPH (II) OF THIS  PARAGRAPH, A TELEPHONE COMPANY IS REQUIRED TO POST ITS RATES AND  CHARGES FOR ITS RETAIL INTRASTATE WIRELINE TELEPHONE SERVICES ON A  PUBLIC INTERNET WEB SITE.
(II) A TELEPHONE COMPANY IS NOT REQUIRED TO POST ITS  RATES AND CHARGES FOR ITS VOIP SERVICES DESCRIBED UNDER TITLE 8,  SUBTITLE 6 OF THIS ARTICLE.
4–203.
(a) THIS SECTION APPLIES TO A TELEPHONE COMPANY ONLY WITH  RESPECT TO THE RATES OF SERVICES THAT THE TELEPHONE COMPANY FILES IN A  TARIFF SCHEDULE UNDER § 4–202(C) OF THIS SUBTITLE.
(B) Unless otherwise ordered by the Commission, a public service company may  not establish a new rate or change in rate unless the public service company:
(1) provides to the Commission notice of the new rate or change in rate at  least 30 days before the new rate is established or current rate is changed; and
(2) publishes the new rate or change in rate in accordance with § 4–202 of  this subtitle during the entire 30 day notice period in new schedules or plainly indicated  amendments to existing schedules.
[(b)] (C) The public service company shall plainly set forth in the notice and  publication:
(1) the changes that it proposes to the rate schedules currently in force;  and
(2) the effective date of the changes.
5–103.



________________________________________

AS MARYLAND AND ESPECIALLY BALTIMORE POLS CONTINUE TO DEREGULATE BGE/EXELON----THEY ARE PLACING THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND IN THE HANDS OF A NATIONAL CORPORATION CONTROLLED BY GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND WALL STREET SPECULATION AND O'MALLEY ET AL HAS MADE SURE MARYLAND RATEPAYERS WILL SUBSIDIZE ALL COSTS OF OPERATIONS AND INFRASTRUCTURE JUST TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS.  CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT SMART METERS IN THE HANDS OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS WILL LOOK LIKE?


 As you see below----Exelon is expanding all over the country and there is the natural gas connection----export terminals----O'Malley pretended to study fracking as he was working as head of the Governor's Association to create global markets and export natural gas.

WHO KNEW EXELON WAS INVOLVED IN NATURAL GAS AND EXPORTING? EVERYONE! WHO IS A MAJOR SHAREHOLDER FOR NATURAL GAS CORPORATIONS IN TEXAS ET AL? JOHNS HOPKINS' HIGH STAR INVESTMENT FIRM.




LNG Export Plant Seen as Credit Risk for Exelon


BY SourceMedia


— 7:05 PM ET 03/16/2015 DALLAS - Pursuing a $5 billion liquefied natural gas export facility at the Port of Brownsville, Texas, would threaten the Baa2 credit rating of the Exelon Corp. ( EXC ) that is financing the project, according to Moody's Investors Service ( MCO ). The company hopes to begin construction of the so-called Annova Project by third-quarter 2017, with a goal of making the project operational by December 2019.

Five companies have said they intend to file with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to develop LNG terminals at Brownsville. In all, 11 proposed projects have been announced in Texas and four have announced private investment of about $38 billion.

The push for LNG export facilities comes as gas producers in Texas seek to expand markets amid sharply falling energy prices in the U.S. A glut of oil and gas has led to a storage crisis in Cushing, Okla., and other sites where fuel is stored in hopes of obtaining higher future prices.

The Texas Railroad Commission, an agency that facilitates oil and gas development in Texas, is also pushing for development of LNG facilities in the state.

Cheniere Energy of Houston is expected to be the first company to export gas next year from its $20 billion Sabine Pass facility in Cameron Parish, La., near the Texas border. It is building another $13 billion facility near Corpus Christi it hopes will open for business by 2018.

FERC has also approved construction of the Freeport LNG facility on Quintana Island, near Galveston. The government has given early approval to the Sempra LNG terminal in Hackberry, La.

"We expect ExGen to aggressively use debt financing at its Annova project, most likely with a non-recourse project financing structure, but consolidated on the balance sheet," Moody's ( MCO ) said of the proposed Brownsville LNG plant. "Our estimates assume Annova produces about $500 million in EBITDA [Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Dividends, Amortization] and costs around $5 billion to build and is 100% debt financed." Annova LNG's facility would border the Brownsville Ship Channel on 650 acres designated by the Port of Brownsville for industrial use, about eight miles from the Gulf of Mexico.



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March 23rd, 2015

3/23/2015

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I wanted to look generally at Maryland Assembly Bills that are directly behind the citizens of Maryland having no voice in public policy and no pathway to justice when victim of civil or criminal actions.  The Maryland Assembly has literally written laws that make it impossible to take a public official to court for corruption and it is closing all ability to take a corporation to court for crimes. 

Johns Hopkins needs to make sure since health care and medical device/procedure patents are deregulated and allowed to do anything with no oversight----no HIPPOCRATIC OATH---only profit----that the public's ability to sue for malpractice disappears. 


 Below you see a Bill that makes a citizen in Maryland wait 6 months to file a malpractice case.  Now, one does not file thee cases unless there is serious injury and who supports that patient for the year it will take to settle a lawsuit?  Maryland health systems get you out of the hospital and paying for your own after-care if you have insurance with large deductibles and co-pays---most Marylanders.  What are families going to do when they are victim of medical malpractice?  GET THAT LAWSUIT ADVANCE.  These law firms then raise their take from court awards according to how long it takes to settle.

I've never seen so many law firms geared to getting most of people's money from any kind of legal action than Baltimore.  Remember, Maryland gives absolutely no avenue of public justice for citizens not able to afford a private lawyer except these kinds of law firms---basically the pay day lenders of legal profession.

THIS IS HOW YOU KEEP THE CITIZENS POOR---AND MAKE SURE THEY CANNOT ACCESS THEIR RIGHTS TO EQUAL PROTECTION.

Can you think of how this Bill was written in the public interest?

Senate Bill 143---Health Care Malpractice Claims


brought to you by Pugh, Conway, Middleton, and Nathan-Pulliam----



1.  Wait 180 days before filing a lawsuit against a health care provider for medical injury.  We need to send a notice of intent to file a lawsuit to the corporation.  This notice must be sent by certified mail----first class---



Pre Settlement Funding on Medical Malpractice Lawsuits


Lawsuit Cash Advances to Plaintiffs Expecting to Receive Medical Malpractice Settlements
Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Funding

TriMark Legal Funding LLC is one of the leading and most respected national lawsuit funding and settlement loan providers in the United States.

TriMark Legal Funding LLC provides fast, affordable, risk-free lawsuit cash advance and pre settlement funding from $500 up to $100,000 - often in as little as 48 to 72 hours for plaintiffs involved in medical malpractice (medmal) or medical negligence lawsuits. If you are currently involved in any type of serious medical malpractice or medical negligence lawsuit and you happen to need some cash now, before your case settles, TriMark Legal Funding LLC can help you. It's free & easy to apply now!


Below----did you know breathing air is a contributory negligence so the law below is intended to make claims very, very, very difficult.


Contributory or Comparative Negligence

Maryland is one of the few remaining states that recognizes the traditional common law doctrine of contributory negligence. Harrison v. Montgomery County Bd. of Ed., 295 Md. 442, 456 A.2d 894 (1983). Thus, any negligence by a claimant will bar his recovery completely.



State discipline rates ranged from 11.87 serious actions per 1,000 doctors (Wyoming) to 1.07 actions per 1,000 physicians (Hawaii), a tenfold difference between the best and worst states.
Maryland is ranked 46th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for the number of serious actions taken per 1,000 physicians. (Note: Most of these actions are unrelated to medical malpractice and instead involve sanctions for substance abuse, sexual and criminal
offenses.)


____________________________________

In Maryland the Maryland Attorney General only becomes involved in criminal actions that involve hundreds of millions of dollars.  We have a Public Justice branch that will take on smaller cases but will not take a case against a public official.  So, if you have a case of government corruption and fraud----of which is systemic in Maryland and Baltimore right now.....you have no avenue for recourse because a pro-bono lawyer will not come forward for these cases either.

My organization is getting ready to take the credit bond leverage financial fraud against the citizens of Maryland to court but that is something our Maryland Attorney General/States Attorneys are supposed to do.  The cost of doing this is pushed to the public while the AG protects the public officials guilty of conspiracy to defraud.


One of the first things the Maryland Assembly did after the subprime mortgage fraud and the economic crash in 2008 was re-write the corporate fraud laws such that citizens had only 3 years to take to court fraud cases while corporations thinking they have been victims of fraud have 10 years to take the case to court.  That is what this 3 year window does to False Claims----


These pols are not supporting this Bill written by corporations because it is in the public interest---they are writing it to keep the public from pursuing justice.  As we saw with the subprime mortgage fraud that recovered pennies on the dollar----the government investigated as much as it wanted and set the settlement and closed the case and sealed the evidence and then the public had a few years after to pursue real justice with private lawyers.  Of course only the wealthy were able to get any justice from that entire process.  What this law says is that the actions of the Maryland and US Attorneys start the statutes of limitation and 3 years later----its too late to seek justice. 

WHEN A GOVERNMENT SUSPENDS RULE OF LAW AND REFUSES DUE PROCESS----IT SUSPENDS STATUTES OF LIMITATION AND THIS LAW WOULD BE FOUND UNCONSTITUTIONAL.



Senate Bill 374-----Maryland False Claims Act

Mike Miller sponsored this at the Maryland Attorney General's request with Conway, Gladden, McFadden, Pugh as co-sponsors.


Prohibiting certain actions constituting false claims against a government entity-----providing certain penalties for making false claims---REQUIRING THE COURT TO DISMISS THE ACTION IF THE GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY ELECTS NOT TO INTERVENE IN THE ACTION.


A civil action filed under this title may not be filed after the later of -----6 years after the date of the violation or 3 years after the date when the facts material to the right of action are known or reasonably should have been known.


Everyone should read this Bill because it gives what would be the Maryland AG office even more power to limit which lawsuits are taken before the court.  Right now Maryland has a public justice system that allows the AG and State's Attorneys to choice the cases they take to court leaving citizens with no avenue for Due Process for what are often legitimate civil and criminal cases.  Literally, citizens are having their rights to Equal Protection and Due Process taken for them with Bills just like this one.  Everyone in Maryland knows the level of pay-to-play and state and local contract bidding fraud is sky-high and it operates openly because the Maryland AG and State's Attorneys ignore all white collar and government corruption.  What citizens have left as an avenue is self-representation in court----taking these lawsuits to court themselves.  It appears to me to say----

IF THE MARYLAND ATTORNEY GENERAL OR STATE'S ATTORNEY DOES NOT TAKE A CASE OF FALSE CLAIM TO COURT----NO ONE CAN.


Consider my coming lawsuit for credit bond fraud----we know this is real criminal actions and the Maryland Attorney General and States Attorney are aware----and do nothing about it.  This law seems to make my ability to pursue this claim of fraud against bond leverage BILLS impossible.
   Considering my lawsuit primarily aims at Baltimore's use of credit bonds---considering Baltimore Board of Estimates is under continuous fire for misappropriation tied to contract awards-----
_______________________________


The final Bill for today is


House Bill 1199----Baltimore City ---Renters Tax Credit Program
sponsored by the usual cast of characters----Carter, Anderson, Oaks.


You remember last week I testified against a Baltimore City targeted tax break for certain citizens living in certain areas for a certain amount of time.  This is how Johns Hopkins writes Bills now----certain, certain, certain.  Totally vague.  Maryland Constitution states that legislation cannot be written too vague.  It also states that tax laws will be uniform.  So, last week I told our Baltimore House of Delegates that I would take to court this wildly unconstitutional taxation policy and Kurt Anderson pulled the bill---I thought maybe thinking twice about the injustice of these bills.  This week I see the same bill modified and it said the same thing----certain, certain, certain-----but now it said----AND THIS LAW CANNOT BE OVERTURNED.  They simply tried to make it court-proof.   You can tell Kurt Anderson had Nancy Pelosi as a political mentor----when she was caught involved in Insider Trading she passed a law that said Congress could not be charged with Insider Trading for goodness sake which is of course illegal with Equal Protection and Rule of Law making all citizens available to the same laws.  Well, Bill 1199 is just another in a long list of UN ----UNIFORM TAX LAWS trying to make taxes more affordable for some while piling taxes on others in the city.


'In short, the uniformity clause prohibits granting preferential property tax treatment to specific property owners. However, the uniformity clause allows the legislature to entirely exempt specific, reasonably defined classes of property from taxation. If there is any question as to whether proposed legislation would create a partial property tax exemption or otherwise violate the uniformity clause, it may be advisable to draft the legislation as an exemption that exempts, in its entirety, the property that is the subject of the legislation'.


Wisconsin Constitution
Article VIII, Section 1
THE UNIFORMITY CLAUSEThe rule of taxation shall be uniform but the legislature may empower cities, villages or towns to collect and return taxes on real estate located therein by optional methods. Taxes shall be levied upon such property… as the legislature shall prescribe [with certain exceptions].

History and purposes of this sectionThis section of the Wisconsin Constitution, which requires the uniform taxation of property, was adopted as part of the original state constitution. It is called “the uniformity clause” in reference to the words with which it begins: “The rule of taxation shall be uniform.” The uniformity clause has been amended five times. In 1908 the section was amended to authorize income taxes, privilege taxes, and occupational taxes. An amendment in 1927 allowed classification of forests and minerals for tax purposes. An amendment in 1941 allowed municipalities to collect taxes by methods that are not uniform. A 1961 amendment exempts livestock, merchants’ inventory, and manufacturers’ materials and finished products from the uniformity requirement. A 1974 amendment exempts agricultural land and undeveloped land from the uniformity requirement.

The uniformity clause was intended to prevent the legislature and local officials from granting preferential tax treatment to influential property owners and “to protect the citizen against unequal, and consequently unjust taxation.” Weeks v. Milwaukee, 10 Wis. 186, 201 (1860). Wisconsin is neither the first nor the only state to include a uniformity clause in its constitution. At the time that the convention that drafted the Wisconsin Constitution met, ten states had uniformity clauses in their constitutions. Today all but two state constitutions have uniformity clauses, although the interpretation and the wording of such clauses vary among the states.

How courts interpret the sectionThe Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided numerous cases involving uniformity clause issues. Two of the most important cases are Knowlton v. Supervisors of Rock County, 9 Wis. 378 (1859) and Gottlieb v. Milwaukee, 33 Wis. 2d. 408 (1967).

In Knowlton, the city of Janesville imposed a tax on agricultural property within the city limits at a rate that was one-half of the rate of the tax it imposed on other property in the city. The court rejected the contention that the uniformity clause allows such “partial exemptions.” The court also rejected the argument that the legislature may classify property to be taxed at different rates as long as uniformity exists within the class. The court held that the uniformity clause allows the legislature to select some property for taxation and to completely exempt other property from taxation. In addition, the court held that property selected for taxation must be taxed in its entirety and at the same rate as all other property in the same taxation district. In other words: “There cannot be any medium ground between absolute exemption and uniform taxation.” Knowlton at 392.

Over 100 years after Knowlton, in another decision involving a partial property tax exemption, the court established standards for complying with the uniformity clause. Gottlieb involved a challenge to the Urban Redevelopment Law. The law allowed a municipality to freeze the property tax assessments of property owned by a redevelopment corporation for a 30-year period. The court held that such a freeze on property taxes resulted in a partial exemption and, therefore, consistent with Knowlton, violated the uniformity clause:

While it may be conceded, as contended by respondent, that, if the law accomplishes its purpose, new building may be stimulated and the tax base broadened to the extent that at some time in the future other taxpayers not covered by the freeze might be benefited, nevertheless, the fact remains undisputed and undisputable that, if redevelopment corporations are assessed at a figure less than that which would be assigned to other taxpayers holding equally valuable property, other taxpayers will be paying a disproportionately higher share of local property taxes. This is not uniformity.In Gottlieb, the court set forth the following standards for tax uniformity required by article VIII, section 1:

  1. For direct taxation of property under the uniformity rule, there can be but one constitutional class.
  2. All within that class must be taxed on a basis of equality so far as practicable and all property taxed must bear its burden equally on an ad valorem [according to value] basis.
  3. All property not included in that class must be absolutely exempt from property taxation.
  4. Privilege taxes are not direct taxes on property and are not subject to the uniformity rule.
  5. While there can be no classification of property for different rules or rates of property taxation, the legislature can classify as between property that is to be taxed and that which is to be wholly exempt, and the test of such classification is reasonableness.
  6. There can be variations in the mechanics of property assessment or tax imposition so long as the resulting taxation shall be borne with as nearly as practicable equality on an ad valorem basis with other taxable property.














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March 22nd, 2015

3/22/2015

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I will return to Maryland Assembly policy that is bad for Maryland citizens and our economy tomorrow----below is today's action:

March 25, 2015


To: Maryland Attorney General Peter Frosh

Securities Division/The Criminal Investigations Division
200 St. Paul Place, Baltimore, MD 21202;

Marilyn Mosby

Baltimore State's Attorney

120 East Baltimore Street, 9th Floor
Baltimore, MD 21202



FBI/Baltimore

2600 Lord Baltimore Drive
Baltimore, MD 21244



From: Cindy Walsh

Citizens Oversight Maryland's

2522 N. Calvert St

Baltimore, Maryland 21218




RE: Public Malfeasance and Securities Fraud in Maryland


The citizens of Maryland have endured billions of dollars in losses from investments made by Maryland public officials with public assets, public sector pensions, and public services and programs. The use of Wall Street investment instruments over a few decades has shown over and over to be handled in ways that cost the public those billions of dollars even as government agencies are reporting these investments as sound and beneficial. Last decade while national financial analysts and government watchdogs were shouting of a systemically criminal subprime mortgage fraud that would bring the entire economy down, Maryland and especially Baltimore found itself one of the heaviest promoters of these subprime mortgage loans and the number of victims show this. Baltimore and Maryland were center in the LIBOR fraud as well as pension frauds. Public pensions were moved from the then safety of the bond market in 2007 into a collapsing stock market and tied to the worst of Wall Street banks used to keep those banks afloat and pensions lost ½ value because of these investment moves a novice would know were bad for Maryland pension-holders. Showing no regard to these systemic criminal activities by Wall Street banks exposed in entirety after the 2008 economic crash, Maryland public officials went right back to wheeling and dealing with Wall Street financial instruments knowing the risks were higher with the nations economy and national debt from all of this fraud reaching $17 trillion and more.


Maryland public officials know the public will lose in these financial deals and they are working against public interest.....tying the citizens of Maryland with so much future debt and losses from bad investment deals that the billions lost the last decade will become far greater this coming decade.


Maryland is one of the richest states in the nation and it is the most wealth inequitable as well because the public policy tied to economic growth, taxation, and public works and services is allowed to be deliberately skewed to the favor of a few. The Maryland Constitution does not allow for its citizens to be sorely used by its public officials. There is an oath taken to serve the people and uphold the Constitution and laws of Maryland. Maryland has plenty of revenue sources yet tapped to complete projects that are always tied to Wall Street leverage. It is choice and not necessity that places Maryland taxpayers and citizens in harm's way with each of these investment schemes.


The latest and soon to be most damaging investment scheme is municipal bond leveraging as a way to load the state and City of Baltimore with so much debt that government coffers will be empty for decades in advance to pay for what the current Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall deems worthy projects. This negates the right of citizens to vote politicians into and out of office to make changes these voters see fit. It is the enormity of this deliberate indebtedness that constitutes malfeasance and it is done with the knowledge that yet another economic crash is soon to come created by the very over-extension of this sovereign and municipal bond debt. These financial institutions and these politicians involved in credit bond leverage do so knowing the adverse consequences these deals will have for the citizens of Maryland. This is done with the knowledge of doing harm, it is deliberate, and done with malice. The national and international media has spoken of the results from the current bond market actions taken by Wall Street. Any person taking the time to read and understand the stock market as all elected officials making these financial laws should knows where this Wall Street policy with bonds were leading----both world-wide and nationally. Much has been written by financial experts and citizen watchdog groups since 2009 when these bond policies were made super-heated and much has been written these last two years shouting that another economic crash is eminent this time by credit bond leverage fraud. As the time for the bond market collapse gets closer, the Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall adds more and more credit bond leverage just as was done with the subprime mortgage loan fraud when in 2005 financial analysts made public the systemic fraud then 2006 and 2007 saw record amounts of subprime mortgage loans more toxic than ever. This is what is happening now in the municipal bond market.


These Maryland agencies tasked with keeping the economy and our Maryland Treasury sound will tell you Moodys or S & P rating corporations have given Maryland AAA so how can these investments be bad? Moodys and S & P are the very rating corporations known to be central in the rating fraud for subprime mortgage loans giving the most toxic AAA ratings and they are the same corporations having no recourse for their part in that fraud. Maryland has tied property taxes to assure these credit bonds----and a bad deal will mean that Maryland citizens owning real estate will see the brunt of the fallout. Not the corporations mind you because they have had all of their property taxes removed in these financial deals---it will be residents and small businesses that feel the brunt for decades. One term of an election does not warrant political decisions tying the citizens of Maryland to what everyone knows is very bad and illegal public policy.


The number one financial tool selling on Wall Street these few years is the Credit Default Swap protecting investment firms against loses from these municipal credit bond deals. Governments do not have this insurance only the 'stakeholders' investment firms will be covered when this coming economic crash from a collapsing bond market hits. What happens when this crash comes? These deals are written such that the State of Maryland will not be responsible for losses and so the localities like Baltimore City which has super-sized its exposure will be responsible for all of these bond obligations and will no doubt be pushed to default and probably into bankruptcy. All of the public assets tied to these bond deals----public schools, museums, State Center, public housing, parks, roads etc will likely fall into the hands of the private investors. This does not even address the fact that these deals add billions onto the overall cost to taxpayers and it does not address the fact that financial analysts know that interest rates and inflation will soar with the coming crash making the losses to the citizens of Maryland enormous.


IT DOES NOT TAKE A ROCKET SCIENTIST TO SEE THIS IS WHERE THESE POLICIES LEAD AND IT IS PUBLIC MALFEASANCE AND FRAUD TO SET THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND AND THEIR ASSETS UP FOR THESE LOSES!


The State of Maryland owes the City of Baltimore $700 million dollars from an Algebra Project lawsuit a decade ago for failure to fully fund Baltimore City schools. The Maryland Court of Appeals awarded this amount and the Maryland Assembly simply refused to pay. The settlement from the subprime loan fraud for Maryland has $700 million dollars in the Treasury for the communities in Baltimore hit the hardest with this fraud and that together would pay the $1 billion deliberately tied to credit bond debt these politicians know will go bad.


The terms of Martin O'Malley have seen these credit bond deals soar and this 2014 Maryland Assembly session brought more bond deals than ever. Many are tied with our public school buildings and real estate. It appears the only explanation for all of this debt when the State of Maryland has plenty of revenue sources for cash for these projects is to deliberately create the conditions for default and hand these public assets to those investors 'stakeholders' tied to these credit bond deals. It is clear. There is a pattern of public losses to these bad Wall Street investment deals and we are demanding that these bond deals end now -----those made over these few years and those now in the pipeline in the Maryland Assembly and Baltimore City Hall. Citizens Oversight Maryland will be taking this to court as wrongful actions.


Thank you for ending this round of public malfeasance and financial fraud,



Cindy Walsh

Citizens Oversight Maryland

2522 N Calvert St

Baltimore, Maryland 21218



cc: Governor Larry Hogan; Maryland Assembly leaders Mike Busch and Mike Miller; Maryland Assembly House and Senate Committee Chairs. Baltimore Mayor Rawlings-Blake; Baltimore City Council members.




Bond Binge Pushing Leverage Toward Financial Crisis Peak

by Charles Mead 11:56 AM EDT
August 28, 2013  Bloomberg Financials


A Bond Market Collapse Is Imminent As Junk-bond ETF Short-interest Soars And Mutual Fund Giants Began Turning Down People Hoping To Invest In Funds That Buy Junk Bonds

Submitted by IWB, on December 2nd, 2012
Read more at http://investmentwatchblog.com








PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release:

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Mayor, City Schools Board and CEO Applaud Final Passage

of Construction Funding Legislation




Legislation creates new partnership

among city, state and district; allows implementation of City Schools’ 10

-year buildings plan to begin(Baltimore, MD)—After a week of amendments and debate in both chambers of the Maryland General Assembly, the House of Delegates the finishing touches yesterday on legislation that

establishes funding and oversight for Baltimore City Public Schools’

10-year buildings plan. The final passage of the bill, which now goes to the governor to be signed into law, will result in an approximately $1 billion

investment in new and modernized school buildings and allow the district to move forward with implementing the plan.




General Obligation Bonds Click here for the Official Statements.

General Obligation debt, which is backed by the pledge of the full faith and credit of the State, finances State-owned capital improvements, such as prisons and colleges, and various State capital grants to local governments and private non-profit organizations. Projects funded include local public schools, local jails, water treatment facilities, museums, rehabilitation of historic structures, and private treatment centers for the developmentally and physically disabled.

The State's General Obligation bonds have been assigned the highest credit rating by Moody's Investors Service, Inc. (Aaa), Standard and Poor's (AAA) and Fitch Ratings, Inc. (AAA). One of only ten states in the nation to hold a Triple-A credit rating from all three major credit rating agencies, Maryland's low interest rates are attributable to these superior ratings.


SCHEDULE A

PROJECTED GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS

OUTSTANDING

JUNE 30, 2014 AND JUNE 30, 2015

Bonds Outstanding

Bonds Outstanding - June 30, 2013 $8,005,802,067



Issued Fiscal Year 2014 1,216,404,000

Redeemed Fiscal Year 2014 (613,979,450)

Refunded Fiscal Year 2014 (245,880,000)

Bonds Outstanding - June 30, 2014 8,362,346,617

Projected Issuance Fiscal Year 2015 1,022,875,000

Redeemed Fiscal Year 2015 (658,368,717)

Bonds Outstanding - June 30, 2015 8,726,852,900

0 Comments

March 21st, 2015

3/21/2015

0 Comments

 
Below you see what Maryland Assembly and Baltimore pols are working for----if Maggie McIntosh keeps me from testifying at a Bill Hearing it is to keep me from making any progressive policy stance that reveals the big picture of what she and Maryland pols are working towards -----all working for Wall Street and global corporations!


I want to share articles that address some of the issues I brought up this week that the Maryland Assembly is pushing through its BILLS.  Remember, Obama and Clinton neo-liberals consider the MIDDLE CLASS to be upwards of $150,000 to $500,000 and is pretending that neo-liberals are 'saving' Medicare and Social Security for those income groups by pushing the REAL middle/lower class off.  All of these Trusts are being eaten by corporate fraud and not the people who paid payroll taxes for these benefits so these affluent 'new middle-class' citizens must understand they are not going to get Social Security or Medicare either.  These privatization policies of 'student and disability savings accounts' and the myRA private investment savings account replacing Social Security are telling you Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals are killing these social programs as fast as Republicans.  Who likes all these programs?  Republican voters like Medicare and Social Security and probably Disability as much as the Democratic base of Labor and Justice.

THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY IS BUILDING THE STRUCTURES FOR PRIVATIZED MEDICARE, MEDICAID, SOCIAL SECURITY, HIGHER EDUCATION LOANS, DISABILITY, AND K-12.  BALTIMORE POLS LEAD IN DOING THIS BECAUSE THESE ARE JOHNS HOPKINS' NEO-CONSERVATIVE POLICIES.



Obama Seeks Fast Track for Trade Deal That Could Thwart "Almost Any Progressive Policy or Goal"



Friday, 20 March 2015 00:00 By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! | Video Interview

___________________________________________


Every bond deal in Maryland and Baltimore has the preface that Moodys and S & P have rated Maryland with the AAA ranking and this justifies incredible amounts of debt.  Remember as well all this bond leverage it tied to Property Tax----residential property tax because corporations do not pay property tax.  As this article below states----rating agencies not tied to the last massive frauds and shown to be criminal----like Moodys and S & P----have already lowered US ratings to AA- a few years ago because of the FED's QE policies.  The economic crash will happen when the FED stops this illegal manipulation of inflation and interest rates ----Bernanke pushed just like Greenspan allowing more and more bond fraud to occur so the coming crash will be huge----a Great Depression and he knows he is doing this just as Greenspan did.


While Maryland Assembly and O'Malley pretended Maryland is AAA----it is far worse than the US rating.  Moodys did with credit bond leverage what it did with subprime mortgage loans-----gave fraudulent ratings of AAA.

ALL OF MARYLAND'S POLS ARE NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CON ARE ARE PLAYING ANYTHING GOES FOR WALL STREET PROFIT.

Remember, the GDP is rising because Obama and Clinton neo-liberals tied Credit Bond Leverage to GDP-----it is crazy stuff.


Monday, 17 September 2012

U.S. Credit Rating Downgraded


Written by  Raven Clabough  New American


The Federal Reserve has announced that it would begin yet another round of quantitative easing, a maneuver that has caused the independent and nationally recognized statistical rating organization Egan-Jones to lower the United States government to “AA-“ from “AA.” Egan-Jones specifically cited the third round of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve, indicating it would hurt the U.S. economy and the nation’s credit quality.

In the explanation for the downgrade, Egan-Jones stated, “From 2006 to present, the US’s debt to GDP rose from 66% to 104% and will probably rise to 110% a year from today under current circumstances; the annual budget deficit is 8%. In comparison, Spain has a debt to GDP of 68.5% and an annual budget deficit of 8.5%.”

“We are therefore downgrading the US country rating from “AA” to “AA-,” the company announced.


Egan-Jones continued by addressing the impact that the company believes the next round of quantitative easing will have on the economy:

The Fed’s QE3 will stoke the stock market and commodity prices, but in our opinion, will hurt the US economy and, by extension, credit quality. Issuing additional currency and depressing interest rates via the purchasing of MBS does little to raise the real GDP of the US, but does reduce the value of the dollar (because of the increase in money supply), and in turn increase the cost of commodities (see the recent rise in the prices of energy, gold, and other commodities).

The increased cost of commodities will pressure profitability of businesses, and increase the costs of consumers thereby reducing consumer purchasing power.

In our opinion, QE3 will be detrimental to credit quality for the U.S.

On September 13, the Federal Reserve announced that it will begin a third round of quantitative easing, which entails the printing of more money which is then given to banks to hold or invest in order to increase stock prices.

The Federal Reserve stated September 13 that it is “concerned that, without further policy accommodation, economic growth might not be strong enough to generate sustained improvement in labor market conditions.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke did his best to sell the notion of QE3, stating on September 13 that quantitative easing is not “comparable to government spending.”

Bernanke said the Fed will eventually “normalize its balance sheet by selling” recently-acquired financial assets back into the market.

“The odds are strong that the Fed’s asset purchase programs, both through their net interest earnings and by strengthening the overall economy, will help reduce rather than increase the federal deficit and debt,” Bernanke said.

This latest round of quantitative easing will involve the purchase of $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities by the Federal Reserve, paid for by printing money. The touted intent is to keep mortgage prices low, thereby encouraging people to purchase homes, and increase money circulation in the economy.

The Federal Reserve’s decision to pursue another round of quantitative easing is driven by the same Keynesian logic that has already proven to be detrimental to the economy. And as noted by The New American’s Charles Scaliger, the maneuver seems to indicate that the Federal Reserve is out of touch with the average American. Scaliger explains that most Americans are “too busy struggling to find or keep employment, pay down debts, and avoid foreclosures” to even consider purchasing a home. In the meantime, banks are not inclined to lend out the newly printed money for home purchases or “invest the new money productively.”

Egan-Jones contends that QE3 will not achieve what it is intended to do — raise the real GDP — but will instead reduce the value of the dollar.

Additionally, any efforts by the Fed to push interest rates down to zero “accentuates the negative consequences of this steady erosion in the dollar’s buying power by imposing a negative return on short-term bonds and bank deposits. In effect, the Fed has announced a course of action that will steal — there is no better word for it — nearly 10 percent of the value of Americans' hard earned savings over the next 4 years,” Forbes reported.

The Fed’s third round of quantitative easing has already provoked an increase in stock prices.

Many recognize that quantitative easing will prove to be harmful to the economy by increasing inflation and exacerbating all the existing problems that are currently plaguing the economy. Scaliger explains:

What is likely to result from QE3 is rising prices coupled with stubbornly stagnant unemployment figures. With gasoline again at record highs and grocery costs soaring, inflation is starting take a serious bite at the checkout counter.


A number of experts are in agreement with Egan-Jones’ assessment of QE3. In fact, according to an August survey by CNN Money, 93 percent of investment strategists were opposed to another round of quantitative easing, with 77 percent of economists also in agreement.

This is the second time this year that Egan-Jones has downgraded the credit rating. In April, Egan-Jones downgraded the U.S. credit rating to “AA” from “AA+” with a negative watch. That negative watch meant there was a 50 percent chance that the credit rating would be downgraded within the next three months. In fact, they were the firm that downgraded the U.S. last July even before Standard & Poor's did.

“Regardless of who does the downgrade, you have to pay attention — maybe they’re not as well known, but Egan-Jones has been ahead of the pack for a while,” Joe Saluzzi, co-manager of trading at Themis Trading told CNBC.

The Egan-Jones downgrade came just days after Moody’s warned that it would downgrade the United States’ credit rating if Congress is unable to reach an agreement on the fiscal cliff. According to the Congressional Budget Office, a failure to reach an agreement and permit the spending cuts and tax increases to take effect would send the economy into a recession.

Currently, both Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch give the United States an “AAA” rating, and Standard & Poor's has rated the United States “AA+.” However, all of those ratings have a negative outlook.


___________________________________________


The American people took a few years after the 2008 crash to pay off credit card debt that Wall Street jacked up with 20% interest rates and then turned around and used those credit cards again.  Between the home buying and credit cards----this coming economic crash will be so deep and so long---that Americans will be in worse shape.  This crash will see no Federal bailouts as Obama never recovered the massive corporate frauds and left $17 trillion and more in national debt.  The goal of the global corporations is to soak the US with so much debt just as third world nations are that then go to the IMF for bailout----to hand all control and all public wealth  to global corporations ----

Maryland TV runs these subprime auto loan commercials over and over-
----they are just like subprime mortgage loans and people losing all their wealth from the last crash are simply trying to have transportation-----getting tied to these subprime loans that will take them deeper into poverty.

THIS IS WHAT YOUR BALTIMORE CITY HALL AND MARYLAND ASSEMBLY POLS DO EVERY DAY THEY ARE IN SESSION.  HOW DO THEY LIVE WITH THEMSELVES YOU ASK?  THEY ARE SOCIOPATHS!


Consumer debt is soaring. That’s good news (for now).



  By Neil Irwin July 8, 2013   WASHINGTON POST

America is starting to re-leverage itself.

That's the implication of new data out Monday afternoon that shows that consumer credit -- credit cards, auto loans, student loans, basically every form of debt other than mortgages -- is rising by leaps and bounds.

______________________________________

I thank Good Jobs First for shouting how bad these corporate subsidies are because they do not create real jobs.

The reason all of these corporate tax deals are happening is to protect these corporations from the coming economic crash and the revenue that will be needed afterwards will all come from residents of Maryland and not corporations.  The American people must demand and elect pols that shout

EVERY STATE MUST HAVE A DOMESTIC ECONOMY DRIVEN BY WORKERS PAID ENOUGH TO BUY THE THINGS FAMILIES NEED TO SURVIVE AND TO LIVE A DEVELOPED WORLD LIFESTYLE.

If your pols are not shouting that your state needs to run on small and regional businesses and global corporations need to go----they are working for global corporate control of your state economy as is happening in Maryland.  The first thing Bush neo-con Larry Hogan said when he was handed the Governorship----we need to bring national corporations to Maryland and he is going to push all of the same corporate tax subsidies Clinton neo-liberal O'Malley did that starves state and local government coffers.



THAT IS WHAT ALL OF THIS CREDIT BOND LEVERAGE AND CONSTANT CORPORATE TAX BREAKS IS STRUCTURING----AND IT IS NOT GOOD FOR 90% OF AMERICANS!






States giving billions in 'megadeals' to U.S. employers

By Pamela M. Prah, Pew/Stateline Staff Writer
11:41 a.m. EDT June 20, 2013


A supervisor observes work on the assembly line at a Chrysler plant in Detroit. In 2010, Michigan gave the company state tax credits valued at $1B, one of the state’s 29 "megadeals" in the past 35 years.(Photo: AP)

Michigan has given large tax breaks and subsidies to employers more often than any other state, according to a new report that tallies up state and local "megadeals," or incentive packages worth more than $75 million.

Good Jobs First, which tracks subsidies that state and local governments give to companies, found that Michigan has given 29 such deals to employers in the past 35 years. The state gave Chrysler and General Motors separate deals worth $1 billion each in 2010 and 2009, respectively.

But while Michigan offered "megadeals" most frequently, New York ranked first in overall spending on such giant packages, with $11.4 billion. New York also had the single most expensive deal: In 2007, the New York Power Authority gave aluminum producer Alcoa a 30-year discounted-electricity package worth an estimated $5.6 billion. Washington state had the second largest "megadeal," a $3.2 billion package of tax breaks and other subsidies it gave to Boeing in 2003.

Supporters say such incentives are an effective way to retain or attract employers. "The auto industry has rebounded and factories and new shifts are being added all over Michigan. Of course the incentives from all levels of government helped," said former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat who was governor between 2003 and 2011, when many of the packages were negotiated.

But Good Jobs First argues that these incentives don't always create the jobs promised. And while 45 states disclose some company-specific data from these deals, the information isn't uniform across state lines, making it difficult to evaluate the costs and benefits.

As Stateline's recent Legislative Review reported, one of the biggest recent deals was Oregon's decision to preserve Nike's preferential sales tax treatment for the next 30 years. That agreement, aimed at keeping Nike in the state, is worth an estimated $2 billion to the company, the report said.

Following Michigan, New York had the second most "megadeals," with 23; Ohio and Texas had a dozen each; Louisiana and Tennessee had 11 each; and Alabama, Kentucky and New Jersey all had 10 each, the report said.

Twenty-five of the packages involved relocations, 14 of them from one state to another. Florida this year, for example, awarded Hertz nearly $85 million in incentives to move from New Jersey to Estero, Fla. The remaining 11 deals involved relocations within a single state. For example, in 2011 Illinois gave Sears Roebuck $275 million to move its headquarters from downtown Chicago to a Chicago suburb instead of leaving the state.

Nationwide, since the late 1970s states and localities have spent more than $64 billion on large incentive packages designed to create or retain jobs, according to the report.

In total dollars spent on "megadeals," Michigan ranked second to New York with a total of $7.1 billion. Five states were in the $3 billion range: Oregon, New Mexico, Washington, Louisiana and Texas.

Twenty-nine companies have received two or more "megadeals." General Motors has gotten the most, with 11, followed by Ford with nine, Intel with six and four companies with four each: Boeing, Daimler (including Mercedes), Nissan and Toyota, the report said.

Absent from the report is Wal-Mart, the company that tops the Fortune 500 list. The company has received more than $1.2 billion in taxpayer assistance, according to a separate Good Jobs First account, but its individual deals were worth less than $75 million each and thus didn't qualify for this report.

Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.


_______________________________________________

If you look below you see all the signs that Maryland is indeed on its way to third world status no matter how many times Maryland media and pols shout statistics that are not true.  Maryland has the worst employment, wages never lower, fraud and corruption, media capture and public policy with no public input.  Police actions unconstitutional, and global corporations taking more and more control of the economy.

WAKE UP MARYLAND AND AMERICANS----WE CAN STILL TURN THIS AROUND BUT WE NEED EVERYONE EDUCATING AND WE NEED GOOD PEOPLE RUNNING IN ALL DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES TO GET RID OF CORPORATE POLS!


Monday, August 16, 2010

10 Signs The U.S. is Becoming a Third World Country


Activist Post

The United States by every measure is hanging on by a thread to its First World status.  Saddled by debt, engaged in wars on multiple fronts with a rising police state at home, declining economic productivity, and wild currency fluctuations all threaten America's future.

The general designations of the ranking system for world status date back to the 1950s, and have included countries at various stages of economic development.  Since the Cold War, the definition has come to be synonymous with repressive countries where a wealthy class of ruling elites segment society into the haves and have-nots, many times capitalizing on the conditions that follow an economic crisis or war.

While much of the world is still mired in poverty, the reduced cost of innovative tools such as computing and connectivity ironically puts traditional Third World countries at the forefront of a new lean-and-mean economy that is based on ideas of empowerment for the disenfranchised.   For better or worse, the world is leveling due to Globalism.  However, America and other over-leveraged countries face this re-balancing of the globe at a time when they have dwindling resources. We can speculate about who and what is to blame for America's fantastic fall, but for the purposes of this article we shall focus on the obvious signs that the United States is beginning to resemble a Third World country.


30,000 Section 8 wait for 455 vouchers

1. Rising unemployment and poverty: Unemployment numbers, food stamps, and home foreclosures continue to reach new record highs.  The ugly reality of those numbers was recently on display when 30,000 people showed up to apply for public housing in East Point, GA for 455 available vouchers.  Fights broke out, people were fainting from the heat while in line, and riot police showed up to handle the angry poor.

2. Economic dependence: The United States finished 2009 with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 85%, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  The current trend projects the United States to finish 2010 at 94% and 2011 at 98%.  The 90% level has become the IMF's make-or-break point for countries hoping to grow their way out of debt. If the government debt load climbs above 90% of GDP, economic growth slows so much that growth is no longer a viable solution for reducing that debt, and the IMF insists on austerity measures. Surpassing this debt threshold has also caused China's lead credit rating agency to cut America's credit rating.


3. Declining civil rights:  Everyday freedoms are often a casualty of a society in collapse.  As the anger of the populace mounts in response to declining economic conditions and political corruption, the government counters by increasing draconian measures that restrict the political rights and civil liberties of its citizens.

America is becoming a country like China, which has one of the lowest scores according to Freedom House.  In America, private discussions and movements are monitored, free speech is corralled, the freedom to assemble for protest is by government decree, and independent thought that questions the political system is increasingly looked upon with suspicion.  A final indicator is when the government insists upon secrecy for its own actions, while new laws and systems are created to put the individual under nearly constant surveillance.

4. Increasing political corruption: When political corruption becomes the accepted norm, as opposed to the exception, then there's a good bet your country resembles the Third World. Congress and all major institutions face a growing crisis in confidence, where a record-low 11% of the population believe Congress is doing a good job. It now seems obvious to all observers that big corporations directly control the agenda in Washington -- much like typically corrupt Third World countries.

5. Military patrolling the streets: The rise of a militarized police state is a hallmark of most Third World countries, particularly in times of rapid economic collapse.  America's declaration of the War on Terror has created a constant threat to National Security that has allowed for the military to be deployed on American soil.  Building upon the War on Drugs, this has created a fusion between the military and local police, where military-grade weapons and tactics are being used against American citizens in a cascade of violent confrontations over non-violent offenses.  Military checkpoints are moving farther inland, away from meaningful border control functions, and a full-blown military presence in American cities has been planned by the U.S. Army War College.

6. Failing infrastructure:  As 46 of 50 states are on the verge of bankruptcy, cities are going dark, asphalt roads are returning to the stone age, and nationwide budget cuts are leaving students without teachers, supplies, or a full-time education.  These are common features one will see as they travel through the poorest of Third World countries.

7. Disappearing middle class: During the last presidential debate season, they argued that a family income of $250K was solidly middle-class.  Well, Census data shows less than 15% of families make over $100K, and only 1.5% of families make over $250K.  The income gap between the rich and poor has increased at a staggering pace, while many more middle-class folks join the ranks of the poor every day.  Cavernous income gaps may be what Third-World nations are best known for.

U.S. Dollar Monetary Base8. Devalued currency: The value of the Federal Reserve Note (U.S. dollar) has declined 96% since the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1913.  The value of the dollar is based on its supply in circulation and, to a lesser extent, the demand for those dollars. For the last three years, the monetary base has spiked literally off the charts. It can be argued that the dollar has become America's top export as the world's reserve currency, and if the volatile dollar is scrapped, which the U.N. and IMF now suggest, then demand will plummet, killing the currency.

9. Controlling the media: A government-influenced media that censors information is a key component of Third World countries.  In some countries it is openly owned by the State.  In America, privately-owned major media is not as balanced or as diverse as it seems; the concentration of ownership has led to censorship when national and corporate interests have sometimes overlapped.  The persecution of high-profile investigative journalists such as WikiLeaks is set amid a backdrop of the proposed Internet censorship of bloggers who wish to remain anonymous.  The end of net neutrality creates a pay-to-play system that can lead to further corporate and government control of information and opinion.  Cybersecurity initiatives are the final nail in the coffin, as the entire free flow of information can be vetted in a China-style system of "identity management."  On the street, the police state and media control have converged in the recent rise of arrests for those who videotape the police.  This is a huge blow to First Amendment rights and the role of photojournalists who wish to document public police behavior.

10. Capital Controls: Many nations have enforced capital controls as their economies collapse.   It most recently happened in Argentina and Venezuela as they sought to keep the remaining wealth within their borders. The SEC already has adopted policies to allow money market funds to suspend withdrawals during a financial crisis, while the recent HIRE bill (HR 2487) puts restrictions on Americans moving capital to foreign countries. Some economists suggest that the national debt has gotten so high that the government must now force investment of private capital into U.S. Treasury debt.

Key economic indicators point to a situation potentially worse than the Great Depression. The land of opportunity for so many is devolving into a system of government corruption, corporate looting, and military rule that threatens to sink the American Dream.  The capital flight from America has left a dwindling middle class holding an empty bag.  This style of underinvestment in the foundation of society is similar to what already has led to the exodus from the rural Midwest.  Now, there are ominous signs of a silent exodus of young, intelligent professionals seeking opportunities to realize their dreams outside of America; they are becoming known as Generation Xpat.  Lastly, many skilled immigrants have returned to their home countries to seek a better quality of life, which might be the scariest indicator of all.

___________________________________________


This is of course what Baltimore and Maryland have had installed for a few decades----it is the source of open hostility towards anyone expressing progressive policy.  You see it is Obama and Clinton neo-liberals pushing harder what Bush neo-conservatives started----THEY ARE THE SAME.



It is important to remember that Wall Street and DeutscheBank targeted Europe and the UK with the same subprime mortgage frauds that took down the US economy in 2008 and Europe has gotten no justice from the massive frauds either. But these banks hit Europe with even more fraud-----sovereign debt fraud----that made the economic collapse deeper. This is why Europe is having a harder time. The sovereign debt fraud is the exact same bond fraud that is happening now in the US thanks to Obama, Congress, and the FED. Obama and neo-liberals created the same conditions for economic crash as Bush did with the subprime mortgage fraud except that this credit bond leverage fraud will be far worse ----it will take the US to the level of economic collapse as Greece. See why they are loading the bond debt and do not want anyone telling the public? Greece was literally sold out by its 'Socialist' leaders just as Americans are by their Bush neo-cons and Clinton neo-liberals----and sent to TROIKA management for austerity just as is happening in the US with Congress ending all of our War on Poverty and NEW DEAL programs. This coming bond crash will literally place most of America into the hands of IMF and global corporations will come in to take control of the government officially. THIS IS WHAT TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT IS ABOUT. This is what Baltimore has had in place for decades and it is primed to be the Greece all planned, deliberate, and all fraudulent and criminal. American's will really come out to protest but by then the massive looting of America----like the Russian Perestroika ----will have all those assets overseas. As you see here-----Europeans are holding their own----they are organized and fighting and they may come out of this still having a Democratic developed world society. The US on the other hand has all of its national labor and justice leaders working with the Clinton neo-liberals to create all of these conditions with no educating and not protest. LET'S WAKE UP AND GET ENGAGED-----

WE CAN STILL REVERSE THIS IF EVERYONE KNOWS IT IS ILLEGAL, DELIBERATE, AND CAN BE VOIDED!


Greece: 20,120 Protests in Four Years
  • Society
by Ioanna Zikakou - Apr 25, 2014


Protests appear to have become somewhat of a “national sport” in Greece, after it was revealed that four to five protests have been taking place daily over the last four years.

The Greek Minister of Public Order, Nikos Dendias, provided the House of Parliament with data showing that a total of 20,120 protests have taken place across Greece from when the country first entered the Memorandum 1,420 days ago.

Of these protests alone 6,266 took place in Attica, which means that in the Attica region an average of 4.5 demonstrations are taking place every day.




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    Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.

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