Citizens' Oversight Maryland---Maryland Progressives
CINDY WALSH FOR MAYOR OF BALTIMORE----SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
Citizens Oversight Maryland.com
  • Home
  • Cindy Walsh for Mayor of Baltimore
    • Mayoral Election violations
    • Questionnaires from Community >
      • Education Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Housing Questionnaire
      • Emerging Youth Questionnaire
      • Health Care policy for Baltimore
      • Environmental Questionnaires
      • Livable Baltimore questionnaire
      • Labor Questionnnaire
      • Ending Food Deserts Questionnaire
      • Maryland Out of School Time Network
      • LBGTQ Questionnaire
      • Citizen Artist Baltimore Mayoral Forum on Arts & Culture Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Transit Choices Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Activating Solidarity Economies (BASE)
      • Downtown Partnership Questionnaire
      • The Northeast Baltimore Communities Of BelAir Edison Community Association (BECCA )and Frankford Improvement Association, Inc. (FIA)
      • Streets and Transportation/Neighbood Questionnaire
      • African American Tourism and business questionnaire
      • Baltimore Sun Questionnaire
      • City Paper Mayoral Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Technology Com Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Biker's Questionnair
      • Homewood Friends Meeting Questionnaire
      • Baltimore Historical Collaboration---Anthem Project
      • Tubman City News Mayoral Questionnaire
      • Maryland Public Policy Institute Questionnaire
      • AFRO questionnaire
      • WBAL Candidate's Survey
  • Blog
  • Trans Pacific Pact (TPP)
  • Progressive vs. Third Way Corporate Democrats
    • Third Way Think Tanks
  • Financial Reform/Wall Street Fraud
    • Consumer Financial Protection Bureau >
      • CFPB Actions
    • Voted to Repeal Glass-Steagall
    • Federal Reserve >
      • Federal Reserve Actions
    • Securities and Exchange Commission >
      • SEC Actions
    • Commodity Futures Trading Commission >
      • CFTC Actions
    • Office of the Comptroller of the Currency >
      • OCC Actions
    • Office of Treasury/ Inspector General for the Treasury
    • FINRA >
      • FINRA ACTIONS
  • Federal Healthcare Reform
    • Health Care Fraud in the US
    • Health and Human Services Actions
  • Social Security and Entitlement Reform
    • Medicare/Medicaid/SCHIP Actions
  • Federal Education Reform
    • Education Advocates
  • Government Schedules
    • Baltimore City Council
    • Maryland State Assembly >
      • Budget and Taxation Committee
    • US Congress
  • State and Local Government
    • Baltimore City Government >
      • City Hall Actions
      • Baltimore City Council >
        • Baltimore City Council Actions
      • Baltimore Board of Estimates meeting >
        • Board of Estimates Actions
    • Governor's Office >
      • Telling the World about O'Malley
    • Lt. Governor Brown
    • Maryland General Assembly Committees >
      • Communications with Maryland Assembly
      • Budget and Taxation Committees >
        • Actions
        • Pension news
      • Finance Committees >
        • Schedule
      • Business Licensing and Regulation
      • Judicial, Rules, and Nominations Committee
      • Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee >
        • Committee Actions
    • Maryland State Attorney General >
      • Open Meetings Act
      • Maryland Courts >
        • Maryland Court System
    • States Attorney - Baltimore's Prosecutor
    • State Comptroller's Office >
      • Maryland Business Tax Reform >
        • Business Tax Reform Issues
  • Maryland Committee Actions
    • Board of Public Works >
      • Public Works Actions
    • Maryland Public Service Commission >
      • Public Meetings
    • Maryland Health Care Commission/Maryland Community Health Resources Commission >
      • MHCC/MCHRC Actions
    • Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition
  • Maryland and Baltimore Development Organizations
    • Baltimore/Maryland Development History
    • Committee Actions
    • Maryland Development Organizations
  • Maryland State Department of Education
    • Charter Schools
    • Public Schools
    • Algebra Project Award
  • Baltimore City School Board
    • Charter Schools >
      • Charter Schools---Performance
      • Charter School Issues
    • Public Schools >
      • Public School Issues
  • Progressive Issues
    • Fair and Balanced Elections
    • Labor Issues
    • Rule of Law Issues >
      • Rule of Law
    • Justice issues 2
    • Justice Issues
    • Progressive Tax Reform Issues >
      • Maryland Tax Reform Issues
      • Baltimore Tax Reform Issues
    • Strong Public Education >
      • Corporate education reform organizations
    • Healthcare for All Issues >
      • Universal Care Bill by state
  • Building Strong Media
    • Media with a Progressive Agenda (I'm still checking on that!) >
      • anotherangryvoice.blogspot.com
      • "Talk About It" Radio - WFBR 1590AM Baltimore
      • Promethius Radio Project
      • Clearing the Fog
      • Democracy Now
      • Black Agenda Radio
      • World Truth. TV Your Alternative News Network.
      • Daily Censured
      • Bill Moyers Journal
      • Center for Public Integrity
      • Public Radio International
      • Baltimore Brew
      • Free Press
    • Far Left/Socialist Media
    • Media with a Third Way Agenda >
      • MSNBC
      • Center for Media and Democracy
      • Public Radio and TV >
        • NPR and MPT News
      • TruthOut
  • Progressive Organizations
    • Political Organizations >
      • Progressives United
      • Democracy for America
    • Labor Organizations >
      • United Workers
      • Unite Here Local 7
      • ROC-NY works to build power and win justice
    • Justice Organizations >
      • APC Baltimore
      • Occupy Baltimore
    • Rule of Law Organizations >
      • Bill of Rights Defense Committee
      • National Lawyers Guild
      • National ACLU
    • Tax Reform Organizations
    • Healthcare for All Organizations >
      • Healthcare is a Human Right - Maryland
      • PNHP Physicians for a National Health Program
      • Healthcare NOW- Maryland
    • Public Education Organizations >
      • Parents Across America
      • Philadelphia Public School Notebook thenotebook.org
      • Chicago Teachers Union/Blog
      • Ed Wize Blog
      • Educators for a Democratic Union
      • Big Education Ape
    • Elections Organizations >
      • League of Women Voters
  • Progressive Actions
    • Labor Actions
    • Justice Actions
    • Tax Reform Actions >
      • Baltimore Tax Actions
      • Maryland Tax Reform Actions
    • Healthcare Actions
    • Public Education Actions
    • Rule of Law Actions >
      • Suing Federal and State government
    • Free and Fair Elections Actions
  • Maryland/Baltimore Voting Districts - your politicians and their votes
    • 2014 ELECTION OF STATE OFFICES
    • Maryland Assembly/Baltimore
  • Petitions, Complaints, and Freedom of Information Requests
    • Complaints - Government and Consumer >
      • Sample Complaints
    • Petitions >
      • Sample Petitions
    • Freedom of Information >
      • Sample Letters
  • State of the Democratic Party
  • Misc
    • WBFF TV
    • WBAL TV
    • WJZ TV
    • WMAR TV
    • WOLB Radio---Radio One
    • The Gazette
    • Baltimore Sun Media Group
  • Misc 2
    • Maryland Public Television
    • WYPR
    • WEAA
    • Maryland Reporter
  • Misc 3
    • University of Maryland
    • Morgan State University
  • Misc 4
    • Baltimore Education Coalition
    • BUILD Baltimore
    • Church of the Great Commission
    • Maryland Democratic Party
    • Pennsylvania Avenue AME Zion Church
    • Maryland Municipal League
    • Maryland League of Women Voters
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Standard of Review
  • Untitled
  • WALSH FOR GOVERNOR - CANDIDATE INFORMATION AND PLATFORM
    • Campaign Finance/Campaign donations
    • Speaking Events
    • Why Heather Mizeur is NOT a progressive
    • Campaign responses to Community Organization Questionnaires
    • Cindy Walsh vs Maryland Board of Elections >
      • Leniency from court for self-representing plaintiffs
      • Amended Complaint
      • Plaintiff request for expedited trial date
      • Response to Motion to Dismiss--Brown, Gansler, Mackie, and Lamone
      • Injunction and Mandamus
      • DECISION/APPEAL TO SPECIAL COURT OF APPEALS---Baltimore City Circuit Court response to Cindy Walsh complaint >
        • Brief for Maryland Court of Special Appeals >
          • Cover Page ---yellow
          • Table of Contents
          • Table of Authorities
          • Leniency for Pro Se Representation
          • Statement of Case
          • Questions Presented
          • Statement of Facts
          • Argument
          • Conclusion/Font and Type Size
          • Record Extract
          • Appendix
          • Motion for Reconsideration
          • Response to Defendants Motion to Dismiss
          • Motion to Reconsider Dismissal
      • General Election fraud and recount complaints
    • Cindy Walsh goes to Federal Court for Maryland election violations >
      • Complaints filed with the FCC, the IRS, and the FBI
      • Zapple Doctrine---Media Time for Major Party candidates
      • Complaint filed with the US Justice Department for election fraud and court irregularities.
      • US Attorney General, Maryland Attorney General, and Maryland Board of Elections are charged with enforcing election law
      • Private media has a responsibility to allow access to all candidates in an election race. >
        • Print press accountable to false statement of facts
      • Polling should not determine a candidate's viability especially if the polling is arbitrary
      • Viability of a candidate
      • Public media violates election law regarding do no damage to candidate's campaign
      • 501c3 Organizations violate election law in doing no damage to a candidate in a race >
        • 501c3 violations of election law-----private capital
      • Voter apathy increases when elections are not free and fair
  • Maryland Board of Elections certifies election on July 10, 2014
  • Maryland Elections ---2016

April 30th, 2015

4/30/2015

0 Comments

 
Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons taking the US back to the days of Medieval social structure----who sits around a table and thinks---how do we take a thriving first world nation to third world autocracy? 

THE EXECUTIVES AT THE TOP OF JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY AND THEIR BALTIMORE NEO-CONSERVATIVE POLS RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS.

The Entrepreneur and Apprenticeship Center in NW Baltimore is very near an elementary school being filled with all the private structures of vocational K-12.  This is Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby's district ----MR. SHOW ME THE MONEY AND I WILL DO ANYTHING HOPKINS AND BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT TELLS ME TO!  Indeed, all Baltimore Public Schools are being taken with this child as labor programming.
  Your community association leaders know where this is going as well so we need to shake these Hopkins development people out of our community associations as well as politics.  We know how to gentrify neighborhoods while working under Rule of Law and Constitutional civil rights.

Look below at a phrase from the Entrepreneur article yesterday and imagine the Medieval Canterbury Tales where all the peasants open their homes to strangers for the money----and act as taxis to afford a car and you see where this is going.  The answer says Wall Street---

DEREGULATE HOW PEOPLE SHARE HOUSES AND RIDES SO THERE IS NO PROTECTION FOR EITHER CONSUMER OR HOME/CAR OWNER.



'Services such as AirBNB have allowed thousands of Americans to share their residences, gaining them needed income, and providing visitors with needed lodging.  Rather than try to shut down such services, New York City should work to find ways to reconcile its rules with these innovative services.  The city should be working for its citizens and visitors, not against them'.

That is what Race to the Top is----deregulation and privatization of public education K-12.  Child labor is simply the next step in moving Americans from being citizens to being human capital.


The Franklin Entrepreneurial and Apprenticeship Center (FEAC) is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit organization that is uniquely positioned to help decrease the unemployment rate and unskilled workers in Baltimore, Maryland. 
2118 Madison Ave, Baltimore, Maryland 21217


Know why America is behind in apprenticeship programs that exist around the world----LABOR UNION BUSTING BY CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS KILLED UNIONS AND THEIR UNION APPRENTICESHIP PROGRAMS.  Know what Obama and Clinton neo-liberals are doing by making community colleges simply corporate job training and apprenticeship programs----killing unions.  America had a thriving union apprenticeship system that was the best in the world before Reagan/Clinton globalism and deregulation.  Now, they are re-making the idea of apprenticeship from the corporate view of maximizing profits.  You see Johns Hopkins---the most repressive and regressive people as human capital institition in the world----toting their program as good for people.

There's nothing wrong with high school vocational development and apprenticeships if these children are exposed to a broad public education and given choices as to what they want to do----what is happening in Baltimore is the pre-K testing and use of testing information to allow Hopkins/ committees decide from these tests how children will be tracked with no parent or student choice.  THAT IS TO WHERE THIS IS GOING.

Below you see an article from free enterprise loving this apprenticeship movement.

Again, the US is behind in apprenticeships because unions have been killed. All the nations listed in the article below have strong union apprenticeships and that is why they are ahead of the US.  It was corporatization of our university campuses that made tuition high and reversing this corporatization while protecting our public K-12 brings back strong public education for all!


Can Apprenticeships Make a Comeback?

by Sheryll Poe Jun 14, 2013  Free Enterprise


Apprenticeships have changed. Now we just need to convince the American public, and more importantly, lawmakers.

Once the province of traditional trades and under the control of organized labor, they are now being used in a number of states to train workers in middle- and high-skills jobs in health care, information technology, and the service industry, among other fields. 

This Bloomberg story we posted last year profiled the successful apprenticeship programs at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and Sea-Tac International.

“Evil HR Lady” Suzanne Lucas makes the case for hiring apprentices in her recent Inc. column:

Think of how that apprentice could be light years ahead of his or her counterparts when college graduation comes about? The knowledge of how to handle a problem, how to put together a proposal, what goes into finding a manufacturer, and what a pain it is to find good insurance for your company, would be invaluable to the apprentice.

And it would be invaluable to your company. The apprentice's ability to contribute will become greater than any string of interns, all at a reasonable price. And when your apprentice finishes the apprenticeship, you can either offer a permanent job or another company will be happy to snap up a new grad with four years of real experience.

Still, despite all the compelling reasons apprenticeships should be more popular (record unemployment rates among young people, a near tripling of university fees, uncertainty in the job market), the United States continues to lag behind in apprenticeship programs compared to its’ international competitors, according to Robert Lerman, a professor of economics at American University and the Urban Institute's first Institute fellow in labor and social policy.

“At the moment, we are far behind other countries in offering apprenticeships. The United States is graduating more than 3 million students from high school each year, yet only about 125,000 apprenticeship slots open annually. That's a measly 4 percent, compared to 40 to 80 percent in most other high income countries.”

There are, of course, many reasons why apprenticeships have not taken hold in the United States, including just a general lack of respect and knowledge about such programs, but Lerman explains to PBS Newshour where the real blame lies:

“…at a time when President Obama worries aloud that the United States is falling behind in college graduation rates, neither he nor other leaders point out that we lag woefully behind in generating apprenticeship opportunities, at a rate of somewhere between one-tenth and one-twentieth the opportunities offered by our economic rivals.

Moreover, Mr. President, if college graduation rates are the key to youth employment, how is it that two of the countries that have most increased their college graduation rates in recent years -- France and Spain -- are experiencing record youth unemployment and underemployment?”

The simple fact is that the United States has lacked national leadership and funding to expand apprenticeships. The federal and state governments combined spend a measly $25-40 million per year to encourage apprenticeship. That is a trivial amount relative to what even England spends - equivalent, given the relative sizes of our two economies, to $10 billion per year in the United States -- and to what federal and state governments spend on other postsecondary education alternatives (well over $200 billion).”

What do you think? And more importantly, does your business have an apprenticeship program? Tell us about it in the comments. 

____________________________________________


I am freely bashing the black churches for their commercialization of what is the center for black citizens in Baltimore. Indeed, the 15 black ministers that tell Baltimore citizens to vote for the worst of Baltimore Development/Hopkins pols are involved in the pay-to-play social services and business opportunities that place them at odds with their congregations and communities. THAT IS THE PLAN---TO USE BLACK CHURCHES FOR THIS GENTRIFICATION. I will be an equal opportunity religious offender today by shouting against the involvement of the Catholic Church in Baltimore in what is the movement of social structure back to the days of the extremely rich and the Catholic Church taking all of the public sector functions and its involvement in this K-12 privatization and apprenticeship scheme. The leadership knows to where Hopkins is taking these education reforms. It is taking advantage of public education funds for religious schools under the charter school program. We understand religious schools have been trying for decades to get the public funding. What is not acceptable is knowing to where this K-12 testing and vocation tracking is leading and the fact that parents and children will not have a voice in their child's education or vocation and that child labor will become Wall Street profit. We don't want to hear -----WE DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING-----everyone knows that Wall Street and neo-cons/neo-liberals are all about maximizing wealth and profit at the expense of labor and justice.

The Catholic Church has had a few decades of bad publicity and with that a downsizing of membership that many people see as making the current church ever more conservative. We know the Catholic Church is found when most conservative to be involved in child labor supposedly showing devotion to work at all ages.

I AM SHOUTING TO THE CITIZENS OF BALTIMORE TO MAKE THESE CATHOLIC CHURCH LEADERS AWARE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE AND PUBLIC ROLLS OF CITIZENS. WE ARE NOT GOING BACK TO MEDICIS AND THE CHURCH CONTROLLING ALL THE LIVES OF MASSES OF POOR.

This is not hyperbole----the structures for this are growing in Baltimore and we need any religious institution that speaks of working for the poor and for justice to educate against the neo-liberal and neo-conservative global corporate capture of the US and especially in our cities.

In Maryland the Catholic Church marched from Western Maryland to Annapolis to protest having insurance cover contraception yet it is central to receiving all these funds for social programs and education knowing it is coming from the worst of corporations and their fraud and knowing they are taking the voice of the citizens of Baltimore by killing the public sector.



The Catholic Church: Smaller and More Conservative

Younger Catholics are more “conservative” on many issues than their older counterparts, according to some data buried in a new NYT/CBS news poll. In absolute numbers the poll found that the majority of US Catholics want the next Pope to change Church teachings on hot button issues of gender and sexuality. But the really interesting news turned up when the numbers were broken down by age.As other blogs have noticed, support for female priests is at 72 percent among Catholics aged 45-64, but at 68 percent among those 18-44. Only 11 percent of older respondents oppose birth control, but that number ticks up to 15 percent among the young. Support for eliminating the requirement for priestly celibacy falls by a whopping 15 percent from the older to the younger generation.The complete survey results found here contain some even more impressive cross-time comparisons. The last time this poll was taken, in 1994, 34 percent of respondents said they believed that in the Eucharist the bread and wine really become the body and blood of Christ, while 63 percent said they thought the Eucharist was merely symbolic. Respondents have become more orthodox in the past twenty years. In the recent poll 40 percent now say they believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, while 58 percent checked off the “symbolic” box.This poll isn’t the last word on contemporary Catholic attitudes. It had a small sample size (580 Catholics), and 30 percent of sample are nominal Catholics, reporting that they never attend mass or attend it only a few times a year. But if the generational breakdown holds in the larger population, it points to some interesting times ahead for the Catholic Church.The reason younger respondents are more conservative than the Boomers is likely because the rise of the non-affiliated “nones” has picked off the more “liberal” Catholics among Gen Y. Boomers unhappy with the Church’s teachings often remain in the Church, but in the next generation those with more liberal instincts tend to leave the faith altogether.In the coming decades, then, we’re likely to see a smaller, but more fervent Catholic Church. The “cultural Catholic” will increasingly become an endangered species. However, that smaller church will probably grow: Religious people have more kids, and people are drawn to communities that have strong beliefs.


___________________________________________

Below you see the Catholic Church with its Apprenticeship school for the K-8 just as is happening in Baltimore.  We are watching as the Catholic Church marches for justice as it works with those corrupt leaders and take the fraudulent gains of corporations funding the social non-profits that used to be public sector jobs employing and paying Living Wages.  The church services the poor---they do not work to make 90% of Americans third world.

You will not hear any religious institution educating as to public policy unless it is gay or contraception even as this global corporate totalitarianism takes hold.


Kentucky and Baltimore are very conservative-----that's where it starts!

Millwright's Apprenticeship School - Louisville,...


www.facebook.com
  › …
  › Louisville, Kentucky
  › Education
Sacred Heart Model School has been the model of excellence in K-8 Catholic education in Louisville, Kentucky since 1924. Dedicated to nurturing enlightened scholars ...
  1. Address
  • 2441 Crittenden Dr
  • Louisville, Kentucky 40213

    __________________________________________

    So, in Maryland where the DLLR does not exist and no oversight and accountability of abuse of labor and justice laws happens====what do these institutions think will happen if this child apprenticeship expands?  THEY KNOW THE ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF LABOR IN MARYLAND IS SYSTEMIC NOW SO WHAT DO THEY THINK WILL HAPPEN?

    These organization's leadership are complicit in a very bad public policy and we need for them to reverse course and resume their function as protectors of the American people and their rights as citizens.  I read Catholic Church literature---especially Jesuit that says there schools educate students to be citizens and yet in Baltimore----absolutely no public policy education exists especially in these troubling times of dismantling Democracy and installing autocracy and oligarchy.

    Below you see the laws protecting youth from the days of the Robber Barons.  As the Catholic Church knows Obama as with Clinton embrace the Federalism Act which allows states to ignore Federal laws like those protecting children and indeed Trans Pacific Trade Pact does as well. 


    IF AN ORGANIZATION CALLS ITSELF A JUSTICE ORGANIZATION AND IS WORKING WITH JOHNS HOPKINS AND BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AS THEY DO HERE IN BALTIMORE---THEY ARE BEING LED BY PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT GOOD LEADERS.  GET RID OF THESE LEADERS.


  • Youth Apprenticeship Child Labor

  •  The following child labor law information is for Youth Apprenticeship and other work-based learning programs (Co-op, Skills Certified Co-op); Employers, Instructors, Students and Parents.

    Wisconsin contacts:

  • Labor Standards Bureau Director Jim J. Chiolino, Phone 608-266-3345.
  • Joy Gander, Gander Consulting, is contracted to provide Risk Management Services to Wisconsin's public schools as part of a Wisconsin Association of School Boards contract. Phone: 608-286-0286 or email Joy M. Gänder, CPCU, ARM, Principal.
Other state contacts:

  • Illinois: Lilian Jimenez, Division Manager, Fair Labor Standards, Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL). E-mail: lilian.jimenez@illinois.gov. Phone: (312) 793-1802
  • Iowa: Mitchell Mahan, Attorney for the Labor Commissioner, Iowa Workforce Development. E-mail: mitchell.mahan@iwd.iowa.gov. Phone: (515) 281-3554
  • Michigan: Tara Bride, Youth Employment Regulation Specialist, Michigan Department of Education. E-mail: bridet@michigan.gov. Phone: (517) 335-6401
  • Minnesota: Sara Ellstra, State Program Administrative Director, Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry. E-mail: sara.ellstra@state.mn.us. Phone: (651) 284-5005
Child Labor Information for Work-Based Learning
  • Student Learner
  • Work Permits
  • Hazardous Restrictions
  • Other Web Links
Student Learner Wis. Admin. Code DWD 270.14

In order to be considered a student learner, minors must meet the following criteria:

  • Enrolled in a school to work-based learning program sponsored by an accredited school, the technical college system board or DWD’s Youth Apprenticeship program.
  • Enrolled in school and receiving school credit for program participation.
  • Receive appropriate safety instruction at the school and at the workplace.
  • Work performed is under direct and close supervision of a qualified and experienced person.
  • Work performed in any occupation declared hazardous is incidental to the training and is for intermittent and short periods of time.
    • NOTE: Student Learner status does NOT override the child labor laws. The student learner exception limits the minor to performing some hazardous tasks to an incidental (less than 5% of their work time) and occasional (not a regular part of their job) basis. ( See Wis. Admin. Code DWD 270.14(3)(f)).
  • There is a schedule of organized and progressive work processes to be performed on the job.
Work Permits Wis. Stat. 103.70

Required for lawful employment of minors under 18 years of age in work in connection with the business, trade, or profession of an employer. Should the ownership of the business change, the minor would need to obtain a new work permit. A child labor permit does not does not protect the employer if it allows the minor to do any work that is prohibited by child labor laws.

Work Permits are NOT Needed for:

  1. Agricultural work.
  2. Domestic employment - Work within a private home that is not a business, such as babysitting, yard work.
  3. Volunteer work for a non-profit agency, such as a volunteer at a non-profit hospital. Minors cannot perform prohibited work while volunteering. See Wis. Admin. Code DWD 270.18.
  4. The Youth Apprenticeship (YA) Program. Students and employers must have an approved Education Training Agreement on file with the school AND the employer instead.

    NOTE: Students and employers do not need to obtain a separate work permit for the work to be performed as a part of the YA program, although it is highly recommended. If employers hire youth apprentices to perform other work duties outside of their YA duties, a work permit is required.
  5. Court-ordered restitution or court-ordered community service.
  6. A minor may be employed without a permit by a nonprofit organization in and around the home of an elderly person or a person with a disability to perform snow shoveling, lawn mowing, leaf raking, or other similar work usual to the home of the elderly person or person with a disability, if all of the following apply:
    • The work is not in connection with or a part of the business, trade, or profession of that person and is in accordance with the minimum age stated in Wis. Stat. 103.67(2)(fm).
    • The type of employment is not specifically prohibited by Wis. Stat. 103.64 to 103.82 or by any order of the department.
    • The minor is paid the applicable minimum wage under Wis. Stat. 104 or under federal law, whichever is greater for the work.
    • The minor’s parent or guardian provides the nonprofit organization with his or her written consent for the minor to perform the work.
  7. A minor may be employed without a permit as an election inspector.
Hazardous Restrictions
  • Child Labor Law Guidance for Employers of Minors
  • Child Labor Laws - Wis. Admin. Code DWD 270
  • Youth Apprenticeship Programs. Restrictions applicable to:
    • Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources YA - Agriculture, Animals, Vet, Greenhouse, Crops, Landscaping
    • Architecture and Construction YA - Architecture Drafting and Planning
    • Arts, A/V Technology and Communications YA - Graphic Arts and Printing
    • Finance YA - Accounting, Banking, Insurance
    • Health Science YA - Medical Assistant, Medical Office, Nursing Assistant, Pharmacy Tech, Health Support Services
    • Hospitality, Lodging and Tourism YA - Food and Beverage, Lodging, Reservations, Tours, Meetings & Events, Hospitality Sales & Marketing, Management
    • Information Technology YA - IT Hardware, Software, Web
    • Manufacturing YA - Assembly, Production, Machining, Welding, Production Operations, Equipment Maintenance
    • STEM YA - Engineering, Bioscience
    • Transportation, Distribution and Logistics YA - Auto Tech, Auto Collision, Warehousing & Inventory, Logistics
Other Web Links
  • Child Labor Laws and FAQs, DWD Equal Rights Division
  • Labor Standards home page, DWD Equal Rights Division
  • Youth Rules!, a US Department of Labor website for teens, parents, educators and employers
  • Young Workers, a US Department of Labor - OSHA website
  • Youth@Work: Talking Safety Wisconsin, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (NIOSH) website



0 Comments

April 29th, 2015

4/29/2015

0 Comments

 
How do you move a public education system based on Democratic education where people are taught to be citizens and receive a broad education so everyone has equal opportunity to advance up the economic ladder to one that focuses only on business and being employed?  Obama and Race to the Top has created an entire network of after-school programs to teach children that business and entrepreneurship is what education is all about.  Who benefits from all of this corporate indoctrination -----VERY FEW PEOPLE.  IT IS ALL SIMPLY PROPAGANDA TO MOVE PEOPLE FROM OUR SYSTEM OF PUBLIC BROAD EDUCATION.  As the article shows below----people have strengths and weaknesses and if you have a strength you naturally gravitate towards that field.  Teaching, music, physicists, mechanics-----all have special skills that lead children and parents to decide to follow that career path.  So, all of this hype over entrepreneurship is simply a ploy to fill our schools with business making our K-12 programs about vocations.  They are simply talking what used to be small business programs and expanding this idea of entrepreneurship at a time when global corporations are smothering and gobbling up all small businesses.

THIS IS ALL SIMPLE SMALL BUSINESS WITH A GRAND NEW NAME TO PUSH VOCATIONAL TRACKING OF EDUCATION.


Tim ClarkEntrepreneur | Educator

Aug 18, 2014Entrepreneurship Education is DeadAug 18, 2014


— Forget Ideas; Focus on Competence --

A Near-Death Experience
Last year a college asked me to teach a weeklong workshop on the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. The college, which does not offer business courses, recognized that in today's job market all students must become more entrepreneurial, so it was starting an extracurricular entrepreneurship education program. As a long-time believer that entrepreneurship instruction should be open to students in every discipline, I was delighted to accept the offer.

Nine successful entrepreneurs, all alumni of the college, joined our workshop as guest speakers. They told wonderful stories of starting and growing diverse businesses, including an onion farm, a manufacturer of cosmetics for women of color, a music store specializing in drums and imported rhythm instruments, a GPS-related smartphone application developer, a biotechnology firm, and a financial services company, among others.

Listening to their stories, I was struck by two common themes — themes that directly contradict the philosophy that underpins most college entrepreneurship education programs. At that moment, I became convinced that the traditional approach to entrepreneurship education is dead.

Two Entrepreneurship Myths
Of all the ventures the alumni described, not a single one was based on a startlingly clever or original idea. Rather, the founders started their businesses based on strong competencies, such as agricultural experience, chemical formulation, computer programming, musicianship, and accounting. In short, the bedrocks of their ventures were not ideas per se — they were competencies.

Second, with the exception of the biotechnology firm, none of these ventures used professional investors at the outset. All were initially built with sweat equity and funding from the “3Fs” — founders, friends, and family.

In short, the founders’ experiences contradicted two pervasive myths of entrepreneurship: that new ventures are based primarily on clever ideas, and that new ventures require professional investment.

____________________________________________________





As I was marching from the NW community the latest victim of police shooting to downtown and Baltimore City Hall I noticed close to Pennsylvania Ave a building called the Entrepreneur and Apprenticeship Center.  I have talked enough for now about the goal of this neo-liberal and neo-conservative apprenticeship policy and now we are going to talk about the word 'ENTREPRENEUR' and its policy goal.  I have spoken before about the negatives of this word as it relates to taking our higher education institutions---- but now I want to place it in context of our K-12.


EVERYONE LOSES WITH LOSS OF EQUAL PROTECTION AND CHILD LABOR BUT WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR ALWAYS LOSE THE MOST!!!!!!!

How do you get labor and justice organization leaders to focus on issues that are only meant to benefit global corporations?  You make them the loudest proponents of these issues.  In Baltimore, it is the NAACP and labor that back the slogan of ENTREPRENEUR as job creating.  All of their energy is going to education FOR these policies when they should be education AGAINST these policies.  This has been true of every policy coming from this Obama and Congressional session of Congress.  All these policies are tied to Trans Pacific Trade Pact.

How do you break apart public schools?  You get people who have been largely left unemployed to see the privatization of public education as a way to have a job and/or business.  They start a business being one of those coming to public schools replacing public school employees and VOILA----in comes the national education businesses and all of that subcontracting goes to these national chains and those people starting the breakdown of the public school structure are again unemployed. 

THIS IS WHAT BALTIMORE IS ABOUT RIGHT NOW---PRIVATIZATION BUSINESSES FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION AND PUBLIC HEALTH ALL WITH THE GOAL OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS COMING IN TO TAKE THESE BUSINESSES.

The idea is to use locals to break into the market----to create the idea that these are positive policies-----to make these people directly involved in community leadership and politicians all having the mission of keeping their small business alive.  Then, in comes Affordable Care Act or Race to the Top and national health chains and national education chains are  now given the contracts to handle all of the outsourced work that used to be our public education and public health with employees having career jobs.  All of this can happen in a decade and it is getting faster as Clinton neo-liberals gain control because they work for global corporations and wealth and profit as do the Republicans.


Below you see an article that shows this cannibalism of small by ever larger.  As this article states----the further it gets from being local the less it protects and is responsible for the good of consumers or the communities and cities.  Baltimore was ground zero for Uber and my favorite ZIP CAR.  ZIP CAR has gone from regional to global by being sold to Enterprise Car Rental----and the service and prices going going.  So too with Uber. So, the idea of Entrepreneur as opposed to small business owner is that the people are footing the startup costs and the promotion of an idea with all the time that goes with starting a business.  Remember, the least profitability of building a business is the first four years.  Notice that it is usually soon after that these businesses are gobbled up by these global corporations and then government supports these global corporations in legislation and promotion.



Is AirBNB the Next Uber? NYC Issues Report Calling 3 out of 4 AirBNB Rentals Illegal.

Kate Scanlon / @scanlon_kate / October 17, 2014 The Daily Signal

AirBNB can easily help travelers find unique locations to stay such as castles, villas and igloos.

Places to stay in New York, however, might be more difficult to find.

AirBNB is an online service that connects property owners with renters. Renters can search among AirBNB’s hosts for places to stay while traveling.

On Thursday, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office issued a report claiming that 72 percent of AirBNB rentals in New York City were “in apparent violation of the MDL or NYC Administrative Code.”



“Where supporters of Airbnb and other rental sites see a catalyst for entrepreneurship, critics see a threat to the safety, affordability, and residential character of local communities,” the report stated.



“We must ensure that, as online marketplaces revolutionize the way we live, laws designed to promote financial accountability and even physical safety are not forsaken under the pretext of innovation,” Schneiderman told the New York Post.

Airbnb spokesperson Nick Papas told Mashable that the findings are based on outdated information, and that AirBNB has already removed 2,000 listings in an effort to be in compliance with the law.

Papas told Mashable that AirBNB helps New York City families “pay their bills and stay in their homes” despite a plethora of rules and regulations:

“Every single home, apartment, co-op and living space in New York is subject to a myriad of rules, so it’s impossible to make this kind of blanket statement. That kind of uncertainty and lack of clarity is exactly why we’re advocating for clear, fair rules for home sharing… We need to work together on some sensible rules.”

According to the report, the disputed rentals generated $304 million in profits for hosts and $40 million for AirBNB.

James Gattuso, senior research fellow in regulatory policy at The Heritage Foundation, said that AirBNB is a victim of overregulation:

Services such as AirBNB have allowed thousands of Americans to share their residences, gaining them needed income, and providing visitors with needed lodging.  Rather than try to shut down such services, New York City should work to find ways to reconcile its rules with these innovative services.  The city should be working for its citizens and visitors, not against them.

Founded in 2008, AirBNB has already connected travelers with places to stay in more than 34,000 cities and 190 countries.

_______________________________________________


 Baltimore City School Board is filled with corporate business people pushing this Hopkins K-12 privatization forward just so Hopkins can move into this niche.  Think what apprenticeship in K-12 does when children are placed in service with a corporation like Hopkins' Home or Mobile Care for example.  The youngest are learning coding and would be easily placed in support of Hopkins' data entry or coding department all for free.  Then, a middle-school child could apprentice for Hopkins' in maintenance of equipment and vehicles all for free.  Of course, a high school child could apprentice as the assistant attending staff going on mobile trips to schools and homes all for free.

All throughout that child's K-12 school career his/her lessons and school assignments would be geared towards gaining the skills to move to the next apprenticeship with full time employment in a home health care or mobile school health business.  Guess what one of the lowest paying jobs is today?  Home health care employees.  All of that K-12 apprenticeship exposure with the end product being tied to a low wage job in an industry controlled by global corporations.


The same will happen with technology corporations having their own K-12 tracked children with their apprenticeships======manufacturing corporations with individual trades having their own K-12 tracked children.  Common Core seeks to standardize all education information around the nation but who writes these education programs?  The same global corporations ----technology/health care/ manufacturing industry CEOs.  They are using this Common Core and online lesson format to create what will be standards for each industry with all children graduating from a vocational track having apprenticed throughout K-12 and then going to a career community college for training for a specific job. 

What about 4 year academic tracks with academic degrees for higher level jobs?  Well, that is going to the Ivy League schools were people from all over the world are being brought to take those few jobs.  No need for the 90% of Americans to have anything other than this K-career college low-wage job tracking.



Mobile Care Group Delivers!


Mobile Care Group brings compassionate, expert, on-location healthcare services to people living in residential homes, extended care and rehabilitation facilities, and assisted & independent-living communities. Our range of services feature a variety of healthcare options, including: audiology, behavioral health, dentistry, optometry, podiatry/diabetic shoes, and lower extremity wound care. When home healthcare visits are not feasible, our Mobile Care EMS & Transport Service units ensure safe, comfortable, convenient wheelchair or emergent ambulance transportation. Read more...



JHHS’ most important collaboration is with The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  This collaboration is known as “Johns Hopkins Medicine”, a vehicle for internal operational coordination and a united voice for external initiatives.  Johns Hopkins Medicine allows these two distinct yet interdependent organizations to respond in an integrated fashion to opportunities and pressures affecting the Johns Hopkins medical enterprise.  Two important operational entities of Johns Hopkins Medicine are Johns Hopkins HealthCare LLC and The Johns Hopkins Home Care Group, Inc.

  • Johns Hopkins HealthCare LLC, an organization owned 50% by JHHS and 50% by The Johns Hopkins University (“JHU”), develops and manages contractual relationships with managed care organizations, employers, hospitals, physicians, and other health care providers.

    Priority Partners Managed Care Organization, Inc., an organization owned 50% by JHHC and 50% by the Maryland Community Health System, operates as an authorized managed care organization and serves Medicaid enrollees in Baltimore City and throughout the State.

  • The Johns Hopkins Home Care Group, Inc. is a not-for-profit Maryland corporation owned 50% by JHHS and 50% by JHU and is made up of three combined companies: Johns Hopkins Home Health Services, Inc., Johns Hopkins Pharmaquip, Inc., and Johns Hopkins Pediatrics at Home, Inc.  Through these entities, JHHCG offers home health services such as visits by nurses, home health aides, social workers, and physical, occupational, and speech therapists; durable medical and respiratory equipment and supplies, and home infusion therapy and pharmaceuticals; and outpatient discharge pharmacy services on the JHH and JHBMC campuses.

    _____________________________________________

    Below you see the goal of this apprenticeship K-12 and entrepreneur policy.  All money that used to fund small business for the average citizen is now going to these corporate university  research and development programs and with it now comes the pathway for students that will best lead to a university patent that will be sold in partnership with the corporate university.  Private corporations are now 'donating' to what used to be their own corporate research facilities but were once our public and private universities.  A child makes his/her way through the K-12 apprenticeship programs to do found to have special talent and they get the opportunity to attend higher education.  Don't get too excited because as a entrepreneur - in- residence you are paying university tuition and placed in university classes that again are simply free labor for corporations that are paying for the research and that will receive the patent rights shared with the university research CEO=====and you----the entrepreneur-in-residence?  We are seeing these students not even getting jobs in these newly created businesses that just move to a global corporation.  But, that student did get to go to an ordinary 4 year university now corporate research and development.

    All of these policies came from Clinton during his terms in office in the 1990s.  He started this corporatization of higher education because he embraced global corporate neo-liberalism.  Republicans have wanted to do this for decades and neo-liberals like Clinton and Obama are doing it.  So, apprenticeships from K-career college will mostly get you a poverty wage job and a chance to be one of the few entrepreneurs-in- residence in universities like Johns Hopkins and soon to be University of Maryland College Park  U of M College Park is being made Ivy League as fast as the Maryland Assembly can pass the laws! 





Entrepreneurs-in-residence school colleges in business

Caitlyn Finnegan, USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent
3:35 p.m. EDT April 5, 2013


Seeking to maximize ongoing research, innovative ideas and revenue-generating opportunities, more schools are creating entrepreneur-in-residence programs -- and letting the experts do the work.
(Photo: Thinkstock)

Story Highlights
  • Universities are seeking ways to turn research breakthroughs into business opportunities
  • Entrepreneurs-in-residence help guide the flow of innovation happening across departments in a university
  • Also help advise students seeking to develop entrepreneurial experience
With millions of dollars of research funding and teams of experts at their disposal, more universities are seeking ways to turn research breakthroughs into business opportunities.

The answer for dozens of colleges comes down to a natural solution: an entrepreneur-in-residence program.

Mentors that help accelerate the commercialization of business ideas, entrepreneurs-in-residence can come from a variety of backgrounds and specialty areas. Their job is to help guide the flow of innovation happening across departments in a university -- from connecting different researchers on campus with each other, to seeking out legal assistance for drawing up business plans to guiding an idea from prototype to reality.


Universities have always been a hotbed for research that turns into major business ideas, said Linden Rhoads, the vice provost of the University of Washington's Center for Commercialization.

The University of Washington, which handles $1.5 billion in federal research dollars each year, was one of the first to launch the programs. After winning funding from the state Legislature five years ago, UW gathered a group of seasoned entrepreneurs to help lead a new center that would focus on university spin-offs.

With an average of 20 spinoff companies coming out of its research labs each year, UW's entrepreneur-in-residence program is thriving as it helps to staff teams ready to lead the early-stage companies, Rhoads said.

"The pedigree and success of the people we bring in is hard to match," Rhoads said. "Many have company exits of over $100 million, but they know the university is a great place to look for indispensible resources, innovative ideas and low-barrier to entry companies."


Now when the university is ready to spin off a new company it looks to one of the rotating entrepreneurs-in-residence to serve as a CEO and adviser for making it successful. Graduate students and faculty are often brought on as additional team members, expanding their involvement to the business side of the research process as much as the development side.

Similar entrepreneurial models have been established at universities such as Penn State's College of Medicine, where experienced faculty serve as entrepreneurs-in-residence and help push medical breakthroughs from prototypes to market-ready products and services.

The program also has a place in undergraduate studies. Entrepreneur-in-residence programs are being used to help advise students seeking to develop entrepreneurial experience to take to their first job or to start a company of their own.

Laura Kilcrease, the entrepreneur-in-residence at the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at Austin, says the demand for entrepreneurial skills is only getting stronger.

"Let's face it, the world has changed and big companies have changed too," Kilcrease said. "We want our students to have the experience and background to go confidently into that first job or to start a company of their own."


Kilcrease is the founder and managing director of venture capital fund Triton Ventures. Her background of investing in spin-out and early-stage technology companies makes her the ideal type of entrepreneur being sought by universities across the country.

"I think there has been a distinct evolution in how these programs are run from when they first started," Kilcrease said. "At first it focused on writing a business plan, then it moved to do you have a real business idea, then do you have a prototype of the idea and now they are generating real businesses while the students are still in school."

During her tenure as the entrepreneur-in-residence, Kilcrease has started a speaker series that brings in serial entrepreneurs from a variety of business backgrounds who are willing to share their experiences with students, faculty and members of the local business community. Kilcrease also guest lectures for business classes, as well as works with individual students to mentor and help connect them with experts in the university.



_____________________________________________
Why Entrepreneur Education indeed!  Since global corporations do not want anyone cutting into their market share there is no need for the small and regional business owners that take from their profit.  All efforts must go to creating new products that they can patent and market----ergo----innovation and entrepreneurship.  It ties every government and social program to advancing the needs and profits of that global corporation.  No need for people to be a regional manufacturer of generic medicine----WE HAVE GLOBAL PHARMA DOING THAT!  No small business loan for you!


When school children are exposed to this idea of entrepreneurship from an early age ----complete with the winners and losers mantra of neo-liberal education then you have an entire generation of children not knowing what Democratic public education is or what is has as a goal----building strong citizens with a broad education and exposure to humanities and arts so as to be prepared to lead and climb the economic ladder.






'Today, no matter where you turn, stories abound of the enormous social, economic and educational benefits of entrepreneurship. As a result, entrepreneurship education programs are proliferating in colleges and universities around the country. Whereas 15 years ago only a handful of schools offered courses in entrepreneurship, today
more than 1,500 colleges and universities offer some form of
entrepreneurship training. There are currently more than 100 active university-based entrepreneurship centers in the U.S. and more than 270 endowed positions in entrepreneurship, an increase of 120 percent in just the last five years'.


Below you see where much of the after-school programming is being tied to this business training from K-12.  I told the story of a school in Baltimore with VISTAs telling a child that won a race by cheating that he was being innovative and thinking outside of the box.
This PR campaign for corporate K-12 is part of the Race to the Top privatization and is allowed to be funded by corporations no longer paying corporate taxes to support our public schools. Raise your hands if you know the basic economic principle today---that small and regional businesses have for a few decades been killed by national and global corporations---EVERYONE.  So, does it make sense that suddenly all of us are going to become small business entrepreneurs?  Of course not---they are simply using people and using this idea to kill public education K-12.

These programs spend lots of money and very few people actually benefit.  It simply builds the structure of mentality to this corporate K-12.

Why Entrepreneurship Education


The fact that entrepreneurs are the primary source of work place innovation, wealth creation and job generation for the US economy is well known. The many adult-focused education, training and enterprise assistance programs that are now part of comprehensive community development plans provide strong evidence regarding the value of the small business sector to the national—and to Michigan’s—economic well-being.

But the belief that youth entrepreneurship education programs are a critical part of those comprehensive economic development plans is far less applied in local communities—especially at the K-12 level. While excellent examples of undergraduate entrepreneurship programs are evident across the country, there is an urgent need to better link those programs to the middle and high school entrepreneurship education systems, plus to the wide variety of neighborhood and community-based organizations that specifically serve at-risk, low income and minority youth in our communities. That linkage will be accomplished only by the purposeful development and sponsorship of those programs by a representative, collaborating group of advocates who believe in the stake that entrepreneurship education has in the long term viability of our communities. That need to create a “pipeline” of entrepreneurs is based on the reality that “there should be an infrastructure of lifelong learning from elementary school to the golden age, based on the simple principle that it is never too early or too late to be an entrepreneur…The aim is to create a large and diverse pool of people across a spectrum of entrepreneurial motivations, of which there will flow a steady stream of high achievers with an interest in creating jobs and wealth in their communities”( Dabson, 2001; Dabson & Marcoux, 2003).

Integrating entrepreneurship across the entire system that impacts our youth and building a network of sustained community support for those programs are the primary issues addressed by GenEI.
As Michigan continues to deal with the current poor economic conditions accentuated by mounting losses of manufacturing jobs and a general recession, the time is now for us to better recognize the value that the small business sector plays in addressing our long term economic well-being. Concurrent with that urgent call for change is the realization that our youngest generations must be trained and mentored with an entrepreneurial mindset. By constructing and fitting a young entrepreneurial pipeline to the adult small business assistance network, GenEI  directly addresses the requirement that in order to be successful in the global marketplace, our youth and young adults must learn and practice skills that will help them “make a job” not just “take a job.”  The skill set needed to accomplish that goal includes visioning, leading, communicating, listening, problem solving, managing change, networking, negotiating and team building (Dabson, 2001; Sahlman & Stevenson, 1992).

Resistance to entrepreneurship education does not originate from students. Many studies over the last several decades strongly suggest that young people are very interested in starting small businesses and non-profit organizations.  Our own 2007 survey of 150 8th graders showed that 69 percent thought that they are currently or want to be an entrepreneur. A recent study performed by Harris Interactive with sponsorship from the E.M. Kauffman Foundation echoed that finding as 40 percent of nearly 2400 young people, ages 8-21, reported that they would like to be entrepreneurs. Additionally, two-thirds of the nearly 1000 high school students surveyed as part of a recent study sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation said that they would be interested in learning more about entrepreneurship. But in that same study, only 30 percent reported that they had taken an entrepreneurship course and a significantly smaller group (14 percent) said they had participated in an extracurricular or community program on entrepreneurship (Kourilsky & Walstad, 2007).

Students who do take these types of courses, however, tend to experience a wide range of positive outcomes. In a report to the D.C. Children and Youth Investment Corporation (2001) that focused on the evaluability of that organization’s youth entrepreneurship programs, participants showed improved:

  • Academic performance, school attendance and educational attainment;
  • Problem-solving and decision-making abilities;
  • Interpersonal relationships, teamwork, money management, and public speaking skills;
  • Job readiness;
  • Social psychological development (self-esteem, ego development, self-efficacy), and;
  • Perception of better health status.
The for- and non-profit sectors represent a strong advocate for this type of school-to-work education as well. Statistics show that the vast majority of students do not start a business immediately upon high school or college graduation, even if they experienced entrepreneurship curricula and extracurricular activities (Cleveland & Cleveland, 2006). Knowing that lessons learned and practiced in entrepreneurship courses translate to more highly skilled, adaptable young employees, employers seek out students who possess an intrepreneurial mindset. Employees of the global economy, whether self-employed or who work for others, will increasingly need to demonstrate higher levels of interpersonal skills, leadership, and teamwork abilities (Afterschool Alert, 2007). Those skill sets are directly addressed as part of most existing youth entrepreneurship education programs, including GenEI’s.

Finally, communities benefit from comprehensive youth entrepreneurship programs. Students engaged in mentoring relationships with practicing entrepreneurs at the middle and high school age are more likely to either remain in or return to that community after graduation (Schroeder, Heinert, Bauer, Markley & Dabson, 2006).  The outmigration of our young people, especially at the age when they are starting families, is a trend that continues to negatively impact Michigan by robbing us of the valuable human capital needed to rebuild our great state’s economy.

Please consider donating to help grow entrepreneur education.

Refernces Afterschool Alliance-Issue Brief #25 (2007). Afterschool programs: Helping kids compete in tomorrow’s workforce. Accessed February 12, 2008 from Web-site: www.afterschoolalliance.org .

Bronte-Tinkew, J. and Redd, A. (2001). Logic models and outcomes for youth entrepreneurship programs: A report to the DC Children and Youth Investment Trust Corporation. Child Trends Project, Kristin Moore, Director.

Cleveland, Josh and Cleveland, John (2006). Youth entrepreneurship: Theory, practice and field development. A background paper prepared for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Youth and Education Unit, Integral Assets Consulting, Inc.

Dabson, B. (2001). Supporting rural entrepreneurship: Exploring policy options for a new rural America. Center for the Study of Rural America, Kansas City, MO: Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Dabson, B.  and Marcoux, K. (2003). Entrepreneurial Arkansas: Connecting the Dots. Little Rock, AR: Winthrop Rockfeller Foundation.

Kourilsky, M.L. and Walstead, W.B. (2007). The entrepreneur in youth: An untapped resource for economic growth, social entrepreneurship, and education. Northampton, MA: New Horizons in Entrepreneurship.

Sahlaman, W.A. and Stevenson, H.H.(1992). The entrepreneurial venture: Readings. Boston: Harvard Business School Publications.

Schroeder, C., Heinert, L., Bauer, L., Markley, D., and Dabson, K.(2006). Energizing young entrepreneurs in rural communities. RUPRI.


_______________________________________________

Where are schools being taken as charters that have a vocational tracking from K-12?  City schools where parents and children have been subjected to defunded and unresourced schools Since Reagan Clinton neo-liberalism started dismantling public education.  Citizens in underserved communities are desperate for jobs and good schools.  This is why Wall Street starts this K-12 privatization in these urban schools and as you see below---it is the same black leaders and the church pushing this business and vocational education.  Keep in mind, the entire K-12 of this kind of education privatization has children working for free under the guise of learning a skill.  It is exploitative and it narrows a child's exposure to a real equal opportunity and access public education.  We all see the stats that people are going through these programs over and over and not getting jobs.  Federal, state, and local funds are being directed into these entrepreneur programs that replace the broad education and learning skill development that used to be the focus of public schools.

It is critical to educate in these low-income communities the truth of success in this kind of education training.  We need to know that the skills coming to those who start businesses come from the already existing broad and strong public education that their schools would have if they were funded and resourced.  Black churches in Baltimore are ground zero for creating charter school businesses and pushing this education privatization in our public schools.  Churches as businesses has taken what was the strong center of black communities and made them geared towards simply profiting and bringing more money to their churches and this education privatization is one more bad public policy supported by people who should be leaders against the dismantling of equal opportunity and access education.


Curriculum Review of Creating True Wealth: Christian Youth Entrepreneurship


YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP RESOURCE

Curriculum Review of Creating True Wealth: Christian Youth EntrepreneurshipCreating True Wealth: Christian Youth Entrepreneurship is a stand-alone curriculum designed to help young people develop a biblical view on entrepreneurship and godly character in the marketplace.




The Benefits of Youth Entrepreneurship Training: What the Research Shows


Entrepreneurship programs can be a lot of fun for teens—but beyond the fun, they can achieve very positive results. By learning how academic skills connect to real business opportunities and hopes for success, students can be motivated to work harder in school. Entrepreneurship programs also give wide scope to student creativity and energy and offer a positive way for students to channel their talents. 

If you are considering launching a youth entrepreneurship program, you may find it helpful to publicize and emphasize the positive benefits of such endeavors to your potential funders and volunteers. The two most obvious are that such programs can create employment opportunities (if students actually start new enterprises) and that they provide youth with an opportunity to develop new skills and enjoy new experiences. The collection below of additional research-based findings can help you “make the case” for your program.

Key Benefits

·       May help the socio-psychological problems and delinquency that come from unemployment

·       Consumers gain by increasing market competition

Supporting research: Curtain, R. (2000), “Towards a Youth Employment Strategy.” Report to the United Nations on Youth Employment.

·       Provides goods and services to the community

·       Revitalization of the local community

·       Promotes innovation and resilience

·       Allows disadvantaged youth the ability to succeed regardless of their background

Supporting Research: OECD (2001), Putting the Young in Business: Policy Challenges for Youth Entrepreneurship, The LEED Programme, Territorial Development Division, Paris.

·       Promotes social and cultural identity

·       Builds a stronger sense of community

·       Gives youth, especially at-risk youth, a sense of meaning and belonging

Supporting research: White and Kenyon (2000). “Enterprise-Based Youth Employment Policies, Strategies and Programmes.” Draft Report to ILO, Geneva. 

Entrepreneurship: It’s in Demand by Students

A key survey by the Gallup Poll indicates that many students, particularly minority youth, have a strong interest in entrepreneurship:

·       69% of high school students said that they wanted to start their own business

·       75% of black youth said that they wanted to start their own business

·       73% of the students said that independence was their primary motivation for wanting to start a business (and not monetary benefits).

·       68% of the students said that it was very important for successful entrepreneurs or business owners to give something, in addition to providing employment, back to the community

·       80% of black students said that it was very important for successful entrepreneurs or business owners to give something, in addition to providing employment, back to the community

Moreover, the survey indicated that youth are not getting the training they want:

·       9 out of 10 students rate their entrepreneurial knowledge as poor or fair at most

·       when asked to answer questions demonstrating basic entrepreneurial knowledge, high school students on average were only able to answer 44% of the questions correctly

·       85% of students said they had been taught “practically nothing about” or “very little about” business and how it works

·       only 27% of students reported that they had taken a class in business or entrepreneurship

·       84% of students said that it is “important” (36%) or “very important” (48%) that schools teach more about entrepreneurship and how to start a business

·       67% of black youth said that it is “very important” that the nation’s schools teach students about entrepreneurship and business

Supporting research: Gallup Organization, Inc. & National Centerfor Research in Economic Education. (1994). Entrepreneurship and Small Business in the United States: A Survey Report on the Views of the General Public, High School Students, and Small Business Owners and Managers.  (Available from the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Inc., Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, MO.)





0 Comments

April 28th, 2015

4/28/2015

0 Comments

 
Why does the US have high unemployment of youth vs Germany's stronger employment?  The answer is Germany is a strong social Democracy driven by domestic corporations and a strong public sector.  The US has a stagnant economy because government has been dismantled and defunded to allow systemic fraud and corruption and raiding of government treasuries so investment in and interest in fueling the economy is gone.  All money is being diverted overseas to empire-building.  That is one difference between a successful economic model and a failed Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberal and Bush neo-con model.

Neo-liberals are trying to make their plan to create an Asian-style sweat shop economy look like a plan to mirror Germany's economic model with apprenticeships after high school in partnerships with corporations.  Remember, Germany gives free higher education to all citizens whether academic or vocational so they are far different from what neo-liberals are building.  The Clinton neo-liberal/neo-con apprenticeship policy in K-12 is the Asian model of child labor and sweat shops and it is being done simply to move profits to education corporations.  No interest in quality.  The article below touches on the neo-liberal commitment of deregulation and complete corporate control.

Clinton neo-liberals have American unions working with them in turning our community colleges into this post high-school career job training path.  But think, is this really going to be necessary if K-12 is a vocational tracking throughout?  No, it is merely phasing out our public community college system.
  So, Clinton neo-liberals are not only eliminating US union apprenticeships with these community college as job training centers---it is eliminating our public community college structure and making that a simple corporate human resources employment pooling.  Unions will be eliminated from the entire process in this K-12 vocational training policy now being installed and that is the goal.

CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS ARE PRETENDING TO PARTNER WITH UNIONS IN THE GERMAN MODEL WHILE WORKING TO INSTALL THE REPRESSIVE ASIAN SWEAT SHOP MODEL.

In the US we are seeing a massive number of people go through these training programs and NOT getting a job---they simply go to another training program.  The amount of Federal and state funding lost to these private job-training programs is a trillion dollars.  Remember, this was all money that used to pay for a 4 year college degree.

Would German-Style Apprenticeships Work in the U.S.?




By Michael Dolgow July 19, 2012 Photograph by Waltraud Grubitzsch/dpa/Corbis

Apprentices for control engineering pictured at education and technology center of the chamber of handicrafts in Leipzig, Germany

In a world of high youth unemployment, where the supply of skilled labor often fails to match employer demand, Germany believes help can be found in its Dual Vocational Training System (TVET)—a time-tested economic model now incorporated into the Federal Republic’s law. This program, many supporters believe, is the reason why Germany has the lowest jobless rate among young people of any industrialized nation in the world—around 7 percent or 8 percent. With so many Americans struggling to find employment after graduating high school and college it might be worth asking: Can the German approach be brought to the U.S.?

The German concept is simple: After students complete their mandatory years of schooling, usually around age 18, they apply to a private company for a two or three year training contract. If accepted, the government supplements the trainee’s on-the-job learning with more broad-based education in his or her field of choice at a publicly funded vocational school. Usually, trainees spend three to four days at work and one to two in the classroom. At the end, the theory goes, they come out with both practical and technical skills to compete in a global market, along with a good overall perspective on the nature of their profession. They also receive a state certificate for passing company exams, designed and administred by industry groups—a credential that allows transfer to similarly oriented businesses should the training company not retain them beyond the initial contract.

The advantages are clear. TVET ensures there’s a job ready for every young person enrolled in vocational school, because no one is admitted unless an employer has already offered a training contract. No job offer, no admission. In this way, there is less risk of heartbreak when years of hard work in university go unrewarded by an unforgiving market. Students also know what they’re getting before the first day of class. This contrasts with the U.S., where many young individuals take on exorbitant amounts of debt to attend college and grad school, only to find no placement on the other end.

Blog: College Graduates, Unemployable No More “We need to address the issue of skills, because now we’re more interested in degress than in credentials,” says Assistant U.S. Secretary of Labor Jane Oates. “Since 2009 we have had a growing number of four-year college graduates unable to get sound wages in their areas of study.” Oates believes that vocational and technical training will lead to lower youth unemployment over the next 10 years, especially with emphasis on a new hybrid model based on cooperation with local community colleges, where an apprentice can earn credits toward his or her degree while earning money, and learning, on the job. Essentially, this work-school program is equivalent to the German model.

But the apprenticeship model faces significant obstacles in the U.S.

“Thus far, the U.S. corporate sector does not see technical and vocational training as one of its key responsibilities,” says Andreas Koenig, Head of Section, Vocational Training & Labour Markets at the Economic Development & Employment Department in Germany. “It is therefore not yet ready to invest in technical and vocational education and training that goes beyond a few weeks of induction or learning on the job.”

Video: Bernanke: Unemployment an `Enormous Problem' Indeed, a need to change the culture of the industrialized world is a point Koenig and his colleagues made repeatedly during a presentation of the TVET model at the German Mission to the U.N. in New York last week. To create an effective system, many advanced nations must lose the stigma attached to vocational and technical school as a fallback for those who have failed in higher education.  Rather, the training system should be embraced because it works, as the German youth unemployment rate shows.

Also standing in the way of the dual system’s acceptance is the antiregulatory fervor shared by many American corporations. As Yorck Sievers from the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce points out, efforts of private industry must be harmonized to fund and make the system effective. Companies would have to accept state oversight of training, which generates overhead expenses.

But to proponents, the immediate cost pays for itself in the form of a more skilled economy. “German VET builds competence and real ability in blue and in white collar jobs,” writes Sievers, who says the trainees benefit from their acquired technical abilities in a globalized market economy. “They find jobs easier these days, get paid better, and work under much better conditions.”

Story: Economist Sees a Dark Side to Falling Unemployment Other countries are starting to notice. Germany, through its Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), has launched pilot programs all over the world, including in Madagascar. Each speaker at the U.N. TVET conference last week emphasized that the model must be tailored to meet the needs of individual nations, even while the general concept is maintained from place to place as a solution to the mismatch between the supply of students and the demand of employers.


_______________________________________________

Where has Bill and Hillary been these few decades since Bill handed the Democratic Party to Wall Street and global neo-liberalism?  They have been moving US corporations to Asia and the Pacific rim to skirt US Constitutional and citizen rights in America.  When you read about Asian sweat shops and child labor working in factories tied to US corporations there is always a quick disclaimer-----the US corporation outsources these factories and just didn't know it was happening.  WRONG!  US CORPORATIONS TRAINED THE ASIAN FACTORY OWNERS IN WHAT IS NEO-LIBERAL WORK CONDITIONS.  Child labor and slavery is widespread in this US corporate empire-building and the same people who were willing to do it overseas are now being brought to THE US as 'wealth foreign investors' opening their own manufacturing factories in the US.  Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are simply moving these sweat shop operations home to the US to operate just as they did overseas.  That is what Trans Pacific Trade Pact is and that is what your state pols have been building in the US this past two decades as with O'Malley in Maryland.

So, as Clinton neo-liberals pretend Race to the Top is all about accountability and quality education----it is really about building the structure of child labor as warm and fuzzy apprenticeships all with the help of national labor union leaders and the NAACP and NOW.



Child Labour in Asia and the Pacific


Asia-Pacific enjoys a reputation as a vibrant economic zone, but it is also home to more working children than any other region in the world; an estimated 122 million children aged 5-14 years are compelled to work for their survival. Millions are not enrolled in school at all.

Although there has been progress in reducing child labour in many countries in the region, the problem persists. Research by the ILO’s International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)  has found working children in a number of economic sectors, including domestic labour, seafood processing, garment and footwear factories, mining and quarrying, pyrotechnics, rag-picking and scavenging, rubber and sugar-cane plantations, entertainment and other services. This list is not exclusive but it gives an indication of the efforts being made to document the many and varied forms of child labour.

The obvious vulnerability of working children also means that some face a further layer of exploitation - becoming victims of trafficking and sexual abuse.

If nothing is done about child labour the child labourers become young people with poor employment prospects who cannot lift their own families out of the poverty trap, cannot become parents able to give their children a better life, and cannot contribute effectively to national development.

Education therefore is the key. Through education and training economically and socially marginalized children and young people can lift themselves out of poverty and find ways to take a role in participate in their societies.

The ILO responseThe ILO sees free, compulsory education up to the minimum employment age as a crucial element in each country’s efforts to tackle child labour and implement ‘education for all’ (EFA) initiatives. National time-bound programmes to eliminate the worst forms of child labour and regional programmes to combat trafficking in young women and children also make a positive contribution. ILO-IPEC, which works in more than 80 countries world-wide, seeks to integrate child labour issues into national development frameworks (including EFA initiatives). This ensures that preventing and eliminating child labour becomes a national development priority, and that education and skills training become effective ways of supporting this goal.



______________________________________________

Clinton neo-liberals work with Republicans to dismantle all New Deal, War on Poverty, Labor and Civil Rights laws in the US.  In other words all of the progressive gains since FDR and LBJ.  The problem is that a government cannot simply ignore the US Constitution----these laws do not simply disappear.  Labor unions fought to end the conditions listed below and sadly----today's labor union leaders are bringing the US labor force back to the very conditions below every time they support these Clinton neo-liberals in all elections.  if they are thinking----

WE WILL SIMPLY START OVER AS IF A CENTURY OF PROGRESSIVE LEGISATION NEVER HAPPENED RATHER THAN FIGHTING THE DISMANTLING OF OUR CONSTITUTION AND RIGHTS AS CITIZENS----THEY ARE KIDDING THEMSELVES.  GLOBAL CORPORATIONS WILL NOT ALLOW UNIONS TO OPERATE IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN FOR THEIR OWN CORPORATE BENEFIT.

This is why we are seeing Trumka and national labor leaders taking this global corporation structure actually becoming a corporation themselves that profit from the abuses of labor and justice.  No one wants that.  We need our unions strong, domestic, and local. Please shake these national Clinton neo-liberal supporting union leaders out of our unions.


The strong public education that US children received is being replaced with a vocational K-12 with directed learning for just one vocation and it is led by the same kinds of people that gave us the conditions below.

Child labor in factories A new workforce during the Industrial Revolution


Introduction | Wages and Hours | Treatment | Movements to Regulate Child labor | Conclusion | Bibliography When the industrial revolution first came to Britain and the U.S., there was a high demand for labor. Families quickly migrated from the rural farm areas to the newly industrialized cities to find work. Once they got there, things did not look as bright as they did. To survive in even the lowest level of poverty, families had to have every able member of the family go to work. This led to the high rise in child labor in factories. Children were not treated well, overworked, and underpaid for a long time before anyone tried to change things for them. Wages and Hours:
Children as young as six years old during the industrial revolution worked hard hours for little or no pay. Children sometimes worked up to 19 hours a day, with a one-hour total break. This was a little bit on the extreme, but it was not common for children who worked in factories to work 12-14 hours with the same minimal breaks. Not only were these children subject to long hours, but also, they were in horrible conditions. Large, heavy, and dangerous equipment was very common for children to be using or working near. Many accidents occurred injuring or killing children on the job. Not until the Factory Act of 1833 did things improve. Children were paid only a fraction of what an adult would get, and sometimes factory owners would get away with paying them nothing. Orphans were the ones subject to this slave-like labor. The factory owners justified their absence of payroll by saying that they gave the orphans food, shelter, and clothing, all of which were far below par. The children who did get paid were paid very little. One boy explained this payment system: "They [boys of eight years] used to get 3d [d is the abbreviation for pence] or 4d a day. Now a man's wages is divided into eight eighths; at eleven, two eighths; at thirteen, three eighths; at fifteen, four eighths; at twenty, a man's wagesÐ About 15s [shillings]."


http://www.galenet.com/servlet/SRC/
Treatment:
The treatment of children in factories was often cruel and unusual, and the children's safety was generally neglected. The youngest children, who were not old enough to work the machines, were commonly sent to be assistants to textile workers. The people who the children served would beat them, verbally abuse them, and take no consideration for their safety. Both boys and girls who worked in factories were subject to beatings and other harsh forms of pain infliction. One common punishment for being late or not working up to quota would be to be "weighted." An overseer would tie a heavy weight to worker's neck, and have them walk up and down the factory aisles so the other children could see them and "take example." This could last up to an hour. Weighting could lead to serious injuries in the back and/or neck. Punishments such as this would often be dispensed under stringent rules. Boys were sometimes dragged naked from their beds and sent to the factories only holding their clothes, to be put on there. This was to make sure the boys would not be late, even by a few minutes. Child labor: Movements to Regulate
There were people in this time period that strongly advocated the use or the abolishment of child labor, or at least the improvement of conditions. Factory owners loved child labor, and they supported their reasoning with ideas that it was good for everything from the economy to the building of the children's characters. Parents of the children who worked were almost forced to at least approve of it because they needed the income. There were, however, some important figures that fought for the regulation, improvement, and/or abolishment of child labor. The first step to improving conditions was in 1833 with the Factory Act passed by Parliament. This limited the amount of hours children of certain ages could work. Specifically, children 9 to 13 years of age were only allowed to work 8 hours a day. Those 14 to 18 years of age could not work more than 12 hours a day. Children under 9 were not allowed to work at all. Also, the children were to attend school for no less than two hours during the day. Perhaps the most important part of this act was the part that said the government would appoint officials to make sure the act was carried out and complied with. Later, in the early 20th century, activists went even further to protect children's rights in labor. Among these figures was Jane Addams, founder of the Hull House. Activists in the U.S. made the government set up the Children's Bureau in 1912. This made it the U.S. government's responsibility to monitor child labor.
http://www.galenet.com/servlet/SRC/ In the time of the Industrial Revolution, the children of the families who moved to the crowded cities had their work situation go from bad to worse. In rural areas, children would have worked long hours with hard work for their families farms, but in the cities, the children worked longer hours with harder work for large companies. Harsher treatment, fewer rewards and more sickness and injury came from poorly regulated child labor. Child labor today is still apart of many economies. 59,600 of the workers in the U.S. are under 14 and many other countries have huge child labor troubles. Child labor came from the Industrial Revolution and is still around today.


______________________________________________
Here in Baltimore we are seeing schools run as businesses with cuts in funding and staff----and what was a Republican policy of children being made to clean their schools.  This is also what neo-liberal education policy in Asia does as children are connected to school in some form for 18 hours a day.  Some American parents may think this is OK.....but we need to look at the big picture as to why children are doing this.  In Maryland the plan is to stop funding for public schools as corporations and the rich pay no taxes and as state and city revenue move more and more to corporate subsidy.  All public sector employment is being eliminated and replaced with volunteering and non-profits.  Taking all of American people's free time and making them the public sector workforce for free.  American people have always volunteered and been part of non-profit groups....many times it was political action or pleasure---like the chess club or book club.  What we are seeing is all of American people's free time going right back into being the public sector even as taxes on the working and middle-class rise.  Now our children are being brought into this mix----think where this will go as Trans Pacific Trade Pact moves the US to even more autocratic global corporate control.  IT WILL NOT BE A SIMPLE COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERING----

Below you see a poll that says 75% of people think this is OK----REALLY????

Should students help clean schools?

Debate.org


  • Students should participate in cleaning schools It is ridiculous to hear individuals say that it is wrong for students to help in maintaining a safe, orderly clean school. Yes students are sent to school to learn. One individual stated that "it's not even their school, after a while they will not attend the school anymore"; "that's what custodians are for". So as adults we should just say ooooo I'm going to throw this trash out beside the road. That's what we have prisoners for to come pick up our trash. I'm renting this apartment. It's not even mine. I'm going to just not care about my environment because I'm not going to be here long. Absurd! And the whole deal about custodians.... Yes they work harder probably than anyone at the school. If students participate in maintaining a school it's because it promotes responsibility and ownership of contributing to a positive environment. You guys are really encouraging students to walk by trash, look at it and say I'm not going to pick it up because someone else is getting paid to do it. The opposing responses to this debate is taking things to the extreme because your opinion makes it seem that students spend half of their day cleaning the school. I think the question said, should students help clean schools. Cleaning a school can be just a simple picking up a piece of trash in the hallway if they see it. A simple ten seconds of emptying classroom trash cans. That makes a difference. Helping to clean a school also means not being the one makes the "mess"! Kids are going to be kids, but also teach them to be the best looking school in the nation! That means setting that vision that they will not tolerate learning in a nasty unpleasant school. Even if they don't make the mess. Concluding, custodians make their earnings. Trust me. But my gosh people.... There's only so much they can do cleaning behind 600-1200 or students/staff!!!!!!!!!! No I'm not a custodian. I'm an educator who understands the importance of preparing my children for the necessary gains of knowledge in their studies and how to be a DECENT citizen.

    Posted by: Jpd005 Report Post Like Reply Challenge00
  • Students should be responsible for the cleanliness of schools. They will be less likely to add to the trash, if they pick it up. I saw students at a private school in Taiwan cleaning. At a specified time, formal classes ended and students mopped, cleaned winders, dusted, swept, etc. Although the younger children were not old enough to perform some tasks, they were able to sweep. Cleaning was an integral part of their education. These students worked hard and seemed proud of the work they accomplished.

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • This is a concept all should form a habit doing. Cleanliness is something everyone should form a habit doing. The problem with many individuals is that they do not learn in at a young age to care about property other then their own. There is a common thought process when one throws away a paper towel and misses the trash that they don't need to pick it up and dispose of it, because someone else will do it. If we teach kids to be mindful of even these little menial jobs, they can be even more faithful in bigger jobs. Success in life begins at the bottom. To care about the smaller jobs. Part of Dr Ben Carsons story of growth to being an honored surgeon was he began with menial jobs. One of them being cleaning the freeways. He did the best he could and figured out how to do it the most efficiently that he was promoted. Let's teach our children to care about this cleanliness because it will serve them well in their future life successes.

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • Students should clean Students should clean their classroom every day for 30 min. The schools wouldn’t have to hire a janitor. Instead, they can use the money for buying more school supplies and sports equipment. Also, the students would develop a deep since of community when they clean together. They can share tasks and take pride in what they are doing. In addition, students will be more motivated to keep their classroom clean. They will think twice about throwing garbage on the floor because they will know that they will have to pick it up. Some people might argue that cleaning is a menial task and academics are more important. However, cleaning is a life skill they can use at home, at school, and later at work.

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • Students make the mess in the bathrooms and usually they never clean up after themselves People who say they shouldn't clean restrooms should think about it because students make the mess and never clean up after themselves. For example they never flush the toilet or they throw/waste paper when it's on the floor. It's just my opinion but people should think about it. You can argue with me but it's my opinion.

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • Students make the mess in the bathrooms and usually they never clean up after themselves People who say they shouldn't clean restrooms should think about it because students make the mess and never clean up after themselves. For example they never flush the toilet or they throw/waste paper when it's on the floor. It's just my opinion but people should think about it. You can argue with me but it's my opinion.

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • I agree with this idea If the students helped keep their school clean, that would help inspire pride in their school and learning environment. When a person has pride in their school, home, office, act., they tend to enjoy being there and in the case of students, would be less likely to vandalize school property, if they are the ones who would be responsible for cleaning up the mess. Japan requires students to spend 30 minutes

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • Yes ,students should also help to keep the school clean Because school is our place to study , it is our second home so as we keep our home neat and clean suitable for our study etc., we should keep our school clean . Teachers should also teach the students to keep the school clean . If the students will keep the school clean then only they can tell other persons to keep there surroundings clean ...

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • Cleaning is a type of knowledge. Even in cleaning you can get knowledge. You will come to know what all things you should use to clean & what all should not. You will know how to clean a room well. You will know more about cleaning and understand that it is not just brooming but also to make it look nice, neat etc..

    Report Post Like Reply00
  • Affecting studies and score If its the students responsibility to keep his/her school clean then he will be wasting the time in cleaning the mess . It would not provide him with enough of time to concentrate on his subject in his leisure time .
    Students should be aware of cleanliness in the school but it is the managements responsibility to clean the keep the school clean as they are paid for it .

    Report Post

  • No, students should not help clean schools If students make a mess at lunch, they are usually expected to pick it up and MOST of the time they do. If a teacher sees a student leave trash at the table, they usually tell the student to pick it up, and if the student refuses, they can get in trouble. This is fine, but forcing a student to pick up a certain area of the school as a part of their education doesn't do jack. Janitors are being paid for a reason...

    Posted by: joey915 Report Post Like Reply Challenge00
  • That's why we have castiodiens The school is reasonable for it's own maintnce and being forced to do the work for the school owned by the government is known as slave labour or un-voulentary labour and I'm not getting paid or even a higher grade that's why they hired janitor because they make money doing that if me a 13 year old student cleans and dose all that #1 I'm exposing my self to more germs #2 is slavery so I say NO




____________________________________________________

Baltimore City is the epicenter of this neo-liberal/neo-conservative policy of bringing US labor down to its lowest point because of the control Johns Hopkins has on the city's public policy and because it has made itself the source of many job opportunities.  The use of apprenticeships, or as this article makes clear---they are now called internships -----moves the American people away from creating a career and starting to earn higher wages after graduating from a college or trade school with a degree or trade certificate to one where America's youth are expected to put in time in service to their country or city which when the corporation owns and runs the city or country as today-----it means giving free labor to maximize corporate profit.  Baltimore's economy is one big free labor fest courtesy of Hopkins, Baltimore Development, and their pols in City Hall and Maryland Assembly.

From VISTA college grads forced to work in these low-wage corporate service jobs, to unpaid apprenticeships, to VETS and the Disabled 'donating' their time in exchange for benefits.....Baltimore's poverty is based in this citizen as service in lieu of a hired public sector employee.  Meanwhile, Baltimore corporations which pay no taxes and get loads of corporate subsidy-----are maximizing their profits off of the free labor in Baltimore.  We are supposed to think that is OK because that is the price for attracting global corporations to Baltimore that offer nothing to the city but fraud and corruption.

This unpaid labor has been in place in Baltimore for a few decades and it was leveled at young adults and people receiving public benefits -----but now they are taking this down into our public K-12 and indoctrinating children to the idea that it is their duty to work.  Remember, in Baltimore schools are operating as businesses and funding for public schools is being eliminated so if the children want an education they need to augment the costs of these schools!  Imagine as what are now called 'public' charter schools finally become what they really are------private charter chains-----and Wall Street now has children in a system of working for their K-12 education---

THERE GOES PUBLIC K-12 JUST AS CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS GOT RID OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES.

DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN BECAUSE ALL THIS IS REPUBLICAN POLICY.  THESE EDUCATION POLICIES WERE WRITTEN IN REPUBLICAN THINK TANKS AND GEORGE BUSH WAS INSTALLING IT BEFORE OBAMA CAME ALONG TO CONTINUE.  SO, THE PROBLEM IS OUR DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS TAKEN BY CLINTON WALL STREET NEO-LIBERALS AND THEY NEED TO GO.

Every time your labor union and justice organization leaders support a Clinton neo-liberal----this is the policy they are supporting.  All of Maryland's pols are Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons!


The article below is long but please glance through....it shows the thinking of those that think all of this is OK.  Think about how these internships/apprenticeships are working----as most students going through them are not getting employed at any point. 



In Defense of Unpaid Internships The harsh reality: Unpaid internships are messy, useful, necessary

  • Derek Thompson
  • May 10, 2012
The economics of unpaid internships are as clear as the ethics are muddy. Employers want cheap workers, especially with the economy weak, and it doesn't get any cheaper than free. Students and recent graduates want experience and work at any price, and they're willing to settle for zero.

Yesterday, I asked you to tell me your experiences and opinions about unpaid internships. Hundreds of you responded. Here is the first batch of answers -- against unpaid internships. And here is the second batch - in defense of working for free.

'UNPAID INTERNSHIPS ARE A GREAT THING'

Unpaid internships are a great thing. Too bad too many people are putting pressure on companies to end them.

Internships were once called apprenticeships.
They allowed (mostly) young men to spend time learning a trade by paying the company with a time of free labor. It was a winner because after the apprenticeship men could look forward to a lifetime of higher pay by becoming a skilled tradesman.

Unfortunately the nanny state needs to end that. The horror of teaching people a trade while not paying a mandated minimum wage is considered so 17th century to today's more enlightened beings. Horror of horrors, people could learn skills to last a lifetime without going through a federally mandated re-education training program. Can't allow that to happen. - Buckland

Unpaid internships: Better for students than paid-for college?


If I had 100,000 dollars of grants and loans and cash to do all over again, I might just pay to intern for four years. The liberal arts degree has to be exposed as a fraud. If I told an industry leader, "I'll support myself for four years to be truly an apprentice", that seems infinitely more valuable than a traditional four year college experience, if the goal is ultimately about job placement. I have a library card. I can read and research at will without a term paper as incentive. - Robert Wohner


'What's the matter with free training?

I agree that making an unpaid internship a de-facto requirement to even be considered for employment is dead wrong. It amounts to a "free trial period" for the company/organization.

But there has to be an appropriate middle ground that recognizes the value that an employer provides to the intern through training without turning it into an exploitative situation. I simply don't believe that any and all unpaid internships are, by definition, exploitative. Why should an employer - who may not even be your future employer - have to train you for free? - R_Alexander

The harsh reality: Unpaid internships are messy, useful, necessary

As an undergrad at a state school, I worked every summer because my parents couldn't afford to pay for my living expenses. I also worked during the school year at my university's library. Recognizing how important an internship was, I arranged my schedule to be able to intern for 9 months at a consulting firm for 15hrs a week during my Sr. year. The internship was unpaid, but the experience was invaluable. I got to see first hand how corporate America works. While I did things like write briefs, prepare excel files, and make presentations (all stuff I knew how to do), I learned how to do those things in a professional setting.

That internship greatly helped me get into graduate school, thanks to a great letter of recommendation. It also helped me land a graduate assistant position that has paid for all of my schooling. Finally, it helped me land a high paying job at a major consulting firm. So I greatly appreciate my unpaid internship, even though it required a lot of sacrifice (I had to work weekends and drop out of student government).

I do however recognize the challenges that unpaid positions place on students from lower income families. I applaud efforts by schools to provide funding. My graduate program had a fund to pay for half of an internship, if the employer would pay the other half. Unfortunately, not enough of these programs exist.

The area that has the biggest problem with unpaid internships is the nonprofit sector. In DC, every organization is basically run by unpaid interns, and they get to do this because they are nonprofits. If you want to work for a nonprofit, you have to have multiple internships. What is sad is that these nonprofits really don't have the money to pay people, which makes the nonprofit/think tank/capitol hill world nearly off limits to those without outside support. - Holland Avery


In defense of my unpaid internship


  I did an unpaid internship with a Fortune 200 (actually it may have been in the top 100 at that time) company quite some time back. It was only a part time engagement, maybe 10-12 hours per week for a semester if I recall correctly. I didn't mind it being unpaid, really, for a couple of reasons:

1) It gave me the opportunity to put some relevant work experience on my resume at a time when I needed it, and to also secure a good reference. 2) I did get the opportunity to learn/train on some resources that my school did not have available, broadening my skill set. This was done in a way that also ended up with my delivering some work of value to the company. Again, things I could list on my resume, and needed to do so. I took an active initiative in shaping my internship into a positive and valuable learning experience. I knew what I wanted to get out of it and I asserted myself to make sure that I got it. I can imagine that a student that didn't do so and just expected this to be done for them could end up being disappointed and even misused. It really is quite challenging to design an internship experience that is not going to end up being a waste of time for both the student and the employer. If there isn't going to be any cash in it for the student, then there really should be something else of value that they can expect to get out of it. If there isn't that either, then these things really are not worth doing. - stefanstackhouse


'An unfortunate economic reality'


Taking unpaid internships has become an unfortunate economic reality. Bluntly, why should a firm spend money taking on an over-entitled and technically untrained college student when another is willing to work for free?  If a hungry student from China/India is willing to outwork me for free, and with a smile on their face, shame on me. We're in an economic recession, remember?


Fortunately, an unpaid position isn't necessarily the "slave labor" that this article makes it out to be.  If the position you're interning for is a career and not a job, you shouldn't really be interning for wages, but rather, experience. Indeed, what I've found most valuable from my past internships have been the networking opportunities, enhanced technical expertise and credibility, and more importantly, knowing whether this is something I'm really cut out for. I value that more than cash right now.

The problem, therefore, is not so much that no wage is being distributed, but that most students have no clue why they are even interning in the first place. As with all big decisions (marriage, college, children), I think we need to stress the importance of considering why we do the things we do, work included.

How about this- in exchange for charging exorbitant tuition fees, why don't colleges briefly explain to their students why internships are important? How about colleges explain what a student should hope to get out of their experience, and whether they should be even doing these internships in the first place? Now THAT is something that is worth paying for.

Disclaimer: Currently working in the financial services industry, multiple unpaid internships, everything financed through scholarships and part-time jobs, everything learned on the job. Glad I worked for free.

THE UNFORGIVING ECONOMIC LOGIC OF UNPAID INTERNSHIPS


The unpaid internship is basically a deal where the employer pays the employee (or labor donor, as it were) not in cash, but in the form of value of exposure to the field of work and experience, which is a form of marketability to try and actually snag paid work in that field. With such a brutish labor market, especially for new college graduates, there is an immense demand to pay for such an opportunity. And of course, from the "employer's" POV, as anyone who has taken marketing and/or economics 1001 can attest to, there is no better price than FREE!

Unpaid internships offer 'value other than money'

Unpaid internships - are they forced labor? Huh? I thought they were voluntary. If a student is being exploited, exactly what is stopping him/her from leaving? If he/she doesn't leave the unpaid internship, then I would expect that there's value somewhere. I had several unpaid internships in the early 90s when I was getting ready to finish my BA - gave me something to put on my resume! Gave me some insight into how companies worked. Gave me insight into what I wanted to do and what I didn't.

There is value there other than money. Most Bachelor grads that I've met have NO IDEA how to work in a business environment, what professional behavior is. They are scared/hesitant to talk to people (need to learn to project confidence), and just plain green. If there are no paid jobs available (and they can afford not to work - there's the rub), then unpaid internships are a great stepping stone.

If students start suing because they are being 'exploited' then guess what - internships will stop. They will become too risky for companies to do. And guess what - college graduates will be getting Starbucks/retail jobs instead of business/professional jobs and it will become more difficult for them to get a start.

Now, it sounds like there are definitely abusers out there - companies that get a lot of work out of interns on an ongoing basis and use interns as a substitute for paid employees. That's not on.

But again, there still is such a thing as free will. I'd expect interns to punish these companies through social media, through websites reviewing internships, I'd expect they would be exposed and be forced to change practices. Anyone know if there are sites like this out there? Glassdoor or jobitorial equivalents? - Paula Cassin

'Paid in kind'


In my mind my internships weren't unpaid, they were paid in kind(work experience, references and connections). So, while I didn't get paid with US currency, I was given something much more valuable: evidence that I could deliver professional quality work using the knowledge and skills I was gaining from my degree program. I went into my first job (after receiving my degree) with two professional references in the field I had studied in.


The value of unpaid internships: Part I

I was an intern for a member of Congress while I was in college. I opened mail, answered phones, took tourists for visits in the Capitol, ran gopher errands to other offices. Eventually I started helping draft correspondence, research legislation, and help with more substantive work.

My internship was invaluable. I had an extremely flexible schedule and I had a chance to see the sausage being made as it were.

Internships in DC are almost a rite of passage, especially on the Hill.

The value of unpaid internships: Part II

I'm currently doing a (barely) paid internship for a think tank in D.C., and it's provided valuable insights into the way think tanks operate. I now know what to expect, have a great line on my resume, and am going to be employed full-time in an unrelated field. However, I will always have this under my belt, and it is a great talking point during interviews that shows the diversity of my ability (and contributes a name-brand institution to my resume).

The value of unpaid internships: Part III

I work for a nonprofit organization and we have a nearby university that has a nonprofit management grad program. My comments are industry specific.

The interns we get from this grad program DEMAND to be given substantial work. They are snippy when they don't have "enough" to do. They complain to their program directors when they aren't given entire projects to manage. They think they should be able to write grant proposals and plan events. We actually have to actively manage their expectations of the amount of responsibility they will have.

There are other nonprofits in town that are so strapped for resources they actually do depend on interns to manage projects, and those are the internships the interns claim they prefer - they actually snark about our organization because we are well-run enough that we don't "need" to do this. We actually have a "reputation" as having a bad internship program, because we hew closely to the supposed ideals of the Labor Dept (aka the law).

Also, I would point out that nonprofit orgs don't use interns to replace hypothetical paid employees. If we didn't have the interns, the work just wouldn't get done. Or, we would lean more on our volunteer corps to do it. But if there's no intern to answer phones at the front desk, the front desk goes unmanned. It's that simple.

Finally, I would add that a lot of students I have encountered in nonprofit management grad programs are there because they want a credential. Many of them have already worked in the nonprofit world and just think the master's degree will boost their job prospects. A strict "internship" where they are just observing me and getting under my feet is an utter waste of their time. They are sort of like the mid-career professional who is suing the producers of "Black Swan" because he thought all the coffee fetching he did was beneath him. (Which it was. He's 40, and he knows what it means to work for a paycheck.)



0 Comments

April 27th, 2015

4/27/2015

0 Comments

 
This week I would like to talk about the 'entrepreneur and apprenticeship' policy that is being built in Baltimore. 
Again, all of this has the markings of progressiveness----making people more job-ready etc.  Think about what this might actually be when you consider Obama and Congressional Clinton neo-liberals are pushing Trans Pacific Trade Pact as are Maryland O'Malley and Maryland Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons.  In other words---think how profit-oriented, global  corporate rule pols would use this policy.


The Clinton's left office and started immediately to network worldwide for US corporations expanding after they passed NAFTA, deregulated, and created the structures for global markets.  For two decades they are the leading faces in US Corporations in China, Malaysia, Africa, Vietnam, and since last decade to the Caribbean Islands.  They worked with those nation's leaders to open developing nations to US corporations to work outside the US to avoid all labor and environmental and social justice laws and all of the wages and pensions and basically create the sweat shops that had foreign workers working for $2 a day.  In China, the Clintons sent in BIG AG to create the same agricultural disaster for small farmers that existed in Mexico-----millions of small farmers lost their family land and were left with nothing to do but come to the big Chinese cities to work in these sweat shops.  Mind you, this is actual US policy to undermine social stability and make people available for the worst of working environments.  In Mexico this same policy during Clinton's terms in office created the Mexican drug cartels -----many of which were these same small farmers pushed off their land and angry as heck.  This is the Clinton Initiative....to move US global corporations into operations that maximize profit any way possible with people as human capital, not citizens.


Remember when neo-liberal economist Kristof was telling us the great migration of Chinese workers from their agricultural homes to these sweat shops earning $2 a day was a good thing?  He never told you these people lost their land to BIG AG and were forced into what was slave labor.  They hid the fact that child labor was rampant in these US factories and as this article says----conditions were as they were back in the industrial days of the West-----so, it was Clinton's intention to create for US corporations the conditions free from America's Constitutional protections and first world quality of life just as it is Clinton's and Obama neo-liberals today that intend to bring these now global corporations back to the US to do the same to US workers, both US citizens and Hispanic labor.  That is what Trans Pacific Trade Pact is about.


The debate over Asian sweatshops Nike factory in China

Apple Computer, Nike, Wal-Mart and many other companies depend on Asian sweatshops as suppliers--a sweatshop being defined as a factory with low pay and benefits, long working hours and child labor.

Some writers, including Nicholas Kristof, who reports from Asia and Africa for the New York Times, and Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, say that in historic perspective, Asian sweatshops represent a step forward.  As bad as conditions are in China or Cambodia, they are better than they were under Mao.  As tough as it is to work in a Foxconn factory, many find it a lesser evil than rural poverty.  As bad as it is to have a young child working 12 hours a day in a factory, it is better than being sold into prostitution, if that is the only alternative.

SF writer Bruce Sterling made this argument many years ago in an article in Wired magazine about megaprojects in China and elsewhere.

China has a very bad government.  Nobody should fool themselves about this.  It’s a profoundly corrupt one-party dictatorship based on a bankrupt, morally discredited ideology.

However, the current Chinese government is certainly the best government any living Chinese citizen has ever seen.

Their 20th century: Corruption, Catastrophe, Foreign Repression, Revolution, Repression, Revolution, Military Coup, Chaos, Warlordism, Anarchy, Foreign Invasion, People’s War, Civil War, Communism, Starvation, Purges, Anarchist Frenzy, Counterpurges—and then, suddenly, material relief—maybe enough food and a warm place to sleep.

The 21st century is almost upon them now [this was written in 1998]: cologne, panty hose, Asian pop videos and maybe even a car.  The Chinese people are definitely with this program.  They know how much they have to lose.

Defenders of Asia sweatshops go on to say that there were sweatshops and child labor in the United States in the early days of industrialization, and, so they argue, this laid the foundation of the prosperity that we enjoy today.

The problem with this argument is that the sweatshop advocates are saying to the Chinese workers: Thus far and no further.  Because conditions were even worse in the past, you can’t expect any improvement in the future.

U.S. companies such as Apple Computer, Nike and Wal-Mart are not just adapting to Chinese conditions.  They are collaborating with the Chinese government is keeping conditions as they are.
  If Chinese workers had the freedom to bargain collectively, I would not tell them they were settling for too little.  But you can’t claim to be an advocate for Chinese workers and at the same time deny them a voice.

What I would ask of Apple, Nike or Wal-Mart is that the company  live up to its own professed standards.  This would require two things:

  • Have labor standards audited by a truly independent organization, such as the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior, and publish the results of these audits.  There would be no need to set new standards.  Let the auditors use existing corporate standards.
  • Cancel bonuses of an executive who subcontracts to a supplier that fails to meet the minimum labor standard.  So long as executive compensation is based solely on financial criteria, and labor standards are merely aspirational, the latter will be ignored.
We the people could choose to buy only from companies that have independent audits and meet minimum labor standards.  Shareholder activists could demand independent audits and labor standards.  The U.S. Congress could finance independent auditors and impose taxes or penalties on imported products produced under inhuman conditions.

This would not mean the deindustrialization of China or other poor countries.  It would be a lever to both protect American workers and improve conditions in those countries.  It would not be a zero-sum game.  Prosperous Chinese would be good potential customers.

Such leverage has been used to improve the quality of manufactured products.  The ISO 9000 standards for assuring a quality manufacturing process spread outward from Germany to the European Union to the whole world.  It should be possible to use similar techniques to inprove labor standards.

The strenuous efforts by the Chinese government and Chinese governments to suppress unions and blacklist malcontents, and the suicides among stressed-out workers at Foxconn, the big Chinese electronic components supplier, show that Chinese workers—some of them, at least—want something better than they have.  We Americans should not be accomplices in holding them down.




___________________________________________

Below we see the most recent Clinton endeavor all under the guise of lifting women from poverty this time in Myanmar.  The Myanmar generals opened their autocratic military society to neo-liberalism because the few always get fabulously rich and all they have to do is offer up their citizens and environment to US global corporations.  So, you see Hillary placing yet another generations of workers in harms way for the technology industry and they will create the same conditions in Myanmar as they did in China for these workers-----IT'S ALL ABOUT SAVING THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN SAY THE CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS.

All of the policy in the US during Obama's terms were about pushing all that is Federal, state, and local government online-----data, data, data.  With that comes the need for really cheap data coding/data entry labor.  Computer coding is the new Chinese garment sweatshop.  Computer coding will be one of the lowest paid jobs in the world as it can be done anywhere and in the developing world that means $2 a day.

What is the biggest push in the US with vocational tracking and job training for women and people of color-----computer coding.  US workers will be competing with these Myanmar workers in this Trans Pacific Trade Pact market.




minorities and women to learn coding for free -...

www.dailytech.comJun 29, 2014 · ... said it will pay for thousands of free lessons in coding for women and ... and many women just don't find computer science/programming ...



Clinton Global Initiative, GSMA and Ooredoo Unite to Connect Women in Myanmar to the Internet

Ooredoo will Enable Millions of Women in Myanmar to Access Mobile and Launch New Services for Women in Indonesia

DOHA, Qatar, Oct. 2, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Ooredoo, the GSMA, and their partners announced a number of major new initiatives for the GSMA Connected Women Programme at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Annual Meeting in New York recently.

The Connected Women Programme will undertake studies that will offer critical insights into the socio-economic benefits of greater inclusion of women in the telecommunications sector. The findings will be used by partners – including Ooredoo – to develop initiatives and services for female consumers and employees. 

Ooredoo will draw on the data to provide tailored services for women in Myanmar, aiming to connect millions of women to mobile and internet services– many of whom have never had access to the Internet before.

In addition, Ooredoo's Indosat will draw on the data to launch new services designed for women in Indonesia. Indosat will launch a new start-up called Wobe, targeting lower to middle income Indonesian women with voice, data and internet services.

Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation, said: "'Ensuring that women can fully participate in this growing mobile economy by joining the mobile workforce and lending their creative talent to what these devices can do is important, but also essential is increasing connectivity for women so that they can experience the economic benefits and growth that can make measureable differences in their lives and for all of us."

H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman, Ooredoo Group, said: "Ooredoo companies have already taken the lead in providing award-winning services for women in markets ranging from Iraq to Indonesia. By deploying the findings of the Connected Women Programme, we will be able to further refine and develop these initiatives in support of expanding the female digital economy in all our markets."

"We are undertaking specific commitments in our newest market of Myanmar to connect millions of women who have never had access to the Internet before with the incredible life-changing opportunities of online services. This initiative will not only change the lives of our customers, it will also deliver significant change in the communities where they live," he added.

"The ubiquity and affordability of mobile presents us with the unprecedented opportunity to improve and enhance social and economic development", said Anne Bouverot, Director General, GSMA. "However, women in particular tend to be left behind, not only as consumers of mobile services, but also as employees and leaders in the mobile industry. To address this, the GSMA has partnered with key industry stakeholders with the vision of accelerating the potential of the female digital economy."

The research project will aim to increase understanding of the current mobile phone gender gap, the drivers for and barriers to mobile phone access and usage, and implications for industry policymakers and other stakeholders. The study will be amongst the most comprehensive taken to date, including 12,000 interviews and 84 focus group sessions across China, Columbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, Niger, Nigeria and Turkey.

In partnership with A.T. Kearney, the GSMA will also undertake and publish a landmark piece of research examining the state of gender diversity across the industry, highlighting best practices and offering strategic advice on areas of potential change.

Upon completion of the research reports in early 2015, the GSMA Connected Women Programme partners, which currently include, Ooredoo, Qualcomm, Roshan and Smart Communications, commit to using the insights and recommendations generated, to create programmes and services for their female customers and employees.

As part of its commitment, Ooredoo has plans in place to launch products and services designed for women in Myanmar at the start of 2015, supported by a programme to raise awareness about the benefits of mobile technology. Most recently, Ooredoo has launched a maternal health application, "maymay", which offers maternal health advice notifications, personalised health alerts and tips for expectant mothers, in a first-of-its-kind service for Myanmar.

In Indonesia, the new Wobe service will enable women to get online easily and at low cost, and will provide education and financial literacy through mobile content.  It will also enable women to become distributors of mobile airtime credits to their family, friends and neighbours – creating new economic opportunities for women.

GSMA operator partners will use the findings to deliver the appropriate services including: enhanced access to the mobile Internet for women; recruitment of women to become distributors of mobile airtime credits within their communities, which will allow them to expand digital access while generating household income; provision of information and services that women need with regards to health, education and entrepreneurship skills; provision of mobile technology to women factory workers to enable access to health information; and launch services designed to protect women in vulnerable situations by enabling them to block unwanted callers, preventing harassment and verbal abuse.
______________________________________________

It's important to see the same terminology for this education reform in nations tied to this global corporate neo-liberalism.  UK and US are tied from the beginning with Thatcher/Reagan and Clinton/Blair.  This apprenticeship policy heads for the underserved communities and communities of color first as is happening in Baltimore.  The goal will be to take all of public K-12 into this corporate vocational tracking scheme.  Remember, with all of the union-busting, looting of Trusts and retirements, and ending of public health care and education----killing the middle-class by Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons----90% of Americans are expected to be at or near poverty within a decade or a little more.  So, when they start with underserved communities today----they have all Americans in mind in the near future.

We need the American people to WAKE UP!  If you are quiet because you don't care what happens to people who are poor or people of color---you need to see the same coming for your children and grandchildren.  The mainstreaming of the term apprenticeship is the first step to moving these practices to earlier and earlier ages.


Remember, in America-----teenagers simply went to work after school and then to college and/or had a vocational track in high school that paid them while they trained so we do not need this hyper-vocational tracking by apprenticeship.

  IT SIMPLY IS BUILDING A PLATFORM THAT WILL EXPAND
.


Council for Mosques Apprenticeship Hub

26/02/2014 12:48

A new apprenticeship scheme is set to arrive in Bradford next week as the Council for Mosques launches its first ever Apprenticeship Hub.

In partnership with City Training Services and West Yorkshire Learning Providers, the launch is set to take place on Wednesday 5th March at the Khidmat Centre, in the city.

This event is significant in promoting awareness and aspirations for apprenticeships of young people from the local minority communities.

SUPPORTIVE: President of Council for Mosques, Mohammed Rafiq Sehgal, is delighted to offer a ‘wonderful Opportunity’ to youths in Bradford

Young people and parents are invited to come down to talk and receive Information, advice and guidance from employers, National Apprenticeship Service, Connexions, colleges and learning providers.

Set up to attract and support more young people from the minority communities and all faith groups to apply for apprenticeships, the Council for Mosques Apprenticeship Hub will provide on-going support through a network of providers in writing winning applications, interview techniques and securing apprenticeship opportunities.

The event is partly sponsored by Mangla Jewellers, My Lahore and the WYLP Skills Consortium.

Mohammed Rafiq Sehgal, President of Council for Mosques said: “There is a growing recognition that young people from minority ethnic communities need additional encouragement and support to access opportunities.

“Council for Mosques is ideally placed to provide access and support to young people wanting to access the opportunities that the apprenticeship scheme offers.

“Together with our partners, we are bringing these opportunities to the communities in the area. This is a wonderful opportunity for young people to earn and learn at the same time.”

Tracey Scott-Milner, City Training Services added he rpraise to the project. “City Training Services are committed to raising awareness of apprenticeships amongst all faiths in the city,” she said.

“With a high youth unemployment rate it is more important than ever that as many local employers, parents, schools and young people are made aware of the options available to them through the apprenticeship programme.”

Ashfaq Gulab, Partnership Manager of West Yorkshire Learning Providers said: “Apprenticeships are an excellent way for young people to gain real life skills that will give them long term benefit.

“Apprenticeships are the ‘Gold Standard’ in vocational qualifications. It is important that we have different routes into training and learning for our young people. It’s about giving them choice, and fostering their ambition so that they build the skills and confidence to succeed.”


Between 2012 and 2013, 500,000 people started on an apprenticeship scheme, with 10,000 employers offering such positions.

For Further information about the Council for Mosques Apprenticeship Hub,
contact Hafsha Ali on, H.ali@bradfordcollege.ac.uk

_____________________________________________

We already see these apprenticeships moving from high school to middle-school with national corporations claiming to be non-profit.  It's all to give the underserved the opportunity to learn what it's like to work.  Never mind that in Baltimore there has been deliberate public policy designed to keep unemployment high in the black community----people don't need the practice----they need to see their mothers and fathers working and able to take care of the family. 

This is just one example of what will be an entire industry and do you think a corporate industry is not going to have help with sending citizens to these programs from Clinton Wall Street global corporate neo-liberals? 

OF COURSE THEY WILL----WE WILL HAVE TO HAVE THESE APPRENTICESHIPS WRITTEN INTO LEGISLATION SPONSORED BY BALTIMORE POLITICIANS WORKING FOR A VERY NEO-CONSERVATIVE JOHNS HOPKINS.



Can you see already where in order to get into a KIPP charter school you will have to have years with Spark Apprenticeships? That's where it is going!

Below you see California well on the way to where Maryland is heading with Clinton neo-liberals working towards this corporate structure for over a decade.  Remember, California was source of all of the for-profit education corporation fraud that targeted the same students but at that time it was higher-education fraud-----now we are seeing the same targeting K-12 all with the goal of creating the conditions of CHILD LABOR IN THE US.

All of this exists because we have allowed Clinton neo-liberals who work simply for wealth and profit take the people's Democratic Party.  None of this has anything to do with the Democratic Party.  Stop allowing less than 20% of Clinton neo-liberals take the progressive labor and justice party!




Citizen Schools

California
partners with middle schools to expand the learning day. By drawing more citizens into our schools, we’re promoting student achievement, transforming schools, and re-imagining education in California.


21st Century Community Learning Centers:

Citizen Schools California hereby formally notifies the local community of its intention to apply jointly with Alum Rock Union School District to the California Department of Education for Cohort 9, 21st Century Community Learning Centers. The centers will serve students at the following middle schools in Alum Rock: Ocala, Joseph George, and William Sheppard. Our application is due to the California Department of Education by December 12, 2013. We also take this opportunity to inform private schools, faith based organizations, and other community based organizations of our intent to provide safe and accessible, academic and enrichment programs in the aforementioned schools. Parties interested in participating in our programs are asked to contact Macy Parker.






PARTNERS These investors provide essential support for Citizen Schools’ programs in California.

Google, Bank of America, Cisco, Cognizant, WalMart.....as well as corporate foundations all in lieu of paying corporate taxes!







About Spark

Our Mission

Spark’s mission is to provide life-changing apprenticeships to youth in underserved communities across the United States. In the major metropolitan regions Spark serves, an average of 35% of students do not achieve a high school diploma. Importantly, nearly 70% of those dropouts did not complete or had to repeat the 9th grade.

Spark is a national nonprofit that re-engages underserved seventh and eighth grade students, keeping them on track and ready for success in high school and beyond through workplace-based apprenticeships that uniquely combine mentoring, project-based learning, skill building and career exploration.


By intervening early, Spark partners with schools to reach disengaged students at a critical inflection point in their education.  Spark brings students out of the classroom and into the workplace for project-based mentoring coupled with an in-school Leadership Curriculum that emphasizes the importance of skills including teamwork, time management and goal setting to prepare students for a successful transition to high school. Supported by more than 80 hours of powerful, hands-on programming, 90% of Spark students enter ninth grade on track to graduate on time, compared to 70% of their peers.








0 Comments

April 25th, 2015

4/25/2015

0 Comments

 
I will finish with media and communications today with a look at more signs that the Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are creating an autocratic system of media that allows only a corporate state message just as Iran does with its religious autocracy and China does with its corporate state autocracy. 
Autocracy means a repressive,abusive control of government by a few wealthy people.


The examples of citizens around the world protesting the closing of their National Post Offices and growing telecom rates and consolidation shows what a society having strong labor and justice organization leadership does.  The fact that Maryland is ground zero for all policy that leads to this consolidation and repression of media is why there is no education of public policy.  Maryland's Post Office unions came out to protest but almost no citizens were there to support those protests----WHY IS THAT?  In Baltimore it is fear-----fear of being placed on a list----fear of losing jobs----fear of losing access to schools and/or social services. 

FEAR IN BALTIMORE GIVES BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND VERY NEO-CONSERVATIVE JOHNS HOPKINS CONTROL TO MOVE VERY AUTOCRATIC POLICY THROUGH WITH POLITICIANS RUNNING AS DEMOCRATS.


Americans are increasingly using social media rather than the US mail to communicate.  The dependency of Americans on internet and cell phone technology is almost complete.  Now, as these corporations become one massive corporation----these avenues disappear.  Zuckerberg's Facebook can disappear in a minute as Zuckerberg has divested his billions and could care less if Facebook was around.  There goes Cindy Walsh's blog!  Johns Hopkins likes to claim that it is the source of Facebook with Zuckerberg having been a student at Hopkins for a while and I believe it is true---it is the greatest spying and surveillance method ever and Hopkins is NSA and spying and surveillance. (NOTE THAT SPYING AND SURVEILLANCE IS NOT IN THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM AND YET----ALL OF BALTIMORE'S POLS WORK FOR JOHNS HOPKINS AND RUN AS DEMOCRATS!)  As soon as these global corporations have a grip on government they will be better served if you and I cannot communicate at all.

Social media technology is a good thing but as with all good science in the hands of sociopaths that live to lie, cheat, and steal to maximize wealth----it is being used for bad things.  The immediate danger is the loss of Post Office communications for the public alternative.  It still offers a method of privacy in communications and these global corporations and their pols hate that privacy and affordability.


How the NSA & FBI made Facebook the perfect mass surveillance tool


Image Credit: ansik May 15, 2014 6:48 AM
Harrison Weber  Venture Beat

The National Security Agency and the FBI teamed up in October 2010 to develop techniques for turning Facebook into a surveillance tool.

Documents released alongside security journalist Glenn Greenwald’s new book, “No Place To Hide,” reveal the NSA and FBI partnership, in which the two agencies developed techniques for exploiting Facebook chats, capturing private photos, collecting IP addresses, and gathering private profile data.

According to the slides below, the agencies’ goal for such collection was to capture “a very rich source of information on targets,” including “personal details, ‘pattern of life,’ connections to associates, [and] media.”



NSA documents make painfully clear how the agencies collected information “by exploiting inherent weaknesses in Facebook’s security model” through its use of the popular Akamai content delivery network. The NSA describes its methods as “assumed authentication,” and “security through obscurity.”



The slide below shows how the NSA and U.K. spy agency GCHQ also worked together to “obtain profile and album images.”



Two months ago, following a series of Facebook-related NSA spying leaks, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg stated in a blog post that he’s “confused and frustrated by the repeated reports of the behavior of the U.S. government.”

According to a report by The Intercept, the above slides do not reveal the NSA’s Facebook surveillance program in full. The report states that the NSA also “disguises itself as a fake Facebook server” to perform “man-in-the-middle” and “man-on-the-side” attacks and spread malware [below].

As we wrote at the time, the “NSA’s Facebook targeting is reportedly a response to the declining success of other malware injection techniques. Previous techniques included the use of “spam emails that trick targets into clicking a malicious link.”

Following the report, released in March, Zuckerberg said, “When our engineers work tirelessly to improve security, we imagine we’re protecting you against criminals, not our own government.”

Zuckerberg claimed he disapproved of the NSA’s actions and said that he’s spoken to president Barack Obama by phone to “express [his] frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future.”

_______________________________________

In BAltimore there is a huge scandal in Baltimore City Hall over Mayor Rawlings-Blake and this VOIP messager phone system that was installed at great cost in all phones in City Hall .  Why would a city teetering on bankruptcy choose to spend public revenue on the most expensive phone system around?

Well, because Johns Hopkins told Mayor Rawlings-Blake to do that.  No Maryland media outlet tells the tale of Hopkins/Facebook/surveillance even though it is in our own back yard.  Let's state the obvious-----placing government administrative communications on FACEBOOK VOIP allows both easy surveillance of everything talked about in government offices and it ties all of government communications to a global communications network as Facebook is building.  Mind you, Zuckerberg created Facebook not as a social media outlet but as the fastest way to move global communications onto one giant global corporation.

REMEMBER, FACEBOOK ALLOWED ONLY A FEW OF THE RICHEST PEOPLE TO INVEST IN THIS CORPORATION AS IT WAS GROWING---THEY ARE THE MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS.


So, Baltimore's Mayor Rawlings-Blake along with other city mayors around the country are tying government phones to this global corporate and heavily surveilled media outlet.  They don't want our elected officials able to talk about anything happening outside these very corrupt city halls!

THIS IS WHAT TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT AND GLOBAL CORPORATE TRIBUNAL RULE LOOKS LIKE-----AND THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF YOUR LOCAL POLITICIANS INSTALLING TPP STRUCTURES IN YOUR GOVERNMENT OFFICES----



VOIP calls with Messenger and WhatsApp, call quality will improve

Image Credit: Daniel Terdiman/VentureBeat April 22, 2015 2:56 PM
Daniel Terdiman


  Successful CMOs achieve growth by leveraging technology. Join us for GrowthBeat Summit on June 1-2 in Boston, where we'll discuss how to merge creativity with technology to drive growth. Space is limited. Request your personal invitation here! Facebook’s Messenger app accounts for more than 10 percent of global Internet phone calls, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said today. And as the company’s WhatsApp messaging service begins offering VOIP calling to iOS and Android users, that number will only go up, in particular because more users means better and better quality calls.

In response to a question during its quarterly earnings conference call today, Zuckerberg said the company has no plans to charge for any of its VOIP or messaging services. He also said that as the global community of users of services like Messenger and WhatsApp grows towards 2 billion people, the quality of calls made using those tools will increase. And that will lead to more people making calls.

Zuckerberg argued that call quality is a function of a critical mass of users. But because Messenger and WhatsApp now each have at least 700 million users — Messenger just hit 800 million — voice calling is catching on among users.

“We’re pretty confident that because of the higher quality calling you can get,” Zuckerberg said, “this will continue growing quickly.”

Today, Facebook reported quarterly earnings of $3.54 billion, up 42 percent year-over-year. It also reported that it now has 1.44 billion monthly active users. All told, 73 percent of its $3.32 billion in advertising revenue came from mobile ads.

____________________________________________

Clinton neo-liberals Feinstein and Durbin are trying as hard as they can to limit free speech and journalism with law that tries to define journalism as a salaried employee of an entity like a corporation or corporate foundation.  These are people running as Democrats working to reign in who is protected by Freedom of Press and speech.  Republican voters are just as protective as progressive Democrats of Freedom of Press so this language traveling through a Congress full of Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons has a good chance of moving forward.  Below this article you see this language failed in the first rounds of Federal court cases but we have a very global corporate Supreme Court waiting to receive this argument.

The tying of this legislation to Wikileaks is important in that many Americans did not like the Wikileaks release of classified information.  So, many Americans will look at this as simply protecting national security.  It is far more than that.  Defining who is a journalist protected by Constitutional rights and using broad language sets the stage for a very narrow protection of journalists working for corporate media our foundations.  These journalists are not holding power accountable-----the journalists it targets are the huge number of investigative journalists downsized from newsrooms and academics like myself who can no longer speak out through corporate university venues.  In other words----corporate media hires journalists that WILL NOT hold power accountable or ask the real questions. 

Feinstein was told to do this because she already had decided to leave the politics.  The fact that the two Senators wanting the Democratic Senate leadership are sponsoring these bills that have nothing to do with protecting journalists no matter the spin----Clinton neo-liberals limit Equal Protection and free speech and are not Democrats----progressive liberals protect equal protection and free speech.


Sen. Feinstein During 'Shield' Law Debate: 'Real' Journalists Draw Salaries


from the protection-based-on-exclusivity...-what-a-wonderful-idea dept Legislators are still trying to put together a national "shield" law for journalists (this is the third such effort at a national level) and, as usual, are bogged down in a semantic debate about who should qualify for these protections. Despite "freedom of the press" being hardwired into the system and the fact that a government effort to protect journalists from its own actions (seeking to identify whistleblowers and sources in order to punish them or shut them up) lies somewhere between "ironic" and "disingenuous," the pursuit of a credible "shield" law continues.

The bill's definition of "journalist" seems straightforward enough.

The bill defines a journalist as a person who has a "primary intent to investigate events and procure material" in order to inform the public by regularly gathering information through interviews and observations. It also adds this stipulation, which is a bit more troublesome. The person also must intend to report on the news at the start of obtaining any protected information and must plan to publish that news. I can see this stipulation working against whoever the government feels is worthy of the title "journalist." News develops. It seldom has a distinct starting point. Of course, if someone is a journalist, it stands to reason that they're always "planning" to publish their findings. But that might be a lot harder to prove when the government starts slinging subpoenas.

If someone sends a tip to a journalist, it may not be immediately evident that it is newsworthy. It might be some time before it's determined to be important, newsworthy and its source in need of protection. It's a strange stipulation and one that seems to poke some compromising holes in the "shield."

But onto the "who's really a journalist" argument. Some elected officials feel the language in the bill isn't specific enough. One in particular, Dianne Feinstein, repeated the stupid but inevitable phrase that always accompanies discussions related to shield laws: Feinstein suggested that the definition comprise only journalists who make salaries, saying it should be applied just to "real reporters." This is nothing new for Feinstein, who's (along with Sen. Dick Durbin) previously made the argument that acts of journalism can only be performed by major news agencies, cutting everyone else out of the protective loop. This is a protective move based partially on ignorance and partially on the reality that major news networks are easier to control, seeing as most aren't willing to give up access to the Beltway by pissing off its residents.

Sadly, this sort of reactionary ignorance isn't limited solely to government representatives. This same sort of statement has been made by published authors to demean the self-published and by old school journalists to demean bloggers, serial Tweeters and pretty much everyone not associated with a sinking masthead. Whenever someone assumes they're capable of determining who is or isn't a real whatever, they're usually speaking from a position of privilege, one that can only be maintained as long as the status remains quo.

The same goes for government officials arguing over the definition of "journalist." It's someone who performs the act of journalism. It's as simple as that. But if you accept this definition, then you put the government at a greater "risk" of not being able to pursue and punish those who expose its wrongdoing. Feinstein makes this governmental fear explicit in another comment. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wondered whether it could be used to provide protections to employees of WikiLeaks, an organization that allows anonymous sources to leak information to the public.

"I’m concerned this would provide special privilege to those who are not reporters at all," she said. Two things to note: One, the government would hate to see people like Snowden or Manning go unpunished because someone at Wikileaks was able to deflect subpoenas and court orders with these protections. Second, this isn't just a government push -- the news industry itself has expressed a willingness to sacrifice Wikileaks in order to expedite passage of a shield law.

It seems rather unlikely the government would extend this protection to entities like Wikileaks (especially not with major news agencies on board with selling out Wikileaks, etc.), but at least Sen. Schumer pointed out that Feinstein's belief that "real" equals "drawing a salary" was a very ignorant take on the current reality. "The world has changed. We’re very careful in this bill to distinguish journalists from those who shouldn’t be protected, WikiLeaks and all those, and we’ve ensured that," Schumer said. "But there are people who write and do real journalism, in different ways than we’re used to. They should not be excluded from this bill." If this bill is ever going to provide real protection for journalists, it will first have to recognize that journalism isn't defined by the journalist's employer, paycheck or association with a large media company. It's an act and it can be performed by nearly anyone. More importantly, the bill should be equally as concerned with building in strong consequences for government actions that undermine this protection. Without these, entities like the DOJ will hardly be dissuaded from using "unofficial channels" to seize phone records or trace email conversations in order to hunt down protected sources.

_________________________________________

The Federal Courts may protect from such laws now but we know the Supreme Court has been loaded with global corporate justices that will rule towards this elimination of equal protection and free speech.  Her job as she leaves politics was to send this proposed law through the legal channels that bring it to reality down the road.  It is the same as Bill Clinton as Governor of Arkansas taking to court public media's right to exclude political candidates from debates----that initial court case sparked all of the court rulings that states like Maryland want to use to completely deregulate the election requirements of media.

It matters who you support and elect in primaries.  We will need pols in office that will enforce anti-trust and monopoly laws that keep media and communications open and free.  In Baltimore we have politicians that move all of this deregulation and consolidation forward at the local level and openly allow the most captured of media environments in the country. 

YOUR POLITICIANS----YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATION LEADERS ARE THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN SHOUTING FOR THESE SEVERAL YEARS AGAINST THIS MEDIA CAPTURE.
  GET RID OF THESE GLOBAL CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS AND  BUSH NEO-CONS!



  • HQ » Politics » Federal Judge: Bloggers Same As Journalists

    Federal Judge: Bloggers Same As Journalists


  •  by Whoopie • 18 January, 2014 •

    That squeaking sound you hear is Dianne Feinstein grinding her teeth… [AP] A federal appeals court in Oregon ruled Friday that bloggers, citizen journalists, and the public have the same First Amendment protections as journalists when sued for defamation, if the issue is of public concern; plaintiffs have to prove negligence to win damages.

    This means that Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.

    “It makes clear that bloggers have the same First Amendment rights as professional journalists,” he said.

    Last September, Dianne Feinstein wrote an amendment aimed at eliminating certain free speech rights for bloggers. She wants to regulate free speech with an amendment to the Free Flow of Information Act. Don’t be fooled by the title. It means the exact opposite. They don’t want free flow of information.

    The Amendment defines a “covered journalist” as someone who gathers and reports news for “an entity or service that disseminates news and information.” The definition includes freelancers, part-timers and student journalists, and it permits a judge to go further and extend the protections to any “legitimate news-gathering activities.”

    She says bloggers and terrorists are not to be covered by the Shield laws.

    Read the whole deal:

    I don’t know what Feinstein’s problem is. If she isn’t trying to deny American citizens their 2nd Amendment rights, she’s trying to limit our 1st Amendment rights

    _________________________________________
    I want to end with one example of how US media is becoming Chinese autocratic media----and no one does this better than Baltimore.

    The media coverage of the latest death by police in Baltimore is now national so Baltimore City Hall and Mayor Rawlings-Blake is now fending bad publicity at a national level that cannot be controlled by local media.  The attempt at containment happened yesterday outside of Baltimore City Hall when what Baltimore calls the '15 black ministers' had a press conference that all of the media cameras fell on.  The 15 black ministers are the establishment ministers who tell their congregations to vote for the worst of politicians connected to Baltimore Development and Johns Hopkins.  Everybody knows they are captured to bad politics and they know the politicians these black ministers support are behind all of the policies  adopted by the Baltimore City police and its Police Chief.    Jamal Bryant and Mayor Rawlings-Blake sat silent as over 20 police killings of innocent citizens occurred over a few years and did not have a voice at all until the Ferguson event that received national attention.  Then both were off to Ferguson pretending to be appalled at this one killing after being silent for over 20 killings in their own Baltimore.  These 15 black ministers are the source of capture in political speech----in media events-----in public policy education and they receive much of Baltimore City public revenue for social services.


    EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS THIS IS WHY BALTIMORE HAS NO PUBLIC VOICE IN MEDIA.

    So, I listen to these black ministers and I am glad they are coming forward but at the same time they are having people testifying that the mayor's office is open for people with complaints and that they feel she is listing to them NONE OF WHICH IS TRUE.  Jamal Bryant adds that Obama's pick of Loretta Lynch for US Attorney General was a good sign----as if Eric Holder is not the problem for suspended Rule of Law and Equal Protection that has led to all of these civil rights and liberty attacks against the American people. LYNCH IS SIMPLY A GLOBAL CORPORATE LAWYER JUST LIKE HOLDER AND WE WANT TO STOP ACTING LIKE THEY ARE ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS!

    ALL BALTIMORE MEDIA WERE STANDING THERE AT A PODIUM OF THESE MINISTERS FILMING THIS ONE STAGED EVENT WITH ALMOST NO BALTIMORE CITIZENS LISTENING TO THESE CAPTURED MINISTERS.


    Meanwhile you see below two of Baltimore's leading police brutality activists who should be on the media being jailed for no reason and no voice in the media.  The only way I know of their jailing is through social media ----no Baltimore media coverage of false jailing of real police brutality activists.


  • 'I was just placed under arrest by Baltimore Police while taking pictures at the ‪#‎FreddieGray‬ demonstration. Yes, THAT Freddie Gray. The one they killed.

    No one can tell us what we've been charged with.

    This status being sent from inside the police station.

    We are awaiting processing'.



  • Roland Martin, Pastor Jamal Bryant & Jeff Johnson On Delay Of Loretta Lynch Nomination


  • Apr 22, 2015 By Roland Martin  Black American Web .


    \Roland Martin, Jeff Johnson and Pastor Jamal Bryant discuss the delay of Loretta Lynch’s nomination as the first black, female Attorney General of the United States.

  • “After over a 165 days this is the longest time its taken. This is a qualified woman. This is a qualified legal professional. This senate needs to move to confirm her, not because she’s a woman,” Johnson said.

    Click the link about to hear the entire interview!








0 Comments

April 24th, 2015

4/24/2015

0 Comments

 
I want to talk about the privatization of the USPS----our Post Office, happening faster than ever under Obama and Clinton neo-liberals in Congress.  This was a decades process from Reagan Clinton to Bush Obama but the outsourcing has soared during Obama's terms.  Remember, neo-liberals privatize all that is public and the Post Office is the largest public institution outside of our public schools.  As important is the USPS is the only method of communication for the American people that can be price-controlled to allow all Americans at least one method of communication as telecommunications corporations raise rates higher and higher most people will not be able to access the internet or cell phones.  Right now the poor are being given free phones but that will end once consolidation of the media market and Post Office privatization cripples mail service.  The Post Office is a Constitutionally established and protected agency that operates without taxpayer money.  So, privatizers cannot get rid of it without a Constitutional Amendment so they are simply defunding and dismantling it until it cannot function and becomes useless.  As you see it is the President that appoints the Post Master General and Obama's appointment Donahue is privatizing as hard as he can.  Think about this dismantling at the same time net neutrality is under attack and internet rates rise as does cell phone rates.  How will people communicate if the Post Office mail is gone as well?  That's what a third world nation looks like says Clinton neo-liberals!


The Constitution and the Post Office In June 1788, the ninth state ratified the Constitution, which gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” in Article I, Section 8. A year later, the Act of September 22, 1789 (1 Stat. 70), continued the Post Office and made the Postmaster General subject to the direction of the President. Four days later, President Washington appointed Samuel Osgood as the first Postmaster General under the Constitution. A population of almost four million was served by 75 Post Offices and about 2,400 miles of post roads.

The Post Office received two one-year extensions by the Acts of August 4, 1790 (1 Stat. 178), and March 3, 1791 (1 Stat. 218). The Act of February 20, 1792 (1 Stat. 232), continued the Post Office for another two years and formally admitted newspapers to the mails, gave Congress the power to establish post routes, and prohibited postal officials from opening letters. Later legislation enlarged the duties of the Post Office, strengthened and unified its organization, and provided rules for its development. The Act of May 8, 1794 (1 Stat. 354), continued the Post Office indefinitely.

The Post Office moved from Philadelphia in 1800 when Washington, D.C., became the seat of government. Two horse-drawn wagons carried all postal records, furniture, and supplies.



________________________________________________
You will hear Congressional Democrats blame the Republicans for defunding and privatizing the Post Office but if you look where this 'pilot Staples' outsourcing is being run -----states like Maryland are right there placing the USPS into Staples under the guise of a pilot.  At the same time Governor O'Malley took control of Federal Post Office buildings as in Annapolis with the intention of selling them.  Meanwhile, the new Post Office is a store front.  I see Staples with USPS all over Baltimore County so, your pols are not fighting privatization as they install this pilot that will be declared a success with a private business taking over Post Office operations.  We already see USPS kiosks in pharmacies or grocery stores as a step towards this privatization.  What will happen if allowed to move forward----corporations will declare house to house delivery too expensive---then they will declare the USPS package delivery a duplicate of existing private package delivery and stop that----and the letter delivery will become too costly and be eliminated. 

BYE BYE POST OFFICE SAY MARYLAND'S CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS AND BUSH NEO-CONS!


Remember, the USPS is not a taxpayer supported agency---it supports itself.  Privatizers are claiming costs are too high for the Post Office but the deficit is a pre-paying of public pensions of hundreds of billions of dollars done just to gut Post Office profits.  No other corporation has to pre-pay pensions to the extent this rule does to the USPS making it impossible for USPS to compete.


So, a Clinton neo-liberal Obama appoints a privatization Post Office General while neo-liberals in states like Maryland allow for outsourcing pilots like Staples to take the business.


Staples’ selling postal products without USPS workers brings complaints of privatization

By Joe Davidson Columnist January 16, 2014  Washington Post

The largest postal employee union and a U.S. senator say the pilot also is a step toward privatization of the USPS, an assertion the postmaster general vehemently denies.

Here’s the story:

The Staples pilot project, called the Retail Partner Expansion Program, began in October. Eighty-two stores nationwide, though none in the D.C. area, have sections resembling mini-post offices. They sell a variety of products and services, including stamps, Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express and package handling. Staples doesn’t offer registered mail, money orders, stamped envelopes or post office boxes.

“Our goal,” Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said in an interview, “is to provide universal access to products and services, and if we can do that through agreements with companies like Staples . . . we need to do that. . . . It gives us an opportunity to grow the business.”

That’s cool, as far as the American Postal Workers Union is concerned, but why not have postal employees work those counters in Staples? “I can’t dictate to Staples what their hiring policies should be,” said Donahoe, who is chief executive of the Postal Service.

But can’t USPS say it wants a postal employee to sell postal products at a postal counter in Staples? “It would never be my intention to do that,” he said. “That’s their business. . . . That’s their call.”

It’s the wrong call, APWU President Mark Dimondstein said.

“This is a direct assault on our jobs and on public postal services,” he said in a statement. “The APWU supports the expansion of postal services. But we are adamantly opposed to USPS plans to replace good-paying union jobs with non-union low-wage jobs held by workers who have no accountability for the safety and security of the mail.”

Carrie McElwee, a Staples spokeswoman, would not discuss the pay or union status of the company’s workforce.

Dimondstein also fears that the Staples experiment foreshadows a privatization of the U.S. Postal Service. He is concerned about maintaining “the infrastructure of the Postal Service that belongs to the people of this country.”

The APWU is willing to go along with the Staples project if it uses postal employees, “but we also have to be very careful that the private companies don’t become the Postal Service, because those private companies can be here today and [not] be here tomorrow,” Dimondstein said by phone. “We don’t want private companies making decisions about what’s best for the public good and the public service when their bottom line is simply profit.”

Donahoe said the Staples project is good for the public and for postal employees, too.

“My goal is to grow the business,” he said. “If we grow the business, that benefits 490,000 career employees and another 100,000-plus non-career. It’s good for everybody.”

The number of postal workers has fallen by about 44 percent since 2000, Donahoe said. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected these declines in the postal workforce between 2012 and 2022: postal mail sorters, processors and processing-machine operators, 30 percent; mail carriers, 27 percent; and mail superintendents, 24 percent. Postal finances are improving, but the Postal Service lost $5 billion in fiscal 2013.

Donahoe said privatization “would be a crazy idea. I think the Postal Service as structured is a great service provider. . . . Why would we ever put anything like that at risk?”

Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), chairman of the federal workforce subcommittee, doesn’t think USPS provides great service, and he also warns against privatization. Tester said he doesn’t object to postal products being sold in stores, but he was critical of Donahoe for seeking to shut postal facilities, which Tester said would delay deliveries.

Delivery standards are a personal issue with Tester, an issue he wants addressed in postal reform legislation that has bounced around Capitol Hill for years.

_________________________________________

The US always leads in rising consumer costs but you do not see the headlines as you do around the world----all the costs of communications are soaring as mergers create global telecommunications.  At the same time the UK, Canada, as with the US are seeing their Federal Post Office services dismantled and privatized. 

What will Americans do that cannot afford these online fees as over 70% of Americans are at or near poverty and the coming economic crash will push that number to over 80%?


JUST GET RID OF THE CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS----YOUR LOCAL POLS ARE SETTING THE STAGE FOR THESE MONOPOLIES AND DEREGULATION CREATING THIS MESS!


Call costs and landline rentals soar as telecoms... www.dailymail.co.uk/money/bills/article-2820975Call costs and landline rentals soar as telecoms giants raise prices. By Daily Mail Reporter. Published: ... How to unlock a cheaper deal for your mobile phone ...
  1. Phone, Internet Costs Soar In Canada, StatsCan... www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/09/22/phone-internet-costs...CachedPhone, Internet Costs Soar In Canada, ... Wind Mobile Wireless Prices Canada Statscan Inflation Statscan Telecom Prices Canada Statscan Price Index Verizon Canada ...



Our Post Offices Are Not For Sale!

Tuesday, December 4th The Save Our Post Office Coalition of SF, Save the Berkeley Post Office Committee, Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers, SF Gray Panthers, The Living New Deal, Grandmothers Against War, joined retired and current postal workers to tell Richard Blum, CBRE, Inc.” Stop selling our post offices.” Occupy SF & Occupy Oakland camped out over night in front of his SF financial district office, 909 Montgomery, with tables of information on CBRE and Blum. We then marched through the financial district to Senator Feinstein’s office. After a rally outside, a delegation led by Margot Smith of Berkeley-East Bay G, met with Senator Feinstein calling on her to do the right thing and save our post offices. Feinstein happens to be the spouse of Richard Blum. As Richard Koritz of North Carolina State Assoc. of Letter Carriers said at the rally- what an example of a marriage between political and corporate corruption.

The rally was to stop the sales of post offices across the country, and this rally emphasized the pending sale of the Berkeley Main Post Office. Built in 1914, its tall ceilings marble, oak and bronze fittings house two incredible murals. Linda Maio, Vice President of the Berkeley City Council, told the rally that the council has joined the fight to save the post office by passing a resolution to stop the sale of the Berkeley P.O.

Many of our post offices, built during the New Deal, depict our historic labor struggles in murals that are our public art. How ludicrous that these public houses of the peoples’ art should privatized and sold to the highest bidders. When Gray Brechin of the Living New Deal project tried to visit the Philadelphia post office, a guard blocked his entry then told him if her attempted to photograph the beautiful Deco lobby his camera would be confiscated. A woman who tried to photograph artwork at the Catonsville, MD post office was told not only that she could not take a picture inside, but she could not even take a picture of the exterior. Even trying to take pictures to preserve and record our public art works seems to be a threat. Symbolically, this represents attempts to wipe out our history.

A union member of the American Postal Workers Union told us the union leadership has not pushed against these sales. The director of the United Parcel Service, Gary MacDougal, stated in the Wall Street Journal this fall. “Entrepreneurs will see the demise of the USPS as an opportunity...this transition can be one of the badly needed bright spots in a troubled American economy.” Postmaster General Donahoe led the charge to end six-day delivery; close 4,000 post offices eliminate 250 processing plants and 200,000 decent union jobs.
This is another attack on public workers and good paying union jobs, so call the national office, 202-842-4200, and tell leadership to mobilize members to protect jobs and stop the privatization of our post offices!
Since 1971, post offices have not received any tax dollars. Compare that to the bank bailouts-our tax dollars.


For previous indybay coverage and background on our Post Office crisis





________________________________________


Who does corporate fraud and government corruption better than Maryland these days?  California.  Imagine O'Malley in Maryland taking Federal Post Offices in Maryland from the Federal government with the intention of selling them.  Look below to see what is likely to happen.  These Post Office buildings are classic.  They were constructed during the New Deal years and are valuable public property.  What we are seeing as with all public real estate and assets----they are being handed off in pay-to-play style deals for pennies on the dollar.  This is what is happening in Baltimore and we can be sure our Post Office buildings on the road to being closed and sold in Maryland will look like this article below.

Feinstein was a strong progressive woman leader in the 1970s during the civil and women's rights movement.  Just as with civil rights leaders, our women's rights leaders are now simply acting as crooks and frauds-----Who does fraud and corruption best?  Clinton neo-liberals.  Who makes sure public protections and public justice are in place to keep this from happening?  PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS!  A DEMOCRAT WOULD NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN FOLKS!

Whether it is our public school buildings mortgaged under credit bond debt or the handing of vintage Post Office buildings that reflect our strong public space in Democracy----

A VISIGOTH LOOTING OF THE US TREASURY AND PUBLIC ASSETS IS THE SAME AS THE RUSSIAN PERESTROIKA THAT GAVE RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS ----THE FEW FAMILIES THAT TOOK ALL OF THE PUBLIC WEALTH FROM THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE. THIS IS THE SAME THING FOLKS----AMERICAN STYLE.


The article below is long but please glance through.  It will show the same level of fraud and corruption we see in Maryland and how pols are doing it.  Remember, when a government suspends Rule of Law----it suspends Statutes of Limitation.  Keep in mind Donahue is an Obama appointee and this is happening under Obama and with Clinton neo-liberal pols so this is not a Republican privatization issue-----Clinton neo-liberals are joining the Republicans.

Privatization Nightmare: Sen. Dianne Feinstein's Husband Selling Post Offices to His Friends, Cheap An investigative journalist conducts a year-long study of power, corruption, and public assets for sale.



By Peter Byrne / Byrne Ink October 30, 2013
Print 68 COMMENTS Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from the new book, Going Postal, in which investigative journalist Peter Byrne reveals the results of a year-long study into a privatization scheme that has enriched the powerful and robbed ordinary Americans.

Going Postal: Introduction

On July 27, 200 singing and chanting people demonstrated on the steps of the historic main post office in downtown Berkeley, Calif., to protest its upcoming closure and sale. A city council member took the microphone to angrily decry the closure. In fact, the Berkeley City Council had voted unanimously to oppose the sale. Why the day of rage?

When a post office closes, it is obviously that much harder to buy a stamp, pick up a package, send a registered letter, or purchase a money order. But inconvenience alone did not account for the existential angst being expressed by the mostly over-50 throng as it questioned the motives of the United States Postal Service for selling post offices all over the country to developers. "Which of our public assets will be privatized next?" speakers asked. "Streets? Schools? The Lincoln Bedroom?"

The Berkeley crowd is not acting alone: From the beaches of Santa Monica to the avenues of the Bronx to the orange farms of Nalcrest, Florida, people who like the U.S. mail are getting mad, "Hey, wait a minute, Mr. Postman! That is our community post office!"


To which the federal flak-catchers reply: "The Internet is killing us. The Postal Service is broke. We have to sell. Get used to it."

But email is not the problem and the budget deficit is easy enough to fix, so there must be other reasons for the forced sales, say save-the-post-office activists. Political reasons, they assert, pointing out that the realtor with the exclusive contract to negotiate sales for the Postal Service's $85 billion real estate portfolio is C.B. Richard Ellis (CBRE). And that the corporation is chaired by Richard C. Blum, who is the husband of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. The corporation's connection to a politically powerful family with a history of accessing public pension funds to make private investments has caused more than a few activists to suspect wrongdoing—even though no evidence of any conflicts of interest tied to the CBRE contract has been revealed.

Until now.

This year-long investigation has uncovered evidence of multiple conflicts of interest and problems with post office sales supervised by Blum's company:

  • CBRE appears to have repeatedly violated its contractual duty to sell postal properties at or above fair market values.
  • CBRE has sold valuable postal properties to developers at prices that appear to have been steeply discounted from fair market values, resulting in the loss of tens of millions of dollars in public revenue. In a series of apparently non-arm's length transactions, CBRE negotiated the sale of postal properties all around the country to its own clients and business partners, including to one of its corporate owners, Goldman Sachs Group.
  • CBRE has been paid commissions as high as 6 percent by the Postal Service for representing both the seller and the buyer in many of the negotiations, thereby raising serious questions as to whether CBRE was doing its best to obtain the highest price possible for the Postal Service.
  • Senator Feinstein has lobbied the Postmaster General on behalf of a redevelopment project in which her husband’s company was involved.
Backstory

Because the Postal Service is running an artificially created budget deficit, tens of thousands of jobs are being liquidated as post offices and mail processing facilities in towns and cities across the country are short-listed to be sold for ready cash. CBRE has already sold 52 of these properties, and hundreds more are on the chopping block.

Eighty percent of the agency's multi-billion-dollar deficit is caused by a law passed by Congress in 2006 that requires it to prepay retiree health benefits 75 years into the future. This unprecedented, budget-killing command does not apply to any other government agency. If this burden was to be rescinded—and business-mail was to be charged the cost of its delivery—the Postal Service would be in the black, according to congressional reports.

The ugly truth of the matter, say informed critics such as New York University professor Steve Hutkins, is that the Postal Service is being privatized in the interests of scores of corporations that not only compete with it, but are also its largest contractors, including FedEx and United Parcel Service (package routing); Parsons Corporation (management services); Accenture (financial consulting); and Pitney Bowes (direct mail).

Then there is CBRE, the world's largest commercial real estate firm. In June 2013, Postal Service Inspector General David C. Williams published a scathing audit of CBRE's exclusive contract to manage all of the sales and leasing of postal real estate. Williams noted that outsourcing these activities to a single firm is "a fundamental change from how the Postal Service previously managed its real estate portfolio [and] Facilities officials should improve oversight to mitigate inherent risks associated with the CBRE contract … Specifically, there are conflict of interest concerns."

Williams warned of the potential for contract fraud, but he stopped short of referring the matter to a district attorney, and advised the postal executives in charge of the CBRE contract to clean up their act. Over the past year, this investigation explored the types of conflicts of interest that concerned Williams by diving deep into the public record. CBRE's contract, its postal facility sales data, as well as expense reports for Postal Service executives were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The deeds of sale and assessment data for most of the postal properties sold by CBRE were found at the county level. The county records allow for comparing the assessed value of the postal properties before they were sold to the final sales prices negotiated by CBRE on behalf of the Postal Service. The comparisons reveal that CBRE has sold the bulk of this public real estate at prices under their assessed values—and apparently at far below fair market values.

When these findings were shared with Chuck Zlatkin, legislative and political director of the New York Metro Area Postal Union, he said, "Shocking as this information is, it is not surprising because we have seen a pattern of corruption at the Post Office ever since the manufacture of the healthcare benefit prepayment crisis. It is certainly not permissible for CBRE to sell property paid for by the public to its own business partners, or to anyone else, at a discount. In my opinion, CBRE's conflicts of interest contain an element of fraud."

CBRE Group Inc. was given a list of the key facts and analysis reported in this investigation. Through its spokesperson, Philip Russo, the corporation declined to comment.

Conflicts of interest

In June 2011, the Postal Service hired CBRE as its exclusive agent to sell post offices, warehouses, parking lots and vacant land worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The contract instructs CBRE to propose properties to sell with final approval reserved to the head of the Postal Service's Facilities Division, Tom Samra. It requires CBRE to sell them at or above appraised (fair market) values, or not at all. CBRE is charged with appraising the fair market value of these properties and listing a reasonable sales price. It is important to point out that real estate appraisals are not customarily performed by the realtor who is marketing the property. To avoid conflicts of interest, property appraisals are normally performed by professionals who are not involved in negotiating the sale.

Responding to a FOIA request through a staff attorney, Postmaster Patrick Donahoe categorically refused to disclose CBRE's appraisals. Attorney Jeff Meadows said that CBRE's appraisals do not need to be disclosed to the public because such information is "commercially sensitive" and it is comparable to a "national security" secret (even though the appraisals are not classified). The Postal Service eventually released the final sales price for each property sold by CBRE, and CBRE's sales invoices, which recorded the amount of its commissions (2-6 percent). The appraisal figures remain a state secret.

An assessed value is normally based upon the most previous sales price of a parcel, which is most likely to be less than its current fair market value. In many counties, the assessed value is calculated as a percentage of the fair market value. During economic downturns, assessed values in most counties are lowered to keep pace with a falling market.

During the first two years of its contract, CBRE undersold the majority of the 52 properties it had picked to market by millions of dollars under their assessed values. In Seattle, Washington, CBRE sold a building assessed at $16 million for $8 million. In mid-2013, it sold a 17-story office building in St. Paul, Minnesota for $20 million under the value assessed for it in 2009, shortly before it was put on the market by CBRE at $5 million.


From June 2011 through May 2013, CBRE sold 52 postal properties for $166 million. The total assessed value of this portfolio at the time of sale was $232 million. Subtracting out the nine properties that sold at a value higher than their assessed value, CBRE has arguably undersold its postal real estate portfolio by at least $79 million. It undersold these properties even as the price of commercial real estate, especially for central downtown parcels, was approaching the pre-crash highs of 2007, as evidenced by Figure 1.

Click to enlarge.Interviews about standard real estate practice with experts provided by the National Association of Realtors indicate that selling properties at or below assessed values can occur because the property is distressed or located in an impoverished area, or logically, because the realtor wants to move a portfolio of listings quickly. Since time is money, the realtor is willing to lowball multiple deals that generate fast commissions, instead of taking the time and expense of showing each property to many prospective buyers.

But the vast majority of the CBRE-negotiated sales did not involve distressed properties. The sales were mostly of central downtown buildings with parking in wealthy or revitalizing neighborhoods that attracted restaurant, boutique, and residential developers; and modern, suburban office buildings and warehouses with ample parking that attracted high-tech industrial firms.

In other words, the most saleable postal properties were the ones most likely to command prices that exceeded their assessed values. And yet 43 of CBRE's 52 sales came in at prices far below their assessed values. Figure 2 shows the gap between assessed value and the CBRE sale price for properties over $5 million. Figure 3 reveals a similar discrepancy for properties sold for under $5 million.

Click to enlarge.ADVERTISEMENTClick to enlarge.Not at arm's length

Real estate transactions are normally negotiated by agents who stay at "arm's-length" from each other's interests. That makes sense because sellers try to obtain the highest price possible, while buyers angle for the lowest price. Each agent is bound to get the best possible price for its client in a competitive marketplace.

In a series of non-arm’s-length transactions, CBRE has sold 20 percent of its postal portfolio to its own clients and/or business partners. In Boston, it sold a parcel to a developer with whom it was partnered at a large discount to its assessed value. And it sold another Boston parcel to one of its largest shareholders, Goldman Sachs Group. Real estate industry ethics require agents to get the best deal for their clients, not for their business partners and owners.

CBRE kept the entire seller/buyer commission of up to 6 percent paid by the Postal Service in 34 of 52 transactions. In the majority of these deals, CBRE appears to have represented the interests of the buyer as well as those of the seller, even though CBRE was originally contracted to represent only the interests of the Postal Service.

Astonishingly, CBRE's contract was amended in 2012, at the request of CBRE, to allow it to negotiate on behalf of both the Postal Service and prospective buyers.

No oversight

To be fair, CBRE need not shoulder all of the blame for the $79 million in lost revenue.

In his June 2013 audit, the inspector general reported that executives running the Postal Service Facilities Division were not properly monitoring the CBRE contract. He found that:

  • The dollar amount of the contract is improperly open-ended and poses a risk of runaway costs. The original $2 million budget has unaccountably tripled.
  • Facilities Division officials improperly paid CBRE invoices without checking for fraud. At least 227 invoices worth $1.7 million were paid without proper oversight—"present[ing] an increased risk of fraud [and] pos[ing] an increased risk to the Postal Service's finances, brand, and reputation."
In short, the normal checks and balances mechanisms for preventing conflicts of interest and contract fraud have been missing in the monitoring of CBRE's performance by Facilities Division officials. Given the ethical norms at play on the top floors of the Postal Service's headquarters at L'Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C., this is not surprising. The inspector general has also reported that high-ranking Postal Service executives have charged home mortgages and European vacations to their government credit cards.

And Facilities Division expense reports reveal that staffers have purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of expensive dinners, online gift cards, inspirational literature, and even toys with their government-issued credit cards. The division's chief, Tom Samra, has billed the deficit-ridden Postal Service for flying first class to Europe, even though he personally is worth as much as $98 million.

The Postal Service was given a list of the key facts and analysis reported in this investigation. Through his spokesperson, David Partenheimer, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe declined to comment.

The Boston Seaport Deals

In Boston, during 2012, while acting as the Postal Service's agent, CBRE sold discounted real estate to a group of developers with which it was partnered in a redevelopment project. CBRE sold a valuable parcel in the same development project to one of its largest stockholders, Goldman Sachs Group. These and a host of similar transactions around the country raise questions as to whether CBRE improperly benefited from selling postal properties to its clients and business partners.

CBRE is a major player in the development of a new neighborhood in downtown Boston called the Seaport District. The mixed-use district is slated to revitalize 1,000 acres of abandoned railways and crumbly docks that surround the Boston Convention Center. The linchpin of the giant redevelopment project's design is the upscale Channel Center, which will sport expensive residences, office buildings, and grassy parks. A portion of the project is sited on Postal Service land that has been sold by CBRE to the developers.

The parking garage

According to the Channel Center developer, Commonwealth Ventures LLC, CBRE is the member of its development "team" that provides real estate services to the project. Commonwealth Ventures is also partnered with AREA Property Partners, which has collaborated with CBRE on other real estate ventures. Another CBRE client, the real estate arm of General Electric Corporation, is also a member of Commonwealth Ventures' Channel Center team. In what appears to have been a conflict of interest, CBRE has acted as the broker for both the Postal Service and the Channel Center development partnership, of which it is considered to be a "team" member and which is composed of its clients.

In September 2012, AREA Property Partners paid the Postal Service $10.3 million for a parking lot where the company planned to construct the Channel Center parking garage. The Postal Service was represented by CBRE in the sale, even though CBRE is also the agent for the Channel Center developers, Commonwealth Ventures and AREA.

According to the Boston Assessor's property database, the parking lot was valued at $12.4 million in 1991. This key piece of real estate in the Channel Center project was sold by CBRE for 20 percent less than it had been valued more than two decades before the property was targeted for upscale redevelopment for corporate and residential tenants. Because CBRE is also a member of the development team, the sale raises questions as to whether the company stands to reap additional profits from the Channel Center project.

Remarkably, the invoice that CBRE submitted to the Facilities Division for the sale of the Channel Center parking lot to Commonwealth Ventures does not contain an address for the property sold, only the notation: "0 Square Feet." Under "value,” CBRE wrote, "?" Nowhere on the undated invoice does the purchase price appear. Nor does the invoice reference a contract number, nor any form of payment authorization. It demands a flat fee of $377,500 for negotiating the sale; the CBRE contract does not allow for flat fees. Nonetheless, the incomplete invoice was paid by Postal Service facilities executives.

The Goldman Sachs connection

A real estate partnership created by the Goldman Sachs Group called W2005 BWH Realty LLC purchased a parcel of Postal Service land for a residential development alongside the Channel Center in September 2011. The parcel was subdivided from a larger parcel, so it had no previously assessed value as a unit. CBRE sold the postal parcel for $1 million to the entity controlled by the Goldman Sachs Group, which itself owns 6.6 percent of CBRE: a stake that rivals Blum Capital Partner's stake of 6.9 percent. Goldman Sachs is also a long CBRE client and its co-investor in numerous ventures. Since CBRE took the entire commission of six percent, it appears to have represented both seller and buyer in a non-arm's length transaction that poses an conflict of interest.

The CBRE invoice for the sale to the Goldman Sachs partnership does not list a dollar amount for the sale, nor the name of the buyer (which was obtained from deeds on file with the Boston Assessor's office).

James Allen of the Postal Service Facilities Division said, via email, that after paying CBRE for both of the Boston Seaport deals, facilities managers requested that CBRE change the format of its invoices to include more information.

Toxic sludge is not good for you

Much of the Postal Service's land in the Seaport District has been soaking in a toxic stew of industrial chemicals for 200 years. As long ago as 2002, CBRE had prepared a site survey of the property for the Postal Service with an eye toward having it cleaned up at federal expense for sale to developers. In 2012, CBRE billed the Postal Service for creating the "Standard USPS Environmental Disposal Package" for its seaport property.

Sales have proceeded despite a dire warning issued by the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Agency that developing the polluted postal property, "may result in significant risk of harm to health [if] use[d] as a residence, school, nursery, daycare, or recreational area, and/or such use at which a child's regular presence is likely." Channel Center office dwellers need to be careful of breathing indoor air, lest it be contaminated by toxic dust, the regulators caution.





0 Comments

April 23rd, 2015

4/23/2015

0 Comments

 
Continuing with Clinton neo-liberal capture of US media and the Democratic Party voice I want to look at public media and the smaller venues in the labor and justice organizations.  Below you see what is typical in Maryland-----a private non-profit that is supposedly progressive and working for labor and justice has open events about public policy with large fees charged to attend.  Now, I understand labor unions in Maryland need some kind of income but educating the public is key to labor legislative wins and if we have a public that does not know all of Maryland's pols are global corporate Wall Street neo-liberals and neo-cons working to kill American workers and citizens---then they do not vote for the right people.  That is of course if the union is working for its membership and not to expand globally as a global corporation itself as is true of AFL-CIO.

Unions are ground zero for public policy education and they should have been the source of educating as to the difference between Clinton neo-liberalism and progressive liberalism that gave us all of civil rights and labor rights.  Rather, unions in Maryland support neo-liberals and they refuse to allow any negative talk against incumbents happen at union events.  Below you will see an event on labor issues that will no doubt call it a win for labor even as Maryland leads the nation in installing Trans Pacific Trade Pact and all of its labor abuse.




Fred D. Mason, Jr. Donna S. Edwards

President Secretary-Treasurer

___________________________________


.

Maryland and District of Columbia AFL-CIO


2015 MARYLAND GENERAL ASSEMBLY

LEGISLATIVE DEBRIEFING



.

FRIDAY, May 15, 2015

9:30 A.M. – 3:30 P.M.

.

DoubleTree by Hilton

1726 Reisterstown Road

Baltimore, Maryland 21208

.

REGISTRATION STARTS AT 9:00 a.m.

.

REGISTRATION FEE: $40.00 (includes continental breakfast, lunch and materials)






Below you see the consolidation of all public radio media in Maryland to a neo-conservative Johns Hopkins which is now simply a corporation.  All content ----political news and public policy coverage that is not on private media outlets is captured by what is a very few public media sources and there is nothing allowed on Hopkins' public media network that is not controlled on local private media.  A complete capture of public media coverage in Maryland by Johns Hopkins.  But you say----there is always Morgan State's WEAA!  This black historical college was long ago taken by Johns Hopkins and it's neo-conservatism and is on its way to closing because of its support of Clinton and Obama's education privatization policy.  This is why citizens in Maryland and especially Baltimore hear nothing about public policy and the big picture of global corporate tribunals and courts and Trans Pacific Trade Pact all of which Johns Hopkins takes a lead and all of which kills the working class and poor that represent over 600,000 citizens in Baltimore.  This is why Baltimore City is a third world society run like an autocratic corporate state.

WYPR-WEAA PUBLIC RADIO------NEO-LIBERALISM AND NEO-CONSERVATISM ALL THE TIME.


WYPR is so sure of its control that they mock political election candidates with a REAL progressive voice-----WE WILL DECIDE WHO HAS A VOICE DURING ELECTIONS----EVEN IF WE BREAK ELECTION LAWS TO DO IT! 

Hopefully my Federal lawsuit will break up this corporate takeover of public media.



About the WYPR -



Your Public Radio in Maryland Group In early 2001, in order to concentrate on its primary mission of medicine and education, Johns Hopkins University made the decision to divest its interest in its radio station, WJHU. A group of local investors gathered the financial backing to purchase WJHU and by 2002, WYPR was given broadcast approval by the FCC. Now a leading source of local news and information and NPR programming, you can hear Maryland Morning with Sheila Kast, Midday with Dan Rodricks, The Signal and Tapestry of the Times. Plus many shorter segments programs that feature information on topics from finances to folklore are offered on 88.1 FM. WYPR also offers unique content on it's website (www.wypr.org) as well as the on demand version of it's award winning news coverage and featured programs of 88.1 FM.
Now WYPR is repeating it's original broadcast signal on 88.1 FM in Frederick/Hagerstown and 106.9 on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. « less Have something to say?


_________________________________________

Below you see the equivalent of Johns Hopkins controlling all of public media----Radio One controlling much of black media outlets.  In Baltimore, public policy discussion and elections are completely captured to only Clinton neo-liberal policy and candidates and this happens because of Radio One and its DJs/station managers.  Does a black business owner have any more responsibility to maintaining Equal Protection and Rule of Law especially around elections?  NO EXCUSES! neo-liberalism means winning at all cost with winners and losers----and that is what comes from Radio One.  They simply repeat what people in power say----and stick to the talking points.

The capture of black media in Baltimore is what allows the systemic predatory environment on people in poverty, the police and justice system failures directed at communities of color, and it allows the most neo-conservative of economic structures be installed with no voice allowed against it.  This is why each election cycle the same group of Hopkins/Baltimore Development pols are given platforms while others are censured.



These local media stations whether public or private used to be the center of public policy discussions and talk shows during the civil rights and labor rights era----open discussion of policy and issues with broad history came from a media outlets responsibility to provide public service broadcasting with balance and fairness. Now, they shout---
WE CAN DO WHAT WE WANT
....DEREGULATION!



Stations As of October 2014, Radio One operates 55 radio stations in 16 markets.

  Baltimore

WERQ 92.3 FM 1993 Mainstream urban

WOLB 1010 AM
News/Talk

WWIN 1400 AM
Urban gospel

WWIN 95.9 FM 1992 Urban adult contemporary


______________________________________________
Black media outlets from Oprah to Radio One made a point of entertaining----self-help----but moved completely away from the duty of broadcast to provide access to public policy discussion and the educated voter.  Oprah never mentions politics----Phil Donahue was known for his progressive political education.

What is sad for me is the duplicity of these few wealthy black business owners to Clinton neo-liberalism all geared to maximize the wealth at the top.  Below you see a comment made just a few years ago by a black internet media outlet that simply is not true.  It creates the impression that it is all Reagan's fault that Fairness Doctrine was ignored as neo-liberals do.  Fairness Doctrine is a Federal law that can be enforced by any President regardless of who controls Congress and no one ignored it more than Clinton and now Obama.  Both of these pols could have rebuilt the Fairness Doctrine and enforced FCC and IRS laws protecting broad public policy discussion as a public service requirement of all media---BUT BECAUSE CLINTON AND OBAMA ARE CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS LIKE REAGAN----THEY WORK TO DO THE OPPOSITE.  Now, wouldn't black audiences gain by knowing this? 

OF COURSE THEY WOULD!  BLACK AMERICA WEB.COM IS DELIBERATELY MISLEADING THE PUBLIC AND HIDING THE HARM CLINTON AND OBAMA NEO-LIBERALS ARE DOING.


'The Fairness Doctrine, instituted after the Civil Rights Movement required broadcast media to produce public affairs programming that represented the interest of minorities. The doctrine essentially was dismantled in 1987 during the Reagan administration and, a number of public affairs shows died with it'.


IT'S ALL THE REPUBLICAN'S FAULT AS CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS ARE DISMANTLING ALL WAR ON POVERTY AND NEW DEAL PROGRAMS AND EQUAL PROTECTION.

The only liberal values these black media outlets are carrying are the Clinton neo-liberal values----which is the opposite of progressive liberalism....not Democratic at all.



Radio and Politics

 May 31, 2012 By Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com



A new Harris Poll said 65 percent of Americans surveyed think radio and television talk show hosts have too much influence in Congress and the White House, a 12 point increase from last year.

But that figure pales in comparison to power to the influence of the news media (73 percent), entertainment and sports figures (67 percent) ,  financial institutions (81 percent), political lobbyists (85 percent) big companies (86 percent) and PACs (88 percent).

The survey of 1,016 adults by Harris Interactive was conducted between April 10 and 17.

The results imply a growing frustration by Americans, generally, that their concerns are not being heard, nor their needs addressed, and that special interests have a stronger influence on the top echelons of government.

Conservative voices, such as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, increasingly appear to have move from providing an alternative point of view to having their own agenda that politicians and policymakers feel obligated to follow.

Even the news media, once believed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, appear to have turned their attention to influence peddling rather than using their power to help the public.

That’s where black radio differs; it understands political struggle and seeks to galvanize its audience to take control of their lives.
A 2008 documentary, “Disappearing Voices: The Decline of Black Radio,” revealed that at the time of filming, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that out of 10,315 commercial AM and FM radio stations in the United States, only 168 were Black-owned – and  the number was declining.

Still, black radio has been, and remains, a strong voice and influence in the lives of black listeners.

“In many demographics, radio has lost its swagger,” radio host Tom Joyner said in a recent blog. “For news and information, cable news, the Internet and social media are their primary resources.  And even as more African Americans turn to these forms of communication, statistics show that black people still love black radio, depend on their programs and consider it a most trusted method of getting news.  Deep down inside they believe that black radio has a vested interest in the community and offer programming that strives to Super Serve them by making them a priority.”

It has been a major, if not the major player in rallying black Americans to register to vote, to respond to cries for justice in such cases as the Trayvon Martin slaying and the racially-charged cases of the Jena 6 and Genarlow Wilson, and to support black music and film, including this year’s highly successful “Think Like a Man,” based on a New York Times bestseller by comedian and radio host Steve Harvey.

"The Tom Joyner Morning Show," the "Michael Baisden Show,” and “The Steve Harvey Morning Show” reach an estimated combined audience of about 20 million listeners.

Black radio provides a home for conversation on issues and music rarely given a forum elsewhere.

David Hinckley, a columnist for the New York Daily News, wrote that the importance of black radio has come back into the national spotlight in the wake of the death of Hal Jackson, whom Hinckley called the “patriarch of black radio.”

Jackson, who died last week at age 96, had been a broadcaster since Franklin D. Roosevelt was president in the 1940s.
“Half the doors that lead to black radio, Hal Jackson was the first to walk through. In many ways his biggest battle was to get on the air at all, in an industry smugly convinced no listener could enjoy or trust a black voice coming from a radio speaker,” Hinckley wrote.

He added that black radio traditionally has talked about issues, showcased artists and music not heard elsewhere, noting the important role it played in driving the turnout for the Million Man March in 1995.

“That was not an isolated incident,” Hinckley wrote. “Since the early 1950s black radio had given aid and comfort to civil rights leaders, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, when they were regarded as either dangerous agitators or hopeless dreamers who could never change hearts or laws.”

When the NAACP, the National Urban League and other civil rights and community organizations want to get a message out, they start with interviews on black radio.

In 1996, Jacquie Gales Webb produced a 13-part series for the Smithsonian's production on the role of radio in transforming the African American community in the 20th century. The collection contained more than 400 hours of interviews and historical aircheck tapes, articles, research files, program scripts, and transcripts. The audio interviews feature conversations with more than 150 well-known disc jockeys, radio professionals, record company executives, journalists, and scholars.

The Fairness Doctrine, instituted after the Civil Rights Movement required broadcast media to produce public affairs programming that represented the interest of minorities. The doctrine essentially was dismantled in 1987 during the Reagan administration and, a number of public affairs shows died with it.

“Once again, it was left up to Black radio to carry the torch,” Joyner wrote. “And so it is today, with so many conservative programs tearing down all ‘liberal’ values and ideals such as the desire for every American to vote, health care for all, etc. the voices of Rush (Limbaugh and Sean) Hannity, etc., are drowning out the voices of ‘the people.’ Whether it’s turning to black radio to mourn the death of Whitney Houston or to mobilize a Trayvon Martin rally we do it better together.”

 




0 Comments

April 22nd, 2015

4/22/2015

0 Comments

 
All we need are pols that enforce anti-trust and monopoly laws and VOILA----we breakdown this capture of media and it starts at the local and state level.  Your Executives---mayors and governors can demand these be enforced and that is why keeping these offices captured to Clinton neo-liberals and Bush neo-cons are so important.

BERNIE SANDERS IS THE ONLY PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE THAT HAS WORKED IN HIS OWN VERMONT AND FOR DECADES SHOUTING AGAINST ANTI-TRUST VIOLATIONS, TPP, AND SHOUTING FOR NET NEUTRALITY.

Already you hear Presidential candidates like Maryland's O'Malley claiming he is for net neutrality when he spent his entire political career handing Maryland's utilities to ever bigger corporations and media does not allow people that history.
  You just go to O'Malley's home city and state to look at how corporatized everything is to know----O'MALLEY IS A CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL AND NOT A PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL.  Stop listening to the media---do your own research.

Today I would like to look at internet and social media that again is dominated by Clinton neo-liberal outlets.  From MSNBC to Media Matters as a research arm----there is nothing progressive about neo-liberalism----


Media Matters is a progressive research center that monitors, analyzes, & corrects right-wing misinformation.

Maureen Dowd has always been her own voice on political matters of the left.  This article is a great example of how Clinton neo-liberal media is now attacking any Democratic political voice that is not neo-liberal.  MSNBC and Media Matters are both Clinton neo-liberal outlets that allow neo-liberals to pretend they are progressive.  They misinform because the deliberately fail to inform broadly on all political issues.  They repeat what Clinton neo-liberals say.  The Hillary crowd are going to use this absurd sexism claim throughout the election against anyone not supporting Hillary just as neo-liberals have been stoking the racism card against anyone not supporting Obama.  THE DEMOCRATIC BASE OF LABOR AND JUSTICE WILL NOT BE FOOLED A SECOND TIME ON ISSUES OF RACE AND GENDER AS REGARDS A CLINTON NEO-LIBERAL CANDIDATE.

Below you see Media Matters producing data that shows a left-leaning media pundit and her outing of Hillary and the Clintons as bad for the Democratic Party ---acting as if that were a bad thing since neo-liberalism has nothing to do with the Democratic Party.

As I showed yesterday with formerly progressive journals like The Progressive, The Nation, Mother Jones---neo-liberal journals are now fighting attacks on the Clintons and moving political discussion for the political left to the Koch Brothers and Birchers in the far-right.  With Clintons right of center you have to go very far right to find the enemy for Democratic voters.

These Clinton neo-liberal outlets have presence in both internet media and social media like Facbook.


MSNBC's Alex Wagner Highlights "Absurd" Sexism In Maureen Dowd's Latest Anti-Clinton Column

Wagner: Dowd Illustrates How "Expectations Are So Disproportionate And So Impossible To Meet" For Women Candidates

Video ››› April 21, 2015 5:55 PM EDT ››› MEDIA MATTERS STAFF 28 From the April 21 edition of MSNBC's NOW with Alex Wagner:



The Numbers Behind Maureen Dowd's 21-Year Long Campaign Against Hillary Clinton


72 Percent Of Dowd Columns Negative Towards Clinton

Blog ››› June 18, 2014 9:42 AM EDT ››› HANNAH GROCH-BEGLEY & OLIVER WILLIS 1109

For more than twenty years, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has been attacking Hillary Clinton from a shallow well of insults, routinely portraying the former secretary of state and first lady as an unlikeable, power-hungry phony.

Media Matters analyzed 195 columns by Dowd since November 1993 containing significant mentions of Clinton for whether they included any of 16 negative tropes in five categories (listed in the below methodology). 72 percent (141 columns) were negative towards Clinton -- only 8 percent (15 columns) were positive. The remaining 20 percent (39 columns) were neutral.

For example, Dowd has repeatedly accused Clinton of being an enemy to or betraying feminism
(35 columns, 18 percent of those studied), power-hungry (51 columns, 26 percent), unlikeable (9 columns, 5 percent), or phony (34 columns, 17 percent). She's also attacked the Clintons as a couple in 43 columns (22 percent), many of which included Dowd's ham-handed attempts at psychoanalysis.

Dowd's latest column discussed Clinton's book tour for her new memoir Hard Choices. In a tortured comparison, Dowd compared Clinton to Elsa from the popular Disney movie Frozen. Dowd concluded, "Those close to them think that the queen of Hillaryland and the Snow Queen from Disney's 'Frozen' have special magical powers, but worry about whether they can control those powers, show their humanity and stir real warmth in the public heart." 

Dowd described Clinton's memoir as "a testament to caution and calculation," an accusation she has lobbed at the former secretary state for decades. Dowd called Clinton "scarred and defensive" and asserted that she lives in an "ice palace." The Frozen comparison is one of dozens of pop culture references Dowd has invoked in her writing about Clinton.

Dowd has stuck to this script for over two decades now, and shows no signs of letting go.

_______________________________________
Below you see another Clinton neo-liberal outlet that shouts constantly about the Koch Brothers but says nothing about Clinton neo-liberalism.  It exposes ALEC as bad but does not link Clinton/Obama policies these several years to ALEC.....all of Obama's policies were neo-liberal and ALEC.

This is how you break up solid academic and journalists news =====news journals were never allowed to print news that was not substantiated and balance and depth of reporting required policy history and a politician's history on these issues.  Today, this breakdown in journalistic standards and fair and balanced journalism has media that says anything they want---placing slant without any counter-point.  So, most people do not know what real data is.  The article yesterday that looked at journalism in the US becoming marginalized to a small group as an art form----is real .  Only a few people will have access to academic data as I do now to even follow what information is true.

Right now every American citizen has the ability to read the international news journals and financial journals that keep people at the top informed.  The information is there---it is just made more expensive to access.  Baltimore's Daily Record is a great incite to what Baltimore Development is doing but it costs lots to subscribe---but the library has a copy as it does most of these pricey news journals.  The American people must shake the


GAME/TALK SHOW CIRCUIT---FORGET WHO THE KARDASHIAN'S ARE DATING AND BECOME INFORMED CITIZENS.

Become educated on public policy of all kind and then be the one who educates!

About Us

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)


is a boutique investigative research and reporting group with a demonstrated capacity to break major news stories and highlight the work of advocates. Located in Madison, Wisconsin, it is a national, non-profit watchdog organization, founded in 1993. CMD's niche is investigating and exposing the undue influence of corporations and front groups on public policy, including PR campaigns, lobbying, and electioneering. CMD's original reporting helps educate the public and aids grassroots action about policies affecting people’s lives—their rights and the health of our democracy.


CMD publishes PRWatch.org, ALECexposed.org, and SourceWatch.org.


________________________________________

In 2010 loyal listeners to NPR and APM---National Public Media and American Public Media were shocked by the corporate takeover of the voice of public radio.  All of a sudden MarketPlace Money became the central programming for news and all of the pundit and political talk came from neo-liberal Brookings Institute or neo-conservative think tanks.  No more progressive liberal policy pundits allowed.  Now we hear an NPR that is global US Chamber of Commerce.

This all happened after the 2008 crash because the Clinton neo-liberals has pretended to be different from Bush neo-cons during all of Bush's terms.  Now, Clinton neo-liberals running the Democratic Party won super-majorities in Congress and the President and they were not going to be able to hide neo-liberals are the same as Bush neo-cons.  Here in Maryland all of our public radio is controlled by the neo-conservative Johns Hopkins is a state called BLUE and progressive.  All of O'Malley's terms had Hopkins taking over all of Maryland public media.  So, we get the Brookings Institution and SAIS ----neo-liberal and neo-con media in all our public media news.

Neo-liberals are great for allowing the poor to say how bad things are for them----but make sure the only politics allowed are the politics and pols tied to global corporate tribunals.


Any news article that quotes Brookings Institute is using Clinton neo-liberal data----policy.


The Brookings Institution---Third Way neo-liberal think tank

Brookings's Reputation

Brookings is proud that many consider us to be the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tank in the world. Our high-quality research, our independence and our convening power help generate innovative, practical solutions to today's challenges.

A sample of what others are saying about Brookings: 

Quality and Influence
  • #1 think tank in the world
  • #1 think tank in the United States
  • #1 outstanding policy-oriented public policy research program
  • #1 in international development
  • #1 for domestic economic policy
  • #1 for social policy
--The Global "Go-To Think Tanks", James G. McGann, Ph.D., January 2012

"When important debates occur in Washington—whether over Middle East peace, global finance, or urban strategy—it's a fair bet that Brookings is driving the conversation. ... From health care reform to recommendations on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Brookings has a breadth of experience that allows it to offer innovative fixes for nearly every critical issue facing the United States today." --Foreign Policy magazine's Think Tank Index, January 2009


Trust and Impact "We need the intellectual heft of Brookings to solve our tough economic problems. We need your fresh ideas and new thinking." 
— Senator Mark Warner, March 8 2013, Capitol Visitors Center, Brookings Board Meeting

"Brookings has achieved a special measure of respect in Washington because it has risen above partisanship, and that is not an easy thing to do in this town which is sort of built on partisanship."
--Hon. Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, City of New York, August 28, 2007

Among 16 organizations with high impact on public policy, a Harris Poll found Brookings is:

  • among the five most powerful
  • among the ten most trusted
  • equally trusted by Democrats, Republicans and Independents.
--The Harris Poll's nationwide survey on inside-the-beltway groups, December 2007 (pdf)

"Brookings has been at the center of every important policy debate in this country for 90 years."
--Sen. Chuck Hagel, July 28, 2006
 



_____________________________________________

All of this hyper focus on science and math and the Race to the Top privatization and vocationalizing of our K-12 is an extension of the elimination of civics and public education to produce citizens.  We know since Clinton all of the defunding of schools and the dismantling of oversight and accountability have allowed our school's once strong humanities and liberal arts to die.  Today, parents are shouting that their children are not getting even the basics in history and civics.  Students graduate not even knowing the basic structures of government and certainly not about engaging in politics.

This makes it easier for a captured media to become the only source of policy discussion.  People do not question what is placed in front of them if they have no concept of history and government process. 

NEO-LIBERALISM DISMANTLES DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES AND PROGRESSIVE LIBERALISM DEMANDS STRONG DEMOCRATIC STRUCTURES.


This is where education starts and in cities like Baltimore where education privatizers have control of our school board, Baltimore City Hall, and Maryland Assembly pols because they work for neo-conservative Johns Hopkins---this is why stopping this education reform is so important.  Trans Pacific Trade Pact seeks to take away our status as citizens so neo-liberals say YOU ARE NOT GOING TO NEED TO KNOW WHAT BEING A CITIZEN IS ALL ABOUT..

Do our children know how to be citizens?

By Robert Pondiscio, Special to CNN


Updated 1:45 PM ET, Thu July 4, 2013





A new U.S. citizen holds a flag July 3 along with her citizenship papers. Would-be citizens must pass a civics and history test.Story highlights
  • Robert Pondiscio: Education reform is all about preparing kids for college and careers
  • Pondiscio: But we need to teach how to be good citizens capable of running a democracy
  • Constitution framers believed students must know civic rights and responsibilities, he says
  • Pondiscio: Today, only one of five eighth-graders is proficient in civics and history
When you're chowing down on hot dogs and hamburgers on this most patriotic of national holidays, try this experiment: Ask your friends and neighbors across the picnic table why they send their kids to school.

Chances are good that nearly everyone you ask will give an answer that reveals a private, dollars-and-cents view of education. We want to see our kids go to college, get good jobs, earn a decent living and make something of themselves.

We send our kids to school and hope they grow up to lead happy, productive lives, and with luck wind up a little better off than their parents. For most of us, education is the engine of upward mobility. These private aspirations are as American as apple pie.

Robert Pondiscio But we send kids to school not just to become employees and entrepreneurs, but citizens capable of wise and effective self-government in our democracy.
This public dimension of schooling was a founding principle of American education. We have all but forgotten it in the current era of education overhaul.

This would strike our earliest thinkers about education as strange and foolish, even dangerous. Men like Benjamin Rush, Noah Webster and Horace Mann saw citizen-making as the most basic aim of education in our young nation. They understood that democracy is a historical long shot.

Every young student used to learn the famous story about Benjamin Franklin leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787. A woman asked him what kind of government he and the other delegates had decided on. "A republic, madam -- if you can keep it," he replied.

Franklin and the framers of the Constitution knew republics had a nasty habit of being overwhelmed by factions and falling apart. Teaching children to understand, value and peaceably exercise their rights and responsibilities -- to keep the republic -- was indispensable to our democracy and could not be taken for granted. Where were those citizens, those "republican machines" in Benjamin Rush's phrase, to be created if not in our schools?

We've drifted a long way from this view of public education. We typically hear the performance of America's children in reading, math and science described as a crisis. But these are areas of strength compared with civics and history. One out of three U.S. eighth-graders score "proficient" or higher on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading, math and science. But only about one out of five eighth-graders is proficient in civics and history.

The U.S. Department of Education is not alarmed. It recently announced future NAEP tests in civics, U.S. history and geography for fourth- and 12th-graders would be postponed indefinitely.

A shocking 85% of Americans cannot correctly describe the "rule of law," as bedrock a principle as we have. A similar percentage cannot identify the Constitution as the "supreme law of the land."

Students who don't know their rights don't recognize when those rights are threatened. Students who don't know how laws are made will never make or demand changes to them. Those who don't understand their country's history and traditions are less than second-class citizens. They are passive bystanders unprepared to participate in our democracy and disinclined to do so.

One way or another, schools will shape our children as citizens. The question is whether we want them to do so by accident or neglect, or by thinking carefully about the civic knowledge, skills and republic-keeping mindset our children will need to nurture and maintain our democracy in the 21st century and beyond.

There should be room, even in our test-driven, college and career focused classrooms, to cultivate an understanding and appreciation of America's founding principles and documents, and how our government functions.

A sound, basic education can and should promote national identity, unity and loyalty without indoctrination. Developing pride in America's history and ideals in no way conflicts with the goal of creating independent, free-thinking citizens in a pluralistic society. If our children are to keep the republic, they must understand and value the thing they are being asked to keep.

For good or for ill, the education reform movement of the last few decades has achieved a nearly unquestioned consensus that the big picture goal of K-12 education is to ensure that all of America's children leave school "college or career ready."

By all means, let's prime the pump of our economic competitiveness with more college-goers, more science, math and technology graduates. Let's ensure every child has a shot at a private piece of the American Dream.

But let's also make sure schools still perform the greatest possible public service: preparing our children to be the informed citizens a stable, self-governing country needs.










0 Comments

April 21st, 2015

4/21/2015

0 Comments

 
WITH 'NO EXCUSES' NEO-LIBERALISM CORPORATIONS OPENLY FLEECE CITIZENS WITH THE HELP OF YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS.  TV MEDIA IS FILLED WITH BUSINESSES READY TO TAKE YOU.  WHEN YOU HAVE A FUNCTIONING STATES ATTORNEY OFFICE AS MARYLAND DOES NOT---YOUR PUBLIC JUSTICE AGENCIES FIND AND GET RID OF THESE BUSINESSES BEFORE THEY GET YOU. 

Remember, there are G-20 industrialized nations representing the developed world so the US ranking below places the US in second world and close to third world ranking.



Ranking of United States press freedom

Freedom House, an independent watch-dog organization, ranked the United States 30th out of 197 countries in terms of press freedom.[19] The report lauded the constitutional protections afforded American journalists, but criticized authorities for placing undue limits on investigative reporting in the name of national security. Freedom House awards countries a score out of 100, with 0 representing most free and 100 representing least free. The score is broken down into three, separately weighted, categories: legal (out of 30), political (out of 40), and economic (out of 30) environments. The United States scored a 6, 10, and 5 respectively. This gave it a cumulative score of 21.[20]

As of February 12, 2014, the United States is ranked 46th in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index.[21] This is a measure of freedom available to the press, encompassing areas such as government censorship, and not indicative of the quality of journalism. There was a fall from 20th in 2010 to 42nd in 2012, which was attributed to arrests of journalists covering the Occupy movement.[22]

For 2012, Finland and Norway tied for 1st worldwide. Canada ranked 10th, Germany tied 17th with Jamaica, and Japan tied 22nd with Suriname. The UK ranked 28th, Australia 30th, and France 38th.

Extraterritorial regions of the US ranked 57th.







I showed yesterday that Obama pretended to protect net neutrality because the 2016 election is coming and Clinton neo-liberals want to give the impression someone is working for labor and justice.  TPP would negate net neutrality as Obama tries to Fast Track it.  Also, I showed how Baltimore pols running as Democrats are the source of much of the handing of state utilities to ever more consolidation and deregulation----knowing this will create the costs to ratepayers and loss of vital products like energy, water, and communications to the working class and poor.  THIS IS HOW YOU KNOW YOU DO NOT HAVE A DEMOCRAT !  All of Baltimore's pols are neo-conservatives working for Johns Hopkins.

The American people know almost nothing about public policy and civics in their own towns and cities because people are too busy watching celebrity gossip ----progressive liberals had local shows filled with public debate on politics from all points of view.  It is painful to watch Baltimore's morning and weekend programs offering nothing of value.  I heard one TV commentator say----LET THEM WATCH CRIME SHOWS ALL DAY AND INDEED----THAT IS WHAT WE SEE MOST.

THAT IS THEIR JOB---FILLING AIRSPACE WITH NOTHING THAT SAYS----WAKE UP----A TOTALITARIAN TAKEOVER OF AMERICA IS HAPPENING.




Fighting Media Consolidation

Who owns the media has a huge impact on the stories that get covered in our communities.

Today absentee corporations own more and more of our media. Focused only on the bottom line, they are cutting journalists, gutting newsrooms and replacing meaningful debate with celebrity gossip and junk news. And many of these corporations are dodging the Federal Communications Commission’s ownership rules to snap up more outlets and create media monopolies in markets throughout the country.





When the last two largest telecommunications corporations in the US merge----Americans will have the equivalent of North Korean state media---no free press or Democratic free speech.  That is to where Baltimore pols with Martin O'Malley are heading with this consolidation and monopoly-building in Maryland.  What kind of media do you get when corporations control all content?  In Baltimore it is one paid infomercial after another and one advertisement geared to defraud the citizens at every turn.  If you have Democrats in office you would have a states attorney's office that monitored these media commercials to protect citizens from fraud----if you have neo-cons and/or Clinton neo-liberals you have no protection and the government thinking this fraud is a job-creator.  Blanketing every public space and air wave with corporate commercials.

You know the economic crash is right around the corner when national and local media are filled with these same kinds of subprime mortgage loans as in 2008----no credit check Veterans Mortgage refinance----100% of the value of your house.
  Below is the top advertiser in Baltimore all geared to defraud veterans just before the economic crash.
  Infomercials and talk shows make Americans the most uninformed citizens in the developed world and it happens because Clinton neo-liberals have dismantled public education and civics and humanities from our schools and media.

QUALITY PROGRAMMING COURTESY OF NAKED NEO-LIBERALISM.

New Day Va Loan Program - Mortgage Refinance... refinancefjo.com/new-day-va-loan-programCachednew day va loan program Related Tags : Online new day va loan program, Best new day va loan program, new day va loan program in USA, new day va loan program Instant.


Overnight Title Loans | overnighttitleloan.com www.overnighttitleloan.comAdStart Online for $300 - $10,000 Rapid Cash On Your Car Title.

Fast Title Loans $300 to $10,000 | OvernightTitleLoan.com




A talk show or chat show (as it is known in the UK) is a television programming or radio programming genre in which one person (or group of people) discusses various topics put forth by a talk show host.[1]

Usually, guests consist of a group of people who are learned or who have great experience in relation to whatever issue is being discussed on the show for that episode. Other times, a single guest discusses their work or area of expertise with a host or co-hosts.


Chris Hedges on ‘The Death and Life of American Journalism’

Posted on Feb 26, 2010

By Chris Hedges




We are shedding, with the decline and death of many newspapers, thousands of reporters and editors, based in the culture of researched and verifiable fact, who monitored city councils, police departments, mayor’s offices, courts and state legislators to prevent egregious abuse and corruption. And we are also, even more ominously, losing the meticulous skills of reporting, editing, fact-checking and investigating that make daily information trustworthy. The decline of print has severed a connection with a reality-based culture, one in which we attempt to make fact the foundation for opinion and debate, and replaced it with a culture in which facts, opinions, lies and fantasy are interchangeable. As news has been overtaken by gossip, the hollowness of celebrity culture and carefully staged pseudo-events, along with the hysteria and drama that dominate much of the airwaves, our civil and political discourse has been contaminated by propaganda and entertainment masquerading as news. And the ratings of high-octane propaganda outlets such as Fox News, as well as the collapse of the newspaper industry, prove it. 


Corporations, which have hijacked the state, are delighted with the demise of journalism. And the mass communications systems they control pump out endless streams of gossip, trivia and filth in lieu of news. But news, which costs money and takes talent to produce, is dying not only because citizens are migrating to the Internet and corporations are no longer using newsprint to advertise, but because in an age of profound culture decline the masses prefer to be entertained rather than informed. We no longer value the culture or journalism, as we no longer value classical theater or great books, and this devaluation means the general public is not inclined to pay for it. Journalists, like artists, are expected to provide their work free—this is the idea behind websites like The Huffington Post—and the only people who receive adequate compensation in our society are those skilled in the art of manipulation. Money flows to advertising rather than to art or journalism because manipulation is more highly valued than truth or beauty. Journalism, like culture, in America has become advertising.



Certainly, as the authors point out, the faux objectivity and neutrality of the traditional news industry hastened the cultural irrelevance of traditional news gathering. The narrowing of debates within the press to the minor differences among the power elite had a debilitating effect on news. The structure of “objectivity” works far better when there are powerful social movements, such as the civil rights movement, that provide an actual alternative and demand a voice. But without these movements the press functions as courtiers in the corridors of power. It dutifully reports the Democratic and Republic positions, a condition that imposes a bland uniformity of opinion. The two parties are in fundamental agreement about the underlying economic, political and military structures which are largely responsible for our decline. The power elites do not question the permanent war economy, unfettered capitalism and the rise of the security state, and voices that do are, in effect, censored out of the commercial press because they have no power base. This has left most traditional reporters without a moral core and trapped in a ridiculous court pantomime that has damaged their content as much as the loss of advertising and the rise of the Internet. The lie told by newspapers and traditional news is the lie of omission, which is not as bad as the outright lies told on Fox News, but in the end it is still a lie. Our power elite are bankrupt, and the press, tethered to the elite, is as bankrupt as those it covers.

“The real problem with professional journalism becomes evident when political elites do not debate an issue and march in virtual lockstep,” the authors write.
“In such a case professional journalism is, at best, ineffectual, and, at worst, propagandistic. This has often been the case in U.S. foreign policy, where both parties are beholden to an enormous global military complex, and accept the right of the United States, and the United States alone, to invade countries when it suits U.S. interests. In matters of war and foreign policy, journalists who question the basic assumptions and policy objectives and who attempt to raise issues no one in either party wishes to debate are considered ‘ideological’ and ‘unprofessional.’ This has a powerful disciplinary effect upon journalists.”

 

American society, once we lose a system of information based on verifiable fact, will become disconnected from reality.
All totalitarian societies impart their propaganda through manipulated images and spectacles. And the death of traditional news is one more stage in the terminal illness that is ravaging American democracy. The rise of a totalitarian capitalism will follow, and we already have many of the new system’s information networks in place. Corporations, as the authors point out, “will be better positioned than ever to produce self-promotional ‘information’—better described as ‘propaganda’—that can masquerade as ‘news.’ The technology actually makes it easier. A major development in the past decade has been video news releases, PR-produced news stories that are often run as if they were legitimate journalism on local TV news broadcasts. The stories invariably promote the products of the corporation which funds the work surreptitiously.”

Journalism will again become what it was more than a century ago—a form of art. It will be as concerned with truth and beauty as it is with justice. It will no longer speak in the deformed language of balance and objectivity but instead be a conduit for unvarnished moral outrage and passion. It will, like classical theater, be relegated to the margins of society but will endure for the literate and the moral. It will sustain all who seek to live with a conscience in an unconscious age. Journalism will survive, but it will reach a limited audience, as the sparsely attended productions of Aristophanes or Racine in small New York theaters are all that is left of great classical theater. The larger society will be deluged with propaganda, spectacle and entertainment as news. Those who carry the flame of journalism forward will live lives as difficult, financially precarious and outside the mainstream as most classical actors and musicians. 

___________________________________________

Anyone who follows my blog knows I am working here in Maryland on what is election rigging on a grand scale.  Baltimore is ground zero for this and Clinton neo-liberals have captured the Democratic primaries across the nation.  When corporate media have no checks----will it promote free and fair elections?  Of course not----who wants a progressive liberal labor and justice platform in a Global Corporate Tribunal election?  Neo-cons and Neo-liberals need only apply/run for office!

Keep in mind this is only happening because Clinton handed the people's Democratic Party to Wall Street.  Democratic voters could well control American politics and all these democratic structures like telecommunications and media would return.  EASY PEASY----GET RID OF THESE CORPORATE POLS!


As you see below----corporate media has made the entire election coverage about statistics and talking points with no broad analysis of policy -----history or goal ----or a politician's voting history or past career connections.  Media has politics pegged to global corporate pols talking about a small set of issues.  Here in Baltimore it gets even more captured as public meetings on policy are filled with hand-picked 'panel' who make sure the discussion does not leave these talking points.  THIS IS MORE
AUTOCRATIC THAN IRAN. 

All of this happens because media conglomerates are allowed to own all media outlets from local and state to national TV, radio, and print

COVERAGE OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS

Elections are the centerpiece of democracy. Through voting, people can voice their opinions, express their hopes and aspirations, discipline their leaders, and ultimately control their nation's destiny. According to democratic theory, elections are the public's source of power, but in order to use its muscle effectively it has to know where candidates and parties stand on public policy issues. Besides the people themselves, two groups have major responsibilities in this regard.

Those running for office must state their positions. Otherwise, there is no real choice and elections lose their meaning. But they are not solely responsible for the success of the system. The mass media have a duty to report thoroughly and accurately what the contestants stand for.

This role is perhaps the media's major challenge. All news is important, but campaign coverage is crucial because of its capacity to empower the electorate. What voters know about campaigns comes to them almost entirely secondhand from newspapers, television, and magazines. The table below shows, for example, that voters in 1988 rarely met candidates face to face but learned about them indirectly from television and newspapers. Therefore, in assessing how well the political system works in America, it is essential to inspect the media's treatment of elections.

In reporting on campaigns, the news media bring their usual procedures and tendencies to the campaign trail. In other words, far from simply mirroring all that politicians say and do, journalists select the information to be reported. Because time and space constraints do not allow speeches and rallies to be described in their entirety, certain parts are mentioned, others ignored.

Thus, once again the basic question is not whether the media are selective--they have to be--but what they include and exclude, and how these choices affect voters' beliefs and behavior.



Campaigns as Sporting Events

HIGH STAKES IN NEW ORLEANS CAN BUSH GET BACK ON TRACK?

THE DEBATE: HARDBALL

BUSH COMES ON STRONG

HOW BUSH WON



One wonders if these headlines from 1988 editions of Newsweek and Time described an athletic contest or a presidential election. Using metaphors is perfectly good journalism, yet Thomas Patterson, along with countless others, believes that the media take the metaphor literally: "The dominant theme of presidential news coverage is winning and losing." 2

Instead of examining issues, reporters tend to describe campaign hoopla: the size of crowds, surges and declines in the polls, organizational triumphs and failures, endorsements won and lost, and above all the ebb and flow of momentum.
Elections are likened to horse races in which attention centers on who is ahead, who is behind, who is gaining, who has dropped out.3 What gets lost in the excitement is why the race is being run at all. The numbers in the next table demonstrate the point.


Similarly, Patterson analyzed Time and Newsweekarticles and showed that the "horse race" aspect and campaign maneuvers account for close to half of the election content in these magazines. Issues, as they are normally understood, receive only a fraction of the coverage. Over the years media scholars have repeatedly confirmed these sorts of findings. 4 One observer, himself a politician and campaign strategist, summarized the situation this way:



Political coverage has become too much like a pregame sports show, elevated to the color and drama of the athletic event.5 What is attractive about a sporting event? Its action--the faster, the better; its drama; its tension; its unexpected plays; and the uncertainty of the outcome. Perhaps these are the reasons why reporters tend to treat elections as athletic contests: Doing so makes them seem more interesting and appealing.

Still, a price has to be paid. Thomas Patterson, for example, believes that the electorate is flooded with the wrong kind of information. Patterson and Richard Davis found that a newspaper as prestigious as The New York Times spent nearly a third of its coverage of the last week of the 1984 presidential election on polls.6

The media do not enlighten voters but leave them mystified about complex issues.


__________________________________________



I was reading this article and saw a headline in THE PROGRESSIVE----Hillary needs to champion public education. We all know that it is the Clintons that corporatized our universities and installed an education reform in the 1990s that defunded and brought educational achievement to where it is today all with the goal of corporatization of K-12 with neo-liberal education as is happening with Race to the Top. So, if we know the Clintons are the face of corporate neo-liberal education, why would a media outlet like THE PROGRESSIVE even ask that question or allow any coverage of Hillary? News journals like Mother Jones, The Nation, The Progressive all went out of business a decade ago and these progressive brands were bought by Clinton neo-liberal leaning investors. We literally have very few real progressive media because the American people are being made too poor to think of a luxury like subscribing to magazines. Progressive media were outing Clinton neo-liberals decades ago as progressive posers but as you see now----we are to believe that all Hillary needs to do is say she supports strong public schools and health care and VOILA----we are to believe it. IF YOU KNOW THESE ONCE PROGRESSIVE JOURNALS WENT OUT OF BUSINESS A DECADE AGO----YOU KNOW TO SUSPECT THE MEDIA THAT COMES FROM THEM NOW. NEO-LIBERALISM IS THE OPPOSITE OF PROGRESSIVE.....IT IS REGRESSIVE AND REPRESSIVE.


Progressive journals spent decades warning of the Clinton neo-liberal conspiracy with Bush neo-cons but as they went out of business-----the new owners question less Clinton neo-liberals and move further right wing to the Tea Party or in this case-----The Birchers and Koch Brothers!


Center for Media and Democracy is a Clinton neo-liberal outlet!   If a media outlet emphasizes Koch Brothers over and over and never mention Clinton neo-liberals as just as bad for the American people-----you know it is not a progresive liberal labor and justice outlet!


By Lisa Graves on July 08, 2014


Like His Dad, Charles Koch Was a Bircher (New Documents)

T
oday, as announced on Amy Goodman's DemocracyNow!, the Progressive Inc. and the Center for Media and Democracy are publishing new information and analysis documenting that billionaire oil industrialist Charles Koch was an active member of the controversial right-wing John Birch Society during its active campaigns against the civil rights movement.

Many commentators have noted that the father of the controversial Koch Brothers, Fred Koch, was a leader of the John Birch Society from its founding in 1958 until his death in 1967. But, in fact, Charles Koch followed his father's footsteps into the John Birch Society for years in Wichita, Kansas, a hub city for the organization in that decade of tremendous societal unrest as civil rights activists challenged racial segregation.

Charles Koch was not simply a rank and file member of the John Birch Society in name only who paid nominal dues. He purchased and held a "lifetime membership" until he resigned in 1968. He also lent his name and his wealth to the operations of the John Birch Society in Wichita, aiding its "American Opinion" bookstore -- which was stocked with attacks on the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, and Earl Warren as elements of the communist conspiracy. He funded the John Birch Society's promotional campaigns, bought advertising in its magazine, and supported its distribution of right-wing radio shows.

The reactionary ideas learned from his father and stoked by his ideological ally in Wichita, Bob Love of the Love Box Company, were not simply passing fancies of the young scion of an oil fortune. The tools of the trade he absorbed in his late twenties and early thirties appear to continue to animate some of his actions decades later, as with his 2014 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal claiming those who criticize him are "collectivists." The echoes of his past role reverberate along with the millions he and his brother David Koch have spent fueling a John Birch Society-like "Tea Party" peopled with right-wingers like Birchers of decades past who contend against all reasoning that the president is a communist. David Koch himself has claimed President Obama is a scary "socialist." These roots run deep in the Kochs.

In many ways, the playbook deployed by the Kochs today through myriad organizations resembles a more sophisticated (and expensive) playbook of the John Birch Society back then. Even the recent announcement of the Kochs to give a $25 million gift to the United Negro College Fund (with strings attached requiring the recruitment of free market African American college students) echoes that past. In 1964, in the face of criticism for its assault on the civil rights movement, the John Birch Society also funded a scholarship program to give college funds to African Americans who were not active in the civil rights movement, according to documents the Progressive.org/Center for Media and Democracy has obtained.

Below is an excerpt of a new story just published by The Progressive magazine in its newly redesigned summer issue, summarizing some of the long-term research of the Center for Media and Democracy, which is now part of the Progressive Inc. The complete version of that story, which sheds new light on the political activities and environmental record of the Kochs, is available in the digitial edition of the magazine.

Below the excerpt are some key quotes from the John Birch Society's attacks on the civil rights movement and its outlandish claims about the circumstances faced by African Americans in the 1960s. When Charles Koch resigned from the John Birch Society in 1968, he did so along with running a full-page ad taking the opposite position of the John Birch Society on the Vietnam War.  But, he made no similar gesture expressing any opposition to its long-standing, high priority anti-civil rights agenda, which his financial support made possible.

In leaving the John Birch Society, Charles Koch had become enamored with a more anarchical expression of his attachment to unregulated capitalism that at its root opposes government action other than that which is necessary to protect property and freedom of contract, two theoretical "ideals" at odds with the very kind of anti-discrimination laws, labor laws, and social programs that the John Birch Society attacked. Since the 1960s, Charles Koch and his brother David have spent untold millions to move these related theories into the mainstream. And, like the John Birch Society spearheaded in recruiting their father, they too have done so by recruiting other industrialists, as with their billionaire "Freedom Partners," to join them in funding efforts to dramatically change this country by trying to takeover Congress and the states and rewrite the laws to suit their own interests.

----

From The Progressive magazine July-August 2014:

In 1961, at the age of twenty-six, Charles moved home to Wichita, Kansas, to work for Rock Island Oil and Refining Company, which was led by his father, Fred Koch, who was on the national council of the John Birch Society. Charles subsequently opened a John Birch Society bookstore in Wichita with a friend of his father, Bob Love, the owner of the Love Box Company in Wichita, according to Dan Schulman’s Sons of Wichita.

The John Birch Society’s “American Opinion Bookstores” were stocked with material opposing the civil rights movement

Birchers had put up billboards in Kansas and elsewhere calling for the impeachment of Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court who had ordered the desegregation of the public schools in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

There’s no indication that Fred or Charles objected to the Birch campaign to impeach Warren.

There is no indication they objected when it ran ads in Dallas in 1963 with President John F. Kennedy’s head depicted like two mug shot photos, with the word “Treason” below, shortly before the assassination of the President ...

Or when it opposed the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, based on the Bircher claim that the movement was created as a forty-year front for the communists.

Or when it supported billboards calling Martin Luther King a communist.

None of these things was cited by Charles Koch and Bob Love in their resignation from the John Birch Society in 1968, according to correspondence with Robert Welch, who had launched the organization a decade earlier with Fred and a few other businessmen.

Oddly, it was Welch’s “Win the War” strategy of signing up people to support the Vietnam War that caused the breakup between Charles Koch and the John Birch Society.

In 1968, Charles Koch bought a full-page ad, “Let’s Get Out of Vietnam Now,” based on the isolationism of a competing flank of the far right movement....

Charles also gave public speeches espousing the view that government’s only proper role was to police the interference with the free market—an ideology that inherently rejects child labor laws, minimum wages or safety rules, the protection of union rights, and more....











0 Comments

April 20th, 2015

4/20/2015

0 Comments

 
Forgive my being missing in action these few weekends---I am doing spring things but will be here on weekdays---please come back.


This week I will talk about communications and media and build on the mission behind the capture of media in the US and how it allows the advancement of what will become a very third world autocratic society if left unchecked.  The important thing to remember is that the US Constitution was written just to keep this mission from happening and so all of what is being done can be reversed easily if we shake these Clinton and Bush pols out of the Democratic and Republican Parties.

As I said the national labor union and justice organization leadership are tied to Clinton neo-liberals and working against their US membership.  They push the same sound bites and talking points Congressional neo-liberals adopt each year knowing that these issues mean nothing as the larger national policies are installed.  It's like placing a finger in a leaking dyke and telling people that is the solution when you know the entire dyke is ready to collapse.  This is the mainstream media and communications being sent by Clinton neo-liberals in Congress and then sent by national labor and justice leaders.  I mentioned Human Rights Watch being a Clinton neo-liberal organization that would never tell you neo-liberalism and Federalism Act in the US creates the Human Rights problems---

Consolidation of media as with the consolidation of all industries has allowed this information capture as has the FCC dismantling of equal opportunity and access ----fair and balanced laws.  This happens because the Executive----whether President Obama, Governor O'Malley, or Mayor Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore appoints people to head communications that will limit speech and Democratic balance.


IT MATTERS WHO YOU VOTE FOR IN THESE PRIMARY ELECTIONS.  IF ALL CANDIDATES IN A RACE ARE ESTABLISHMENT ----BE THE CANDIDATE IN THE PRIMARY TO GET RID OF THESE INCUMBENT CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS.


When I read on social media that O'Malley looks good as a 'progressive' candidate people pull from a Baltimore Sun article.  Maryland has consolidated all of its media outlets with the Baltimore Sun taking all of the smaller news journals in central Maryland;; the Washington Post taking all small media journals in the Washington beltway; and Johns Hopkins taking all of public media radio.  All of these have head editors making sure headlines are good for these corporate pols----whether neo-con or neo-liberal and that no progressive issues have a voice.   So, if you live in Ohio reading media about a Maryland candidate for national office-----do not go to that state's media outlets.  I would never research an Ohio candidate by reading Ohio's mainstream media. 


IT IS ALL CAPTURED FOLKS---UNTIL WE GET RID OF THE CORPORATE POLS WE NEED TO FIND OTHER SOURCES FOR OUR POLICY INFORMATION.  REMEMBER, WHEN CORPORATIONS ARE LYING, CHEATING, STEALING THEN THE INFORMATION YOU ARE GETTING IS CORRUPT AS WELL.

Today I would like to look at the national media ---TV, radio, internet news to see communication policy that is bad for the American people.  Below you see a typical headline in national media---it doesn't matter from where it came because all media writes like this. The neo-liberal goals from Clinton to Obama was to redistribute wealth to the top and dismantle all of the personal wealth baby boomers accumulated.  They are ignoring contract agreements for pensions----they allowed public Trusts to be looted with no plans to recover that wealth----and the economic policy of boom and bust and FED policy was meant to keep the American people unable to keep or gain wealth.  IT IS THE GOAL OF NEO-LIBERAL POLICY ALONG WITH REPUBLICANS.  If media said that then people would know -----do vote for Clinton neo-liberals.  Instead, media tells us all this is a done deal.  Progressive liberal media outlets after the 2008 crash shouted all of this but by 2010----all progressive liberal voice was replace by only neo-liberal voice.

I have talked at length as to why all of the information below is not true---from the percentage of retirees coming to retirement too poor to the low level of personal assets since people's homes, retirements, savings, pensions were lost from fraud an need to simply come back in some form---that is what expanded Social Security would do. 

Note as well AARP----which is now simply a corporation not working for the interest of seniors----


5 Frightening Retirement Statistics That Demonstrate Baby Boomers Are in Serious Trouble


By Sean Williams
April 19, 2015


Source: AARP, Facebook.

The stock market may have staged an incredible rally since the lows of 2009, but for some skittish baby boomers (those Americans born between 1946 and 1964) this move comes too little, too late.

A number of factors have combined to shatter the dreams of a comfortable retirement for select boomers. A volatile stock market is just one of many factors that may not have worked in their favor in recent years.

For example, historically low lending rates for the past six years have stymied any chance for boomers to safely outpace inflation with bank CDs and money market accounts. Additionally, the three decade-long shift from pensions as a retirement driver to the 401(k) has moved the onus of retirement savings from employer to employee. What's left are a handful of boomers suddenly realizing the path to retirement is laid on their shoulders, not their employers, and they aren't prepared.

A number of new reports have hit the newswires recently chronicling the under-preparedness of baby boomers for retirement, and the figures they present are downright frightening. Here are five such statistics that demonstrate just how serious of trouble the baby boomer generation could be in.



1. Approximately four-in-10 baby boomers have nothing saved for retirement.
According to a recently released study from the Insured Retirement Institute, just 69% of still working Boomers have money socked away for their retirement, while just 50% of already retired boomers have money saved. In other words, half of all retired boomers are living off of Social Security income, pensions, and other forms of recurring income, rather than retirement savings accounts. For added context, in 2011, 84% of working boomers have put away money for retirement, and 69% of retired boomers had money saved for retirement.

2. 36% of boomers plan to rely on Social Security as their primary source of income.
A recently released study from the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS) noted that the most commonly given answer from baby boomers as to where the majority of their income in retirement would come from was "Social Security" with 36%. This was closely followed by retirement accounts/savings at 34%, and company-funded pensions in a distant third with 12%.

Source: SSA Office of the Inspector General.

This is particularly concerning because the Social Security Administration notes that Social Security income is only designed to replace about 40% of a workers' salary and not be a primary source of income. As an added complication, the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Trust Fund (a combination of the OASI and DI) is on pace to exhaust its cash reserves by 2033, meaning if Congress can't figure out a way to raise revenue, cut benefits, or some combination of the two, qualified beneficiaries will see a 23% reduction to their full retirement benefit.

3. Early boomer households are facing average shortfalls of $71,299 per individual in a family.
A study released in February from the Employee Benefit Research Institute offered a minor ray of sunshine by pointing out that 56.7% of early boomers are on track to meet their financial retirement needs. However, in instances where early boomers aren't prepared and a shortfall is expected, early boomers can expect an average shortfall of $71,299 per individual in a family, $93,576 for single males, and a whopping $104,821 for single females. In sum, this isn't an overnight fix.

Let's not forget as well that life expectancies are on the rise in the U.S., meaning retirement income needs to last longer than ever.


Source: AARP, Facebook.

4. 19% of baby boomers who are offered a 401(k) or similar retirement plan don't participate.
Another frightening statistic from the recent TCRS report is that nearly one-in-five (19%) baby boomers who were offered the chance to participate in an employer-sponsored 401(k) retirement plan chose not to.

Not only does this hamper boomers' potential to save for retirement, but in some instances I'd have to believe that boomers might be leaving what's essentially free money on the table in the form of company-sponsored matching contributions. Although not every company will match a percentage of your contributions, 401(k)helpcenter.com data shows that 78% of employers match employee contributions to at least some degree.

Also noteworthy, nearly a quarter (23%) of boomers with 401(k)s or IRAs have a taken a loan out against their retirement account or made an early withdrawal. 

5. Full-time workers have a Retire Ready Index Score of just 4.1 out of 10, while retirees scored 5.5 out of 10.
Lastly, a study conducted by Voya Financial last summer of all workers (not just boomers) and retirees (again, all retirees, not just boomers) that rated respondents on a scale of 1-to-10 based on financial preparedness suggested that neither workers nor retirees have adequate knowledge, planning, or assets for retirement.

Voya's survey was broken into three categories: knowing, planning, and having. In terms of knowing workers scored a 5.8, while retirees chimed in at a respectable score of 7. However, planning and having scores for both workers and retirees were dismal, including a "planning" score of 3 for workers. In other words, Americans generally have an OK understanding of the basics of retirement – identifying compounding principles, figuring out which investments possess less risk, and so on – but their application of these tools, such as forming a budget and a financial plan of action, is terrible.


Source: AARP, Facebook.

Three things for boomers to consider
With time being the greatest ally of any investor, and boomers potentially losing some of that leverage as they near retirement, here are three things they can consider right now in order to get their retirement back on the right path.

First, consider working past pre-set and psychological retirement ages of 65 or 66. More than a third of boomers in the Insured Retirement Institutes' survey already planned to work past 70, which may wind up being a wise course of action. If boomers can delay the need to file for Social Security benefits by using working income to live off of, they could potentially wait until age 70 to claim Social Security benefits in order to maximize their income, which could be a big help if their retirement savings aren't where they should be.

Secondly, boomers should seriously consider opening and/or contributing to a Roth IRA. To begin with it's never too late to start investing for your future, and with life expectancies approaching 79 years in the U.S. the chance of your future extending further into the horizon is increasing. More importantly, though, a Roth IRA offers a number of unique advantages to boomers. You'll have a catch-up contribution of an extra $1,000 you can invest annually because you're over 50 years old, the capital gains earned over the long-term are completely tax-free, and with a Roth you aren't required to stop making contributions or to take contributions by a certain age unlike a Traditional IRA.

Third, for those boomers who've been hit especially hard since the recession it may not be a bad idea to consult with an advisor. Consulting with a financial professional isn't "giving up" or a sign that you've failed, but merely a way to ensure your avenues to prosperity stay open. It also can be good to get a fresh pair of eyes on your financial situation to catch anything you may have missed. Keep in mind, however, that even if you choose to go with a financial advisor you are still in the driver's seat of your own retirement.
__________________________________________
We are hearing on national media that the FCC is taking a stance on net neutrality that is positive for this issue.  At the same time we are seeing TV advertizing that shows internet providers creating new categories of fees for simple things like download speeds and watching as our computers crash and freeze because video attached to an article or website we want to open causes the computer to freeze.  If you note-----corporations can place these videos on any article so it makes sense to place a video on progressive articles to make them hard to impossible to open.  That has been happening for a year now as I know I cannot open many progressive articles I used to access. 


The other thing we hear on TV are advertisements from Verizon that now they are offering network packaging of shows that compete with cable corporations 100 shows in a package.  That is not bad----but what it is designed to do is move people from cable to internet with a goal of ending the cable TV source of communications.  Think what we have as choices right now----Verizon and Comcast price fix these services by offering the same things for the same price.  So, we can go to cable or satellite dish for a discount.  Verizon is now putting cable out of business by offering what everyone wants---the opportunity to choose what shows they want in a package.  You say----well, that's simply competition----

NO, LOOK AT COMCAST TO SEE IT IS THE CABLE GUY THAT CONSOLIDATED TO BECOME THE INTERNET GUY SO THEY DO NOT CARE IF  CABLE IS PUT OUT OF BUSINESS....

So, these US telecommunications corporations are already global and as the article shows below----one telecommunications corporation in Mexico was handed all of Mexico's public telecommunications and now has almost complete control.  Look at AT& T moving in and you see what is happening in the US-----consolidation and elimination of other communication vehicles and we have no media control in the US.



The telephone giant may divest assets beyond the eastern coast of Mexico, to the west coast and the border with the U.S., Slim said in an October interview with Bloomberg. América Móvil is believed to have contacted potential suitors, including AT&T and SoftBank Corp., about buying as much as $17.5 billion worth of assets.

Currently, América Móvil controls 70% of the mobile phone market in Mexico, and 80% of the country’s landlines.




This is happening while Obama and his FCC chair is in place and these deals are being allowed because of how anti-trust is defined.  We will see Verizon and Comcast eliminate all other carriers and then they will merge into one great big telecommunication corporation in the US just as Mexico's public telecommunications was handed to Carlos Slim


Monday, February 17, 2014 FULL SHOW | HEADLINES |


Former FCC Commissioner Warns About Comcast-Time Warner Merger, "Mindless" Media Consolidation

Comcast has announced plans to buy Time Warner Cable at a cost of more than $45 billion in stock. The takeover would allow Comcast to provide cable service to a third of American households and give it a virtual monopoly in 19 of the 20 largest media markets. While Comcast has claimed the deal will be "pro-consumer," the group Free Press warns the deal would be a "disaster" for consumers. Analysts predict Comcast will launch a lobbying blitz similar to when it won approval to take over NBCUniversal in 2011. Comcast has already hired FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker, who signed off on its NBC deal. We speak to another former FCC commissioner, Michael Copps. He now leads the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause.

Transcript This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show with the news that the nation’s two largest cable providers plan to merge. Comcast has announced plans to buy Time Warner Cable at a cost of more than $45 billion in stock. The takeover would allow Comcast to provide cable service to a third of American households and give it a virtual monopoly in 19 of the 20 largest media markets.

Consumer groups say they’ll oppose the deal. Free Press said, quote, "In an already uncompetitive market with high prices that keep going up and up, a merger of the two biggest cable companies should be unthinkable. This deal would be a disaster for consumers and must be stopped," Free Press said. But Comcast CEO Brian Roberts appeared on CNBC and praised the deal as "pro-competitive" and "pro-consumer."

BRIAN ROBERTS: We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. It’s a really special transaction for both Time Warner Cable and for Comcast—shareholders, our employees, and mostly our customers. The deal is pro-competitive. It’s pro-consumer. We’re going to be able to bring better products, faster Internet, more channels, on-demand, TV everywhere, and a national local platform that’s really special. So, we’re optimistic we can get this approved.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

For more, we go to Washington, D.C., where we’re joined by Michael Copps, member of the Federal Communications Commission from 2001 to 2011, now leads the Media and Democracy Reform Initiative at Common Cause.

Show Full Transcript ›





__________________________________________
Below you see Obama's FCC passing what looks to be good net neutrality law and it is ----there is nothing bad about this policy-----making the designation of internet as utility is what we wanted.  Keep in mind----Obama is pushing at the same time as hard as he can with Congressional neo-liberals behind him Trans Pacific Trade Pact.

TPP seeks to allow global corporations to operate in the US ignoring any US labor and justice laws that take from profit----well, this FCC standing does just that----it would not stand under TPP.  This is what I call progressive posing.  Obama is doing this now because of the coming 2016 election to take the heat off of Clinton neo-liberals in elections hoping people will actually think someone is protecting them when in fact all the national policies that will end net neutrality are continuing to move forward.

As you see below-----US mainstream media all stated simply that this rule was passed and net neutrality in place without outing Obama for his duplicity in ending net neutrality with TPP.

For those not old enough to remember pre-Clinton news media---it was the job of the journalist to out Obama and Clinton neo-liberals for this posing.  Balance in media----and history and goals of policy were always given as with a politician's voting record so citizens knew policy from all angles.  This article shows---US media now simply prints from day to day what happened that day with no context. 

The headline should be  OBAMA AND CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS PRETEND TO SUPPORT A PROGRESSIVE ISSUE WHILE MOVING POLICY FORWARD TO KILL THIS VERY POLICY ALL BECAUSE OF COMING 2016 ELECTION.




FCC passes net neutrality rules

02/26/15 01:26 PM--Updated 02/26/15 04:44 PM

By Julianne Pepitone, NBC News

Ater more than a year of heated public debate, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday passed “net neutrality” rules: They allow the agency to prohibit Internet service providers from granting faster access to companies that pay for the privilege.

The new rules treat broadband providers as “common carriers” under Title II of the Telecommunications Act – the same category as utility companies that provide gas, electricity, etc. – in which all customers have equal access to service.


As was expected, the FCC commissioners voted along party lines with the three Democrats voting for the rules and two Republicans voting against.

Opinion: Internet rights are civil rights

“There are countries where it is routine for government, not the consumer, to determine who has access and what kind of content can be accessed by its citizens,” said FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn at the meeting on Thursday. “I am proud to be able to say we are not one of them.”

The fight leading up to Thursday’s vote drew public debate – the FCC received more than 4 million public comments – and was generally split between content providers like Netflix and Google, in favor, and Internet providers like Comcast and Time Warner Cable, against. (Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and NBC News.)

Who’s for and who’s against

Supporters of net neutrality have said allowing Internet “fast lanes” would unfairly raise prices on content services, as they would need to pay providers (and ultimately raise prices for their services) if they want to avoid slow speeds for customers.

But net neutrality opponents say the Title II designation will stifle innovation in broadband. Last May a group of CEOs from Internet providers including AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, and Comcast sent a letter to the FCC arguing the new classification allows the FCC to conduct “unprecedented government micromanagement of all aspects of the Internet economy.”

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai reflected that philosophy in his dissenting remarks on Thursday. “Title II is not just a solution in search of a problem,” he said. “It’s a government solution that creates a real-world problem.”

Changes for consumers?

Open-Internet activists are cheering Thursday’s vote, but Kevin Werbach, a professor of legal studies and business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told NBC News on Wednesday that not much will change immediately for the average consumer.

“The day after the FCC order, your broadband will still cost the same amount as it did before,” Werbach said. “Since 2010, there has been a set of rules, but it was unclear if those rules were enforceable. All this ruling means is that there will be FCC jurisdiction to examine practices and hear complaints.”

The new rules are also expected to trigger lawsuits – AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told CNBC earlier this month “there will be litigation” – that could drag on for an extended period.

This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com





____________________________________________

Of course Net Neutrality will be wiped out by TPP as all Clinton neo-liberals know----if we educate that this is good policy but the pols doing it are posing having the opposite goal----then the American people will be able to understand-----DON'T VOTE FOR A POL THAT IS SIMPLY PROGRESSIVE POSING!

Remember, America has anti-trust and monopoly laws in the Constitution that simply need to be enforced---get rid of Clinton neo-liberals and getting a REAL progressive liberal in place will allow all these policies be voided and global corporations downsized. 

THAT IS THE NEWS YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATION SHOULD BE SHOUTING.


If a national labor union like AFL-CIO are shouting for net neutrality and not outing Obama and Clinton neo-liberals are posing----those leaders are working against this issue.  They will use it as a reason to support Clinton neo-liberals in 2016----

BUT THEY PROTECTED NET NEUTRALITY I CAN HEAR IT NOW!

This article does a good job showing how the most important issue in US history is rarely even mentioned on mainstream media and if it is ----it is shown as a job creating trade pact only.


Will the Net Neutrality Victory Be Wiped Out by the TPP?


Posted by WiseFather on 02/05/2015

FCC Chairman Wheeler’s announcement about net neutrality is a great win for everybody that doesn’t own a broadband provider. Of course, the more corporate your news source, the more negative the reaction you’ll see to the announcement. The FCC’s move is a step in the right direction for securing the most internet freedom for the most people.

However, it’s possible that defeat could be snatched from the jaws of victory if a new trade agreement, known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), passes Congress. According to leaks from the secret negotiations, the TPP would allow multinational corporations to easily challenge all regulations that impact its profit. Yes, this is an attack on our sovereignty and the Constitution.

So any future consumer-friendly regulation of the Internet providers by the FCC could be overturned if the TPP is passed. Here’s a great description of the part that could be used to upend net neutrality:

Just one example of this is the “investor-state dispute settlements” provision, which I have called “corporate courts.” This part of “NAFTA-style” trade agreements, including TPP, allows corporations to sue governments that pass laws and regulations that interfere with profits. Similar clauses in trade agreements around the world have, for example, enabled tobacco companies to sue governments for trying to protect the health of their citizens. Under TPP these suits will be adjudicated by corporate attorneys, not democratically constituted courts.

Most people have never even heard of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, perhaps only being vaguely aware that Obama’s pushing for some kind of trade deal. The TPP is extremely important, yet it continues to get almost no coverage in the corporate, mainstream media:

Over The Past 18 Months, Network Evening News Completely Ignored The TPP. A Media Matters transcript search of the CBS Evening News, ABC’s World News Tonight, and NBC’s Nightly News from August 1, 2013, through January 31, 2015, found no mention of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. By contrast, PBS NewsHour mentioned the TPP on during eight broadcasts, most of which were substantive discussions of the trade agreement.



So, the public is left to fend for themselves and seek out information about the TPP from smaller media sources. Try the ones below for a good overview of the issue, then contact your Congresscritter.



_________________________________________________

Call me crazy but if you Google computer crash and freezing all you see are tips regarding viruses and the need to clean your hard drive and no doubt-----this really does create performance issues.  But, as we see below it seems more likely to be part of moving the internet to different speeds.  I know it has been bad on computers I use for over a year.  Verizon openly advertises SPEED MATCH as if down loads and up loads are two different things ----all of this is tied to ending net neutrality.  So, will this move forward as communications take this to Federal court?  Of course -----and will TPP be voted into place before this gets out of Federal court -----absolutely.

This FCC stance would have happened in 2009 when Obama was just elected and consolidations would have been stopped if there was any intent on Clinton neo-liberal Obama to protect the people in these deals.  When they come at the end of a two year term full of expansion and consolidation---THIS IS PROGRESIVE POSING.

Having this ruling in place while electing a progressive President like Bernie Sanders would mean you would have someone in place that would fight TPP and in Federal court.  Elect a Clinton neo-liberal like Hillary, Biden, Cuomo, O'Malley, or Reich-----and you will get a President that allows TPP to stand and allows this Federal case to die on the vine.


DON'T LET YOUR UPLOAD SPEEDS LAG BEHIND SpeedMatchSM Only on Verizon FiOS

  1. Very slow 4G speeds | Verizon Wireless Community community.verizonwireless.com/thread/561098?...CachedWebsites are very slow to load, any updates download slowly, and pandora has issues streaming, so it's not just the speed test. 5515 Views ... Welcome to Verizon.

  2. Why is my Internet so slow despite having Verizon... www.makeuseof.com/...so-slow-despite-having-verizon-fiosCachedHow do I make my Internet faster? I use Verizon FiOS Quantum in Oradell, New Jersey, United States so under normal circumstances it should be working fine. But ...

  3. Verizon DSL Slow Speed Issue - CNET Broadband...
    • forums.cnet.com
    Jan 03, 2006 · Broadband: Verizon DSL Slow Speed Issue - Read broadband discussions and get tips and advice on this topic and others on CNET Forums.

  4. FIOS Wireless speed extremely slow - Wireless -...
    • www.tomshardware.com
    When I first got Verizon FIOS about a year ago my wireless speed was about 20 mb per second upload and download speed, and pages would load in exactly 0.116 seconds.

  5. Slow FiOS internet speeds - Verizon Forums
    • forum.verizon.com
    •  
    So about 4-5 days ago, I called Verizon Customer service to talk to them about my Internet speeds dropping drastically after about 5. I currently r...

    _______________________________________________



    Europe still has a functioning anti-trust and monopoly enforcement and as you see below----have a long history of breaking up US telecommunication corporations hold on European markets.  Look at how Google corrupts search results making all we see ---from what makes the front of the list in searches to the advertisements ---all determined by profit.  We used to have an internet that showed search results by how much interest an article had with viewers.  Guess where articles critical of government or corporations and/or progressive articles are usually found-----I go to page 25 of the search results on a topic to find relevant articles.

    Antitrust Law in the European Union


     By Larry Bumgardner, JD
    2005 Volume 8 Issue 3
    Major differences have existed in enforcement of antitrust law in the U.S. and the European Union. However, recent political changes and new regulations in the EU could have significant impact on business decisions for global companies.





  1. After walking away without so much as a slap on the wrist from a U.S. antitrust investigation, Google is about to get into a major fist fight with the European Union. If Google (GOOGL, Tech30) loses, it will get pummeled. The EU wants blood.

    Google faces a fine of up to $6 billion -- more than a quarter's worth of profits for the search company. It also could have to change the way it displays search results in the EU (the changes wouldn't affect results in other countries, including the United States).

    The European Commission's main complaint with Google involves the way it favors its own search results above competitors'. The most relevant links are not always listed first on Google.

    For example, people searching for "running watch" will see photos, prices, ratings and links to five watches from companies that paid Google to advertise on the site. They won't see Amazon or other rivals' results listed first, and they're not necessarily seeing the best or most relevant products at the top of the results.  "It's not based on the merits of Google shopping that it always comes up first in search," Europe's top anti-trust official Margrethe Vestager said. "Dominant companies can't abuse their dominant position to create advantage in related markets."

    The fact that the EU brought the case against Google isn't surprising. The European Commission has been probing Google's business practices in fits and starts for five years, spanning two different commissioners who have made countless threats against the search company.


    Just when it seemed like Google had gained the upper hand, the European Parliament voted in favor of a non-binding resolution to break up Google, the EC voted in a new competition commissioner, and the tide turned against the search company.

    The EU has also been notoriously harsh on U.S. tech companies.
    ___________________________________________

  1. WHO IS HURT MOST BY DEREGULATION AND CONSOLIDATION OF UTILITIES?  MOST OF SENATOR PUGH'S CONSTITUENTS----GET RID OF SENATOR PUGH!
  1. Senator Pugh from Baltimore is the biggest corporate shill in the world and if deregulation and consolidation of our local and state utilities is to occur as under O'Malley she is right there to present that bill.  Nothing shouts I AM A REPUBLICAN than handing control of our public utilities and deregulating so they can do anything they want than this.  SO WHY DOES BALTIMORE'S POLS RUN AS DEMOCRATS AS THEY WORK FOR A VERY NEO-CONSERVATIVE JOHNS HOPKINS WHO IS BEHIND THESE POLICIES?!



    Public Utilities - Telecommunications Law - Modernization

     Bill Number: SB0577Bill Sponsor(s): Sen. Pugh Committee: FinanceBill Summary: This bill would deregulate the landline telecommunication industry in Maryland, by:
    • Allowing telecom service providers to detariff their services while posting their rates and charges on a public website
    • Removing the need for the PSC to approve service rates
    • Allowing telephone companies to discontinue regulated retail services upon written notice to the PSC (14 days’ notice)
    • Removing PSC oversight of certain corporate transactions between affiliates
    • Allow traditional telephone companies to provide service using any available, lawful technology, including fiber-to-the-home networks
      • The fiber network is a superior network – more capacity, more capabilities, and fewer repairs. It’s less susceptible to outages caused by the weather.
      • Operating two parallel networks is inefficient and costly.
    Chamber Position: SupportPosition Summary: The Maryland Chamber supports this legislation to modernize the current regulatory authority which the PSC has over telephone companies. The bill will bring Maryland’s regulatory framework for wireline telephone companies in line with a majority of other states, which have either fully or largely deregulated traditional telephone services. This will allow traditional wireline telecommunications companies to innovate, expand, and keep pace with technology much easier, without the unneeded regulation of the PSC.

    Chamber Staff: Mathew Palmer




    __________________________________




  1. Below you see the problem that exists when a Clinton neo-liberal controls the Democratic Party. Look at the Democratic Platform to see nowhere does it say ------hand control of the entire US economy to global corporations to kill Democracy in America!

    Each time a President from Clinton to Obama allows these policies the US media -----labor and justice organizations should be shouting----WHERE IS THE ANTI-TRUST ENFORCEMENT-----When a national labor union or justice organization leader supports a Clinton neo-liberal every election cycle this is what they know will occur.

    Telecommunications are key to this capture of our media and it is the basis for the NSA spying and surveillance. It would be impossible for hackers and spying if our utilities were small. Here in Maryland O'Malley made his entire terms in office about consolidating all utilities to create monopolies yet media is ready to paint O'Malley as progressive.






  1. ByJeffrey PfefferMoneyWatchDecember 8, 2009, 4:20 PM

    Ignoring Antitrust Laws Breeds Bullies and Bailouts

    Last Updated Dec 8, 2009 4:20 PM EST



    For decades now, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, antitrust enforcement in the United States has been virtually nonexistent. Companies have been gobbling up competitors in industries ranging from oil (Chevron buying Texaco) to software (Oracle buying PeopleSoft, which had already purchased J. D. Edwards) to banking (NationsBank merging with Bank of America) to pharmaceuticals (Pfizer's purchase of Wyeth).
    The reason for such lax oversight: a perspective out of the University of Chicago maintaining that there are relatively few real monopolies, markets are largely self-correcting, and government regulators and policy makers are not to be trusted to make economic decisions.

    Numerous bad consequences flow from this misguided policy - or absence of policy. One is higher prices. There just might be some connection between the rise in pharmaceutical prices and the fact that this industry has seen mega-mergers among the major players for years.

    Another is the recent financial meltdown and the taxpayer funds that have been expended to address it. How did so many financial institutions become "too big to fail" without imposing unreasonable systemic burdens and risks? Because no antitrust oversight precluded the numerous mergers and takeovers that created a financial landscape in which a few behemoths held most of the deposits and made most of the mortgages. And the "solution" to this problem, caused in part by having institutions too big to fail? Combine those entities with other, larger financial organizations - leaving mortgage markets, deposits, commercial loans, and investment banking even more concentrated than before.


    Other negative effects on innovation and entrepreneurship have implications for the long-run competitiveness of the U.S. economy. To oversimplify somewhat, businesses can compete in basically two ways:
    • Offer a superior value proposition in the marketplace - the bundle of product and service features coupled with the price.
    • Use size and market power to bully or bribe your customers and forestall competitive entry.
    The first competitive dynamic produces innovation, the second, stagnation, as potential new technologies and services get unfairly shut out.

    All too many companies use their size and market power to intimidate or bribe customers into not pursing new offerings that may be beneficial. Intel recently paid an antitrust settlement of more than $1 billion. Although the company denied any guilt, the allegations were that Intel gave money to customers that would stop using AMD's chips. Oracle's strategy of using its vast cash hoard to "consolidate" the software industry - acquiring companies that make competitive and complementary products - provides it the market power to forestall customer defection even if the customers are unhappy, because they have few to no options left.

    And then there is IBM. According to one knowledgeable industry source, more than half of IBM's profits still come from its mainframe business - and some of you thought mainframe computers were relics of the past! This fact is scarcely surprising when you think about how many mainframe competitors are left in the marketplace - approximately none - how many legacy applications and systems still run on large mainframes, and how long, costly, and difficult it is to migrate to new platforms. IBM will do anything to protect its mainframe business and margins. As Ashlee Vance details in her New York Times blog post, it's threatened customers with legal action for considering software that saves processing power and time, such as that provided by Neon Enterprise Software, and it's threatened other retaliatory moves, such as withdrawing support from customers' mainframe operations.

    Fortunately, the European Union's antitrust authority has seen fit to be somewhat more active than its U.S. counterpart. The E.U. has given Intel, Microsoft, and now Oracle (with its proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems) trouble. Instead of complaining about the EU and its "bureaucrats," as many of my high-tech friends do, people should appreciate the importance of antitrust enforcement.

    Markets provide numerous benefits in the allocation of resources and in stimulating invention and the renewal of companies and industries. But markets need competition to work properly. Competition requires competitors and a game that is not rigged in favor of the large, powerful, and politically well-connected incumbents. The importance of getting this policy right is huge, both for the companies adversely affected and for the economy as a whole.

0 Comments
<<Previous

    Author

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

    Archives

    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012

    Categories

    All
    2014 Economic Crash
    21st Century Economy
    Affordable Care Act
    Affordable Care Act
    Alec
    Americorp/VISTA
    Anthony Brown
    Anthony Brown
    Anti Incumbant
    Anti-incumbant
    Anti Incumbent
    Anti Incumbent
    Attacking The Post Office Union
    Baltimore And Cronyism
    Baltimore Board Of Estimates
    Baltimore Board Of Estimates
    Baltimore Development Corp
    Baltimore Development Corp
    Baltimore Recall/Retroactive Term Limits
    Bank Fraud
    Bank Fraud
    Bank Of America
    Bank Settlement
    Bank-settlement
    B Corporations
    Bgeexelon Mergerf59060c411
    Brookings Institution
    Business Tax Credits
    California Charter Expansion
    Cardin
    Career Colleges
    Career Colleges Replacing Union Apprenticeships
    Charters
    Charter School
    Collection Agencies
    Common Core
    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
    Consumer-financial-protection-bureau
    Corporate Media
    Corporate-media
    Corporate Oversight
    Corporate-oversight
    Corporate Politicians
    Corporate-politicians
    Corporate Rule
    Corporate-rule
    Corporate Taxes
    Corporate-taxes
    Corporate Tax Reform
    Corporatizing Us Universities
    Cost-benefit-analysis
    Credit Crisis
    Credit-crisis
    Cummings
    Department Of Education
    Department Of Justice
    Department-of-justice
    Derivatives Reform
    Development
    Dismantling Public Justice
    Dodd Frank
    Doddfrankbba4ff090a
    Doug Gansler
    Doug-gansler
    Ebdi
    Education Funding
    Education Reform
    Edwards
    Election Reform
    Election-reform
    Elections
    Emigration
    Energy-sector-consolidation-in-maryland
    Enterprise Zones
    Equal Access
    Estate Taxes
    European Crisis
    Expanded And Improved Medicare For All
    Expanded-and-improved-medicare-for-all
    Failure To Prosecute
    Failure-to-prosecute
    Fair
    Fair And Balanced Elections
    Fair-and-balanced-elections
    Farm Bill
    Federal Election Commissionelection Violationsmaryland
    Federal Election Commissionelection Violationsmarylandd20a348918
    Federal-emergency-management-agency-fema
    Federal Reserve
    Financial Reform Bill
    Food Safety Not In Tpp
    For Profit Education
    Forprofit-education
    Fracking
    Fraud
    Freedom Of Press And Speech
    Frosh
    Gambling In Marylandbaltimore8dbce1f7d2
    Granting Agencies
    Greening Fraud
    Gun Control Policy
    Healthcare For All
    Healthcare-for-all
    Health Enterprise Zones
    High Speed Rail
    Hoyer
    Imf
    Immigration
    Incarceration Bubble
    Incumbent
    Incumbents
    Innovation Centers
    Insurance Industry Leverage And Fraud
    International Criminal Court
    International Trade Deals
    International-trade-deals
    Jack Young
    Jack-young
    Johns Hopkins
    Johns-hopkins
    Johns Hopkins Medical Systems
    Johns-hopkins-medical-systems
    Kaliope Parthemos
    Labor And Justice Law Under Attack
    Labor And Wages
    Lehmann Brothers
    Living Wageunionspolitical Action0e39f5c885
    Maggie McIntosh
    Maggie-mcintosh
    Martin O'Malley
    Martin O'Malley
    Martin-omalley
    Martin-omalley8ecd6b6eb0
    Maryland Health Co Ops
    Maryland-health-co-ops
    Maryland-health-co-ops1f77692967
    Maryland Health Coopsccd73554da
    Maryland Judiciary
    Marylandnonprofits
    Maryland Non Profits
    Maryland Nonprofits2509c2ca2c
    Maryland Public Service Commission
    Maryland State Bar Association
    Md Credit Bondleverage Debt441d7f3605
    Media
    Media Bias
    Media-bias
    Medicaremedicaid
    Medicaremedicaid8416fd8754
    Mental Health Issues
    Mental-health-issues
    Mers Fraud
    Mikulski
    Military Privatization
    Minority Unemploymentunion And Labor Wagebaltimore Board Of Estimates4acb15e7fa
    Municipal Debt Fraud
    Ndaa-indefinite-detention
    Ndaaindefinite Detentiond65cc4283d
    Net Neutrality
    New Economy
    New-economy
    Ngo
    Non Profit To Profit
    Nonprofit To Profitb2d6cb4b41
    Nsa
    O'Malley
    Odette Ramos
    Omalley
    O'Malley
    Open Meetings
    Osha
    Patronage
    Pension-benefit-guaranty-corp
    Pension Funds
    Pension-funds
    Police Abuse
    Private-and-public-pension-fraud
    Private Health Systemsentitlementsprofits Over People
    Private Health Systemsentitlementsprofits Over People6541f468ae
    Private Non Profits
    Private-non-profits
    Private Nonprofits50b33fd8c2
    Privatizing Education
    Privatizing Government Assets
    Privatizing-the-veterans-admin-va
    Privitizing Public Education
    Progressive Policy
    Progressive Taxes Replace Regressive Policy
    Protections Of The People
    Protections-of-the-people
    Public Education
    Public Funding Of Private Universities
    Public Housing Privatization
    Public-libraries-privatized-or-closed
    Public Private Partnerships
    Public-private-partnerships
    Public Transportation Privatization
    Public Utilities
    Rapid Bus Network
    Rawlings Blake
    Rawlings-blake
    Rawlingsblake1640055471
    Real Progressives
    Reit-real-estate-investment-trusts
    Reitreal Estate Investment Trustsa1a18ad402
    Repatriation Taxes
    Rule Of Law
    Rule-of-law
    Ruppersberger
    SAIC AND INTERNATIONAL SECURITY
    Sarbanes
    S Corp Taxes
    Selling Public Datapersonal Privacy
    Smart Meters
    Snowden
    Social Security
    Sovereign Debt Fraudsubprime Mortgage Fraudmortgage Fraud Settlement
    Sovereign Debt Fraudsubprime Mortgage Fraudmortgage Fraud Settlement0d62c56e69
    Statistics As Spin
    Statistics-as-spin
    Student-corps
    Subprime Mortgage Fraud
    Subprime-mortgage-fraud
    Surveillance And Security
    Sustainability
    Teachers
    Teachers Unions2bc448afc8
    Teach For America
    Teach For America
    Technology Parks
    Third Way Democrats/new Economy/public Union Employees/public Private Patnerships/government Fraud And Corruption
    Third Way Democratsnew Economypublic Union Employeespublic Private Patnershipsgovernment Fraud And Corruption
    Third-way-democratsnew-economypublic-union-employeespublic-private-patnershipsgovernment-fraud-and-corruptionc10a007aee
    Third Way/neo Liberals
    Third-wayneo-liberals
    Third-wayneo-liberals5e1e6d4716
    Third Wayneoliberals7286dda6aa
    Tifcorporate Tax Breaks2d87bba974
    Tpp
    Transportation Inequity In Maryland
    Union Busting
    Unionbusting0858fddb8b
    Unions
    Unionsthird Waypost Officealec3c887e7815
    Universities
    Unreliable Polling
    Unreliable-polling
    Van Hollen
    Van-hollen
    VEOLA Environment -privatization Of Public Water
    Veterans
    War Against Women And Children
    War-against-women-and-children
    Youth Works

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.