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July 14th, 2014

7/14/2014

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I listened to someone tell me that Maryland Assembly passed laws to fight widespread wage theft and I had to remind them that Maryland passes laws but they do not enforce laws.  It's like saying policy makes health care stronger or public education stronger while defunding and deregulating these institutions.  Please stop listening to what neo-liberals and neo-cons say------and look what they do.  Remember, they work under 'tell them what they want to hear and then do what you want' politics of autocracy.

Let's take a look at unemployment in the US to remind ourselves----we must have citizens earning enough money to be able to consume to fuel the economy.  We must have policy that has Federal, state, and local governments using public money to hire small and regional domestic businesses to do work to rebuild a domestic economy.  Global corporations expanding overseas only hire overseas and make their profits overseas. 

THIS IS THE PROBLEM WITH UNEMPLOYMENT. 

REMEMBER, UNEMPLOYMENT IN THE US AND MARYLAND IS 36% BECAUSE GLOBAL CORPORATIONS CONTROL OUR ECONOMY AND USE HIGH UNEMPLOYMENT TO KEEP US WORKERS DESPERATE AND TO MAXIMIZE PROFITS.

Below you see the latest scheme by neo-liberal pols working for wealth and profit-----having the public become the Human Resources Department for corporations by having taxpayers fund all job training that should be done by corporations.  THESE WORKERS MUST BE JOB-READY ON DAY ONE.  All of the education funding that helped the working/middle class go to 4 year universities now go to subsidize corporate profit in job training programs.  I listen to neo-liberals telling me the poor need computer skills to do a job as if poor children aren't the top users of computer gaming-----needing lots of computer knowledge.  They simply need access to computers.  There is no skills deficit-----we have US college grads with STEM degrees among the unemployed.  Neo-liberals and neo-cons are simply using this as excuses to spend public money building structures that bring foreign students to the US to train to work overseas.

The problem today with the policy of a New Deal infrastructure funding bill is that neo-liberals are ready to send all that Federal funding to global construction corporations who will be allowed to bring labor from the nations these corporations are headquartered.  There will be little US employment from a infrastructure bill created by neo-liberals.  This is what Trans Pacific Trade Pact TPP is all about!

IF YOUR POL IS NOT SHOUTING THAT REBUILDING A DOMESTIC ECONOMY AND GETTING RID OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS IN YOUR STATE-------THEY ARE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.


In Maryland that is why elections have been captured so as to silence an candidate with a platform to do that----


Wednesday, Feb 5, 2014, 11:33 am


Who’s Really To Blame for Unemployment?
BY Michelle Chen  Working In These Times


Though some protesters at an 'Unemployment Olympics' event in Tompkins Square Park, N.Y. blamed joblessness on 'the boss,' a new report suggests that the economic climate is more at fault.

Guided by the mythology of the “American dream”—the idea that, given the opportunity, the deserving will excel and rise above their peers—politicians often attribute unemployment to a mystical “skills gap.” If people can’t find a job, the logic goes, they clearly weren’t fit to be hired. As a consequence, many legislators tout specialized training programs or education reforms as possible solutions to America’s seemingly intractable jobs crisis. But a new study shows that blaming the “skills gap” for unemployment makes about as much sense as blaming a mass famine on “excess hunger.” 

A recent analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute shows that elevated unemployment is due to a general lack of demand in the job market, fueled by overarching economic decline. In other words, this is not a problem that can merely be addressed by retraining workers or revamping the education system.

In the report, economist Heidi Shierholz outlines this economic imbalance by comparing unemployment at different levels of education. Her results reveal that workers are suffering across the board: 

Workers with a college degree or more still have unemployment rates that are more than one-and-a-half times as high as they were before the recession began. In other words, demand for workers at all levels of education is significantly weaker now than it was before the recession started. There is no evidence of workers at any level of education facing tight labor markets relative to 2007.

Moreover, the report continues, there are no specific job sectors that appear to be especially “tight.” So it’s not that the economy especially favors, for example, radiologists or software engineers; bosses seem to be shutting the door on workers of all sorts:

T]he unemployment rate in 2012 in all occupations is higher than it was before the recession. In every occupational category demand for workers is lower than it was five years ago. The signature of a skills mismatch—workers in some occupations experiencing tight labor markets relative to 2007—is plainly missing.

Indeed, when comparing the job-opening-to-job-seeker ratio across different categories, EPI found that “unemployed workers dramatically outnumber job openings in all sectors. There are between 1.4 and 10.5 times as many unemployed workers as job openings in every industry. ... In no industry does the number of job openings even come close to the number of people looking for work.”

They found similar evidence of stagnation in the number of hours that people are working and in wage rates—both of which also suggest that there has been no significant jump in demand for more labor in specific job areas.

And this isn’t the first time we’ve seen research debunking the “skill gap” rhetoric. Last year, various analyses of the so-called STEM fields (high-paying professions geared toward science, technology, engineering and math) showed that these much-hyped occupations, which policymakers and the media have tended to revere as potential saviors for U.S. industry, are not exactly lacking qualified U.S. applicants. Rather than hire those skilled workers, however, many managers are opting to fill their openings with "guestworkers," who are essentially brought in on employment visas as a reliable supply of temporary labor linked to specific firms. According to EPI, these guestworkers are also generally paid less attractive wages than their peers in comparable positions. 

In addition, a recent study focused on Wisconsin workers came to similar findings about supply and demand in the workforce. After crunching the 2012 numbers on jobs that require various levels of education, urbanologist Marc Levine concluded in that report, “Even if every unemployed person were perfectly matched to existing jobs, [more than] two-thirds of all jobless workers would still be out of work.” That’s a gap that no amount of extra training will fill.

Schierholz does note that in a dynamic, churning economy, there will always be some “mismatch” between job-seekers and job openings; individuals typically get turned down for positions for which they lack the right skills or experience. But these specific incompatibilities are not enough to explain the dramatic rise in unemployment in the past few years. And the issue before lawmakers now, she says, is how to curb those plummeting jobs numbers.

Rather than focus on grooming workers for specific sectors as a jobs program, EPI therefore recommends another $600 billion stimulus from Washington to help restore state budgets after the deep cuts that severely undermined opportunities and income among public servants during the recession. Another solution for workers would be a New Deal-style launch of infrastructural construction projects, which could immediately create job openings and pump aggregate economic activity. Extending unemployment benefits could also help re-energize the slumped economy, EPI says, by keeping those without a steady income from falling further into poverty.

However, thanks to the current legislature's general reluctance to take measures that smack of expanding welfare or enact proactive policy interventions to create government-supported jobs, Schierholz isn’t optimistic that Congress will actually put these stimulus reforms into action. 

"We actually could do this. The economics is pretty straightforward,” she tells In These Times. Unfortunately, she adds, “Generally, a big fiscal expansion is just not in the cards. So we are instead going to be languishing in this sluggish recovery for a while. It's going to be four or five years before we get back to something that looks like health in the labor market."

So when viewed in historical context, what is commonly deemed the “skills gap” in Washington looks more like a gap in knowledge about how the economy actually works. If legislators' idea is to break out of America's downward spiral, they shouldn't blame workers for not having what it takes to "deserve" to be employed. Instead, policymakers ought to acknowledge the fundamentals of matching people with jobs: it's not just about their usefulness to the economy, but whether the economy is healthy enough to make use of them.


____________________________________________

When labor is marginalized by global corporate power it compromises positions that will in the end kill the unions. The American people will not support unions if the leaders are pushing the policies of global corporations that take the US to the level of developing countries-----as Trans Pacific Trade Pact does.  Each election I see the AFL-CIO and other major unions backing the very neo-liberal candidates breaking down the US Constitution and handing control of the economy to global corporations.  They are backing the worst of economic and development projects all under the guise of 'creating jobs'.  If I have to listen one more time to union leaders say-----'but they promised jobs'. 

WE NEED LABOR UNIONS TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.  STAND FIRM AGAINST BAD PUBLIC POLICY AND RUN REAL LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

The threat of loss of union rights being made by neo-liberals will pale to the American people losing faith in union leadership.  The Democratic Party is a tent of labor and justice.  If labor turns on justice they will lose as well. 

STOP ALLOWING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS AND THEIR POLS DIVIDE AND CONQUER.  WE NEED JOBS BUT NOT ANY JOB.  WE NEED TO BE BUILDING AN ECONOMY THAT WILL CREATE A HEALTHY FUTURE.


Gambling and fossil fuels----fracking and natural gas exporting all to create jobs??????  REALLY?

FRACKING AND NATURAL GAS IS NOT CLEAN FUEL------EXPORTING RAW ENERGY RAISES THE COSTS IN THE US AND DOES NOT SUPPORT BUILDING ENERGY INDEPENDENCE.  IT IS  BAD POLICY.

When labor union leaders become the mouthpiece for all neo-liberal and neo-con policy-----they are worthless to the American people and they will lose support.  In Europe it is labor unions that are successfully protecting the citizens of Europe as best they can.

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE NEED STRONG UNIONS BUT WE NEED GOOD UNION LEADERSHIP!

Web Only / Features » February 4, 2014

Angering Environmentalists, AFL-CIO Pushes Fossil-Fuel Investment

Labor’s Richard Trumka has gone on record praising the Keystone pipeline and natural gas export terminals.

BY Cole Stangler Email Print Trumka's comments come at a sensitive time, as trade unions and leading environmental groups have sought to build political partnerships with each other in recent years.

The nation’s leading environmental groups are digging their heels in the sand by rejecting President Obama’s “all-of-the above” domestic energy strategy—which calls for pursuing renewable energy sources like wind and solar, but simultaneously expanding oil and gas production.

But it appears the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, won’t be taking environmentalists’ side in this fight, despite moves toward labor-environmentalist cooperation in recent years. On a recent conference call with reporters, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka endorsed two initiatives reviled by green groups: the Keystone XL pipeline and new natural gas export terminals. 

“There’s no environmental reason that [the pipeline] can’t be done safely while at the same time creating jobs,” said Trumka.

In response to a question from In These Times, Trumka also spoke in favor of boosting exports of natural gas.

“Increasing the energy supply in the country is an important thing for us to be looking at,” Trumka said. “All facets of it ought to be up on the table and ought to be talked about. If we have the ability to export natural gas without increasing the price or disadvantaging American industry in the process, then we should carefully consider that and adopt policies to allow it to happen and help, because God only knows we do need help with our trade balance.”

The call came amidst a series of three speeches by the AFL-CIO leader pushing for more investment in energy and transportation infrastructure. Trumka did not specifically praise Keystone and natural gas exports during the first speech, at the UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk on January 15, and it is unclear whether he will in the remaining two. But the labor leader’s comments on the conference call were enough to peeve environmentalists.

The anti-KXL camp has long argued that construction of the pipeline will facilitate the extraction of Alberta’s tar sands oil, one of the dirtiest fossil fuels on the planet. Many also oppose Keystone XL on the grounds that its route crosses the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the world’s largest underground sources of fresh water. “We invite President Trumka to come to Nebraska and visit with farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods are directly put at risk with the Keystone XL pipeline,” says Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska, which has organized local opposition against the pipeline. “To say the pipeline will not harm our water is ignoring real-life tragedies witnessed by all of us with the BP explosion, the Enbridge burst pipe into the Kalamazoo River and tar sands flowing down the street in Mayflower, Arkansas.”

Brendan Smith, co-founder of the Labor Network for Sustainability, a group that works with labor unions and environmental groups to fight climate change, took issue with Trumka’s argument that Keystone would create jobs.  “There is plenty of work that needs to done in this country, and we can create far more jobs fixing infrastructure and transitioning to wind, solar and other renewable energy sources,” says Smith. “Why build a pipeline that will significantly increase carbon emissions and will hurt our economy when there is a more robust and sustainable jobs agenda on the table?”

Trumka’s measured support for the KXL and natural gas export terminals is likely a nod to the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department (BCTD), whose relations with the parent labor federation have been, at times, fraught with tension. Many of the BCTD-affiliated unions enthusiastically support the pipeline: After the State Department released its final environmental analysis of the KXL, the head of the Laborers International Union of North America called for the president to approve the project while blasting “extremists in the environmental movement.”

Liquefied natural gas exports, meanwhile, are shaping up to be the next site of blue-green conflict. While environmentalists condemn plans to build export terminals nationwide, the BCTD and some of its affiliates have supported them. This appears to be the first time that Trumka has publicly sided with the BCTD on the issue.

Recently, the BCTD has gone head-to-head with environmentalists in Maryland over a controversial plan by energy giant Dominion Resources to convert a liquefied natural gas import terminal at Cove Point in Lusby, Md. into an export terminal. BCTD argues that the project supports thousands of well-paid jobs. Last November, BCTD head Sean McGarvey signed an “open letter” crafted by Dominion that appeared as a full-page ad in both The Baltimore Sun and The Washington Post and attacked the “misinformation being thrown about by those who would undo the project.”

Opponents such as the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN), an environmental group that works in Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia, disagree. They say most of the jobs created by Cove Point and other proposed liquefied gas export terminals across the country will be temporary, limited to the construction process. And while the gas industry and the White House tout natural gas as a clean alternative to oil and coal, the environmental impacts are just as severe, argues CCAN Director Mike Tidwell. “When it comes to U.S. natural gas and climate change,” Tidwell says, “the worst possible thing you can do with that gas is frack it, pipe it, liquefy it and send it to Asia to light it on fire. The life cycle, the greenhouse gas emissions of that process makes that gas almost certainly as bad as coal, if not worse, in terms of the impact on the climate. We would be better off if India burned [its] own coal than [took] our gas from Appalachia.”

Like Smith, Tidwell believes that job creation and an environmentally friendly agenda are not mutually exclusive. “Nobody’s saying that there should be no jobs,” Tidwell says. “I think it’s the fossil fuel industry that convinces labor that either you have dirty, fossil fuel jobs or you have no jobs. They’re the ones that create that dichotomy, and I can understand why our friends in the labor movement feel like they gotta hang onto every last job they have because they’re under assault from the Republican Party, they’re under assault from the same corporations that are telling them fossil fuel jobs are good.”

Trumka’s comments come at a sensitive time, as trade unions and leading environmental groups have sought to build political partnerships with each other in recent years. After Obama’s November 2012 re-election, the Sierra Club and the CWA helped found the Democracy Initiative, which successfully pushed for a change in Senate’s filibuster rules. The move is designed to limit GOP obstructionism on modest liberal initiatives. In September 2013, at its most recent convention, the AFL-CIO passed a resolution to build “enduring labor-community partnerships,” which led to speculation that progressive groups like the Sierra Club could earn a spot on the federation’s executive council. 

On February 10, Trumka will face a test of how his call for energy investment affects these ties. He is scheduled to deliver a pro-infrastructure investment pitch at the annual conference of the Blue-Green Alliance, a group composed of environmentally minded unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO-affiliated Communications Workers of America (CWA) and United Steelworkers (USW), as well as environmental groups such as the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Sierra Club.

The Blue-Green Alliance did not respond to requests for comment.

After that, Trumka will peddle his message of labor-energy industry cooperation to the business community. The AFL-CIO president is scheduled to speak on February 27 at Harvard Business School as part of a two-day-long event called “America on the Move: Transportation and Infrastructure for the 21st Century.” Trumka will appear in the closing plenary, “Call to Action,” alongside Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, the keynote speaker, and Tom Donahue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

He may get a warmer reception there. America’s Natural Gas Alliance, an industry group that represents gas exploration and production companies, says it appreciates the labor leader’s call. “We share Mr. Trumka’s support for expanding infrastructure and exporting natural gas,” says Dan Whitten, a spokesperson for the organization. “We know that exporting natural gas can make a substantial difference in reducing our trade imbalance. And to the extent that it adds jobs, we like that too.”

Meanwhile, in an email to In These Times, Dean Hubbard, director of the Sierra Club Labor Program, was careful not to criticize Trumka’s recent remarks.

“We share much more in common with the labor movement than the few things that we disagree on,” Hubbard writes. “We are standing together to create millions of new clean energy jobs, protecting workers and communities affected by the transition from dirty fuels, jointly working toward fair trade, and—as allies in the Democracy Initiative—fighting back against the big corporations trying to sell out workers and the planet. There is no doubt about it: Friends do not always agree on everything.  But we are partners in the progressive movement focused on building on our common ground to secure a safer planet, a stronger economy and a better future for all Americans.”

_____________________________________________
Maryland neo-liberals have as a central tenet the privatization of all that is public----the public private partnership.  This is a direct attack on what is the strongest union left and it is deliberate.  They are deliberately dismantling the public sector to hand control of public policy and oversight to the very global corporations killing democracy.  It is why we have no voice in public policy or in our communities.

If labor unions and justice organizations are supporting neo-liberals as they do in Maryland----that is the problem.  We cannot support the breakdown of our public sector and still say we are labor and justice.  Stop allowing neo-liberals to corrupt institutions that should be working for the citizens of Maryland.  This happens because too much power falls to the few -----it is up to ALL CITIZENS to come out to help labor and justice organizations so they can fulfill their missions.  Do not allow them to be blackmailed by threat to their very existence as happens in Maryland.


IF YOU STAND SILENTLY AS ONE GROUP LOSES ITS RIGHTS AND JUSTICE-----EVERYONE WILL.  AN INJUSTICE TO ONE WILL BECOME INJUSTICE FOR ALL.  THAT IS WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW!


There is no public savings in these deals----it simply moves wealth to corporations and impoverishes the citizens.  Add the dismantling of oversight and you have rampant private contractor fraud and government corruption.

THIS IS HOW THIRD WORLD SOCIETIES OPERATE!


Friday, Jun 6, 2014, 5:57 pm

Privatizing Government Services Doesn’t Only Hurt Public Workers

BY David Moberg Email Print

A coalition of workers rally against privatization in Washington, D.C.

If you want to understand how privatization of public services typically works, Grand Rapids, Michigan is as good a place as any to start.

The state operates a nursing home for veterans in the town. Until 2011, it directly employed 170 nursing assistants, but also relied on 100 assistants in the same facility provided by a private contractor. The state paid its direct employees $15 to $20 an hour and provided them with health insurance and pensions. Meanwhile, the contractor started pay for its nursing assistants at $8.50 an hour—still billing the state $14.99—and provided no benefits for employees. This led to high worker turnover, reduced quality of care, and heavy employee reliance on food stamps and other public aid. 

Yet despite the evidence from this useful—albeit unplanned—experiment, which showed that any savings the state made through privatization came at the expense of workers and their clients, the new conservative Republican state government decided in 2011 to complete the privatization of the provision of nursing aides to the home. 

The experience with privatization at the Grand Rapids nursing home is in many ways typical among the rapidly growing ranks of public agencies in which the staff of private contractors replace government employees. And according to a new report, “Race to the Bottom: How Outsourcing Public Services Rewards Corporations and Punishes the Middle Class,” privatization policies around the country have greatly contributed to the nation’s growing economic inequality and to a decline in the quality of public services.

The report, released on June 3 by In the Public Interest (ITPI), a resource center on privatization, concludes that in most cases, privatization policies lead directly to cutbacks in government investment in skill development and to reductions in workers’ pay and benefits. In turn, workers have less income to invest in their households, their children and their neighborhoods—leaving individuals and their communities poorly served in the present and ill prepared for the future. 

Regardless of level of government, the story of privatization remains much the same. Elected leaders, often under legislative or political pressure from voters, try to reduce spending or taxes by relying on contractors for services instead. This way, politicians can attempt to avoid responsibility for the pay cuts and worker eliminations that almost inevitably result from privatization.

Government privatizers turn over huge swaths of public service work to private contractors—jobs such as corrections officers, nursing aides, teachers, school support personnel, clerks, waste haulers, food service workers and many others. Nobody knows precisely how much government work is now subcontracted, but New York University professor Paul Light estimates that there are about three times as many federal contract workers as civil service employees, with millions more at the state level.

Privatizers frequently claim that they charge governments low rates because they are especially efficient. In many cases, however, public employees are at least as efficient as private contract ones. Instead, if contractors’ operational cost is lower, the savings stem from the comparatively low salary their employees receive. For example, the median private corrections worker in the United States earns $29,000 a year compared with $38,000 to $39,000 for, respectively, the median state or local officer working in comparable positions. Furthermore, a a Demos study last year estimated that about two million federal contract or other publicly funded workers earned less than $12 an hour, more than the number of low-wage workers at Walmart and McDonald’s combined. Even if advocates of privatization admit that the savings through contracting result from lower pay, not greater efficiency, they typically argue that governments pay above-market wages. Contracting out saves money for taxpayers by eliminating that premium, they say.

But when governments properly account for all of their costs, sub-contractors are often more expensive than public employees. For example, the nonprofit watchdog Project on Government Oversight found that using contractors cost the federal government more than civil service employment in 33 of 35 occupations, resulting in billions of dollars total.

Those costs stem from a variety of sources. Governments must frequently hire an additional layer of supervisors to make sure contractors meet legal and other requirements. In addition, poorly paid contract employees often collect public assistance from supplemental nutrition programs, Medicaid and other aid for the needy, whose costs should be attributed to the contract.

Contracting out public work also rolls back critical progress toward equality on the basis of gender, race and income. Whatever their shortcomings, public employers in recent decades have opened up more opportunities and paid fairer wages to both African Americans and women than the private sector. For several decades, the ITPI report says, direct government employment of public service workers has provided a “ladder of opportunity” for many workers. Public jobs have opened up opportunity, especially where unions have bargained for contracts and influenced public policy. They have played an especially important role for women and African Americans, who still suffer disadvantages in the job market and are most hurt by cuts in public service pay and benefits.

For example, women comprise 57 percent of all government workers. And African Americans are 30 percent more likely than all other Americans to work in the public sector. Compared with black workers in the private sector, black public employees earn 25 percent more.

Cutting public service pay, therefore, compounds the inequities of income in America, replacing the ladder of opportunity upwards with a “downward spiral.”
And though this downward shift may most negatively impact African Americans and women, “it hurts all workers,” says economics professor Daphne Greenwood of the Colorado Center for Policy Studies.

Economists argue over the degree to which broad forces such as technology development or globalization account for rising inequality in the United States, says Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. But privatization, he says, is one major cause of increased inequality that “smart policy” could easily reverse.

As some first steps toward that smart policy, In the Public Interest recommends that governments require contractors to show that their cost savings come from innovation and efficiency, not wage and benefit cuts. Contractors should be required to provide a living wage, health insurance and other benefits, ITPI also suggests. Though the McNamara-O’Hara Service Contract Act is designed to guarantee that federal contract workers in service work earn close to the prevailing wage in comparable jobs, both its coverage and enforcement are inadequate. Governments should collect and share detailed information on private contractors and their performance, ITPI says, in addition to preparing social and economic impact analyses in advance of any contract.

Mary Sparrow, a former custodian at the Milwaukee County Courthouse in Wisconsin, might have benefitted from such revisions. She was laid off in 2009 in the depth of the Great Recession after a private contractor, MidAmerican Building Services, won a contract to clean the building. The company told her she could keep the job—but not the pay. They offered her $8 an hour, instead of the $14.29 she had been making, and none of her former benefits. She and her husband have scraped by since, she said at a press conference at the release of the ITPI report, her voice cracking with emotion—buying health insurance with unemployment insurance payments, exhausting life savings for their children’s college to cover myriad expenses, contending with health worsened by stress, and watching former co-workers relying on food banks.

“Only the contractors come out ahead, not the middle class, the front-line workers,” Sparrow told the assembled crowd. “Milwaukee County or any county that privatizes will not see the promised cost savings. Privatizing has a devastating effect on our communities, not only on what we earn but what we spend, even on basics like housing and medication. This has been awful for us, and I hope any city, any state, will think twice before privatizing.”


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All across America immigrant groups were organized to come out for the Senate immigration bill not realizing it was a market-based bill with a goal of preparing for Trans Pacific Trade Pact and the flooding of US economy with global corporations and their nation's labor force.  It has nothing to do with justice for Hispanics here in the US.  In fact it will make conditions worse for immigrants already here in America.  The Path to Citizenship leads nowhere for 90% of immigrants.  It was all a ploy by neo-liberals to use Hispanics here in the US to push for the Trans Pacific Trade Pact policies.  The national leaders pushing this immigration bill knew this but are tied to neo-liberals.  Here in Maryland, O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly knew this as they brought bus-loaded of immigrants to Annapolis to shout for the Senate immigration bill.

Neo-liberals and neo-cons work for wealth and profit which includes exploiting workers---they will never produce policy that promotes labor rights.  If they do it will not be enforced.


All Americans should be fighting this because they goal is to bring all US wages down to third world levels----no only working class----but middle-class.  Remember, in third world countries even doctors, lawyers, and Indian chiefs are at poverty!


Features » April 1, 2014

The Immigration Movement’s Left Turn Advocates are moving away from the “pathway-to-citizenship” compromise—and are demanding a moratorium on deportations.

BY Michelle Chen  Working In These Times

Deportations are expected to reach the 2 million mark in early April, and activists are campaigning fiercely at the gates of detention centers, border checkpoints and congressional offices to show the White House they will not let the Obama administration’s reach that milestone without a fight.

Who will be the Obama administration’s two-millionth deportee? The question haunts neighborhoods, schools and workplaces from Phoenix to Philadelphia.

And as the Obama administration continues its en masse removal of undocumented immigrants, that unlucky distinction could go to any of the roughly 11 million undocumented people who call the U.S. home—a carwash worker nabbed for a broken taillight; a field laborer who has overstayed her work visa; or a youth donning a cap and gown, deliberately crossing the path of the border patrol in a show of civil disobedience.

Deportations are expected to reach the 2 million mark in early April, and activists are campaigning fiercely at the gates of detention centers, border checkpoints and congressional offices to show the White House they will not let the Obama administration’s reach that milestone without a fight.

Last month in Alabama, immigrant rights advocates organized one such action by forming a human chain outside the Etowah County Detention Center, chanting “not one more”—the rallying cry of a wave of anti-deportation actions that have swept the nation over the past year, gaining political currency as a social media campaign, a slogan at street demonstrations, and more recently, a political salvo in Washington, where more conciliatory policy demands from inside the Beltway have sputtered.  

One protester at the Etowah rally, Gwendolyn Ferreti Manjarrez, declared, “I am tired of living with the fear that my family or any family can be torn apart at the seams for living our everyday life.”

Such pleas reflect exhaustion and exasperation with Washington, which has maintained an immigration-reform gridlock since the Senate reform bill all but died in Congress last year.

Faced with deafening silence in Congress and constant waffling in the White House, a growing number of advocates have joined the chorus calling for a moratorium on deportations. Even prominent centrist Latino organizations like the National Council of La Raza—NCLR lobbied hard for “compromise” legislation last year—have condemned Obama as “deporter in chief.”

Demands for a moratorium on deportations are not unprecedented: Advocates are proposing an extension of the White House's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program—a temporary executive reprieve for undocumented young people issued in 2012—to undocumented adults. Supports say their proposal would allow families to stay together in the run-up to future reform. The undocumented community and its allies argue that if Obama could exercise his discretion on enforcement for a sympathetic category of undocumented immigrants—primarily youth pursuing a college education—he could do the same for their undocumented parents and neighbors. 

In January, the Arizona-based group Dream Action Coalition, an advocacy group for the Dream Act legislation on which DACA was modeled, blasted Obama for punishing families for Congress’ failure to pass reform. Presenting the reform movement as a multigenerational struggle, the group stated in an “Open Letter to the Immigrant Rights Movement”: “We can’t wait while we see our families being taken into detention centers for months and even years while our children are being traumatized. …  Let’s together hold President Obama accountable for every deported parent.”

Obama has acknowledged the crisis and in recent weeks signaled he planned to ease deportations, but stopped short of fully halting detentions and removals. The president instead ordered the Department of Justice to review deportation policy “to see how it can conduct enforcement more humanely within the confines of the law.” Following a mid-March ­meeting with pro-immigrant advocates, he reportedly vowed to take executive action by summer if the Republican House members continued to stonewall on reform. Still, amid stiff Republican opposition, Obama promised to soften his approach without indicating whether he would order a full-on DACA-like deferral of deportations. 

Even Senators Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, two leading Democrats who crafted the failed compromise bill, now endorse a deportation freeze as a stopgap measure. Schumer has also threatened to use a parliamentary maneuver known as a “discharge petition” to force a vote on a reform bill on the House floor, similar to the Senate proposal. But due to widespread House GOP opposition, this tactical measure would likely fail under Republican opposition.

But while Congress dithers, grassroots activists say the current enforcement regime doesn’t need to be made more “humane”—it needs to end, full stop.

“We need to make sure that there is affirmative action,” says Erika Andiola, an Arizona-based undocumented activist with the Not One More campaign. Andiola's advocacy is a matter of survival: She has campaigned publicly to defend her mother from deportation, and for the past few years, she has watched her state roll out some of the harshest anti-immigrant policies in the country. Indeed, the fight against deportations has foregrounded the struggles of besieged communities that have seen coworkers and family members swept up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the past six years.

Grassroots activists are staking out a place at the negotiating table by establishing their own “blue ribbon commission” to draft a progressive set of policy recommendations, informed by their legal experiences fighting congressional lethargy and the federal enforcement dragnet. Andiola notes that she and fellow activists began calling for a deportation freeze months ago, long before many mainstream groups. “We don't want people to negotiate for us,” she adds. “We want to be able to be the ones putting the cards on the table, since we're the ones that have our families in detention and many times our families have been in deportation proceedings.”

Far from Washington, direct actions are escalating. A wave of hunger strikes has begun to spread, both inside and outside of detention centers. In early March, hundreds of immigrants at a Tacoma, Washington detention center began refusing meals and menial jobs assigned to detainees.

Shortly afterward, detainees went on hunger strike at a Conroe, Texas facility, accusing the management company, GEO, of inhumane, overcrowded conditions. Exasperated by the ongoing legal limbo, they also demanded due process of law, including “true and transparent information” on how their cases were being reviewed and processed. (TruthOut later reported that some participants had allegedly been placed in isolation as punishment.) Grassroots pro-immigrant groups, including the National Day Labor Organizing Network and Puente Arizona, have joined faith, labor and community organizations in various cities to coordinate solidarity hunger strikes.

Some have escalated protests by confronting ICE directly at the border. Since last fall, dozens of undocumented activists with the Bring them Home campaign have staged several unauthorized border crossings, voluntarily entering federal custody to protest deportations and dramatize the often hidden violence of family separation.

Activists are also using the web to mobilize people: Not One More has led petitions for the release of individual detainees, while Presente.org's Obama Legacy Project catalogues the administration's record of mass incarcerations and enforcement crackdowns.

Beyond the harrowing deportation numbers, activists want to stop the enforcement programs that have enabled ICE to partner with local police to apprehend immigrants. Secure Communities or SCOMM, the flagship joint enforcement initiative, has been sharply criticized for giving police departments wide  latitude to apprehend immigrants—often just for minor suspected infractions—fingerprint them, and share that information with Homeland Security, which then screens them through a central database to check their immigration status, and eventually funnel them into federal detention. In the impacted communities, ongoing federal crackdowns feed into an overarching climate of discrimination, fraught with racial profiling by police and xenophobic sentiment roiling in racially divided neighborhoods and workplaces.

Although ICE announced back in 2011 that the administration would prioritize the deportation of serious criminals, more than 30,000 immigrants still languish in detention on a given day (thanks in part to a “bed quota” that legally mandates that detention centers fill to a certain capacity).

According to national data, many detainees are being held for misdemeanors and other non-violent offenses, such as traffic violations or marijuana possession. An analysis of ICE data by Syracuse University researchers, shows that of the roughly 350,000 detention orders issued during fiscal year 2012 through early 2013, two-thirds involved no serious criminal convictions.

Reflecting growing frustration with draconian federal enforcement measures and the stagnation of federal reform efforts, some local lawmakers have acted affirmatively on their own to protect immigrants in the absence of legislative progress. In contrast to states that have ramped up their enforcement policies, San Francisco, California and Connecticut have passed legislation to block local police from cooperating with ICE enforcement, except in cases involving an immigrant with a serious prior conviction. 

Growing resistance to the Obama administration’s deportation regime contrasts sharply with last year’s relatively cautious debate  around “comprehensive immigration reform” legislation. The Democrats' agenda centered on incremental legalization, with an emphasis on “desirable” immigrants—high-demand workers in agriculture and STEM fields, as well as childhood arrivals—and harsher border security and enforcement measures. (There was little discussion of the social implications of harsher enforcement tactics.) Some activists rejected the Senate bill outright, opening a sharp rift within the immigrant rights movement between the Beltway organizations that supported a compromise in order to achieve a “pathway to citizenship,” and more radical groups such as Puente Arizona and Families for Freedom, which have centered their advocacy around resistance to the draconian immigration enforcement.

But now it seems that within the reform movement, the divergence on the importance of citizenship has been eclipsed by the convergence on calling for administrative action on deportation. Not One More is planning a nationwide day of action on April 5—roughly coinciding with the date when the two-millionth deportation is set to take place—with demonstrations planned in more than 40 cities

Migrant rights advocate Prerna Lal, who is formerly undocumented herself, says via email that she found the current political terrain for immigration reform “encouraging,” with the wave of direct actions opening space for “the disenfranchised and directly-impacted [to take] bold actions to declare themselves as ‘undocumented and unafraid’ leaders in their own communities.” In the broader push for congressional action, she added, “It is critical to remember that legislation such as Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation or the DREAM Act is often merely a response to placate these actions.”

 Until lawmakers go back to the table to hammer out a reform bill, the best advocates can hope for is a temporary reprieve from the White House. Any kind of deferred action, for adults or youth, is just that—a deferral. But it buys time for undocumented individuals to keep working to shift the political climate, away from the obsession with border security and toward a reform approach that reflects a broader culture shift as immigrant communities become more deeply woven into a transborder, globalized social landscape.

Maybe no one understands this vision for an evolving nation better than the  more than 30,000 people languishing in detention each day. Oscar Quintero, a detainee at Etowah who protested from inside the detention center in solidarity with the rally outside,  recorded a brief statement that was later broadcast online by Detention Watch Network:

This is basically a concentration camp for immigrants. This is what it is, a human warehouse. They treat us like chickens. They are treating us like cattle. The reality is that as Latinos, if we do nothing, if we don’t unite, and we don’t make others listen to us, these abuses will continue, and families will continue to be separated.

For a man separated from his community by concrete walls and a labyrinth of legal barriers, Quintero’s voice managed to carry over the hurdles of politics and resonate with his supporters outside. On the eve of the two-millionth deportation, his words undertook the border crossing that countless others remain as determined as ever to make.



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There is a tremendous silence in Maryland as regards TPP and Maryland is ground zero for implementing it.  They are not waiting for Congress to pass it----the Maryland Assembly and Governor O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore are installing it.

Maryland is one state that has spent the last few decades building the very structures that mirror Trans Pacific Trade Pact and neo-liberals are handing all of our economy over to global corporations and policy that works for them.  So, if Maryland pols signed the letter mentioned in this article-----

WHERE IS THEIR VOICE IN THIS STATE?  DO YOU HEAR YOUR POLS EDUCATING THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND AGAINST TPP?  THERE IS SILENCE.

This is how you know who needs to be replaced in private non-profits----in labor unions------in justice organizations----and especially media.  All leaders know what is being pushed in Maryland and we need to have people in labor and justice organizations and non-profits that educate the citizens.


TPP: A Thoroughly Predatory Pact

by Ron Forthofer / July 12th, 2014 Dissident Voice

U.S. transnational corporations are working behind the scenes to change the rules governing them. You may say ‘big deal, this doesn’t affect me’. However if you use the internet, view movies, take pharmaceuticals, want a clean and safe environment, believe in democracy, etc., you likely will be negatively impacted.

Media’s Failure to Inform

Negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), based on the fatally flawed NAFTA model, currently involve twelve nations in the Pacific region and have been underway since 2010. Mainstream media’s coverage about these negotiations has been essentially nonexistent. When mentioned, the media reports that the negotiations are about trade instead of being about easing rules governing transnational corporations.

Why the Lack of Transparency?

This May, Senator Elizabeth Warren said: “From what I hear, Wall Street, pharmaceuticals, telecom, big polluters and outsourcers are all salivating at the chance to rig the deal in the upcoming trade talks. So the question is, Why are the trade talks secret? You’ll love this answer. Boy, the things you learn on Capitol Hill,” Warren said. “I actually have had supporters of the deal say to me ‘They have to be secret, because if the American people knew what was actually in them, they would be opposed.’”


Undue Corporate Influence on U.S. Negotiating Positions

In 2012 Senator Ron Wyden, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee’s Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, whose office is responsible for conducting oversight over the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and trade negotiations, said: “Yet, the majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations—like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America—are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement.”

In a May 2012 letter, thirty law professors from multiple countries involved with the TPP negotiations made the same point about corporate representation. They said:

The only private individuals in the US who have ongoing access to the US proposals on intellectual property matters are on an Industry Trade Advisory Committee (ITAC) which is dominated by brand name pharmaceutical manufacturers and the Hollywood entertainment industry.


There is no representation on this committee for consumers, libraries, students, health advocacy or patient groups, or others users of intellectual property, and minimal representation of other affected businesses, such as generic drug manufacturers or internet service providers. We would never create US law or regulation through such a biased and closed process.

Investor-State Dispute Settlements Threaten Sovereignty

In June 2012 a draft of the TPP’s Investment Chapter was leaked. According to Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch: “Via closed-door negotiations, U.S. officials are rewriting swaths of U.S. law that have nothing to do with trade, and in a move that will infuriate left and right alike, have agreed to submit the U.S. government to the jurisdiction of foreign tribunals that can order unlimited payments of our tax dollars to foreign corporations that don’t want to comply with the same laws our domestic firms do. U.S. trade officials are secretly limiting Internet freedoms, restricting financial regulation, extending medicine patents and giving corporations a whole host of other powers.”


State legislators are greatly concerned about the threat to states’ ability to maintain their sovereignty and to protect rules protecting their citizens.
For example, Maine State Representative Sharon Treat, one of the drafters of a July 2012 letter from 130 members of state legislatures from all 50 states, said: “The U.S. government should not be negotiating trade deals that undercut responsible state and federal laws enacted to protect public health and the environment, preserve the stability of our financial system, or make sure working conditions are safe and healthy.”

In addition, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) strongly opposes this investor-state dispute resolution process. Its position is:

NCSL will not support Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) or Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with investment chapters that provide greater substantive or procedural rights to foreign companies than U.S. companies enjoy under the U.S. Constitution. Specifically, NCSL will not support any BIT or FTA that provides for investor/state dispute resolution. NCSL firmly believes that when a state adopts a non-discriminatory law or regulation intended to serve a public purpose, it shall not constitute a violation of an investment agreement or treaty, even if the change in the legal environment thwarts the foreign investors’ previous expectations.

NCSL believes that BIT and FTA implementing legislation must include provisions that deny any private action in U.S. courts or before international dispute resolution panels to enforce international trade or investment agreements. Implementing legislation must also include provisions
stating that neither the decisions of international dispute resolution panels nor international trade and investment agreements themselves are binding on the states as a matter of U.S. law.

More Financial Deregulation

Given the recent financial crisis, it’s alarming that financial deregulation will likely be pushed in the TPP. A letter from 100 economists to the TPP negotiators expressed concern and stated:

We, the undersigned economists, write to you regarding the capital transfers provisions in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA). We are concerned that if recent U.S. treaties are used as the model for the TPPA, the agreement will unduly limit the authority of participating parties to prevent and mitigate financial crises.

They went on to point out the importance of capital controls. “While capital controls and other capital management techniques are no panacea for financial instability, there is an emerging consensus that they are an important part of the macro-economic toolkit. Indeed, all G-20 leaders endorsed the following statement at the 2011 Cannes Summit:

Capital flow management measures may constitute part of a broader approach to protect economies from shocks. In circumstances of high and volatile capital flows, capital flow management measures can complement and be employed alongside, rather than substitute for, appropriate monetary, exchange rate, foreign reserve management and prudential policies.

Fast Tracking of the Agreement

President Obama has sought trade promotion authority (‘fast track’) to get TPP through Congress. Fast track usurps Congress’s constitutional authority over trade issues. Congress would have a very limited time to debate the deal and would not be allowed to make any changes. Fortunately, Congress has not yet abrogated its responsibility over trade issues. It is important to keep pressure on Congress to deny Obama this authority.

Represent Public Interest, not Transnational Corporations

Let your representative and senators know that you want them to oppose both fast track and the TPP. If they fail to do this, they are sending a clear message to voters.




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June 06th, 2013

6/6/2013

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WE ARE BEING TOLD THAT THE WASHINGTON SUBURBS HAVE THE WEALTH AND THE GROWING POPULATION TO ALLOW THEM TO BE THE DECISION-MAKERS IN THE STATE. 

Whether it is on a local scale as in Baltimore where all the revenue is going to city center....at a state level all the wealth is going to the Washington suburbs,.....remember the Transportation Trust that went empty?  It was spent on transit in these wealthy counties and it is taxes on the middle/lower class of central and eastern Maryland that will replenish this fund again.  STOP ELECTING THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS.....WE NEED LABOR AND JUSTICE RUNNING AGAINST INCUMBENT THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS!!



One doesn't have to look hard to know why Brown/Ulman is the ticket being pushed by Maryland's 1% and WYPR...he is a rampant Wall Street team player. There is not a public asset he won't privatize; no tax exemption for corporations for which he won't fight; no public partnership he won't enter in order to have the public and consumer pay for all the costs of doing business maximizing corporate profits. THAT IS WHY O'MALLEY AND RAWLINGS-BLAKE ARE HEADING NATIONAL AND IT IS WHY BROWN WILL BE THE ONE YOU HEAR ABOUT CONTINUALLY IN MARYLAND MEDIA.

Did you know that your Third Way corporate democrat voted not to audit or give oversight to business tax credits even though several government watchdogs have said they are rife with fraud? What about the States Attorney office and Doug Gansler....they have fraud all around them yet nothing is done and no shouting out for stronger fraud laws. Since it is the elected public official's duty to protect and serve the people they become complicit in these crimes they know are happening and ignoring....they are aiding and abetting. Think about the billions of dollars stolen each year in health fraud and then think about the cuts to health access in Maryland that is already killing people no longer able to get basic health service. That is aiding and abetting, but it appears to be pre-meditated homicide as well. These pols know the problem lies in theft and they know people are dying because of the laws denying care.....ergo, pre-meditation. WE WANT TO BE CLEAR, WHEN A GOVERNMENT SUSPENDS RULE OF LAW IT SUSPENDS STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS. The American people can and will recover these tens of TRILLIONs lost to fraud and tax evasion and we will prosecute those complicit in crime.

The latest affront to the citizens of Maryland is the Maryland legislator's bill that puts the government offices of Housing that will be moved to Prince Georges County in leasing status. We know that every level of government is doing this, from the Attorney's General offices, the Census people with offices in Harbor East for example, Public Works, now Housing. Each time a public building is given up the people lose more and more of its public assets and become renters to developers who exist only to defraud and profit. DOES THAT SOUND LIKE GOOD PUBLIC POLICY? ANTHONY BROWN/O'MALLEY, AND RAWLINGS-BLAKE THINK SO.....IT MAXIMIZES CORPORATE PROFITS YOU KNOW!

All of this shows that despite Fraser Smith's claim that there is only one democratic party,.....that there is not split.....that once again public media is giving you disinformation. The US has the same political system as the UK......where the neo-liberals are their own party. The problem in the US is that the neo-liberals have made the democratic party their party even though 80% of the democratic base of labor and justice occupy the democratic party. See how politics in America has become captured? Neo-liberals and republicans are the same free market, free trade, global corporations and rule. LABOR AND JUSTICE SIMPLY NEED TO TAKE BACK THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BY NOT ALLOWING THE DNC TO CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATE!

DO NOT THINK YOU MUST VOTE REPUBLICAN FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!


Maryland Housing Agency to Move to Prince George's County

Wednesday, May 29, 2013  |  Updated 9:13 PM EDT  NBC Washington



Tracee Wilkins

Prince George's County Bureau Chief Tracee Wilkins explains what the agency's relocation means for residents.

advertisement Gov. Martin O'Malley announced Wednesday the approval of a lease to move the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development headquarters to Prince George's County.
 
A new building will be constructed for the agency as part of a new transit-oriented development by Berman Enterprises at the New Carrollton Metro station. The development will initially include 500 new residential units and retail space. It will eventually include 2,400 residential units, a hotel and more retail space.

"How does that make sense when the state is being asked to spend $58 million for a lease and we are leaving a building that we own?" Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot said.
 
The Board of Public Works approved the lease Wednesday.

Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker called the move a potential catalyst for the state, comparing it to former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry's decision to move part of the D.C. government to U Street NW in the 1980s.

State delegates from Anne Arundel, the current home of the agency, tried to delay the vote.

"I would urge you to postpone this vote until we have a proper chance to look at all the numbers," Del. Tony McConkey said.

"Anne Arundel employees will be forced out of their jobs and replaced by others," De. Steven Schuh said.

In a statement, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown says the project is a commitment to strengthening Prince George's County.
 
The agency's move from Anne Arundel County will bring Prince George's its first state agency. The move is expected to be complete by June 2015.





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THE MONEY FROM GAMBLING IS ALREADY BEING DIRECTED AWAY FROM STATE REVENUE AND EDUCATION K-12 AND WE HAVE JUST STARTED!  IT WILL GET WORSE IF WE DO NOT SHOUT AND VOTE THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS OUT OF OFFICE!!!

Do you hear education/justice/consumer advocates decrying the failure to collect state revenue and send it to education?

Thank you MdOUTLOUD for asking the right question and one that this article looks to have deliberately tried to hide as the figures combined both slot and table revenues together.  This is like the financial fraud settlements that gave you a settlement figure with no idea how much fraud was uncovered.

The citizens of MD were duped by their Governor, their Maryland Assembly pols, and in Baltimore their City Council pols.....most being Third Way corporate democrats.  We went into gambling with the promise of 68% revenue for the state for slots designated for education.  We now have most money made at casinos at the table games which oddly enough these corporate pols placed at only 20% revenue for the state and education.  Slot revenue for the state was lowered to around 50% but the profits from slots are substantially lower and slot machines are being taken out of casinos as table games are added so the state revenue is falling fast while profits are soaring for the casino.  Did you know that if a casino categorize a day of gambling as 'promotional' then there is no state revenue at all taken?  Did you know that the education towards which these proceeds go is job training for casinos and businesses, not K-12?

Third Way corporate democrats work for wealth and profit and all MD dems are Third Way.  We need labor and justice running and voting for primary candidates next elections!



Revenue at Maryland's casinos reaches $69.2 million in May Figure reflects new casino in Allegany County


By Eileen Ambrose, The Baltimore Sun 7:58 p.m. EDT, June 5, 2013

Revenue at the state's casinos climbed to nearly $69.2 million in May, the first full month of table games at Maryland Live Casino as well as the initial days of the state's newest casino in Allegany County, the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Agency reported Wednesday.

Revenue at Maryland Live in Anne Arundel County, which celebrates its one-year anniversary Thursday, totaled $55 million in May for its 4,319 slot machines and 122 table games. The latter were introduced April 11, and officials accurately predicted they would raise the facility's revenues by more than 20 percent.

Rocky Gap Casino Resort, which opened May 22, generated $776,133 in slot machine and table game revenue. Rocky Gap has 554 slot machines and 10 table games.

As in previous months, Hollywood Casino Perryville continued to see its revenue fall from the year before. Hollywood pulled in $8.57 million in May, a drop of $1.5 million or 15.6 percent from a year earlier, when it did not face competition from Maryland Live.

The Casino at Ocean Downs, with 800 slot machines, took in $4.77 million in revenue last month, a 7 percent increase from a year ago. Officials there have yet to announce whether the Ocean City-area facility will introduce table games.

The agency reported that for the first 11 months of the fiscal year, slot machine revenue totaled about $511 million.  Remember, table games just came into play these last few months with slots being pulled out! That is greater than predicted by the state Board of Revenue Estimates, which estimated slot machine revenue would total $498.3 million for the entire year.


eileen.ambrose@baltsun.com



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As hospitals say they will not lower quality of care.....they already are as staffing is cut, patient access is denied, fraud is not mentioned, and costs for procedures stay the same.

DO YOU THINK AS POLS PRESSURE HOSPITALS WITH CUTS THAT HOSPITALS ARE GOING TO CHOOSE TO CHANGE THESE THINGS?  OF COURSE NOT....QUALITY AND ACCESS WILL DROP!

There are two hospital cost reduction issues not mentioned in this article that are the drivers of health costs.  I read in another state's medical system that hospitals and specialty medicine were shouting out that health fraud needs to be made a priority in ridding hospitals of cost since health fraud is a billion dollar business in MD.  Not one mention here.  Second, the charges for imaging for example, an MRI, are just as high now as when the hospital first bought these medical machines and they have long paid off these costs through augmented patient charges.  They are inflating the costs for MRIs to maximize profits.  If the medical equipment is paid, drop the fees!

I know that at the University of MD Medical System the new MD Health Insurance removes the cost of poor patients that have historically received the same treatment as everyone else that comes to this hospital.  Now, UMMS refuse certain levels of care that are costly because of this new category of MD insurance for the poor.  Cancer treatment for example is denied a patient at a certain threshold.  All of this is causing the poor to die early from lack of access and it takes a great deal of expense off of hospitals and emergency rooms..the two most costly operations, so why are hospitals not seeing expenses go down?

We are seeing in MD a push to lower employee wages as well.  Me thinks truth is missing yet!



Maryland panel approves hospital rate increase Hospitals say additional revenue not enough



By Andrea K. Walker, The Baltimore Sun 7:53 p.m. EDT, June 5, 2013

A state panel voted unanimously Wednesday to increase the rates hospitals can charge by 1.65 percent, but the medical institutions say the amount is inadequate and will collectively drive hospitals into the red.

The Maryland Hospital Association said the decision will cause operating margins to plummet to negative 0.24 percent. The association had pushed for a rate hike of 2.43 percent, which would have also pushed down margins, but still left hospitals operating in positive territory.

Members of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission said they preferred the lower rate hike proposed by their staff. That plan sought to balance the financial constraints facing hospitals with the state's attempt to negotiate with the federal government over a new Medicare waiver, an agreement unique to Maryland that allows the state to set hospital rates.

The state has been concerned that rate increases might disrupt those talks.

"I am really worried about the waiver," commission member Dr. Stephen F. Jencks, an independent consultant and senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, said in explaining why he supported the staff recommendation.

"I am mindful of what the hospital executives are saying," Jencks said. "But I feel pretty strongly that in this environment where cost competition has essentially been removed, that the pressure of limited resources is the only way that you get real interest in improving productivity. We have to hear your concerns with both respect and empathy, but the fact we hear your concerns does not mean the system is out of kilter."

Commissioner Jack Keane, a health care consultant, also said he was "not persuaded by the financial condition of the hospitals." He also said hospitals could adjust to the changes.

Hospitals say the commission's balancing act is wobbly and puts hospital finances on the back burner.

"We believe the commission is too singularly focused on the fear of losing the waiver," said Carmela Coyle, CEO of the hospital association. "But what good is the waiver if in the process we bankrupt Maryland hospitals?"

Robert A. Chrencik, CEO of the University of Maryland Medical System, said five years of low rate increases have prompted hospitals to tighten their belts and the commission's vote makes things more difficult. He worried about the impact on the bond ratings if hospitals become more financially strapped.

"It is a decision that continues to underfund cost inflation and makes it more difficult financially for hospitals to operate," Chrencik said after the meeting.

Chrencik said hospitals won't sacrifice care as they try to balance budgets, but may consider cutting services that aren't profitable. The obstetrics unit at Maryland General, which is owned by the University of Maryland, will close June 30 because of a decline in deliveries that doesn't make it financially feasible to maintain the unit.

Meritus Health in Hagerstown is considering eliminating paid time off to deal with financial constraints. Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., announced a similar strategy in April to deal with federal budget cuts. Under its plan, the staff won't accrue vacation time for three months or receive pay increases, according to the Tennessean newspaper.



"It is easier than laying people off," Raymond Grahe, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Meritus Health System, told the commission. "It is easier than reducing, but it cuts benefits. … It is a serious consideration that goes before my board next month.

"One would say this rate increase does nothing but maintain the status quo or less," Grahe said.

Anne Arundel Medical Center said job vacancies are being carefully scrutinized and that the hospital is reviewing positions to make sure they can be supported.

"Proposed payment reductions leave hospitals with few options for reducing spending," the hospital said in a statement. "This weakening of hospital finances concerns us. We are not cutting services, and actually hope to expand our community outreach later this year. But we are not sure how long we will be able to sustain this growth without adequate reimbursement."

The rate increase would take effect July 1 and run through the end of the year. The rate-setting panel typically decides rates for a full fiscal year's time, but did it in a smaller increment because of the waiver negotiations.

The state must pass a test to maintain the waiver, but has a hard time meeting its standards. Maryland keeps the waiver if its average cost per hospital admission rises no faster than in other states.

The rate increase comes as Maryland hospitals have complained that the state hasn't done enough to help the facilities increase revenue to help make up a 2 percent cut in Medicare payments required by federal sequestration, which began in April.

Hospitals say they are facing some of the worst financial conditions in years.

As a group, the hospitals' operating margin was 0.8 percent for the first eight months of the 2013 fiscal year, their second-lowest return in 14 years, a recent report by the hospital association found. Twenty-five of Maryland's 60 hospitals had negative operating margins, according to the report.

The hospitals had also sought a rate increase for the remainder of fiscal year 2013: April, May and June. But the commission voted at a May meeting to keep rates unchanged, leaving the hospitals to absorb the federal cuts. The facilities are collectively expected to lose $7 million to $8 million a month during that period.

andrea.walker@baltsun.com


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What O'Malley means is that all you have to do to get rid of poor and working class citizens in a state is raise taxes so high they cannot afford to live in Maryland....which is what is happening.  The reasons they are making Maryland so regressive in revenue is that they are eliminating taxes on corporations and the rich.  We are watching as wealthy foreign families are moved here just as is happening across the country who are paying for the priviledge of citizenship and the Washington suburbs are filling with these new immigrants.  Universities in Maryland recruit foreign students from wealthy families while cutting financial aid for in-state residents.

Third Way corporate democrats like O'Malley work for wealth and profit so they see success from bringing others into the state not caring about pushing others out and that is what we see in MD's policies today.  The burden of revenue is pushed more and more on the working class and poor.  Now, you do not want to vote republican because you think they will reverse this because they will not..remember Ehrlich and his fees and taxes.  Republicans want corporations and the rich to rule as well.  We simply need for democratic voters to take back the democratic party that works for labor and justice to reverse what corporate democrats are doing to the state.  Wealth inequity is greatest in MD and that is not a democratic stance!


How do Gov. O'Malley's tax increases make Md. a model for growing the middle class?

Baltimore Sun Opinion

Gov. Martin O'Malley argues that Maryland has become a national model for growing the middle class ("O'Malley touts state economy in address on middle class," May 30).

Say what?

Could I have some of that Kool-Aid, sir?

Governor how does putting such a heavy tax burden on the citizens of Maryland — 40 tax and fee increases in seven-plus years — help the middle class?

Your policies are crushing the middle class, sir. Come down from your high horse and see what life is really like in Maryland.

John Jackson, Baltimore


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May 10th, 2013

5/10/2013

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“A local government may not, when it comes to equal access to education, treat some classes of its citizens different than it treats another class,” says the complaint, filed in March by five plaintiffs organized by the community group Empower D.C.






I attended the Baltimore City Council budget public comment open meeting at City Hall and as usual it was designed to be as user unfriendly as possible.  These annual budget meetings are always packed beyond capacity and yet they have them in a small chamber with people entering in shifts.  This year they made things worse by only allowing people to speak for 2 minutes.....CAN YOU IMAGINE COMING FOR WHAT WILL BE MOST PEOPLE'S ONLY CHANCE TO ENGAGE THEIR POLITICIANS AND HAVE ONLY 2 MINUTES TO DO IT.  You are lucky to be able to present one issue in a robust way.  Remember, the point with these public meetings is to simply abide by legislative rules, not to actually hear the people's concerns.

This public session was filled with education supporters which is a good thing.  The worrying thing is that they are all attached to a non-profit.  There were no parents speaking about issues of funding in the classroom but issues regarding after school programs.  Again, this isn't a bad thing, it just shows were the organization lies and it is not with the individual parents who hate what is happening in schools.  The reason for the outpouring of education advocates was of course the threats to education funding to balance the budget while cutting property taxes.....which fund education.

I spoke about the deliberate policy to starve government coffers in order to allow private corporate and wealth donors to 'donate' to private non-profits who write education policy and fund education programs that they want.....completely taking away the parent and neighborhood's right to do that for themselves.  That is what these policies surrounding tax breaks is all about.  This city budget has the mayor cutting property taxes progressively more each year.   Remember, property taxes are how schools are funded for the most part and also remember that in Maryland and Baltimore there has been a tremendous loss of property tax collection since the 1970-1980s.  This has to do with the policy of giving corporate tax breaks and Homestead tax breaks that overwhelmingly protect the rich from taxes while lowering revenue for schools.  Now, everyone would like to see Baltimore property taxes decline....they need to......but you cannot do this at the same time you are giving more and more property tax breaks to corporations and the rich.....YOU STARVE THE GOVERNMENT COFFERS THAT FUND THE SCHOOLS!

Well, this is the plan after all.  The goal is to have the same corporations getting property tax breaks like Exelon and UnderArmour the opportunity to buy the right to create public policy THEY WANT by donating to private non-profits money that they will designate fund certain policy and programs.  Then, they get to write that donation off their taxes so the city is starved twice of revenue that would go to the schools.  What this creates is a highly inequitable funding of schools where some schools receive copious private funding and others are starved......IT VIOLATES ALL EQUAL PROTECTION LAWS.....EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EQUAL ACCESS.....not to mention the ability of citizens to control public policy.  So this was my comment.  You can imagine how getting all that into 2 minutes is impossible which is why these pols do that.  The less said the better when on TV cameras!!!


WE MUST FIGHT AT EVERY CHANCE THIS DIRECTION THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS IN MARYLAND AND BALTIMORE ARE TAKING US.....WITH CORPORATIONS PAYING NO TAXES BUT DONATING TO CREATE THEIR PERSONAL VISION OF PUBLIC POLICY.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE! 




I thank the author of this piece for the insightful look  at disparity in education and the ill affects of teach to the test education reform.  My comments may be at odds with her opinion as a whole, but I use it as a good springboard.  O'Malley did indeed tie MD to this Race To The Top education reform that requires all of what many parents, teachers, and students find a wrong-headed reform all for funding that should have come with no strings attached.  In Baltimore you can go to a supermajority of schools and see curricula described in this article.....teaching to the test and high-stakes achievement pressures.  All educators know this is bad policy as it does not engage and develop learning skills and a love of education needed for success in the long run.  Quite the opposite and academic studies show this to be the case.  It is failed education policy.  So why do it?  It is policy written by business people interested in making schools about efficiency, production, and data and it completely ignores the human aspects of learning and teaching.  It is killing our students and teachers.

As the article points out, there are schools in Baltimore that have escaped this policy and they are in affluent communities.  These community schools are thriving because they have kept the democratic, humanities based learning.  Roland Park and Mt Washington for example.  Why the difference?




In testing-dominated system, real learning comes outside the classroom After school, extracurricular activities offer profound benefits, but usually for the privileged

By Stephanie A. Flores-Koulish and Janell Lewis 1:47 p.m. EDT, May 9, 2013  Baltimore Sun

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, the standardized testing season has mostly ended in the public schools this year — and what have we learned? Parents have learned that their first-graders are developing test anxiety. Teachers have learned that they need to tell parents to accept the fact that these high-stakes tests are not going anywhere. But perhaps most importantly, some of us have learned that some of the best kind of learning happens after school, or once the testing demands have passed.

Though some are resigned to this reality, others across the nation are not complacent. Recently, for example, John Tierney described in The Atlantic how there is a growing wave of activism around standing up against the standardized testing movement.

Still, here in Maryland, school days are filled with tight mandates for teachers and students, leaving them with less time to spend on creative, open-ended activities. Frequently, students come home with worksheets, prepping them for skills-based material that will be tested once a year on a test that does little if anything to improve their learning. Instead, these tests seem intended to determine which schools have students from wealthier families with cultural capital who will score high on these tests, as opposed to the opposite. And the cycle continues.

One of those "good" schools happens to be our school, in Baltimore City — Roland Park Elementary/Middle, where one of us is a parent and the other a teacher. Yet still, a lot of the good stuff is happening after school hours. For example, Ms. Flores-Koulish's daughter's fourth-grade team for a club called Destination Imagination (DI) recently competed on the regional and state levels with great success. Their accomplishments qualified them to compete at the Global Tournament, which is being held in Knoxville, Tenn., this month. DI is the world's largest creative thinking and problem-solving competition. They will be competing against schools from all over the world. The club is parent-led and after school, and it is fortunate that we have the capacity and the time for it.

The school's middle school National Academic League (NAL) team recently competed in the final four of the national tournament. NAL is a quiz bowl league that follows "sports like" rules for students to answer trivia questions in math, science, language arts, and social studies as well as popular culture and current events. There are four rounds of stimulating play, and the students learn a lot from it while having a great time. NAL is led by Ms. Lewis and her teacher colleague, with the games running after school and practices held before school two times a week.

Sometimes, creative learning can actually still creep into the curriculum during the school day, and thankfully, we both see that at Roland Park. For example, fourth-graders recently had an art opening at Evergreen Cafe in the city that demonstrated their understanding of the Baltimore City school construction bill that they studied in social studies and art. Importantly, it was "real" curriculum and not simulated for a standardized assessment. Students could eloquently describe the process of legislative change while it was occurring.

In another example, Ms. Lewis' sixth-grade social studies students found the time to analyze the Disney film "Mulan" after studying Ancient China to determine the ways in which Hollywood alters history to tell a seamless tale and profit from it. These same students also held a fundraiser for Native American charities during an event in which they collaboratively shared their knowledge on posters about the real history of Native Americans in the U.S., from the "Trail of Tears" to the boarding schools, which they learned about in language arts and social studies. No doubt there are other examples. Knowledge of this sort cannot be shown in robust ways on a simple Scantron.

At the recent American Educational Research Association meeting in San Francisco, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke to a group of educational researchers, saying, "Ultimately, a great education involves much more than teaching children simply to read, write, add and subtract. It includes teaching them to think and write clearly, and to solve problems and work in teams. It includes teaching children to set goals, to persist in tasks, and to help them navigate the world."

Mr. Duncan needs to travel north and witness these qualities and then think about how we can have more of them, during the school day, for all students — not just the privileged. Teachers, parents, and especially children would find public school that much richer. And that would clearly show teachers the appreciation and respect they deserve this week (and every week).

Stephanie A. Flores-Koulish is an associate professor and director of the Curriculum & Instruction Program in the School of Education at Loyola University Maryland. Her email is sfloreskoulish@loyola.edu. Janell Lewis is a sixth-grade teacher at Roland Park Elementary/Middle School.

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You can see by this online 'teaching school' in Maryland how cheapened our school system is being made by Third Way corporate pols like O'Malley.  These online programs are by their nature providing a platform for educators that will lower quality and be less selective in students/graduates.  Know where these online educators will ultimately teach?  In charter schools that are being made into businesses.  THIS IS MARYLAND FOR YOU.....HOME OF TIERED AND CORPORATE EDUCATION BY GOVERNOR O'MALLEY!



Teaching & Education Degrees in Maryland

More than 35 percent of the people living in Maryland hold bachelor's degrees or higher. If you are interested in joining the ranks of the state's highly-educated, Maryland teaching degrees could be the path for you. Teaching programs in Maryland offer the fundamentals needed to enter this profession. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, middle school teachers employed in Maryland were some of the highest paid in the nation. The state is home to more than 60 colleges and universities, so you should be able to find many options to fit your needs. If the on-campus experience doesn't supply what you are seeking, you could find an alternative through one of the programs offering online teaching degrees in Maryland -- and even find yourself teaching online as well. Maryland teachers are qualified to teach at online elementary schools and beyond. No matter what method of study you chose, teaching programs in Maryland prepare you for teaching. Your courses should revolve around education philosophies, teaching strategies and how to identify and meet the needs of students. The 175,690 workers in Maryland's state's education, training, and library occupations earned mean annual wages of $56,460 in May of 2009, according to BLS data. Elementary school teachers earned mean annual salaries of $61,000, while middle school teachers earned mean annual salaries of $64,510. Not only do teaching degrees in Maryland offer an opportunity to enter a respected field, they could open the door to a satisfying salary.


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This is of course Alonzo's legacy with Baltimore public schools and it was his mission given to him by O'Malley who appointed him at the request of Wall Street's Bloomberg and Johns Hopkins.  Running schools as businesses goes against all that is education policy for the past century.  It was successful policy that was sidelined by the equally bad policies of removing textbooks from classrooms and allowing calculators in math classes.  That was not a teacher's choice....it was policy from the same people giving us this current reform policy!!!

Clear thinking about: Running public schools "like a business"

Submitted by Steven Norton on Wed, 05/19/2010 - 7:08pm   Michigan Parents for Schools

One of the things we hear over and over are calls to run our public schools “like a business.” The basic argument is that if schools were run in a more businesslike manner, they would not have the budget problems we are seeing today. It sounds like a simple argument, and that gives it great appeal. The reality is more complex. Let’s take a look at how it plays out in the real world.

Differing objectives

Running a school district like a business implies more than just spending carefully and operating in a rational and efficient manner. Many people who make this argument are really asking for schools to do what private sector firms theoretically do: deliver a good product at the lowest possible cost.

But this is where things get sticky: businesses and schools have profoundly different objectives. For a business, the primary goal is profit for the owners; for a school, the primary goal is a quality education. Is it any wonder, then, that the systems they use to meet those objectives would look very different?

Imagine running a company where you had to provide all prospective customers with a high quality product for free, and some other entity determined how much money you would have to make that happen, based on factors that aren’t really connected to your costs. Not so easy.

The primary objective of any private business is to generate a reasonable return on investment to the owners (proprietor or shareholders). This is a financial goal: success is measured in terms of dollars. Everything else – the cost of materials, the quality of the product, the cost of labor – is manipulated in order to generate a sustainable return on investment. (Businesses don’t actually maximize profit; maximizing anything gets harder as you go along. Instead, they aim to generate returns that are “good enough” to be competitive given other alternatives investors might choose and the relative risk of these various investments.)

One critical consequence of this is that the product – whether a good or service – is considered “good enough” if it attracts sufficient buyers to generate a profit and a reasonable amount of growth. The product is not the point of the business: the return on investment is. That return on investment is evaluated in both the short term and the long term, and these different perspectives lead businesses to balance various priorities (profit today versus growth tomorrow, and so on).

For our public schools, however, the product – a quality education – is the point. Where private businesses focus on generating a good financial return, the mission of our public schools is to provide the best education possible given resource constraints. This has a few consequences. The most important is that varying the quality of the product in order to control costs is simply not an option for school systems. In fact, many of the levers private businesses use to control their finances (product quality and price, for instance) are not available to public schools. Demand for their product (the number of children they must serve, the needs of the community for an educated populace) is mostly unrelated to the revenue they have available. This is especially true in Michigan, where local demand has little impact on the per pupil funding districts receive.

Another consequence is the disconnect between the buyers and beneficiaries of the product. If you buy a car, or a microwave, it becomes fairly clear in short order whether you got what you paid for. As a result, a business will not offer a product with features that no one is willing to pay for, but consumers will pay for products that provide direct benefit. But with schools, the “buyers” – the taxpayers of today – will not be able to see the return on their investment for many years. The total impact of a public education won’t be clear until today’s children grow into adults. We may try to measure quality indirectly, using things like standardized tests, but the results of those tests do not guarantee long term success.

In fact, it is this very disconnect that prompted the creation of publicly-financed schools in the first place. This nation was founded in part on the principle that government should be “by the people,” and to do that you need to have an educated citizenry. Unlike other nations at the time, where education was reserved for the select few, the new United States committed to making a basic education available to all. The reason this became a public, rather than private, project is because of what economists call “market failure”: the huge time gap between the purchase and the return effectively discourages most private investment. Moreover, the measure of the benefits is only indirectly financial – it comes in the form of quality of life and effective governance, both things which are hard to measure in dollars.

In short, what public education is all about is making an investment in the future, an investment that for the most part will not bring a return for 20 years or more. The amount we invest – the “cost” of a child’s education – is not driven by impersonal market forces, but by the choices we as a society make about how many resources we will give to our schools. Our willingness to invest depends on our perception of the long term importance of education.

This is where efficiency arguments get tangled up. It’s one thing to reduce duplication and take advantage of economies of scale in our schools. But it’s quite another to extend to schools the logic businesses use to evaluate the cost of production: for a business, production if efficient as long as the product actually sells and costs are sufficiently below revenue. This calculation ignores quality, since different levels of quality command different prices. But what if quality is the only thing that matters? Would wage and benefit cuts – the kinds of tools usually used to reduce costs and increase productivity – really have no effect on the quality of our schools’ “product”?

Products versus services

Another complication raised by the “run schools like a business” argument is that there are many different kinds of private business. Because of Michigan’s manufacturing history, most people who compare schools to business are unconsciously using businesses that make products for the comparison. But there are other kinds of business: service business. Providing an education is arguably more like providing accounting services than making instrument panels.

Let’s think about the characteristics of service businesses. There are some which specialize in work which requires modest skills, commands low wages and thus can be sold at low prices. On the other hand, there are services which require great skill, command high pay and cost a great deal. (Think lawyers, accountants, doctors, for instance.) Moreover, many of those high-skill service providers face a situation rather like our public schools: the quality of their work is not immediately self-evident. The quality of a doctor’s work may not be apparent until a patient has been healthy for years; the quality of an accountant’s work may not be clear until you are subjected to an audit.

In all these cases, reputation is key and it takes time to build. Your current client may not be immediately sure that your work was done well, but when the quality is tested, they are in a position to recommend you (or not) to other, new clients. In other words, the time horizon of people who run these kinds of service businesses is quite long; think of all the firms named after partners who are long dead. Investing in quality today is a reasonable business strategy if your future business depends less on your price than on your reputation for quality. This is particularly true if you provide a service where low quality has especially serious consequences.

For schools, the long term perspective is the same. Handed an educational mission by their communities, they must invest in the long term. Children will spend twelve to thirteen years in their care, and quality – or lack of it – is cumulative. Short-term cuts that reduce quality have amplified long-term effects. (It’s hard to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again, and even if you can, you’ve done a disservice to a whole cohort of children.)

Many people recognize that teaching children is a high-skill, high qualification job which should be reasonably well compensated if you want a high-quality service. Others, however, are stuck thinking of teachers more like manufacturing workers, where education requirements are modest, individuals are easily replaced, and short term layoffs don’t really have much effect on next year’s production.

Schools as a public project

Private business can teach a lot to the public sector, including our schools. Organizations which are constantly under pressure to innovate and economize on resources will have developed techniques and tools to use available resources as efficiently as possible. Those methods and tools can be useful in any large organization, regardless of how it is owned.

But the public sector, including our schools, cannot operate according to the logic of private business, nor should we try to make them do so. Every private business is driven to generate a profit that can be distributed to owners, and all decisions about the operations of the business are subordinated to that goal. Whether a high-quality product is sold for a high price, or a lower-quality product is sold for a lower price, each business tries to find the right balance between costs and revenues for the particular part of the market they are trying to serve.

The public sector, in contrast, is charged with providing goods and services that benefit the public as a whole. Higher quality, if possible, is always better. And the return on the investment of taxpayer funds is not immediate, and may not even be financial. But the benefits do accrue to all of us, now and in the future.

The public sector, including our schools, is the tool that we the people use to make sure our government “of the people” is also “for the people.” The job of the public sector is to attend to those tasks which affect the quality of life of citizens but might not attract sufficient private investment. At our direction, the public sector provides the infrastructure – everything from roads and airports to laws and schools – which allows the private sector to function effectively. When we the people direct that a quality education be provided to all without restriction, we do so because: we know that a democracy functions best when all citizens can intelligently participate in governing; we know that each mind not developed to its full potential is a dead-weight loss to society; and we know that the best way to ensure prosperity and happiness for each of us is to do our best to ensure it for all.

Our schools, in other words, are our common vehicle for investing in the future – for all of us. That investment should be made wisely, and the “investors” (all of us) have a right to participate in how that investment is directed and to ensure it is being used well. But we also have a responsibility to remember why we created public schools in the first place and to invest accordingly – with an eye to the future of our whole community.


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REMEMBER, IT IS NOT ONLY PROPERTY TAX THAT CITY COUNCIL AND THE GOVERNOR ARE DIVERTING FROM GOVERNMENT COFFERS THAT WOULD BE DESIGNED FOR SCHOOLS.....IT IS ALL OF GAMBLING PROCEEDS THAT WE WERE SOLD ON AS PRO-EDUCATION. 

Can you imagine using taxpayer money to train employees for businesses?  Neither can I and yet Third Way corporate democrats are throwing the kitchen sink at businesses to maximize profits using public taxpayer money and student tuition to augment the costs of doing business!

This is towards what the state and city revenue coming from gambling will go.  It won't hit K-12, it will be used to boost business profits on the backs of people.  A community college is now a public job training program.  What about all those casino unions all having apprenticeships that have the unions and businesses paying for on-the-job training as has been the norm for almost a century?  YOU CAN'T MAXIMIZE CORPORATE PROFITS THAT WAY SAYS O'MALLEY AND RAWLINGS-BLAKE, corporate pols to the end.

This is ridiculous folks. We have government coffers starved of tax revenue and corporations 'donating' money to non-profits that write public policy like this.  Simply vote these corporate democrats out of office and run and vote for labor and justice next elections!!!!


AACC Casino Dealer School bets on growing needs at Maryland Live

By Joe Burris, The Baltimore Sun 8:03 p.m. EDT, May 9, 2013

The course is "Introduction to Casino Gambling," but upon entering the classroom, one might be tempted to place a bet at the roulette wheel, the craps table or any of the other table game layouts.

As he stared at the roulette wheel, Christopher Lamb of Elkridge, a student who has taken one week of the Anne Arundel Community College course, could scarcely contain his excitement at the thought of working in a casino.

"It is an amazing game, just on gambling and chance, and who knows where the ball is going to land? I just find that really incredible, the ball spinning in the wheel and placing your bets on the ball," he said.

Lamb is enrolled in casino dealer courses offered by AACC's Hotel, Culinary Arts and Tourism Institute. Current classes began May 6. Maryland Live financed and ran an earlier AACC-certificated dealer school from January to March to train some of the 1,200 employees the casino needed when table games opened April 11.

The dealer school is housed at Marley Station mall in Glen Burnie. Many of the students have their sights on employment at Maryland Live, and the dealer school brochure points to U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics that predict that employment for dealers will grow by 17 percent by 2020. Maryland Live supervisors lead training in the classes, which are conducted at least four days a week and four hours a day. Some run through October.

"The partnership between the college and Maryland Live actually preceded the casino building," said Mary Ellen Mason, director of the Hotel, Culinary Arts and Tourism Institute. "We were approached by casino management to do a student-led project in which our purchasing and cost-control students developed and tested recipes for their buffet restaurant. And they didn't have facilities to do that."

Mason said AACC also provided culinary facilities for the casino's final Suisse chef testing for candidates. The current dealer school has transitioned to Anne Arundel Community College as open-enrollment classes that are no longer paid for by Maryland Live.

Dealer school offers such courses as "Introduction to Craps," "Casino Blackjack Dealer" and "Casino Mini Baccarat Dealer." Mason said the school created three noncredit courses last year.

"Being a new industry to the state, there weren't a lot of trained workers available for them," Mason said, "so it gave the college an opportunity to provide that training that allowed individuals within the county and surrounding counties to get whatever training is necessary to pursue long-term careers in a new and growing industry within the state."

She spoke just moments before the start of the "Introduction to Casino" course. The class teaches casino organization, handling money, counting odds, and working with cards and chips.

"A lot of [the students] understand the service industry and know how to meet and greet guests," said Paul Sheppard, an adjunct instructor at HCAT and a shift manager at Maryland Live. "Things that are tough are shuffling the cards, cutting of the [chips]."

Sheppard gathered up a large stack of $5 chips to show how he would give them to patrons seated around the table. Breaking down the stack to give each patron five chips, he lowered the stack with his fingers to the table and released four at a time in a matter of seconds, as if he were placing cherries atop chocolate sundaes.

"They also have to learn the element of picking [chips]," he said. "If you say, 'Three red,' dealers have to look at you and pick up the chips without looking at the chips. Everyone can cut chips after a while, but to do it neatly and effectively, it takes at least a year."

AACC student Wayne Jones of Randallstown said he has visited Maryland Live on several occasions. He has played the table games and slots, but said he has also "observed those working at the facility, to get a feel for the environment of the gaming industry."

"Having been retired for the past three years and recognizing that gaming in Maryland is growing, friends of mine that have entered into the gaming industry had encouraged me to seek training as a dealer," Jones said.

Lamb enrolled after a stint at Howard Community College, where he was working toward a degree in elementary education. But he ultimately lost interest in teaching. After playing for the first time in a cruise ship casino, he discovered what he hopes to make a career.

"I gave it some thought," he said, "and I found it more interesting than I ever thought it would be."

joseph.burris@baltsun.com



Read more: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-ar-aacc-casino-20130508,0,479499.story#ixzz2SuPyooe2
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January 29th, 2013

1/29/2013

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For those that say the working class do not need labor protections from unions so let them work like third world poor consider that these work conditions are hitting college educated workers as well.  Remember, the protesters in Egypt and other autocratic countries are professionals impoverished by regimes.   So, when educators, health care professionals, and postal employees hit the protest trail you see a war against all labor not only the working class. As Governor O'Malley and Mayor Rawlings-Blake duped the voters regarding the gambling referendum by saying these would be good paying jobs....that minorities would be hired to these good paying jobs.....that profits would go to education, THEY WERE LYING TO YOUR FACE YET AGAIN AND THE PEOPLE HAVE SAID ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.  Every member of Baltimore City Council knew the move would be to have casinos without unions.....they knew that most of the hiring would have the best paid brought in from out of area and the positions for the minority workers would be horrible working conditions with part time work with continuously changing shifts and duties.  The Baltimore City Council and Maryland Assembly has not even addressed the 'felon' issue as regards Baltimore citizens as O'Malley's and Rawlings-Blake war on the poor has many people guilty of simply loitering registering as felons.  THERE IS NO INTENT TO HIRE ANY MINORITIES IN JOBS THAT WON'T BE EXPLOITATIVE.

What about those funds for education from gambling proceeds?  Well, we see already one county using the funds to pay for the transportation services from BWI to the casino and with the Baltimore casino we see the City pols already using taxpayer money to train casino staff.......that's the education these pols will give you with these gambling proceeds.  So, the labor unions, the teacher's unions, the justice organizations that all worked to get gambling approved WERE ALL SCREWED BY BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND POLITICIANS.  THIS IS WHY O'MALLEY AND RAWLINGS-BLAKE ARE MOVING TO NATIONAL POSITIONS......WHEN IT COMES TO CONNING THE PUBLIC FOR CORPORATE PROFITS.....THEY ARE TEAM PLAYERS!!!

Ever more seriously is the attack on our postal service.  Third Way corporate democrats like Maryland's pols voted with the Republicans for policy designed to starve the Post Office of revenue.....killing it by taking its ability to compete with private services like FedX and UPS.  So, policy like taking Postal meters and postage stamps away from the Post Office and allowing sales everywhere took away great revenue from the Post Office as it does foot traffic that would lead to mailing.  Allowing private post offices to open when the need wasn't there all worked to take traffic away from the Post Office and place them with private carriers like UPS and FedX.  DID WE NEED COMPETITION WITH THE POST OFFICE WHICH HAD US PAYING PENNIES TO SEND A LETTER UNTIL IT WAS FORCED TO COMPETE WITH PRIVATE PROFIT?

IT IS ALL ABOUT THE PROFIT, NOT THE SERVICE AND THAT IS WHY THEY ARE SYSTEMATICALLY KILLING THE POST OFFICE.   The nail in the coffin was the policy of pre-paying employee pensions to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.  Now, if you are making the Post Office compete with private companies that do not pre-pay their pensions are you really creating a fair and free market?  Of course not, you are trying to kill a public service.  THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS VOTED WITH REPUBLICANS TO CREATE THIS BURDEN THAT IS KILLING YOUR LAST METHOD OF PUBLIC COMMUNICATION!!!

How important is the fact that the post office is our only PUBLIC method of communication?  IT IS HUGE!!!! Think about how you will be able to afford the rates if private industry is allowed to go without competition.  We are seeing our phone bills become unbearable......we are seeing computer rates becoming unbearable......we will see our package rates become unbearable if the Post Office is not there.  SO HOW WILL PEOPLE COMMUNICATE IF RATES ARE TOO HIGH?  HOW LONG WILL GOVERNMENT SUBSIDIZE THE POOR? 

THEY WILL NOT.  JUST AS WITH ENERGY COSTS THESE SUBSIDIES TO THE POOR WILL END AND A VAST NUMBER OF PEOPLE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HAVE ENERGY, HEALTH CARE, AND NOW COMMUNICATIONS ABILITY.  WHO ARE THOSE POOR.......LOOK AT EGYPT AND GREECE TO SEE PROFESSIONALS OF ALL STRIPES AS POOR AS ANY!!!!!

Lastly today let's look at another professional class being driven into poverty as yet another democratic platform is crushed by Third Way corporate democrats.  The teaching profession.  University campuses have always been the place of democratic activism and free speech as tenured professors were able to speak freely against government corruption and tyranny.  So, if you are building a corrupt and tyrannic society the first thing you want to do is get rid of the university campuses and those pesky academics........and that is what Third Way corporate democrats like O'Malley and Obama are doing.  This is why universities and colleges are being filled with adjuncts from the business-world who are only connected to the college as a part-timer......it is why we are seeing tenured positions disappear as academics are now afraid to speak and are indeed silent as the greatest transition from free and democratic to corrupt and autocratic happens right before us.  EVERYONE IS FEARFUL OF LOSING JOBS AT A PERIOD WHEN JOBS ARE BEING HELD DELIBERATELY SCARCE.  EVEN FACEBOOK ENTRIES ARE KEPT CLEAN OF DEBATE AS THESE SOCIAL MEDIA ARE SURVEILLED TO AN INCH OF THEIR LIVES.   This is deliberate silencing of political voice and academics are the foundation of  political voice.

Below you'll see what is happening across the country with all levels of education......K-college.  Teachers are being made paupers as their jobs are marginalized by manufactured budget cuts.  Part-time, Teach for America, principals required to pay back salaries in order to finance their schools as they are in Baltimore.....all of this is disturbing and unacceptable and all driven by Obama, O'Malley, and Third Way corporate democrats across the country.


YOUR THIRD WAY POL IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IMPOVERISHER.  THEY KNOW THAT TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD WOULD PAY FOR ALL OF THE NEEDS OF STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS BUT THEY KEEP CUTTING PUBLIC SERVICES/PROGRAMS AS CORPORATIONS BECOME FABULOUSLY WEALTHY.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!

Working Without Pay January 18, 2013 - 3:00am By Colleen Flaherty
Inside Higher Ed


College food drives are usually organized by student groups aiming to serve needy off-campus populations. The one this week at Kalamazoo Valley Community College in Michigan is different. It’s benefiting part-time faculty members who can’t make ends meet until their late paychecks arrive at the beginning of next month.

“This really came as surprise to a lot of people,” and the recent holidays and current tax season haven’t left many part-time faculty with a financial cushion, said Kelly O’Leary, part-time French and English instructor and co-president of the Kalamazoo Valley Community College Federation of Teachers, the part-time faculty union affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers in Michigan. About 300 part-time instructors, many of whom were expecting to be paid on Tuesday as usual, won’t be paid until Feb. 1 due to administrative issues.

“We have a number of single moms trying to support kids,” O’Leary said. “I don’t think people understand that they’re below poverty wages.”

To help bridge the gap, the union launched the food drive on Jan. 11. Since then, it has been flooded with food donations and gift cards to Meijer supermarket, where faculty can buy more food, gas and prescriptions. “We’ve had part-time faculty coming out of the woodwork saying, ‘I’m a diabetic and I need to buy insulin,’ ” said the union's co-president, Catherine Barnard, a part-time psychology instructor. “At first, we didn’t even think about medication, but many of these people don’t have benefits.”

Because some part-time faculty have expressed shame at publicly accepting help, Barnard said she’s arranged via e-mail to meet part-time faculty in the parking lot or elsewhere on campus with donations. Most of the help has come from full-time faculty and part-time faculty with heavier course loads, and the drive is being promoted on the union's Facebook page, where O'Leary has posted a virtual "I am working without pay" button.

Kalamazoo Valley pays part-time faculty about $2,400 per course on a term-to-term basis, compared to about $10,000 per course for some full-time, permanent professors paid an annual salary (not taking into account other full-time faculty duties), Barnard said. (By way of comparison, a 2010 survey of non-tenure-track faculty members by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce showed the median compensation rate for adjuncts to be $2,700 per three-credit course.) Barnard estimated that most part-time faculty teach two or three courses on campus each semester, which, without picking up additional courses at other area institutions, would amount to an annual income of less than $15,000.

A union member notified leaders of the payday delay on Jan. 7, at the start of the semester. O’Leary said she attempted to meet with the administration to change the payday, to no avail (the union co-president said administrators blamed part-time faculty who were slow to turn in their semester paperwork and low staffing during the holiday period for the delay).

College officials reject the idea that the pay schedule should have taken part-time faculty by surprise. Michael Collins, vice president for student and college relations, said in an e-mail that the pay calendar was first posted on the college intranet in August 2012, and that full-time and part-time pay faculty pay schedules have differed from each other going as far back as 30 years (Kalamazoo Valley’s 129 full-time faculty were paid on Tuesday).

O’Leary disagreed with that statement, saying the part-time faculty pay date was included in the faculty calendar in an obscure place that did not show up on most people’s computer screens, and went missing from the calendar for prolonged periods during the fall semester. Additionally, she said, most faculty who expect their pay at a certain time each month don’t check the calendar to verify that it will be arriving. (In her nearly two decades of working at the college, she said pay had only been delayed once before, at the start of the fall 2011 semester. The union was formed shortly after.) She also pointed to state wage and earnings laws that guard against late payments after a routine pay schedule has been established by an employer, although such laws pertain to a biweekly or weekly pay schedule; the college typically pays faculty on the 1st and 15th of each month.

Although it’s not a permanent fix for part-time faculty, Nancy Beers, a part-time history instructor, said the drive has been welcome news to families such as hers, with Michigan’s tough job market (her husband was laid off last year and she’s picked up fewer courses this semester – four, compared to eight at three different campuses in the fall – than she would have liked).

“The only way we’ve made it [this month] is that we saved everything we could from last semester,” she said.

______________________________________________________


AS O'MALLEY SIGNS ON TO RACE TO THE TOP, HE REQUIRES SCHOOL TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS TO MEET ACCESSMENT REQUIREMENTS AND SALARY INCREASES BASED ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE.  BUT AS WE HEAR AGAIN AND AGAIN, FUNDING ISN'T THERE.....A CITY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL TOLD ME SHE'S SCRATCHING FOR MONEY FOR TOILET PAPER.  WE WERE TOLD THAT UNDERSERVED SCHOOLS WOULD GET HIGHER TEACHER PAY TO ATTRACT BEST TEACHERS.....WHAT WE SEE, JUST AS EXPECTED, THE HIGH PAY GOES TO THE WEALTHY COUNTIES WHILE THE UNDERSERVED SCHOOLS HAVE THE LOWEST PAY.  AFFLUENT SCHOOLS ARE SUPPLEMENTED BY PRIVATE DONATIONS.  NONE OF THESE POLICIES PRODUCE GOOD CLASSROOM PERFORMANCE, THEY ONLY MAKE TEACHING LESS ATTRACTIVE AS A CAREER.

City principals among lowest-paid school leaders in state School, union officials say new contract will make salaries more competitive City schools

CEO Andres Alonso, shown during a visit with The Sun's editorial board and reporters, has given the Baltimore system's principals more autonomy. (Christopher T. Assaf, Baltimore Sun / June 28, 2011)

By Erica L. Green, The Baltimore Sun 5:54 p.m. EST, February 2, 2012

YET THE QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION BELOW SOMEHOW GOT THESE SAME PRINCIPALS THAT WERE DESCRIBED AS THE LOWEST PAID IN THE STATE TO MAKE WHOPPING DONATIONS TO THEIR OWN SCHOOLS.......BASICALLY ERASING  ANY INCREASE IN THE CONTRACTS MENTIONED ABOVE. 

So the media is giving us the impression these school officials are being paid more when they are simply being made to give it back to keep their jobs (think about the Hispanic workers I spoke of who work in Baltimore's Enterprise Zones who told us they are paid a wage as demanded by Living Wage and Green Card laws and then forced to give back $5 an hour to keep their jobs)  THIS IS REALLY EVIL PEOPLE AND IT IS ALL DRIVEN BY JOHNS HOPKINS AND THEIR QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES/NON-PROFITS

Waverly School Principal-------$20,000
Barclay School Principal -----  $8,750
Guilford School Principal ----- $20,000
Margaret Brent School Principal ----$3,434

THE SCHOOL'S STAFF ARE ALSO EXPECTED TO DONATE AS THESE WILL BE MATCHING FUNDS FOR LARGER DONATIONS.  REMEMBER, WE HAVE BUDGET DEFICITS BECAUSE OF MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD AND CORPORATE TAX BREAKS THAT HAVE THEM PAYING NOTHING......THIS IS THE PROBLEM AND THE PEOPLE ARE BEING MADE TO PAY THEIR WAGES IN DONATIONS AS WELL AS SEEING THEIR TAX REVENUE GIVEN TO THESE NGOs.......

THIS IS EVIL STUFF FOLKS!!!!!!

About FLBC The Family League of Baltimore City, Inc. is a quasi-governmental nonprofit organization that works with a range of partners to develop and implement initiatives that improve the well-being of Baltimore’s children, youth and families. The Family League’s work touches the lives of tens of thousands of Baltimore families each year.

The Family League is uniquely able to coordinate major initiatives, bring together a range of partners, and fashion new approaches to the city’s urgent problems.


HERE WE HAVE YET ANOTHER QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION DESIGNED TO FUNNEL PRIVATE MONEY TO DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS WITHOUT COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND WITH THE COMPLETE WISHES OF THE PEOPLE DONATING.....OR AT LEAST THE BIG DONORS AS WE SAW ABOVE, SOME OF THE LOW LEVEL DONORS ARE SIMPLY DONATING TO KEEP THEIR JOBS!!!!!
____________________________________________________





US Postal Service faces ruin without rescue from Congress, watchdog warns Inspector general David Williams says cash-strapped service, saddled with debt and low revenues, is in 'very serious trouble'

The USPS lost over $16bn last year, and has lost about $41bn over the past five years, according to estimates. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The chief postal watchdog has warned that the troubled US Postal Service will go out of business this year unless Congress acts to rescue it.

David Williams, the inspector general of the USPS, says the service is in "very serious trouble", after five years lumbered with heavy debt and falling revenues.

In an interview with the Guardian, Williams warns that Congress, which has been distracted by November's elections and the fiscal cliff crisis, must act this year to save the service.

The USPS lost over $16bn last year, and has lost about $41bn over the past five years, according to Robert Taub, a vice-chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Since 2006, the postal service has been required – unlike any federal agency  – to pre-fund its retirement and healthcare benefits to workers. This costs it about $5.5bn a year. Currently, the post office has paid in $330bn for benefits, but the Office of Personnel Management recently told Williams that it will need $394bn to satisfy the legal requirement.  THIS IS A BIG REASON  WHY THE POST OFFICE IS STRAPPED AND THEY ARE USING THIS TO DISMANTLE OUR ONLY PUBLIC MEANS OF COMMUNICATION!!!!

At the same time, it has been unable to raise postal rates enough, because they are pegged to inflation, and inflation is low. (A long-awaited rise is coming on January 27, moving postal rates up by 2.75%).

The economic downturn in 2007 hit the postal service hard, as people sent less mail; it has also seen a steep decline in its most profitable product, first-class mail.

Richard Geddes, an assistant policy professor at Cornell and an American Enterprise Institute scholar who has studied the postal service, says first class mail has fallen from 103bn pieces in 2000 to just around 74bn pieces in 2011.

Even though it has shrunk from nearly 900,000 thousand employees in 1998 to about 530,000 now, many regulators and lawmakers see the US Postal Service's infrastructure as inefficient, and have talked about areas they would like to cut – the number of facilities that the USPS uses to process mail, for instance.

Williams, whose organisation audits the USPS, described the set of financial constraints on the service as "murder – it wasn't premeditated, but it was murder."

The postal service has reached its $15bn credit limit with the US Treasury, and has in effect run out of money."This is the year that they borrowed so much that they can't borrow any more," Williams said.

Asked whether the USPS will need a bailout this year, Williams replied: "Yes. The choices are that it would cease to exist or it would need a bailout." Williams said he did not expect the USPS to require taxpayer dollars, but instead that it would require congressional intervention, perhaps to reduce the pension payments.

The US Postal Service, which missed its last two payments into the benefit funds, has never made a single payment without having to borrow from the US Treasury. Ruth Goldway, chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, notes the irony: the USPS pension payment goes to the US Treasury, so for the past five years it has been borrowing from the Treasury to pay the Treasury.

There are many possible solutions to the problem, but, as a start, Williams, Goldway and Taub believe that the pension payments should be reduced. "I favor a post office that is not burdened by this unrealistic pension obligation," Goldway said.

Goldway says the main reason for the dire financial state of the USPS is the debt it took on to meet its pension payments. "They wouldn't be in the situation they're in without having borrowed all this money," she said.

California congressman Darrell Issa, a Republican who has taken the lead on postal service reform along with congressman Dennis Ross, suggested last year that USPS employees should be required to pay into their health and life insurance benefits, like all federal workers.

Another school of thought holds that the postal service could shrink further, cutting staff and facilities. Williams suggests that if the post office took steps to reduce its size that it could save $12bn a year: "Which is more than enough to get them out of the trouble they're in."


__________________________________________________________________________________
IF YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT RUNNING LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES AGAINST INCUMBENTS.......THEY ARE NOT WORKING FOR YOU AND ME!!!!!!  ARE YOUR LEADERS WORKING WITH THE CORPORATE POLS OR ARE THEY WORKING FOR YOU???????

November 2, 2012 Teachers unions in Ohio seek to elect educators to office By Sarah Butrymowicz Hechinger Report

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Special-education teacher Donna O’Connor and 23 of her colleagues gathered at their union’s headquarters here in January for a first-of-its-kind campaign boot camp. Prompted by an intense battle over collective bargaining that has pitted unions against a Republican-controlled State Assembly, the Ohio Education Association started grooming its own candidates to take back control of state education policy.

O’Connor, who is currently running for a House seat in the Columbus suburbs, felt her own sense of urgency as she learned how to fundraise, write speeches and debate during the union training sessions. “I started connecting the dots about seven years ago [that] I couldn’t just shut my classroom door and the politicians would leave me alone,” she said.

(Photo by Progress Ohio)

Teachers have long run for office, often with encouragement and support from their unions. This year, however, educators in states with some of the biggest labor disputes and most controversial education policies have been campaigning in record numbers. It’s one of the most direct ways that teachers and unions are showing their frustration over mounting attacks on tenure, the growth of nonunionized charter schools and efforts to evaluate teachers based on student test scores.

“You’re starting to see a lot of teachers say, ‘Enough is enough. I want to run for office,’ ” said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform. The group works to elect Democrats committed to making dramatic changes to education policy, including many that the unions oppose such as eliminating tenure. Williams said he expects the trend of educators vying for office to continue. Official statistics aren’t kept on how many teachers are running, but anecdotal evidence from several states suggests the numbers are up.

The teachers union in Wisconsin, which was the center of a lengthy battle over collective bargaining last year, has six members competing for statewide office. In Tennessee, the first state to pass a law tying teacher evaluations to test scores, nine out of 11 teacher-candidates survived state legislature primaries to advance to the November elections. (Typically, two or three teachers in Tennessee run for any sort of office in a given year, according to the state’s teachers union). And in Minnesota, where mounting class sizes and debates over changing the seniority system have upset teachers, 35 educators are on the ballot. Members of the Minnesota teachers union, Education Minnesota, have estimated that that number is about a third higher than normal.

“Unfortunately for the past two years, the Legislature has ignored the real problems and focused on bashing teachers,” Education Minnesota president Tom Dooher said in a written statement. “We’re hopeful more people with classroom experience will be elected and re-order its priorities next year.”

Ohio was thrust into the national spotlight last year when its legislature passed Senate Bill 5, which banned unions from collective bargaining. A ballot initiative that November repealed the law, but the memory—and the anger it inspired—has not faded.

Although many potential candidates who attended the OEA’s training sessions decided not to run this year (and one lost in a primary), 10 remain on the ballot for state office—an unprecedented number, according to the OEA. In the last six years, just three other OEA members have run. This year, an 11th educator, a former member of the Ohio Federation of Teachers (OFT) in his first year of retirement, is also running.

The Republicans have a stronghold in both houses of the Ohio State Assembly. In the House of Representatives, they are one member away from a super-majority, which would mean that any law passed as an “emergency measure” would take effect right away.

State congressional districts were redrawn in Ohio this year, in what supporters of the teachers union claim was gerrymandering meant to help Republican candidates. Still, the changes created new seats for some teachers to run and prompted others to challenge incumbents. Many teachers are now locked in tight races in districts that lean heavily red.

O’Connor, the special-education teacher, lost her current representative, Democrat John Carney, to another district during the redistricting process. Faced with an incumbent who had voted against collective bargaining and for a budget that cut state education funding by more than 10 percent, O’Connor decided it was time for her to get directly involved. She described the bill that outlawed collective bargaining as the “icing on the cake” in motivating her to run.

Tom Schmida, an OFT retiree up for election to the House in the Akron suburbs, was also spurred to run by a host of issues. A Democrat, Schmida is concerned about the future of collective bargaining, charter school accountability and a provision in the approved budget bill that will tie teacher evaluations to test scores. “An overreaching agenda by the extreme elements of the Republican Party, especially in the State House, [goes] beyond Senate Bill 5,” he said.

Schmida is in a close race against incumbent Republican Rep. Kristina Roegner, a staunch proponent of charters, vouchers and the elimination of collective-bargaining rights. Schmida’s grassroots campaign has knocked on about 7,500 doors and made 9,000 phone calls. Many of his volunteers are teachers and union members themselves, he said.

Both of the state’s teachers unions have endorsed all of the teacher-candidates. The OEA has also sent out mailings to members about its teacher-candidates, organized phone banks and helped produce a campaign video. “We’ve supported them through every means we possibly can,” said OEA president Patricia Frost-Brooks.

OEA declined to give specifics on the amount of money it has spent to help teacher-candidates get elected.

To Williams, these steps are a logical extension of unions’ long-time political involvement. “Teachers unions all over the country have been pretty successful at keeping the pipeline for potential candidates for office filled with good candidates,” he said. “We’re starting to see the unions take their message up a notch. It’s not just about good candidates … [but] getting teachers to be recruited.”

Yet Williams worries that too many teachers in office might derail the current education reform agenda. “As we move into an area where there’s lots of debates about teacher-quality issues and teacher-tenure issues, [the unions] are going to want people who will shut that debate down,” he said. He believes having more educators in office will be helpful only if they offer perspectives from the trenches without sidetracking the reform conversation.

Several Ohio teacher-candidates say they’re open to discussion and compromise. They add that their larger goals—like a better system of funding education—need not be divisive. It’s more about ensuring a teacher voice, they say.

“In 2011, that really showed us what happens when we don’t elect officials that are pro-workers, pro-public education and pro-teacher,” O’Connor said in her OEA-produced campaign video, referring to Senate Bill 5. “Electing pro-public education candidates is most important this time around. I think the teachers that are running, we can help protect and improve public education from the inside out.”

This story also appeared on NBCNews.com on November 2, 2012.
  

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January 24th, 2013

1/24/2013

0 Comments

 

  UNEMPLOYED?  IF YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT RUNNING LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES AGAINST THESE CORPORATE POLS.......THEY ARE NOT WORKING FOR YOU AND ME!!!!!




The gentleman from New Jersey who was the contractor losing the bid for the telecom job after having bid 1/2 of what the company given the bid did talked with me afterwards and gave me his card as I work to investigate this deal further.  He was incredulous that anyone could lose a bid like that and told me that NEVER happened in New Jersey.  He could not believe the level of corruption in the Baltimore system.  Keep in mind that New Jersey was once the most corrupt in the nation.....Maryland now has that spot.....and was forced by Federal justice department to reform a decade ago.  The Center for Public Integrity's State Corruption Study identified New Jersey as having a model government system of reforms in cleaning up crime and corruption.  It didn't say New Jersey was the cleanest.....it said that it had all of the systems in place to move it in that direction and this New Jersey contractor was telling me it works in New Jersey.

WE ARE DEMANDING THAT MARYLAND IMPLEMENT THE SAME TYPES OF CORRUPTION REFORMS AS NEW JERSEY AND STOP DENYING THERE IS NO PROBLEM WITH CRIME AND CORRUPTION IN MARYLAND!!!!!

We know this is no where near happening now as I attend yet another Baltimore City Council labor meeting that same evening and have to confront yet another government scam of the people.....it is never ending.  Again I am looking at Curran who as usual is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. This meeting is about the casino jobs coming to Baltimore and just to refresh memories, Mayor Rawlings-Blake and Governor Martin O'Malley recruited their standard coalition of labor and justice organizations to promote his agenda of gambling and as usual labor and justice were screwed as per this meeting.  Now, I spent all last year telling these labor and justice organizations they were being used and would not get jobs, but they tried one more time to believe in their leaders and backed the issue, even as gambling hurts these same people.  THIS IS ORWELLIAN!!!

I enter the room for the labor meeting early and heard Curran saying out of one side of his mouth to the casino people 'you have to give some union work on this casino site.....only the construction laborers for instance.....don't worry about those inside'.  Then, as the room filled with black, underserved union labor ready for work guaranteed them, Curran speaks out of the other side of his mouth in saying 'As head of Baltimore's labor committee I'm a strong supporter of unions'!  Remember, I have said that Baltimore has the most repressive labor environment for the working class in the nation and this committee is the driver of that.  So we listened to the casino owner and all of the Mayor's staff talking about what needs to be done to get ready for the casino opening in about a year and there are all kinds of repeated words of '1,800 jobs for the Baltimore area and strong, good-paying work' just as we heard in those casino referendum commercials.....ONLY NONE OF IT IS TRUE.....THEY WERE ALL LYING RIGHT TO OUR FACES ........ AGAIN.  I THINK THEY WILL FIND THAT THIS WILL BE THE STRAW THAT BREAKS THE CAMEL'S BACK AS FAR AS LABOR AND JUSTICE  BELIEVING THESE POLS.

Rawlings-Blake's staff then went on to talk of needing to build all kinds of job training programs for these jobs....making these same non-profits/private parnerships to ready the future casino workers.....community colleges as the focal points for training.  They talked about Obama's Federal job training money and the need for local taxpayer money to meet these goals.  THERE WAS UNLIMITED REFERENCE TO MAKING ALL THIS AVAILABLE TO THE BLACK AND WORKING CLASS IN BALTIMORE WHO HAVE OUTRAGEOUS UNEMPLOYMENT STATS. 

THEN THE PIGS STARTED TO FLY.....THE PIGS STARTED TO ACCUMULATE SLOWLY AND BY THE END OF THE COUNCIL MEMBERS 'QUESTIONING PERIOD' THOSE PIGS FLYING FILLED THE ROOM.

Helen Holton who always speaks out about how bad a policy is after it has happened played her usual role in not knowing that a contractor job fair had happened and it did not include any black/minority contractors.......because they did not know of the job fair.  Holton and other council members  pretended not to have known themselves....we see this all the time.  I reminded Holton when my time came to speak that this contractor meeting was on all media outlets as they all made clear there were no minority contractors present.  The problem as is normal is that it hit the airwaves after the event so no publicity would happen and only the connected would sign up and register.  THESE CITY COUNCIL PEOPLE WERE LEFT IN THE DARK THEY SAID AS THE FIRST PHASE OF JOB DEVELOPMENT LEAVES OUT THE SAME LABOR AND JUSTICE PEOPLE WHO WERE SOLD ON THE JOB CREATION!

THESE POLS ARE ANIMALS!!!!!!

To wind up this situation I spoke to all of the hypocrisy by saying this "  I spoke to the AFL-CIO and the SEIU in early December as they were happy over winning the casino referendum and thinking of the jobs.  Both unions told me that they SHOOK HANDS AND WERE ASSURED BY BOTH CASINOS.....MGM AND CAESARS IN BALTIMORE THAT THEY EMBRACED CASINO UNIONS AND THESE CASINOS WOULD BE UNION CASINOS.  GOVERNOR O'MALLEY AND MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE ACTIVELY SOUGHT AND TOLD UNIONS THEY WOULD GET THE JOBS AND THESE JOBS WOULD BE GOOD JOBS AND WOULD HIRE LOCALLY.

What I was hearing at this meeting was the opposite of all of this.  The Mayor's office deliberately left out minority contractors from the start.....they were obviously planning to move ahead without union participation and contrary to what your city council member says......they knew this...... and we already hear in there voice that none of the policy needed to circumvent criminal background issues for many Baltimore workers has even been discussed.  SO THEY DO NOT INTENT TO HIRE THE VERY GROUPS THEY HAD LEADING THIS FIGHT FOR THE CASINOS.  I made very public that all across the nation I am seeing these casinos leaving Vegas and going to states bringing the high-paying jobs and staffing with them.....not hiring locally and the are hiring part-time, not full-time leaving people with poverty jobs.  WE KNOW THAT IS THE INTENTION AND WE ARE SAYING WE WILL NOT HAVE THIS!!!!

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!

This is of course happening all across the nation and people are wakening to the fact that these Third Way corporate pols are working for corporate and wealth at the expense of labor and justice.

UNEMPLOYED?  IF YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT RUNNING LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES AGAINST THESE CORPORATE POLS.......THEY ARE NOT WORKING FOR YOU AND ME!!!!!

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Baltimore residents hear casino jobs plan; Some skeptical Some residents angry that casino exec.'s left before public commenting

Published  8:25 AM EST Jan 24, 2013 WBAL TV



The local hiring plan was presented as part of a City Council public hearing on the issue.

"What I realize is that the American dream, for the last four years, I haven't been having," said city resident James Commander.


Commander is one of thousands hoping to land a job at the new Caesars casino complex that plans to open in 2014 on a parcel of land in the shadow of M&T Bank Stadium.


"We need these jobs. We want these jobs," Commander said.


At the hearing, the mayor's office revealed details of a memorandum of understanding between the city and Caesars that promises to give priority to qualified city residents to help fill close to 1,800 jobs at the Horseshoe Casino.


"It is really our job to make sure that we do everything possible to do a very, very broad outreach for a community hiring effort," said Karen Sitnick of the mayor's Office of Employment Development.


"I need people that know the city. I need people that are passionate about the city -- that can answer questions about the city. You don't get that if you're not from the city," said Caesars spokesman Chad Barnhill.


But later at the hearing, a group of community leaders and local labor union members cornered the Caesar executives in the hallway. They were upset that the executives left the hearing just as the public comment period began.


"If you're not concerned enough to stay around and hear their concerns, it doesn't lend well to the idea that you're trying to give back to the city," said community organizer Richie Armstrong.


The union members said the early exit reinforced their distrust of the hiring memorandum of understanding between the city and Caesars.

"It doesn't hold anybody accountable, because you can say, 'I tried to reach the goal but somehow we failed.' That still leaves the residents out in the cold," Armstrong said.


As part of the memorandum of understanding, Caesars has agreed to submit workforce reports to the city twice a year to show how many of its workers live in Baltimore. 
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THIS WAS THE PROPAGANDA PUBLISHED IN MEDIA AND SOLD BY MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE AND CITY COUNCIL......WE KNOW NONE OF THIS IS EXPECTED TO HAPPEN.

SEE WHY RAWLINGS-BLAKE IS MOVING TO A NEW AND HIGHER POSITION IN THE PARTY?  SHE AND O'MALLEY HAVE HANDED MARYLAND AND ITS CITIZENS OVER TO THE 1% BETTER THAN ANY OTHER!!!!!!

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!!

Baltimore to vote on deal to boost local hiring at Caesars casinoLas Vegas company agrees to make outreach, training efforts in Baltimore
Stephen Martino, State Lottery Agency, left, has a word with… (Kim Hairston, Baltimore…)December 18, 2012|By Scott Dance, The Baltimore Sun


City officials are expected to sign off Wednesday on a deal that promises to help residents seeking the 1,700 jobs planned for Horseshoe Casino Baltimore — addressing one of the main arguments made by gambling supporters in the debate over expanding casinos in Maryland.

A Caesars Entertainment subsidiary has agreed to fund a temporary employee in the mayor's employment development office to lead hiring efforts in Baltimore, to print informational materials targeting potential employees in the city, and to report twice a year to city officials on hiring progress toward its workforce development plan.

"The agreement will go a long way to ensure that city residents are prioritized and have the first chance to seize these new job opportunities at a time when people need it most," said Ryan O'Doherty, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

City workforce advocates welcomed the move but said efforts with previous projects show it will take persistence to ensure that residents learn of the opportunities and have access to specialized training needed for many jobs. Extensive background checks could also pose a challenge to getting some residents hired, a city councilwoman acknowledged.

Caesars officials said local hiring is always a priority when building in a new community.

"Working within the local community is always going to make the most sense," said Jan Jones Blackhurst, an executive vice president for Las Vegas-based Caesars. "If you want to be an integral part of the community, local hiring is your first step."

Casino jobs were the focus of many campaign commercials during the run-up to the November referendum, when Maryland voters approved Question 7 to allow table games and a sixth casino in the state. Proponents, including Rawlings-Blake, urged votes in favor the measure for the tax revenue and jobs it could create.

"Question 7 means thousands of jobs and millions for our schools," she said in one ad, with former Ravens offensive tackle Jonathan Ogden towering behind her.

The agreement with Caesars helps ensure that those jobs benefit city residents, said Councilwoman Rochelle "Rikki" Spector. State law encourages casino operators to hire within a 10-mile radius of the facilities, but city officials are seeking to narrow that scope to provide opportunities for thousands of unemployed residents who live near enough to the casino's Russell Street site that they could commute by public transit.

"That's not good enough for Baltimore City," Spector said of the state policy. "These are new kinds of jobs for us."

Spector plans to gather representatives from the mayor's employment office, the casino, unions and other stakeholders at a televised public hearing Jan. 23, when more details of hiring and training needs will be discussed.

The agreement requires the mayor's employment office to develop "talent scout reports" to find and market qualified residents to Caesars and its subcontractors. Jobs are expected to include construction, initially, but then positions on the casino floor, in restaurants and other parts of the facility.

Given the specialized nature of many jobs, city officials are emphasizing the need for training. Caesars is also being required to, if possible, establish employee mentoring programs.

"Of course we won't find table game operators in the general public," said Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke. "We can be a city with lots of them, as soon as you train us."

But there will also be hurdles, Spector acknowledged.

Those offered jobs working at a casino in Maryland must fill out a 14-page gaming employee license form, which is reviewed by staff from the state lottery and gaming commission. Applicants must indicate if they've been charged with a crime, but also must reveal if they've been the subject of a criminal complaint or an investigation by any government agency or organization.

Those filling out the form must also disclose if they or any business they worked for has filed for bankruptcy.

The Maryland State Lottery Commission warns applicants that it "will make inquiries to establish whether the identified individuals have had any involvement with law enforcement agencies" and says failure to disclose past incidents will "be take into account in assessing the applicant's character, honesty, and integrity."

A spokesperson for the commission said staffers spend about 40 hours completing a background check for executive-level employees, and 20 hours for table game dealers and others who work directly with gamblers. Sixteen new employees will be hired to deal with the license applications.

The outreach needed to find potential applicants will also be a challenge, said some who have experience in workforce development on city projects. Caesars has agreed to pay up to $80,000 to employ a community recruitment coordinator in the mayor's employment office for a yearlong period around the opening of the casino, which is expected in 2014.
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HERE YOU SEE LOCAL UNIONS FIGHTING FOR THIS GAMBLING ISSUE BECAUSE THEY ARE TOLD THEY WOULD HAVE LOTS OF JOBS AND THAT THE CASINOS WOULD BE UNIONIZED INSIDE AND OUT.  THIS GAMBLING ISSUE WOULD NOT HAVE PASSED IF THE LABOR UNIONS DID NOT MOBILIZE......THESE SAME POLS......O'MALLEY AND ALL OF MARYLAND'S INCUMBENTS USE LABOR TIME AND AGAIN FOR ISSUES AND THEN NEVER USE THEM.

VOTE ALL THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRATS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

Local: Maryland Unions slam Md. leaders for gambling-expansion debacle

June 25, 2012 | 3:53 pm | Modified: June 25, 2012 at 3:55 pm

  Ben Giles Staff Writer - Crime Beat The Washington Examiner


A local union leader accused Maryland lawmakers Monday of "playing games" with people's lives by derailing a deal to expand gambling in the state, a move that could add nearly 4,000 jobs in Prince George's County.

Maryland lawmakers have struggled through a debate over gambling that could lead to a sixth state casino in Prince George's County and the authorization of table games such as blackjack and roulette at all state casino sites.

However, voters in a statewide referendum also must approve any expansion of gambling, and four out of five Marylanders want to the opportunity in November to make the choice themselves, according to a new poll conducted on behalf of the Building Trades for the National Harbor, site of a proposed $800 million casino.

And 53 percent of voters think there's room for improvement in Maryland's slots program, which some have criticized as uncompetitive compared with other local states', the poll by Annapolis firm OpinionWorks found.

Ten percent of those polled think the state's gambling program is the best that it can be.

Not allowing voters to have a say on measures that would bring thousands of construction jobs to Prince George's and increase tax revenues for the state would be a shame, said Vance Ayres, executive secretary-treasurer of the Washington D.C. Building Trades Council.

"You're putting people's careers on the backburner," Ayres said. "You've got people here [in Annapolis] bickering about things they shouldn't even be bickering about."

Ayres joined leaders from the SEIU and AFSCME labor unions to deliver a letter to Gov. Martin O'Malley, House Speaker Michael Busch, D-Anne Arundel, and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Calvert and Prince George's, asking for a speedy resolution to the gambling debate.

The Building Trades for the National Harbor has begun running a television ad to go with its radio campaign supporting gambling expansion.

bgiles@washingtonexaminer.com




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I just read a mainstream media write-up on Geithner that praised him for his work in Treasury as did Obama.  Geithner was the equivalent of the mob's handlers in what was the largest looting of government coffers and citizens in history.  You see how the mainstream news are trying to paint a revisionist history even as journalism all around them provide evidence and real investigative analysis.......THIS IS CAPTURED STATE MEDIA JUST AS EXISTS IN CHINA AND WE SHOULD BE OUT IN THE STREETS IN THE MILLIONS OVER THIS!!!!!!!

GET OUT AND PROTEST AND VOTE THESE CRIMINALS OUT OF OFFICE!!!!! 


Economy   The Guardian / By Glenn Greenwald

Obama's Failure to Punish Banks Should Be Causing Serious Social Unrest

A new PBS Frontline report examines outrageous steps Obama's administration took to protect Wall St. Wall Street from prosecutions. January 23, 2013  |

PBS' Frontline program on Tuesday night broadcast a  new one-hour report on one of the greatest and most shameful failings of the  Obama administration: the lack of even a single arrest or prosecution of any senior Wall Street banker for the systemic fraud that precipitated the 2008  financial crisis: a crisis from which millions of people around the world are still suffering. What this program particularly demonstrated was that the Obama justice department, in particular the Chief of its Criminal Division, Lanny Breuer, never even tried to hold the high-level criminals accountable.

What Obama justice officials did instead is exactly what they did in the face of high-level Bush era crimes of torture and warrantless eavesdropping: namely, acted to protect the most powerful factions in the society in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious criminality. Indeed, financial elites were not only vested with impunity for their fraud, but thrived as a result of it, even as ordinary Americans  continue to suffer the effects of that crisis.

Worst of all, Obama justice officials both shielded and feted these Wall Street oligarchs (who, just by the way,  overwhelmingly supported Obama's 2008 presidential campaign) as they simultaneously prosecuted and imprisoned powerless Americans for far more trivial transgressions. As Harvard law professor Larry Lessig  put it two weeks ago when expressing anger over the DOJ's persecution of Aaron Swartz: "we live in a world where the architects of the financial crisis regularly dine at the White House." (Indeed, as "The Untouchables" put it: while no senior Wall Street executives have been prosecuted, "many small mortgage brokers, loan appraisers and even home buyers" have been).

As I documented at length in my 2011 book on America's two-tiered justice system, With Liberty and Justice for Some, the evidence that felonies were committed by Wall Street is overwhelming. That evidence directly negates the primary excuse by Breuer (previously offered by Obama himself) that the bad acts of Wall Street were not criminal.

Numerous documents prove that executives at leading banks, credit agencies, and mortgage brokers were falsely touting assets as sound that knew were junk: the very definition of fraud. As former Wall Street analyst Yves Smith wrote in her book ECONned: "What went on at Lehman and AIG, as well as the chicanery in the CDO [collateralized debt obligation] business, by any sensible standard is criminal." Even lifelong Wall Street defender Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Chair,  said in Congressional testimony that "a lot of that stuff was just plain fraud."

A New York Times editorial in August explained that the DOJ's excuse for failing to prosecute Wall Street executives - that it was too hard to obtain convictions - "has always defied common sense - and all the more so now that a fuller picture is emerging of the range of banks' reckless and lawless activities, including interest-rate rigging, money laundering, securities fraud and excessive speculation." The Frontline program interviewed former prosecutors, Senate staffers and regulators who unequivocally said the same: it is inconceivable that the DOJ could not have successfully prosecuted at least some high-level Wall Street executives - had they tried.

What's most remarkable about all of this is not even Wall Street had the audacity to expect the generosity of largesse they ended up receiving. "The Untouchables" begins by recounting the massive financial devastation the 2008 crisis wrought - "the economy was in ruins and bankers were being blamed" - and recounts:

"In 2009, Wall Street bankers were on the defensive, worried they could be held criminally liable for fraud. With a new administration, bankers and their attorneys expected investigations and at least some prosecutions."

0 Comments

October 27th, 2012

10/27/2012

0 Comments

 
WHILE WE MUST VOTE FOR OBAMA OVER ROMNEY WE ARE WORKING TO BE RID OF THE INCUMBENT FARM TEAM......OUR POLITICIANS FOR LIFE.  AS WE MOVE AMERICA BACK TO BEING A DEMOCRACY AND A RULE OF LAW NATION, WE NEED TO BE RID OF ALL THIRD WAY CORPORATE DEMOCRAT INCUMBENTS.......WHICH ALL MARYLAND DEMOCRAT INCUMBENTS ARE! 

THE HIGHEST COMPLEMENT FOR ME IS HEARING SOMEONE TELL ME THEY WERE TOLD NOT TO BELIEVE THE BLOGGERS! IT MEANS WE ARE HAVING AN IMPACT.

REMEMBER, WE ARE MOBILIZING TO PETITION TO REFERENDUM IN BALTIMORE A RETROACTIVE TERM LIMIT ON ALL BALTIMORE'S ELECTED OFFICES AND THE RIGHT TO RECALL ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS IN BALTIMORE.  WE NEED TO ORGANIZE FOR SIGNATURE COLLECTION.  THE NEXT ELECTION IS IN TWO YEARS!!!!!

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!!!

WE ARE VOTING FOR A WRITE-IN AGAINST CARDIN, SARBANES, AND CUMMINGS THIS ELECTION TO SEND THE MESSAGE THEY ARE NOT WORKING FOR THE PEOPLE AND BECAUSE:

THEY VOTED TO BREAK THE GLASS-STEAGALL BANKING WALL THAT UNLEASHED MEGA-CORPORATIONS THAT ARE UNACCOUNTABLE AND WORK TO IMPOVERISH PEOPLE.  THESE POLS KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

THEY HAD THE CHANCE WITH A SUPERMAJORITY TO ADDRESS ALL THE PROTECTIONS NEEDED FOR PEOPLE'S PENSIONS, RETIREMENTS, ENTITLEMENTS, AND SAFETY NET FUNDING.  NONE OF THESE PROTECTIONS HAPPENED.

THEY SPENT 2 YEARS ON FINANCIAL, HEALTH, AND EDUCATION REFORM ALL OF WHICH PROTECTS CORPORATE PROFITS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE PEOPLE.  FINANCIAL REFORM HAS BEEN GUTTED BY BANKS.  HEALTH CARE REFORM IS ABOUT CREATING MEGA-HEALTH SYSTEMS THAT WILL PREY ON THE OLD AND POOR JUST LIKE WALL STREET BANKS.  IT IS MEANT TO MARGINALIZE MOST PEOPLE INTO PUBLIC HEALTH LEVEL OF CARE.  EDUCATION REFORM IS ABOUT PRIVATIZING/VOCATIONALIZING ALL PUBLIC EDUCATION.  THESE GUYS CHAMPIONED THIS!

THEY KEPT SILENT AND PRETENDED THERE WAS NO MASSIVE FINANCIAL FRAUD WHEN THE WHOLE WORLD SHOUTED AND PROVIDED COPIOUS PROOF OTHERWISE.  THEY WORKED TO CREATE THE CONDITIONS FOR FRAUD AND THEN PROTECTED THE FRAUDULENT PROFITS AND PEOPLE COMMITTING FRAUD.......THAT IS AIDING AND ABETTING ------A CRIME IN AND OF ITSELF!

THEY ALL PLAN TO CUT ENTITLEMENTS AND SAFETY NETS AS A COMPROMISE IN DEFICIT REDUCTION WHILE MASSIVE FRAUD NEVER COMES BACK AND TAXES ARE EVER LOWERED FOR THE CORPORATIONS CAUSING THE DEBT.  MAKING THE RICH PAY WHAT THE PEOPLE DO IS NOT A STRATEGY TO REVERSE INCOME INEQUITY.....IT INSTITUTIONALIZES IT.

THEY ARE SILENT AS BASIC DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS LIKE FREE ELECTIONS/FREE MEDIA/CIVIL LIBERTIES/RULE OF LAW ARE TOSSED ASIDE MOVING AMERICA EVER CLOSER TO THIRD WORLD STATUS.  AS AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA SAID.....THE US WILL LOOK LIKE THE MIDDLE EAST BY 2020.

THEY ARE PUSHING PRIVATIZING ALL THAT IS PUBLIC UNDER THE GUISE OF PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS WHICH ARE SIMPLY A WAY TO HAVE TAXPAYERS PAY FOR ALL CORPORATE INFRASTRUCTURE, OFFER FREE JOB TRAINING AND RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, AND  BI-PASS ALL LABOR LAWS.  YOUR FIRST BORN CHILD IS NEXT!!!


REFERENDUM ISSUES:


1 AND 2.  WE ARE VOTING AGAINST REDISTRICTING MAP AND GAMBLING BECAUSE THE GERRYMANDERING WORKS AGAINST MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS CITIZENS AS IT WORKS TO GIVE CORPORATE INCUMBENTS GREATER STRENGTH AND GAMBLING EXTENDS THE FINANCIAL ECONOMY THAT IS PERVASIVELY CRIMINAL.  WE WANT AN ECONOMY THAT CREATES SOMETHING TANGIBLE AND PROVIDES QUALITY OF LIFE........IPADS VS SLOTS.

3 AND 4. WE SUPPORT THE DREAM ACT AND THE MARRIAGE EQUALITY ACT BUT IF THEY ARE VOTED DOWN WE INSIST THAT LIVING WAGE BE ADDED TO THE CIVIL/HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA TO PASS NEXT YEAR!

0 Comments

October 05th, 2012

10/5/2012

0 Comments

 
I'M GOING TO LET CHRISTIANS HAVE IT!!!  MUSLIMS DON'T WANT THIS CASINO ECONOMY THAT IS NAKED CAPITALISM BECAUSE IT IS AGAINST THEIR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS.  HOW CAN AMERICA SURRENDER ITSELF TO PURE FINANCIAL HEDONISM THAT SCARS FAMILIES AND PREYS ON THE POOR AND CALL ITSELF CHRISTIAN?

WHERE ARE THE CHURCHES THAT CAN FIGHT HARD AGAINST MARRIAGE EQUALITY AND BE SILENT AS GAMBLING TAKES OVER OUR COMMUNITIES?

SHOUT OUT AGAINST THIS AND VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT OF OFFICE!!

THERE IS TOO MUCH TOP DOWN FOLKS.......WE NEED TO BRING IT BACK TO THE COMMUNITIES!

PLEASE BE AWARE THAT WHAT POLITICIANS SAY AND WHAT IS TRUE IS ALWAYS AT ODDS.  THE LAST ARTICLE IS A COMMENT FROM A READER WHO TELLS US HOW A HEALTH CARE WORKER LAW THAT WILL COME INTO EFFECT WILL HAVE EXTREMELY BAD CONSEQUENCES BECAUSE IT APPEARS TO BE ONE OF THOSE THAT IF LEFT UNFUNDED WILL HURT NOT HELP.  DON'T LET THESE POLITICIANS GET AWAY WITH FALSE STATEMENTS!


Not Everyone In Spain Eager To Wager On EuroVegas
by Lauren Frayer  NPR Gustavo Cuevas/EPA/Landov October 5, 2012

Listen to the Story Morning Edition

Spaniards protest the construction of the EuroVegas gambling complex at Puerta del Sol in Madrid last month.

American billionaire, casino mogul and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson has a new project: a $35 billion gambling megacity in Europe. He has chosen debt-ridden Spain as the location for "EuroVegas," which is expected to bring up to 250,000 much-needed jobs.

But many Spaniards are divided over whether they want casinos in their backyard.

Adelson recently touched down in his private helicopter in the Madrid suburb of Alcorcon, where wind whips across empty lots and half-built apartment blocks. The area has been down on its luck since the housing collapse, and one-third of its residents are unemployed.

On this land, Adelson envisions a glittering gambling city, to rival Las Vegas — complete with 36,000 hotel rooms, 18,000 slot machines and three golf courses.

Unemployed residents like 28-year-old Ruben Alvarez say it's like a mirage in the desert — almost too good to be true.

"If it's true and they really bring 250,000 jobs here? Imagine that. Things would definitely improve here if people had work. It would let people breathe a sigh of relief," he says. "But we'll have to see if it's true."

Initial Euphoria Waning

Spanish politicians have been salivating over the jobs EuroVegas would bring. Madrid beat out Barcelona for the contract by offering concessions. Now some of the initial euphoria is waning, as Spaniards learn the terms of the deal.

Las Vegas Sands, Adelson's company, says it'll pay only 35 percent. Cash-strapped municipal authorities would somehow have to come up with the rest. Adelson's company is also asking for tax breaks and exemptions from local labor laws — to bring in foreign workers and allow smoking inside casinos, despite a nationwide ban.

In this economy, Spain doesn't exactly have much bargaining power. And some feel Adelson is taking advantage of that.

Carlos Ruiz is a retired engineer who volunteers with a group called "EuroVegas No."

"Taking into account the very bad situation of Spain, he's doing all kinds of blackmails," he says.

Ruiz worries that with Europe's highest jobless rate — 25 percent and double that for youth — Spain is willing to sell its soul for a few jobs. He says Spanish leaders have fallen for a get-rich-quick scheme.

"[A plan] that we think doesn't create good jobs, stable jobs, that harms the environment, that harms the social relations, that ignores civil rights, that brings wealth only to the investors, not to the rest of society," he says.

Tax Breaks For A Billionaire?


Madrid is thinking about taking out massive bank loans to finance its part of the deal. But Spanish banks just got a bailout from Europe.

"Citizens from the whole of Europe are lending money to Spanish banks because they are in a bad situation — hoping that someday these banks will start to give credit to small enterprises, to families, to people," Ruiz says. "But this money is going to go to Mr. Adelson, who is one of the richest men in the world. This is quite unfair."

Adelson would also get tax breaks for his investment. Economist Gonzalo Garland, at IE Business School in Madrid, says if the government is going to offer tax breaks to casinos — which could bring prostitution, drugs and the like — it needs to better explain that decision to the public.

"A lot of people might think gambling is something where you do want to charge lots of taxes rather than not," Garland says. "But I think it's very important to be careful to show that this would be an exception because of some other gains; the gains would be the tourists and all the money they'll be leaving."

Both Las Vegas Sands and Madrid's town hall failed to respond to repeated calls for interviews, perhaps because negotiations over EuroVegas are still under way.

Need For Other Sources Of Growth

Beyond any moral objections, Garland says construction is what got Spain into this economic mess in the first place. Madrid's suburbs are littered with empty buildings left over from the housing boom.

"I think it would be a big mistake for Spain to again try to rely on construction as a big engine of growth," Garland says. "What probably Spain needs is to look for other sources, and look for several — not just concentrate on one."

Subsidies for wind and solar energy — possible future engines of growth in Spain — were cut in the last round of austerity, right around the time Adelson came calling.

Back in Alcorcon, where the casinos are slated to be built, 28-year-old Ruben Alvarez kills time on a bench near town hall. He's been out of work nearly a year. He says he's not crazy about casinos, but that he'd jump at the chance to work at one, nonetheless.

"People are out on the street. Those lucky to have jobs are getting paid less and less. Every day things are getting worse," Alvarez says. "So with casinos coming, it's a good thing for the jobs, but it could also be dangerous for us — for the young people, if there's prostitution and gambling.

"It could be a bit of a temptation," he says. "Considering the situation we're in."

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EVERYONE KNOWS, JUST AS THE SPANISH CITIZEN INTERVIEWED ABOVE THAT THESE JOBS ARE NOT GOOD JOBS, THEY DO HIRE FROM OTHER THAN LOCAL WORKER POOLS. AND THEY TEND TO BE PART-TIME, ESPECIALLY THOSE PAYING THE MOST. O'MALLEY KNOWS AS WELL THAT HE BARELY MADE THE THORNTON EDUCATION GOAL FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THAT WAS WITH INTENSE PUBLIC PROTEST.  WHERE IS THE $800,000 THE ALGEBRA PROJECT IS IN COURT TRYING TO GET FOR BALTIMORE SCHOOL?  O'MALLEY SENDS THIS MONEY TO THE INNOVATION CENTERS/ONLINE COURSES AT UNIVERSITIES

AND IT DOES BRING MORAL HAZARD.  CASINOS REPRESENT A SOCIETY IN DECAY!

National Harbor Facilities The site has a convention center, six hotels, restaurants, shops, and condominiums.



O’Malley Denounces Anti-Gambling Ads As ‘Hogwash’
October 3, 2012 6:07 PM

Source: ABC News/ Wash Post 9/26-29 ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) --

Gov. Martin O’Malley on Wednesday fired back against television advertisements opposing the state’s proposed gambling expansion, contending the casino company behind them is simply trying to protect its large operation in West Virginia from losing Maryland gamblers.

“It’s a bunch of West Virginia casino hooey,” the governor said.

O’Malley, speaking to reporters outside the Maryland State House, took particular umbrage at the suggestion in the ads that additional gambling proceeds won’t go to education as set out in the proposal. The ads, paid for by Penn National Gaming Inc., suggest Maryland has reneged on funding promises in the past, and that voters shouldn’t be fooled.

But O’Malley, who has made education funding a top priority of his tenure, said it was “ludicrous” to suggest Maryland hasn’t been committed to funding education during his administration, which has made record investments in schools.

“It’s silly to engage in what ifs when you look at our history and you look at every budget I’ve ever submitted,” the governor said in a follow-up interview.

However, the governor conceded it’s not possible to say how the money will be used in perpetuity under future administrations.

“You know, what’s the guarantee that a house won’t fall on Mr. Carlino tomorrow,” O’Malley said, referring to Penn National’s chairman and chief executive officer, Peter Carlino.

Maryland is in the middle of an astonishing ad blitz from both sides of the gambling issue, which will be on the ballot in November.

So far, with more than a month before Election Day, Penn National has spent more than $18 million on its campaign against a casino in Prince George’s County. Supporters, including Las Vegas-based MGM Resorts International, have spent more than $14 million. Supporters tout the proposed gambling expansion as a big revenue raiser for the state that will generate thousands of jobs.

O’Malley called a special session in August, when lawmakers approved allowing table games like blackjack at Maryland casinos as well as a new casino site in Prince George’s County, where MGM wants to build a casino at National Harbor near the nation’s capital.

Penn National, which is based in Wyomissing, Pa., owns the Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races in West Virginia, not far from the Maryland border. It also owns the Hollywood Casino in Perryville, which was Maryland’s first casino to open. It also owns Rosecroft Raceway in Maryland, which is in Prince George’s County.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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WE ARE SEEING TWO LEADING GROWTH INDUSTRIES IN MARYLAND AS IS TRUE ACROSS THE COUNTRY.  ONE IS THE GAMING/TOURIST INDUSTRY AND THE OTHER IS THE PRIVATE NON-PROFIT.   THIS ARTICLE IS 2008, THE YEAR OF THE CRASH.  TODAY THE NUMBERS FOR THESE HAVE SKYROCKETED IN MARYLAND.  LOOK AT THE LAST ARTICLE TO SEE BALTIMORE'S BOARD OF ESTIMATES MEETING AGENDA TO SEE THEIR BUSINESS IS A LONG STRING OF PRIVATE NON-PROFITS FUNDED BY GIFTING ORGANIZATIONS AND CITY TAXES.

MANY OF THESE ARE NATIONAL CHAIN ORGANIZATIONS.  SOME ARE SPECIAL INTEREST.  NO ONE WILL SAY THEY ARE NOT HELPFUL.  THE PROBLEM IS THIS:

WE ARE SEEING LOCAL REC CENTERS AND SMALL COMMUNITY NON-PROFITS CLOSING BECAUSE THEY ARE BEING DEFUNDED.  THESE EMPLOY PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY WHO KNOW THE PEOPLE THEY ARE HELPING.  THE PEOPLE ARE HEADING THE PROGRAM THEMSELVES.

THESE NATIONAL PROGRAMS SUPPLANT THOSE BONDS THAT ARE CRITICAL IN AT-RISK COMMUNITIES ESPECIALLY AND COMMUNITIES IN GENERAL!!!!!  THIS IS HOW COMMUNITY LEADERS ARE MADE.

THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS OF THOSE NON-PROFITS WILL BE PAID WELL WHILE THOSE UNDER WILL SEE VERY LOW OR NO PAY.

Friday, July 4, 2008 Maryland job growth booms in nonprofits Sector accounts for almost 10 percent of all employment in state by Kevin James Shay | Staff Writer  Gazette.Net

Jobs in Maryland’s nonprofit sector increased almost three times faster than in the for-profit sector from 2005 to 2006, according to a Johns Hopkins University study released this week.

Nonprofit employment in Maryland rose by 2.9 percent in 2006 — the most recent year for which data are available — to about 244,000, compared with an increase of 1.1 percent to 2.6 million in for-profit jobs, the study says. The growth in nonprofit employment in Maryland is fueled by industries that consistently add jobs, such as health care, education and social services, said Stephanie Lessans Geller, research project manager with the Center for Civil Society Studies within the Baltimore university’s Institute for Policy Studies and a co-author of the report.

‘‘It’s a long-term trend that has been occurring for the past six or seven years,” Geller said.

Nonprofit employment in Maryland grew by 20.5 percent from 1999 to 2006, far more than for-profit job growth of 7.1 percent. Nonprofit hospitals that include Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System added 14,449 net jobs over the seven-year period.

Three of the four largest private employers in Maryland are nonprofits, according to figures compiled last year by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development. Those are Johns Hopkins University, MedStar Health and Johns Hopkins Health System.

Nonprofit organizations, which do not pay property taxes but whose employees pay income taxes, provided 9.6 percent of all jobs in Maryland in 2006, well above the national average of 7.2 percent and up from 7.2 percent in the state in 1998. State nonprofit payroll has increased from $6.1 billion in 1998 to $10.6 billion in 2006.

‘‘Nonprofit job growth is especially critical given the recent employment declines in other parts of the U.S. economy,” Lester M. Salamon, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies, said in a statement.

Doesn’t look atcurrent slowdown

The new study does not cover the current economic slowdown. In May, Maryland’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ballooned to 4.0 percent from 3.5 percent in May 2007 — so far the largest year-over-year increase in 2008, according to U.S. Department of Labor figures.

But the state is still seeing overall job growth, as Maryland has added about 6,500 jobs since January, including 1,100 in May. Meanwhile, businesses across the nation have shed more than 300,000 jobs in 2008, and the national unemployment rate shot up to 5.5 percent in May from 4.5 percent a year ago.

Geller said she could not speculate on what has occurred in the nonprofit sector in Maryland the past year or so. But the latest federal figures showed job gains in Maryland in May in education and health services, which have many nonprofit employers. Losses mounted in the construction, manufacturing and finance sectors, typically dominated by for-profit companies.  IT IS NO MYSTERY.....HEALTH AND EDUCATION IS THE NEXT GLOBAL WORKFORCE AND THEY ARE USING THE TAXPAYER TO GROW THEIR INDUSTRY.....JUST LIKE DEFENSE AND SPACE INDUSTRIES. 

The average weekly wage for an employee of a 501(c)(3) organization was $627 in 2004, compared with $669 in the for-profit sector, according to Independent Sector, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit advocacy organization.

While nonprofit wages are generally lower than in the for-profit sector, in industries in which the two sectors converge such as health care and social services, studies have shown that nonprofit wages are actually higher than at the for-profit companies, Geller said.  THAT'S BECAUSE THEY PAY ONE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR WELL AND HAVE VISTAS AND VOLUNTEERS AS WORKERS. THE VISTAS ARE PAID BY TAXPAYERS.

In addition to hospitals and private universities, the nonprofit sector includes museums such as the National Aquarium in Baltimore, schools, clinics, day care centers, social service providers, symphonies, art galleries, theaters and environmental organizations.

Among state jurisdictions, Baltimore city had the most nonprofit employees in 2006 with some 84,400, followed by Montgomery County with about 39,900 and Baltimore County with about 34,400. Prince George’s County saw the largest percentage gain since 2005 among the state’s five biggest entities at 5.8 percent to about 14,400.
_____________________________________________________


MOUNT VERNON PLACE CONSERVANCY, INC. $50,000.00

DOWNTOWN BALTIMORE FAMILY ALLIANCE, INC. $20,000.00 (DBFA)

CHESAPEAKE SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, INC. $50,000.00

FRIENDS OF PATTERSON PARK, INC. $50,000.00

NUEVA VIDA, INC. $15,000.00

YOUNG AUDIENCES OF MARYLAND, INC. $40,000.00

DOWNTOWN SAILING CENTER, INC. $50,000.00

ARTS EVERY DAY, INC. $25,000.00

BOYS HOPE GIRLS HOPE OF BALTIMORE, $50,000.00

BLUE WATER BALTIMORE, INC. $25,000.00

MEALS ON WHEELS OF CENTRAL MARYLAND, $20,000.00

Choice Jobs Program, a non-profit entity

HEALTHY TEEN NETWORK, INC. $ 45,000.00
___________________________________________________

HERE IS A COMMENT FROM A READER ON HOW THESE BILLS BEING PASSED ARE MADE TO SOUND GOOD BUT HAVE THE INTENTION TO HARM.  ALL OF  GOVERNMENT MONEY IS GOING TO PAY FOR THE PLANNING OF PRIVATE HEALTH SYSTEMS WHILE THE PEOPLE ARE BEING UNDERMINED AT EVERY STEP!  ALL MARYLAND POLITICIANS PRAISED THIS HOME HEALTH WORKER BILL AS GOOD.....

Philip Bennett said:

I am writing this as a homecare worker of 36 years, not for any homecare agency.
The Federal Department of Labor (DOL) is proposing changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)to Domestic Service which, if put into effect, may seriously reduce the take-home pay of countless numbers of homecare workers such as I and make the lives of the people with disabilities we assist less manageable.
The changes would require the payment of minimum wage to homecare workers and mandate that homecare workers must receive time and a half pay for every hour over 40 hours per week of work done. Medicaid would bear most of the burden.
This sounds like it would be a major victory for me and my fellow homecare workers, right? But there's one big problem: where is the money to pay for this? If the law says we can't work without minimum wage or time and a half pay but the money's not there, then we won't be allowed to work those hours!
That means, instead of increasing our take-home pay, the proposal will slash all hours beyond 40 per week of our pay. For me, that's 416 hours and $4,742.40 per year I will lose.
My fellow workers who currently put in 84 hours per week will suffer a 44 hour loss -- over half their pay!
Healthcare insurance will also be harder to qualify for since it's based on the number of hours worked.
As a result, many workers will be forced to seek out second or third or forth jobs to make up the loss.
And, for the people we assist, their lives will be harder. They will either endure a reduction in homecare hours or will have to seek more workers. That means more poorly paid people in their homes with even less incentive to do a good job. Many people with disabilities have a hard enough time right now managing their assistants. The added strain will cause many to just give up and move into nursing homes.
Who benefits from this proposal? Certainly the nursing home industry. Also the homecare unions which will receive more dues-paying members even as all the members' average standard-of-living declines. Even the most poorly-paid worker in a closed shop is required to turn over at least $25.10 per month in union dues. That's a windfall for union coffers even as the average standard of living of the workers plummets.
What can we do? We can demand that, before this proposal is put into effect, funding for it be allocated and in place to begin payment immediately. Finding this money won't be easy. The federal government is 15 trillion dollars in debt (that's $15,000,000,000,000: a lot of zeros!) The states and municipalities aren't doing much better. But, until we are shown the money, this proposal is nothing but a shell game which promises a reward but leaves us worse off than before.
0 Comments

August 17th, 2012

8/17/2012

0 Comments

 
The average person watching the politics of their community would not see the connection it has to global politics.  It is important you do because then you can see what the 1% have planned for you in the longer term.  People may laugh at terms like Non-Governmental  Organization (NGO) or Geopolitical, but what they indicate is a movement to shift control from local powers to larger global powers and it is often bad for the local people.  I want to use a local example of city contracting public work to private contractors who are usually connected to national development corporations.  City ordinances require a posting of city work to be done in your community.  That is why you see parking notices on road construction in advance of construction or a sign on your dead tree stating a date it will be taken down.  What we see in Baltimore as with other urban areas that have been taken over by development corporations is less and less of an attention to local laws and ordinances and the city government, having eliminated most of its middle-management assigned to oversight pay no attention.  WE ARE WATCHING AS PRIVATE CONTRACTORS AND DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONS COME IN TO IMPLEMENT THEIR PLANS WITH DISREGARD TO LAWS.  We are not only losing a voice in what our environment looks like, we are losing our rights to know when things will change in our community.

Geopolitical means actions like China moving in to annex Tibet, Israel moving in to annex Palestine, the Taliban moving in to replace government control in Afghanistan.  All of the strategies used in these modern geopolitical movements come from the playbook of the greatest takeover artists in history.....the Roman Empire.  In each case the idea is to move into the area you want to take power incrementally.  You first cut off its resources as the world is doing to Iran now making the existing government unable to perform its duties.....increasing public discontent.  You then move your people in as NGOs to offer to fill that vacancy making yourself seen as a protector of the people...think Taliban or Hamas.  So you become the benefactor, the legal system, and the educator as the existing government is forced to watch as they no longer have the ability to provide.  In Tibet, the Chinese imported the Han people to do this, in Israel it is the 'settlers', and in Baltimore it is the affluent class.  The strategies are all the same.  THE PROBLEM WITH THIS IS THAT NONE OF IT IS DEMOCRATIC, IT DOESN'T WORK IN FIRST WORLD COUNTRIES BECAUSE IT NEGATES THE RULE OF LAW THAT ALREADY EXISTS, AND THE PROCESS NECESSARILY INVOLVES ENRICHING ONE GROUP OVER ANOTHER TO MOVE THE DEVELOPMENT FORWARD.  So what we are seeing locally in the US is the use of third world development tactics on first world communities.  That is why you see this disregard of Rule of Law and open fraud....it is why your local media simply repeat what the powers say and no longer report what the interests of the people would be......it is why your local development is staffed with NGO people so development goes as planned....and it is why people say it feels like a third world country....don't like that Royal Farms or Wall Mart......don't like that school or rec center closing or that lost playground or charter schools.  Blame it on geopolitics!  THESE 1% DON'T LOOK AT THE US AS A COUNTRY, THEY ARE SEEING IT AS PERSONAL TERRITORY.

It is important to remember that all this is politics and we still live in a country were, hard as they have made it, we can still vote people out and vote our people into office.  THAT IS WHY I HAVE MADE IT MY MANTRA.  WE CAN TURN THIS AROUND. 

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT!!!!

COME OUT TO SEE WHO IS REPRESENTING YOUR PUBLIC INTEREST ON THE BOARD OF THIS NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION.

BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

THE NEXT MEETING IS THURSDAY, AUGUST 23 AT 7:30 23 S. Charles St.  17th fl.  BE THERE!!!

I ASKED MS WALSH TO PURSUE AN ARTICLE THAT USED MARYLAND AS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW STATES ARE IGNORING THE MUNICIPAL BOND FRAUD AND EXPANDING BOND LEVERAGE AS FAST AS THEY CAN.  MARYLAND POLITICIANS ARE LOOKING TO CREATE AS MUCH FRAUD POTENTIAL FOR WALL STREET AS THEY CAN AS THEY DID WITH THE LAST MASSIVE FRAUD.  O'MALLEY CONNECTED MUCH OF THE MUNICIPAL BOND MARKET TO COMPLEX FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS (CODE FOR ILLEGAL/FRAUD) FOR WHICH TAXPAYERS ARE RECEIVING PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR BACK IN SETTLEMENTS FROM ALL BANKS WITH WHICH THEY STILL DO BUSINESS.  RAWLINGS-BLAKE HAS CITY BONDS CONNECTED TO MORE OF THE SAME AND THE SCHOOL BOND ISSUE IS ALL THE SAME.  THESE POLITICIANS ARE NOT ONLY IGNORING A SYSTEMIC WALL STREET FRAUD, THEY ARE DOUBLING DOWN ON OUR CITY'S BONDS.  THIS FAILURE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT AND THE BLATANT CONTINUING EXPOSURE AT PUBLIC RISK SHOWS THE PUBLIC DOES NOT CONTROL THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT.  IT IS WORKING FOR WALL STREET (1%) INTEREST.

Municipal Bond Rule Mired in Legislative Limbo
By MARY WILLIAMS WALSH Published: August 13, 2012

Financial reform was supposed to help protect local taxpayers from getting burned by
municipal bond deals. But a measure that would require municipal bond advisers to put the interests of taxpayers first has been bogged down in a rule-making quagmire in Washington for nearly two years.

What’s more, a House bill, sponsored by Representative Robert J. Dold, Republican of Illinois, would eliminate the measure.

As part of the wide-ranging regulatory changes that followed the financial crisis of 2008, the Dodd-Frank Act included a provision that would make municipal advisers “fiduciaries,” meaning they must show an undivided loyalty to the communities that hire them, putting local residents’ interests ahead of their own.

That’s a much higher standard than the one for the banks that underwrite municipal bonds. The law in that case takes for granted that underwriters are looking out for their own interests in bond deals, and requires only that they deal fairly and not mislead.

Making advisers fiduciaries would be “the first time in the history of the securities laws that issuers of the securities have been protected,” said Robert W. Doty, president of AGFS, a consulting firm in Sacramento. He is a registered municipal adviser and favors the fiduciary mandate. But before that provision can take effect, the law calls for the Securities and Exchange Commission to define “municipal adviser.”

The S.E.C. proposed a definition 20 months ago, but it was swiftly beaten back by the banking, brokerage and engineering industries, among others. Opponents argued that the S.E.C. was overreaching and that they were already regulated and should not be given a new mandate.

In addition to serving as fiduciaries, municipal advisers would have to register with the commission, meet professional standards and allow periodic inspections. As fiduciaries, they would have to speak out when they see something amiss, even if it means going against powerful political forces and financial incentives.

Mr. Dold’s bill, introduced last summer, now has 35 other sponsors from both parties. In addition to ending the fiduciary mandate, it would exclude banks and other financial institutions from being deemed municipal advisers, even though bankers often do advise municipalities. A group of engineers that provide cost-benefit studies for municipal energy projects, typically financed with bonds, has also been calling for its members to be excluded.

“As a small-business owner, I believe that it is important to correct a problem when it becomes apparent,” Mr. Dold, who represents a district north of Chicago, said in announcing his bill. “While the Dodd-Frank Act had good intentions, the broad scope under which it was written brings unintended consequences,” like delays and higher costs. The jockeying over the measure continued as it was reported out of a subcommittee just before the recess in July, and the wrangling is expected to continue in September. Mr. Dold has said the fiduciary mandate could stay in the law if everyone agreed that it applied only to “actual municipal advisers, defined as Congress intended,” but so far there is no such agreement.

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, the municipal bond underwriters’ watchdog, is flexing its muscles after getting a new mandate from Dodd-Frank to keep an eye out for local taxpayers. When it was created 37 years ago, its only mandate was to protect the investors who buy municipal bonds.

In May, the board expanded its existing fair-dealing rule, requiring underwriters to make sure local officials understand the risks of complex bond deals, and to disclose any incentives they may have for supporting certain transactions.

But those changes barely squeaked by the S.E.C., which must approve the rule-making board’s actions. Two of the five commissioners, Daniel M. Gallagher and Troy A. Paredes, issued an unusual dissent, saying the board had not done enough to make sure the benefits of the expanded rules were worth the cost, which could be borne by local taxpayers

The need to protect residents from borrowing debacles is coming increasingly into focus, as fiscal distress mounts in many communities. In some cases, poorly structured bond deals are a big part of the problem.

Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press Robert Dold, sponsor of a bill that would eliminate the rule.

“What has happened to the taxpayer is just atrocious,” said John Stoffa, the county executive of Northampton County, in rural eastern Pennsylvania, which just paid Bank of America $27 million to get out of a bond-related contract that a previous county government entered in 2004. That’s more than the county’s annual spending on social services to youth, children and families.

But Northampton County got off easy compared to places like Jefferson County, Ala., where imprudent bond deals figured in the biggest municipal bankruptcy in United States history, and Harrisburg, Pa., which is now in receivership.

The bonds in those places, and many others, involved
derivatives that were supposed to lower the communities’ borrowing costs. But the financial crisis of 2008, and the low interest rates that followed it, have changed the underlying math, forcing communities to pay more interest than expected over the remaining life of their bonds. In some cases the bonds no longer exist, but the derivative contracts are still running, costing local residents money year after year.

The S.E.C. says no comprehensive data exists on how many municipalities have been caught with such contracts, or how much they are paying.

“This has gotten much worse over the past year,” said Craig Underwood, president of Bond Logistix L.L.C., an advisory firm that works with state and local governments. He said that last year, some of his client communities had been thinking about whether to get out of their derivatives contracts by making a large payment to a bank, the way Northampton County did. But while they hesitated, interest rates fell even lower, and now they can no longer afford the termination fees.

Had there been a fiduciary mandate a decade ago, the riskiest bond deals might not have been struck at all. And on the transactions that did go forward, a qualified municipal adviser might have taken the time to renegotiate better terms and pricing, said Andrew Kalotay, a debt-management specialist now serving on the committee that is helping draft educational requirements for municipal advisers.

“It pains me to see what’s going on,” said Mr. Kalotay.

What often happened instead was this. A trusted banker told local officials they could save money by adding derivatives to their bonds, then recommended other companies to work on the deal for contingency fees. The officials focused on the ostensible savings, without stopping to consider that none of their advisers would be paid unless the deal went through — however unsound or overpriced it might be.

“Without the fiduciary duty, tens of thousands of local governments, hundreds of thousands of local officials, and hundreds of millions of local taxpayers and ratepayers would be at significant risk, as they have been in the past,” said Mr. Doty, the adviser from Sacramento.

________________________________________________

WHAT WE SEE BELOW IS THE PLAN THAT DR. ALONZO PUT FORWARD AS A SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION MODEL FOR BALTIMORE.  YOU SEE IT IS JUST A COPY OF WHAT WAS DONE IN SOUTH CAROLINA SOME YEARS AGO.  WHAT THIS DOES IS COMMIT TAXPAYER MONEY TO A PRIVATE PROJECT FOR 30 YEARS, THIS AS WE SEE A PUSH TO PRIVATIZE PUBLIC EDUCATION.  SO, WE WOULD SEE YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF PUBLIC MONEY PAYING FOR PRIVATE INFRASTRUCTURE.  THIS WILL BRING HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS TO THE BANKS.  MORE IMPORTANTLY, IT TAKES THE PUBLIC'S ABILITY TO CONTROL ITS OWN COMMUNITY SCHOOLS AND THIS IS BEING DONE DELIBERATELY.  THIS IS HOW NGOs THE WORLD OVER TRAP LOCAL ECONOMIES AND TAKE AWAY SOVEREIGN CONTROL......IT IS THE SAME ON A LOCAL LEVEL.

I HAVE A BETTER IDEA.......WHAT IF ATTORNEY GENERAL GANSLER SIMPLY  WORKED TO GET THE $800 BILLION IN MORTGAGE FRAUD SETTLEMENT MONEY FROM THESE SAME BANKS, BILLIONS TO COME TO MARYLAND ALONE, AND PAY CASH FOR THE PROJECT?

PLEASE TAKE TIME TO READ A BORING SET OF ARTICLES......IT IS CRITICAL TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IS HAPPENING IN BALTIMORE!

Greenville’s Model Could Mean $1 Billion for School Construction in Baltimore Now!

This Campaign calls upon elected officials and decision makers at
the local, state, and federal levels to adopt and act upon a funding
plan to renovate and modernize all public school buildings in
Baltimore City within 8 years.

www.transformbaltimore.

NOTE THAT TRANSFORM BALTIMORE ARE THE SAME COALITION OF ORGANIZATIONS AS BALTIMORE EDUCATION COALITION.  A PARTNERSHIP OF THE PRIVATE NON-PROFITS, CHARTER SCHOOLS, AND JOHNS HOPKINS. 

Transform Baltimore - Build Schools. Build Neighborhoods
 
 
Partnership Organization

✦ A Partnership Organization is needed to borrow a large sum
of money up front so that a large scale construction program
can be implemented.

✦ A “63--‐20”corporation, like Greenville’, could be formed to sells
bonds or borrow large amounts of money from a financial institution.
Alternatively, other institutions like the Maryland Health and Higher
Educational Facilities Authority (MHHEFA), could also be used to
borrow money up--‐front.

✦ The size of Baltimore City Public Schools’ annual funding for
improving school facilities will determine how much could be
borrowed for school construction.

✦ The amount that the Partnership Organization can borrow is
also determined by the length of time the loan must be paid back.

✦ The current payback period on government debt is15 years.

Extending the payback period to 30 years will allow for increased

borrowing, just like a home mortgage. 

Dedicating Existing Revenue

✦ Baltimore City Public Schools needs a consistent revenue stream
annually to pay back debt, so that bondholders and banks are
confident that the loan will be repaid.

✦ Existing Revenue that is already alloted for school construction
in Balimore City can be used to borrow large sums of money.

✦ Current annual funding for improving city school buildings varies
slightly each year averaging approximately $60 million in total in recent years; $45 million per year from the state and $15 million
from the city.

✦ State and city legislation is needed to ensure that this funding
remains consistent over 30 years.

✦ Like Greenville,  Baltimore City Public School’s Partnership
Organization could borrow about $1 billion up front for school
construction.

✦The city school system would then use its $60 million in existing
revenue as annual installments, each year to pay back the debt
over a period of 30 years.


THIS IS THE PROJECT ALONZO WANTS TO COPY......

finance & labor PROGRESSIVE PROJECT DELIVERY Innovative Financial Plan Pushes Greenville Schools Ahead Construction program languished until district found nonprofit catalyst 11/13/2006
By E. Michael Powers

The Greenville, S.C., school board struggled for 10 years to find a means to pay for a much-needed construction program that would build or expand 70 different school buildings. Realizing its effort was going nowhere, the board advertised for a construction manager that could offer a creative solution. It found one, locally, when a group of business executives formed their own firm to attack the financial problem and partnered with New York City-based construction manager Faithful + Gould for construction expertise.

Institutional Resources, Greenville,  found a way to finance a $1-billion deal, avoid the state’s debt restrictions and provide comprehensive construction management services. The program is on schedule for a 2008 completion, after only 5 years of operation.

Financing was the biggest hurdle for the program because tax rates had tripled recently and South Carolina has a constitutional debt limit for public entities of 8% of holdings, says school board member William Herlong. Institutional Resources won the bid with its financing plan that utilized a third-party holding corporation to circumvent the debt rules.

Financial plan is similar to that of a mortgage agreement with a bank. The nonprofit company, dubbed Building Equity Sooner for Tomorrow (BEST), is classified by the Internal Revenue Service as a 60-23 corporation, which means that it exists and must function solely to support the school district, says Bob Hughes, chairman of Institutional Resources. BEST is run by a board composed of five members, all appointed by the school board. BEST contracted New York City-based UBS to underwrite $999 million in bonds that it issued for construction of new schools, using projected usage figures as collateral.

“We proved that the school district will always need the schools, that the schools would all be completed, and that it would be very unlikely that the [board] would be able to get equal quality schools for a lower payment,” says Hughes. Those factors allowed BEST to receive an excellent bond rating that made its interest rates comparable to what a school district would expect to pay


______________________________________________

WHAT WE SAW WITH THE GAMBLING BILL WAS JUST THIS SORT OF CAPTURE OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THE PROCESS.  AS THIS ARTICLE POINTS OUT, A COMMISSION CREATED BY THE GOVERNOR WILL DO THE GOVERNOR'S BIDDING.  WHAT YOU DON'T HEAR VERY MUCH IS THAT THIS NEWLY PASSED BILL WILL MOVE GAMBLING ISSUES TO JUST SUCH A COMMISSION....YOU HEARD IT ON PAID ADVERTIZING, BUT NOT ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA.  THINK OF THIS BGE ISSUE WITH SERVICE AND RATES......ALL THAT IS HANDLED BY A COMMISSION THAT WORKS FOR INDUSTRY AND NOT PEOPLE......THAT IS WHAT THIS GAMING COMMISSION WILL DO.  THESE COMMISSIONS ACT TO CIRCUMVENT THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS.

THIS IS ELIMINATING REPRESENTATIONAL GOVERNMENT!!!

Gambling commission named, special session planned for July
By Pamela Wood | Capital Gazette 

Posted: Tuesday, May 22, 2012 9:22 am | Updated: 11:25 am, Wed May 23, 2012.


Get ready, yet another special session of the General Assembly — this one to discuss gambling — is likely coming the week of July 9.

Gov. Martin O’Malley, House Speaker Michael E. Busch, D-Annapolis, and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., D-Calvert, appointed an 11-member committee on Monday night to explore gambling expansion in Maryland.

The committee will meet twice in June, with the goal of drafting gambling legislation for a July special session.

The committee — officially called the “Work Group to Consider Gaming Expansion” — is made up of Democrats and O’Malley associates. The members are:

  • Chairman John Morton III, a businessman and Naval Academy graduate who heads the Maryland Stadium Authority.

  • Matthew Gallagher, O’Malley’s chief of staff.
  • Budget Secretary T. Eloise Foster.
  • Appointments Secretary Jeanne Hitchcock.
  • Joseph Bryce, O’Malley’s chief lobbyist.
  • Sen. Edward Kasemeyer, D-Howard.
  • Sen. Nathaniel McFadden, D-Baltimore.
  • Sen. Richard Madaleno, D-Montgomery.
  • Del. Sheila Hixson, D-Montgomery.
  • Del. Peter Hammen, D-Baltimore.
  • Del. Frank Turner, D-Howard.
Several alternate members also were named, including:

  • Sen. Douglas J.J. Peters, D-Prince George’s.

  • Sen. George Edwards, R-Western Maryland.
  • Sen. Rob Garagiola, D-Montgomery.
  • Del. Dereck Davis, D-Prince George’s.
  • Del. Bob Costa, R-Deale.
  • Del. Eric Luedtke, D-Montgomery.
Costa said he was asked on Monday afternoon to join the committee. He said he’ll sit through the meetings, but won’t be allowed to vote unless a full member of the committee drops out.

Costa said he wasn’t surprised to see the committee filled mostly with Democrats. That’s always the case in Maryland, he said.

“I’m just happy they did put some Republicans on there,” said Costa, the lone Anne Arundel representative involved with the committee.

Del. Ron George, an Arnold Republican who leads Anne Arundel’s delegates, said the gambling committee is a waste of time, because the governor has packed it with yes men.

“It’s just to put a rubber stamp on what he wants,” George said.


When lawmakers adjourned their regular 90-day General Assembly session in April, they left behind a proposal to expand gambling in the state.

The proposal, pushed by Miller, would have given voters the option this fall of voting on a new casino in Prince George’s County — likely at the National Harbor development — and allowing table games at all of the state’s casinos, including the Maryland Live! slot machine parlor at Arundel Mills that’s scheduled to open on June 6.

George said he doesn’t think there’s support among Anne Arundel’s lawmakers for table games or for allowing another casino in Prince George’s County, which may lure customers away from Arundel Mills.

“We’re going to stab them in the back by cutting into the area they’ll draw from” if a Prince George’s casino is approved, George said.

Maryland Live! developer David Cordish of the Cordish Cos. said last week at a gambling convention that he thinks politicians are approving too many casinos and risk oversaturating the market.

“They think you can have casinos like Starbucks,” Cordish said at the East Coast Gaming Congress on Thursday, according to the Associated Press.

In addition to the soon-to-open Maryland Live! casino, slots are already in operation at Hollywood Casino in Cecil County and at Ocean Downs near Ocean City. Voters have approved slots parlors for Baltimore City and at Rocky Gap in Western Maryland that have not yet opened.

In a statement issued Monday night, O’Malley said the work group’s “expertise and guidance will help us move forward toward consensus on this issue.”

Work group meetings are planned for 10 a.m. on June 12 and 1 p.m. on June 20

~

0 Comments

August 15th, 2012

8/15/2012

0 Comments

 
Today I will highlight the Maryland public losses to corporations brought to light just this week.  It is not the Tea Party radicals that make Maryland Democrats devoted to corporations, it is the fact that they are corporate Democrats.  If your labor leaders, your social justice leaders, and community organizations aren't calling to vote incumbents out, they are not working for the lower/middle class.

Maryland Assembly voted to expand gambling, give casinos a tax cut, and created a separate commission to work for these casinos against public interest.  I spoke with someone who goes to these casinos in Maryland and he says they are filled with seniors.  They prey on seniors and they abuse their labor.  Does that sound Democratic?  No.  We watched a labor film at the regional labor rally that showed 5 years of strikes against casinos like MGM in Vegas just to get workplace abuse and poverty wages addressed.  Maryland will not protect strikers.  Again, it is Hispanic workers hit the hardest with abuse.  Your incumbent says 'Good Paying Jobs and Revenue For Schools'.  Baltimore says poverty jobs and revenue for property taxes, not schools.  That is of course where any revenue that is collected, if any will end.  Remember, these casinos get business tax credits that negate a great amount of the revenue they end up paying.  WE WERE 'PLAYED' AS THE COMMERCIAL SAYS!

I sat at the Public Service Commission public meeting on BGE outages.  The first thing they noted was low attendance in Baltimore.  A speaker reminded them that there was only notice the day before so no one knew of the meeting....which is the point.  There was a listing one day in the Baltimore Sun.  The points made at the meeting  are that BGE service has been declining for decades, one person called service in Maryland Third World....he was right on.  Maintenance, communications, customer service are all the standard arguments as BGE and Exelon eliminate all that for profit.  I reminded the Board that its decisions always go with the corporation and will probably raise rates for the public to pay for past operation costs and future infrastructure .  I said that a billion dollar company asking for this was telling the Board that BGE needs to be Public.  It is important to remember with this Public Service Commission, as with this new Gambling Commission, and Baltimore's Public Works Commission.......are all staffed by appointees your Governor and Mayor select and your elected officials vote them into office.  YOUR INCUMBENT IS NOT FORCED TO DO THIS.....THEY LOSE MORE THAN THEY GAIN FOR YOUR COMMUNITY OVER AND AGAIN, AND THEY VOTE THESE COMMISSION HEADS AND ASSEMBLY LEADERS WHO WORK AGAINST THE INTERESTS OF PEOPLE INTO LEADERSHIP POSITIONS.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT!!!!   

Mike Busch and Mike Miller are continually voted by your incumbent to lead the Maryland Assembly.  They are the ones fighting for corporate interests along with O'Malley.  WE MUST CHANGE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP.  WE MUST RUN CANDIDATES IN THE COMING ELECTIONS
!

THERE YOU GO ....BELOW YOU SEE AN ARTICLE SHOWING THE HEALTH SYSTEM BOHEMOTH WITH HUGE PROFITS.  PROFITS MADE BY REDUCING WHO USES THE EMERGENCY ROOM, HOW MUCH STAFF ARE PAID, AND HOW MANY STAFF ARE USED.
JOHNS HOPKINS IS PUSHING THIS IN MARYLAND AND YOUR INCUMBENT IS MAKING IT POSSIBLE.  DO YOU HEAR MARYLAND'S HEALTH CARE FOR ALL?  YOU WON'T........THAT'S NOT THEIR TASK!  THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO WILL ACCESS HEALTH CARE WILL BE THOSE WITH PAID INSURANCE.  YOU KNOW CORPORATIONS ARE PUSHING YOU OUT WITH CO-PAYS AND DEDUCTIBLES, SO WHO ARE THESE INSURED?  THE UPPER-MIDDLE, AFFLUENT CLASS.

VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT!!!
Giant Hospital Chain Creates a Windfall for Private Equity
By
JULIE CRESWELL and REED ABELSON Published: August 14, 2012

During the Great Recession, when many hospitals across the country were nearly brought to their knees by growing numbers of uninsured patients, one hospital system not only survived — it thrived.

Readers’ Comments "When a company is allowed to ask - Is it financially viable for us to treat this illness? - there is a huge conflict of interest. "Outraged in D-town, Denver
 
In fact, profits at the health care industry giant
HCA, which controls 163 hospitals from New Hampshire to California, have soared, far outpacing those of most of its competitors.

The big winners have been three
private equity firms — including Bain Capital, co-founded by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate — that bought HCA in late 2006.

HCA’s robust profit growth has raised the value of the firms’ holdings to nearly three and a half times their initial investment in the $33 billion deal. The financial performance has been so impressive that HCA has become a model for the industry. Its success inspired 35 buyouts of hospitals or chains of facilities in the last two and a half years by private equity firms eager to repeat that windfall.

HCA’s emergence as a powerful leader in the hospital industry is all the more remarkable because only a decade ago the company was badly shaken by a wide-ranging
Medicare fraud investigation that it eventually settled for more than $1.7 billion.

Among the secrets to HCA’s success: It figured out how to get more revenue from private insurance companies, patients and Medicare by billing much more aggressively for its services than ever before; it found ways to reduce emergency room overcrowding and expenses; and it experimented with ways to reduce the cost of medical staff, a move that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over concerns about patient care.

In late 2008, for instance, HCA changed the billing codes it assigned to sick and injured patients who came into the emergency rooms. Almost overnight, the numbers of patients who HCA said needed more care, which would be paid for at significantly higher levels by Medicare, surged.

HCA, which had lagged the industry for those high-paying categories, jumped ahead of its competitors and was reimbursed accordingly. The change, which HCA’s executives said better reflected the service being provided,
increased operating earnings by nearly $100 million in the first quarter of 2009.

To some, HCA successfully pushed the envelope in its interpretation of existing Medicare rules. “If HCA can do it, why can’t we?” asked a hospital consulting firm, the Advisory Board Company, in a presentation to its clients.

In one instance, HCA executives said a private insurer, which it declined to name, questioned the new billing system, forcing it to return some of the money it had collected.

The hospital giant also adopted a policy meant to address an issue that bedevils hospitals nationwide — reducing costs and overcrowding in its emergency rooms. For years, the hospital emergency room has been used by the uninsured as a de facto doctor’s office — a place for even the most minor of ailments. But emergency care is expensive and has become increasingly burdensome to hospitals in the last decade because of the rising number of uninsured patients.

HCA decided not to treat patients who came in with nonurgent conditions, like a cold or
the flu or even a sprained wrist, unless those patients paid in advance. In a recent statement, HCA said that of the six million patients treated in its emergency rooms last year, 80,000, or about 1.3 percent, “ chose to seek alternative care options.”

“Many E.R.’s in America, particularly in densely populated urban areas where most HCA-affiliated facilities are located, have adopted a variety of systems to determine whether a patient in fact needs emergency care,” the statement said. “About half our hospitals have done so. Typically, our affiliated hospitals have two caregivers — usually a triage nurse and a physician — make that determination. It should be noted that other non-HCA affiliated hospitals are using similar processes to address E.R. issues.”

As HCA’s profits and influence grew, strains arose with doctors and nurses over whether the chain’s pursuit of profit may have, at times, come at the expense of patient care.

HCA had put in place a flexible staffing system that allowed it to estimate the number of patients it would have each day in its hospitals and alter the number of nurses it needed accordingly.

Several nurses interviewed said they were concerned that the system sometimes had led to inadequate staffing in important areas like critical care. In one measure of adequate staffing — the prevalence of bedsores in patients bedridden for long periods of time — HCA clearly struggled. Some of its hospitals fended off lawsuits over the problem in recent years, and were admonished by regulators over staffing issues more than once.

Many doctors interviewed at various HCA facilities said they had felt increased pressure to focus on profits under the private equity ownership. “Their profits are going through the roof, but, unfortunately, it’s occurring at the expense of patients,” said Dr. Abraham Awwad, a kidney specialist in St. Petersburg, Fla., whose complaints over the safety of the
dialysis programs at two HCA-owned hospitals prompted state investigations.
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MARYLAND IS FRONT AND CENTER IN THIS PUSH TO PRIVATIZE WITH CHARTERS AND JOHNS HOPKINS HAS BUILT A STRONG PRIVATE NON-PROFIT COALITION TO DO IT IN BALTIMORE.  AFTER UNDERSERVED SCHOOLS ARE GUTTED AND MADE INTO WORKPLACE HUMAN RESOURCES TRAINING CENTERS FOR CORPORATIONS WITH YOUR TAX DOLLAR, THEY WILL COME FOR THE MIDDLE-CLASS SCHOOLS.

YOUR INCUMBENT IS PUSHING THIS....VOTE YOUR INCUMBENT OUT!!!
Privatizing Public Schools: Big Firms Eyeing Profits From U.S. K-12 Market

Reuters  |  Posted: 08/02/2012 10:16 am Updated: 08/02/2012 12:18 pm

By Stephanie Simon

NEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The investors gathered in a tony private club in Manhattan were eager to hear about the next big thing, and education consultant Rob Lytle was happy to oblige.

Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they're as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They'll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.

"You start to see entire ecosystems of investment opportunity lining up," said Lytle, a partner at The Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm. "It could get really, really big."

Indeed, investors of all stripes are beginning to sense big profit potential in public education.

The K-12 market is tantalizingly huge: The U.S. spends more than $500 billion a year to educate kids from ages five through 18. The entire education sector, including college and mid-career training, represents nearly 9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, more than the energy or technology sectors.

Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into -- fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast.

Now investors are signaling optimism that a golden moment has arrived. They're pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.

The conference last week at the University Club, billed as a how-to on "private equity investing in for-profit education companies," drew a full house of about 100.


OUTSOURCING BASICS

In the venture capital world, transactions in the K-12 education sector soared to a record $389 million last year, up from $13 million in 2005. That includes major investments from some of the most respected venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, according to GSV Advisors, an investment firm in Chicago that specializes in education.

The goal: an education revolution in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards, said Michael Moe, the founder of GSV.

"It's time," Moe said. "Everybody's excited about it."

Not quite everyone.

The push to privatize has alarmed some parents and teachers, as well as union leaders who fear their members will lose their jobs or their autonomy in the classroom.

Many of these protesters have rallied behind education historian Diane Ravitch, a professor at New York University, who blogs and tweets a steady stream of alarms about corporate profiteers invading public schools.

Ravitch argues that schools have, in effect, been set up by a bipartisan education reform movement that places an enormous emphasis on standardized test scores, labels poor performers as "failing" schools and relentlessly pushes local districts to transform low-ranked schools by firing the staff and turning the building over to private management.

President Barack Obama and both Democratic and Republican policymakers in the states have embraced those principles. Local school districts from Memphis to Philadelphia to Dallas, meanwhile, have hired private consultants to advise them on improving education; the strategists typically call for a broader role for private companies in public schools.

"This is a new frontier," Ravitch said. "The private equity guys and the hedge fund guys are circling public education."

Some of the products and services offered by private vendors may well be good for kids and schools, Ravitch said. But she has no confidence in their overall quality because "the bottom line is that they're seeking profit first."

Vendors looking for a toehold in public schools often donate generously to local politicians and spend big on marketing, so even companies with dismal academic results can rack up contracts and rake in tax dollars, Ravitch said.

"They're taking education, which ought to be in a different sphere where we're constantly concerned about raising quality, and they're applying a business metric: How do we cut costs?" Ravitch said.


BUDGET PRESSURES

Investors retort that public school districts are compelled to use that metric anyway because of reduced funding from states and the soaring cost of teacher pensions and health benefits. Public schools struggling to balance budgets have fired teachers, slashed course offerings and imposed a long list of fees, charging students to ride the bus, to sing in the chorus, even to take honors English.

The time is ripe, they say, for schools to try something new -- like turning to the private sector for help.

"Education is behind healthcare and other sectors that have utilized outsourcing to become more efficient," private equity investor Larry Shagrin said in the keynote address to the New York conference.

He credited the reform movement with forcing public schools to catch up. "There's more receptivity to change than ever before," said Shagrin, a partner with Brockway Moran & Partners Inc, in Boca Raton, Florida. "That creates opportunity."

Speakers at the conference identified several promising arenas for privatization.

Education entrepreneur John Katzman urged investors to look for companies developing software that can replace teachers for segments of the school day, driving down labor costs.

"How do we use technology so that we require fewer highly qualified teachers?" asked Katzman, who founded the Princeton Review test-prep company and now focuses on online learning.

Such businesses already have been drawing significant interest. Venture capital firms have bet more than $9 million on Schoology, an online learning platform that promises to take over the dreary jobs of writing and grading quizzes, giving students feedback about their progress and generating report cards.

DreamBox Learning has received $18 million from investors to refine and promote software that drills students in math. The software is billed as "adaptive," meaning it analyzes responses to problems and then poses follow-up questions precisely pitched to a student's abilities.

The charter school chain Rocketship, a nonprofit based in San Jose, California, turns kids over to DreamBox for two hours a day. The chain boasts that it pays its teachers more because it needs fewer of them, thanks to such programs. Last year, Rocketship commissioned a study that showed students who used DreamBox heavily for 16 weeks scored on average 2.3 points higher on a standardized math test than their peers.


SPECIAL ED AS A GROWTH MARKET

Another niche spotlighted at the private equity conference: special education.

Mark Claypool, president of Educational Services of America, told the crowd his company has enjoyed three straight years of 15 percent to 20 percent growth as more and more school districts have hired him to run their special-needs programs.

Autism in particular, he said, is a growth market, with school districts seeking better, cheaper ways to serve the growing number of students struggling with that disorder.

ESA, which is based in Nashville, Tennessee, now serves 12,000 students with learning disabilities or behavioral problems in 250 school districts nationwide.

"The knee-jerk reaction [to private providers like ESA] is, 'You're just in this to make money. The profit motive is going to trump quality,' " Claypool said. "That's crazy, because frankly, there are really a whole lot easier ways to make a living." Claypool, a former social worker, said he got into the field out of frustration over what he saw as limited options for children with learning disabilities.

Claypool and others point out that private firms have always made money off public education; they have constructed the schools, provided the buses and processed the burgers served at lunch. Big publishers such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have made hundreds of millions of dollars selling public school districts textbooks and standardized tests.

Critics see the newest rush to private vendors as more worrisome because school districts are outsourcing not just supplies but the very core of education: the daily interaction between student and teacher, the presentation of new material, the quick checks to see which kids have risen to the challenge and which are hopelessly confused.

At the more than 5,500 charter schools nationwide, private management companies -- some of them for-profit -- are in full control of running public schools with public dollars.

"I look around the world and I don't see any country doing this but us," Ravitch said. "Why is that?"
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THE DEVELOPMENT AND TAX CREDITS CONTINUE IN BALTIMORE AND MARYLAND AS SCHOOLS CLOSE, RECREATION CENTERS CLOSE, FIRE HOUSES CLOSE, AND JOBS ARE LOST IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR.  WE HAVE A BUDGET DEFICIT YOU KNOW.  SO THE COMMUNITIES THAT AGREE TO THE TIF LEVERAGING ARE THE COMMUNITIES AROUND THE HARBOR WHO BASICALLY ARE MAKING IT OK FOR THE ENTIRE CITY TO FORGO FUTURE TAX REVENUE.  IT WAS FENCED INTO THEIR COMMUNITIES ANYWAY THEY SAY.....THE CITY WOULD NEVER SEE IT.  ALL OF THESE BUSINESSES IN HARBOR POINT ARE NATIONAL CORPORATIONS MAKING HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS AND BILLION EACH YEAR AND THEY WILL NOT PAY PROPERTY TAXES FOR DECADES, IF THEN.  PROPERTY TAXES PAY FOR SCHOOLS RIGHT?  NO, THESE CORPORATIONS WILL SELECT WHICH SCHOOLS THEY WILL 'DONATE' TO.  THEY WILL CONTROL YOUR SCHOOL'S FUTURE, NOT YOU........SAYS YOUR INCUMBENT.

City plans new bridge to handle traffic boost in Harbor Point
 
Baltimore Business Journal by James Briggs, Reporter Date: Thursday, August 9, 2012, 9:18am EDT - Last Modified: Thursday, August 9, 2012, 9:47am EDT

The Baltimore City Department of Transportation is moving ahead with plans to build a bridge that would extend Central Avenue to Harbor Point.

The city and Harbor East Development Group LLC
want a new bridge to accommodate the increased traffic that is expected to come with the proposed 2.9 million square feet of new development, including a headquarters for Exelon Corp., at Harbor Point.

Harbor Point is a 27-acre waterfront site between Harbor East and Fells Point. The only way to reach the site from downtown is on South Caroline Street.

Living Classrooms, a nonprofit organization that uses waterfront sites and campuses around the harbor for educational purposes, had expressed concerns about losing access to some areas because of a new bridge.

But City Councilman
James Kraft, whose district includes Harbor Point, said an agreement has been reached “that would not affect their ability to use the water down there.”

Officials at Living Classrooms could not be reached for comment.

Harbor East Development President
Michael S. Beatty has said he wants a bridge in place by the time the Exelon (NYSE: EXC) headquarters is scheduled to open in 2014.

The DOT, which would handle bridge construction, has scheduled a community open house for 6 p.m. Aug. 29 at 1417 Thames St. to discuss the plan with area residents.

A new bridge would ease traffic beyond Harbor Point, Kraft said.

“If it’s done right, it will open up that [Interstate] 83 corridor and President Street corridor,” he said. “You have the traffic being able to come in Harbor Point and Harbor East down President Street and that can exit onto Central Avenue.”

The city is mulling multiple traffic patterns that could be created from the bridge, which would span from Lancaster Street to Harbor Point.

~
Construction likely will be paid for through a yet-to-be-passed tax-increment financing, or TIF, deal between the city and Harbor East Development. A TIF borrows against future property taxes to pay for infrastructure like roads and utilities.

“I got letters from community associations supporting the TIF, which is very unique,” Kraft said.

That’s at least in part due to the proposed bridge, which Kraft said “could be a great advantage to ... everyone who works in the greater Fells Point area.”







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August 03rd, 2012

8/3/2012

0 Comments

 
Today I'd like to leave you with a call to action on several issues coming to vote at the state and national level.  Next week we need to have people calling and writing their elected officials at all levels on these issues.  Some may not be voted until September, but the more you write and call, the more importance it takes.  USE THIS MONTH OF AUGUST TO START YOUR ACTIVISM!!!!!!!   I have contact info for Baltimore, state, and Federal agencies.  Please take time to create a political email/phone list and budget stamps into your monthly allowance.

1.  Gambling

O'Malley ran his first campaign for governor against Ehrlich as anti-gambling, saying that it was bad policy for the state as it ruins people's lives, creates addictions, preys on the poor, and is a heavily regressive tax.  HE WAS RIGHT....THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT GAMBLING DOES TO SOCIETY.  IT IS BEING PUSHED NOW BECAUSE CORPORATIONS ENVISION THEMSELVES NOT PAYING TAXES AT ALL AND ARE PUSHING ALL THE TAX BASE TO THE MIDDLE/LOWER CLASS.

THAT IS WHAT THE GAMBLING ISSUE IS ABOUT AND O'MALLEY IS ONLY SUPPORTING IT FOR HIS FUTURE ELECTIONS.  MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU WILL VOTE IT DOWN IN REFERENDUM.  CONTACT MARYLAND ASSEMBLY LEADERS BUSCH AND MILLER, O'MALLEY, AND YOUR POLITICIANS
THIS NEXT WEEK.

Taxpayers Protection Alliance Survey Results: Marylanders Skeptical of Proposal That Cuts Taxes On Casino Operators
 July 13, 2012 at 7:11 pm by SR Staff in: Casino & Gaming   
ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) announced today the results of its phone survey on tax rates and building a casino at National Harbor in Maryland. The results showed that state residents remain skeptical about plans to build the casino and give tax breaks to out-of-state casino operators.

David Williams, president of TPA, said, “The results of our survey reinforce what we have been hearing and reading about the views of Maryland residents over the last several months. At a time when the legislature is imposing greater tax burdens on working families, people are not buying the argument that casino operators deserve special treatment and tax cuts. These policies will do little to reverse the trend of Maryland residents leaving the state. Maryland deserves a better tax policy and business climate.”


The survey, conducted from July 10-12, revealed the following:

  • “It is wrong to lower taxes on casinos while taxes on Maryland families are going up,” was the most common response to the question on how a respondent felt about the National Harbor proposal.
  • Less than one-quarter of respondents expressed outright support for a National Harbor casino.
  • Only five percent of respondents thought giving tax breaks to casinos constitutes a “fair” tax policy.
Williams said Governor O’Malley should pay close attention to public opinion. “The survey results underscore that now is not the time for another special session on this issue,” he said. “Maryland continues to face more pressing issues, and this flawed proposal should not proceed forward.”

TPA will continue airing the radio ad, “Fair,” which urges the administration and legislature to oppose giving tax breaks to casino operators while raising taxes on Maryland families.

About Taxpayers Protection Alliance
Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to educating the public through the research, analysis and dissemination of information on the government’s effects on the economy. For more information, please visit
www.protectingtaxpayers.org.

Contact: David Williams
(703) 229-0254

SOURCE Taxpayers Protection Alliance

THIS IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC POLL AND IS NO DOUBT SKEWED, BUT IT HIGHLIGHTS THE COALITION OF GROUPS SPEAKING FOR PUBLIC INTERESTS.  PLEASE NOTE THE MORE THE DAMAGING PART OF THIS GAMBLING ISSUE IS THE CREATION OF YET ANOTHER COMMISSION TO DETERMINE THE GAMBLING TAX.....FILLED BY THE GOVERNOR.
_____________________________________________________

We fought hard against the merger of BGE and Exelon last year giving all kinds of data that spelled out for our Third Way politicians the negative impact of giving our local utility to a national and soon global energy corporation.  O'Malley fought for it and all Maryland's politiicans were silent on the issue........they let it happen.  As a bonus the public received $100 and were assured that no rate increase would happen .....the Maryland Public Service Commission, and O'Malley, and Rawlings-Blake assured us of that.  Mind you, there was contempt from politicians about giving the $100 because they see no need to placate the public.  Remember, BGE was a public utility and as such was built on taxpayer money......we built the company.  As with all public sector assets, the taxpayers build it and the politicians give it to the private sector for a loss.  NOW, JUST AS WE KNEW WOULD HAPPEN, EXELON IS ASKING FOR A RATE INCREASE FOR GAS AND ELECTRIC......THEY WANT US TO PAY FOR THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE UPGRADES.   Just $7-8 a month they say. 

Tell O'Malley, Rawlings-Blake, your politicians, and write a comment letter to the Maryland Public Service Commission (MPSC) saying enough is enough.....a billion dollar a year corporation like Exelon can pay for the upgrades!  They won't be sharing their profits with us.  This site has the MPSC information.  WATCH FOR THE PUBLIC MEETING SCHEDULE ON THIS ISSUE AND ATTEND ALL THE MEETINGS YOU CAN.  THE MEETINGS WILL BE THIS MONTH......AND TELL THEM YOU WANT THIS INDUSTRY RE-REGULATED!!!!!  Below you'll see an article from a battle against rate hikes a few years ago.......the issue and facts are the same, just a different merger.

2.  BGE RATE HIKES....AGAIN
Exelon (NYSE: EXC) earned $286 million, or 33 cents a share, in the second quarter. That was down 54 percent (drop caused by BGE purchase....a one time thing) from the
$620 million, or 93 cents a share, the company earned in second quarter 2011. This is a billion dollar corporation.

Power to the People

Organizations Flock To Annapolis To Protest BGE Rate Hikes
Baltimore CityPaper
Jefferson Jackson Steele FEED OFF THE ENERGY:

Nnamdi Lumumba (center), who helped organize the Annapolis protest of BGE's rate increases, stands in front of the Governor's mansion and outlines complaints about the rate hikes being imposed on the citizens of Baltimore. By
Laura Laing | Posted 7/4/2007

The BGE rate increases might seem like a done deal, but to a group of impassioned activists the fight has just begun. The Maryland Coalition to Stop the BGE Rate Hikes is expecting electricity customers to rise up in opposition once the June bills hit their mailboxes. The 72 percent rate increase, brought on by the state's deregulation of electric utilities, has been rolled out over a nearly two-year period. Last summer, BGE increased rates by 15 percent. For customers who opted for a rate-stabilization program, another 38 percent increase went into effect on June 1; the remaining 12 percent increase will hit them Jan. 1, 2008. Those BGE customers who didn't sign up for the stabilization program were hit with the full 50 percent upsurge in their June bills.

The group is ready for reregulation, a phenomenon experienced by at least four states across the country, including Maryland's more conservative neighbor to the south, Virginia.

"No one can afford injustice," says coalition Chairman Leo Burroughs, a Bolton Hill retiree who has a long history of social activism. "It's an injustice to working people. It's a kind of economic violence that's been perpetrated on the poor and children and senior citizens."

On June 23, the coalition--which is made up of nine community organizations, including the All People's Congress, Baltimore Green Party, Democracy4Baltimore, and Unity for Action--staged a rally in Annapolis. The event began at Lawyers Mall, in front of the governor's mansion, before the group took an impromptu march through the city.

"Saturday was mighty fine," says Maria Allwine, coalition leader and Green candidate for Baltimore City Council president. About 60 people attended the rally, she says, and 40 more joined in for the march. "We had a lot of support," Allwine says, reporting that onlookers gave them the thumbs-up or honked their horns.

Additional events are planned for the summer, as well as a class-action suit and pressure on legislators to reregulate. Burroughs believes that the group will become stronger and larger as the rate hikes become reality. "Theoretically, [BGE customers] are angry," he says. "Staying the course is what we're about. We must be consistent and active."

Chris Bush, a Baltimore County accountant and self-taught rates expert notes that the reports on the increases have been confusing and difficult to follow. He presented cold, hard numbers at a Senate Finance Committee on March 6--numbers that BGE officials reject.

According to Bush, the total cost of producing and distributing electric power is between 5.85 and 13 cents per kilowatt hour; 2.5 cents per kilowatt hour is needed to cover distribution of the electricity, a rate that is controlled by the Maryland Public Service Commission. Constellation Generation Group owns nine power plants in the state that produce 80 percent of BGE's electricity, with 50 percent generated from nuclear power and 20 percent from coal. Nuclear power costs 3 cents per kilowatt hour to produce, while power generated from coal costs 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Out-of-state production is more costly, since it usually depends on natural gas. Bush notes that this fee is 13 cents per kilowatt hour.

Bush asserts that these figures are not simply the cost of electricity itself but also encompass salaries, overhead, and a 5 percent profit for the company--a notion that BGE officials flatly deny.

"I'm not sure how he would know that," says Rob Gould, chief spokesman for Constellation Energy Group, BGE's parent company. "As with any business, there are other costs involved. It's easy to throw those numbers out, but you could say the same thing about a can of Coke."

But Bush and Allwine don't stop there. They believe that BGE is purchasing in-state electricity at the open-market price of 10.5 cents per kilowatt hour--from Constellation Energy. As Bush describes it, Constellation sells the electricity to other states, and BGE buys it back from outside the state. "They're making massive profits," Bush says, citing the Constellation CEO's $6.9 million salary.

Again, BGE officials deny this. "The power is put on the grid," Gould says. "[Rate increases are] nothing more than a global energy issue." Hurricane Katrina helped up the cost of producing energy, and had the caps not gone into place in 1999, BGE customers would be in exactly the same place they are today, Gould says.

But Bush proposes a blended rate of 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour to take into account the in- or out-of-state production and the different methods of producing electricity. Before June 1, BGE customers were paying 5.85 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity.

So what are the new rates? A whopping 13.6 cents per kilowatt hour. "That's important for people to understand because that's what they're paying now," Bush says. "They're paying 13.6 cents--about double what it costs BGE."

It's certainly double what they were paying, but the process simply doesn't work that way, BGE officials say. Electricity is put out for bid by as many as 10 to 15 qualified suppliers, says Mark Case, BGE's senior vice president for business performance, strategy, and regulatory affairs. It's all about who has the lowest price, he says.

Gould doesn't argue that the rate hikes are "staggering." However, he points to the fact that since caps were instituted in 1999, Constellation shareholders were footing the bill and shouldering the risk for new power plants and maintenance--all in a fluctuating energy market. Reregulation would not solve any problems, he says.

"Assuming you can unscramble that egg, somebody has to pay for it," he says.

In the meantime, Constellation's stock has almost doubled in value, and even before the new rates went into effect the company reported a 72 percent increase in profits in the first quarter of 2007, Allwine says. Gould, however, says these increases are not due to the BGE rate increases; rather, he says, they are due to the fact that the company is the largest producer of electricity in North America.

Case says that generating power is not all about profit, even though Bush says Constellation nets a double-digit percent return on capital. "This is not a windfall profit," Case argues, noting that it is expensive to run, maintain, and shoulder the liabilities associated with power plants.

But these activists aren't just angry with BGE. They're ticked off at Gov. Martin O'Malley, who during his campaign promised to stop the rate increases. Allwine points to an $80,000 campaign contribution by Constellation as proof that O'Malley was bribed. (Robert Ehrlich's campaign received a $70,000 contribution.)

"When companies contribute to a campaign--and they do it all the time--they don't do it because they like the guy or they think he's cute," she says. "It's quid pro quo. Anybody who doesn't believe that the $80,000 that O'Malley took isn't guiding his decisions is just misinformed."

On May 28, Allwine sent a letter to Patricia Jessamy, state's attorney for Baltimore City, alleging that O'Malley was bribed by Constellation and BGE. She hasn't received a response. "Were asking for a bribery investigation," Bush says. The governor's office did not respond to requests for interviews for this story.

The Maryland Coalition to Stop the BGE Rate Hikes is also pushing for a special session of the General Assembly to discuss reregulation. Del. Jill Carter (D-Baltimore City) has called for the special session. (Carter is also a candidate for Baltimore City mayor.) Last summer's special session resulted in rolling out the rate increases over a nearly two-year period.

"The legislators, they all go along with it," Allwine says. "All of them have accepted money from BGE--small amounts, but money. Of course it influences their vote, of course it does. Only a fool would think that it doesn't."

Allwine would like to see Baltimore City become more involved in advocating for reregulation. "The city could pressure the state. They're doing nothing, nothing,"she says.

With the increases already in effect, Allwine admits that the coalition is less visible. "When there was a Republican governor around to bash, there were more groups involved," she says. "It's taken us a little longer to get our message out, but it is getting out there."

Meanwhile, advocacy groups like Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) are noticeably absent from the coalition. Stuart Katzenberg, head organizer for Maryland ACORN, explains that the organization is helping its members apply for Maryland Energy Assistance Program funds. "Part of it is getting our members resourced up," he says. "There's a kind of yin and yang" with member services and political action.

"This issue is a perfect example of why people don't get involved in politics," Allwine says. "We've been shafted."

Still, the David vs. Goliath fight between activists and BGE is empowering to Burroughs, and additional protests and rallies will be scheduled throughout the summer. "It is incumbent upon us to rally community support to pressure our legislators to reregulate the company," he says
.
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The school year is gearing up and we have the issue of school privatization looming larger this year.  Teach for America, online classes, evaluations used to identify failing schools.  My organization will be conducting surveys of families living close to these charter schools to see how they like them and what they want form their community schools.  We want the money used to fund these selective schools stopped and those schools returned to public school status.......ie....no restrictions/selections.  It will get worse without protest now! BALTIMORE SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT ALONZO IS NEW YORK CITY'S MAYOR BLOOMBERG'S BEST FRIEND!

Write and call the Baltimore City and Maryland School Board as well as all your local politicians, the mayor and governor.  WE WANT THEM TO KNOW BEFORE THIS SCHOOL YEAR STARTS TO WHERE WE SEE OUR SCHOOLS MOVING!!  Watch for the School Board meeting schedule and get out an shout out......KEEP WALL STREET OUT OF OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

3.  WALL STREET IS GEARING UP FOR A PUSH FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS

 Privatizing Public Schools: Big Firms Eyeing Profits From U.S. K-12 Market

Reuters  |  Posted: 08/02/2012 10:16 am Updated: 08/02/2012 12:18 pm

By Stephanie Simon

NEW YORK, Aug 1 (Reuters) - The investors gathered in a tony private club in Manhattan were eager to hear about the next big thing, and education consultant Rob Lytle was happy to oblige.

Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they're as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They'll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.

"You start to see entire ecosystems of investment opportunity lining up," said Lytle, a partner at The Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm. "It could get really, really big."

Indeed, investors of all stripes are beginning to sense big profit potential in public education.

The K-12 market is tantalizingly huge: The U.S. spends more than $500 billion a year to educate kids from ages five through 18. The entire education sector, including college and mid-career training, represents nearly 9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, more than the energy or technology sectors.

Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into -- fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast.

Now investors are signaling optimism that a golden moment has arrived. They're pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.

The conference last week at the University Club, billed as a how-to on "private equity investing in for-profit education companies," drew a full house of about 100.


OUTSOURCING BASICS

In the venture capital world, transactions in the K-12 education sector soared to a record $389 million last year, up from $13 million in 2005. That includes major investments from some of the most respected venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, according to GSV Advisors, an investment firm in Chicago that specializes in education.

The goal: an education revolution in which public schools outsource to private vendors such critical tasks as teaching math, educating disabled students, even writing report cards, said Michael Moe, the founder of GSV.

"It's time," Moe said. "Everybody's excited about it."

Not quite everyone.

The push to privatize has alarmed some parents and teachers, as well as union leaders who fear their members will lose their jobs or their autonomy in the classroom.

Many of these protesters have rallied behind education historian Diane Ravitch, a professor at New York University, who blogs and tweets a steady stream of alarms about corporate profiteers invading public schools.

Ravitch argues that schools have, in effect, been set up by a bipartisan education reform movement that places an enormous emphasis on standardized test scores, labels poor performers as "failing" schools and relentlessly pushes local districts to transform low-ranked schools by firing the staff and turning the building over to private management.

President Barack Obama and both Democratic and Republican policymakers in the states have embraced those principles. Local school districts from Memphis to Philadelphia to Dallas, meanwhile, have hired private consultants to advise them on improving education; the strategists typically call for a broader role for private companies in public schools.

"This is a new frontier," Ravitch said. "The private equity guys and the hedge fund guys are circling public education."

Some of the products and services offered by private vendors may well be good for kids and schools, Ravitch said. But she has no confidence in their overall quality because "the bottom line is that they're seeking profit first."

Vendors looking for a toehold in public schools often donate generously to local politicians and spend big on marketing, so even companies with dismal academic results can rack up contracts and rake in tax dollars, Ravitch said.

"They're taking education, which ought to be in a different sphere where we're constantly concerned about raising quality, and they're applying a business metric: How do we cut costs?" Ravitch said.


BUDGET PRESSURES

Investors retort that public school districts are compelled to use that metric anyway because of reduced funding from states and the soaring cost of teacher pensions and health benefits. Public schools struggling to balance budgets have fired teachers, slashed course offerings and imposed a long list of fees, charging students to ride the bus, to sing in the chorus, even to take honors English.

The time is ripe, they say, for schools to try something new -- like turning to the private sector for help.

"Education is behind healthcare and other sectors that have utilized outsourcing to become more efficient," private equity investor Larry Shagrin said in the keynote address to the New York conference.

He credited the reform movement with forcing public schools to catch up. "There's more receptivity to change than ever before," said Shagrin, a partner with Brockway Moran & Partners Inc, in Boca Raton, Florida. "That creates opportunity."

Speakers at the conference identified several promising arenas for privatization.

Education entrepreneur John Katzman urged investors to look for companies developing software that can replace teachers for segments of the school day, driving down labor costs.

"How do we use technology so that we require fewer highly qualified teachers?" asked Katzman, who founded the Princeton Review test-prep company and now focuses on online learning.

Such businesses already have been drawing significant interest. Venture capital firms have bet more than $9 million on Schoology, an online learning platform that promises to take over the dreary jobs of writing and grading quizzes, giving students feedback about their progress and generating report cards.

DreamBox Learning has received $18 million from investors to refine and promote software that drills students in math. The software is billed as "adaptive," meaning it analyzes responses to problems and then poses follow-up questions precisely pitched to a student's abilities.

The charter school chain Rocketship, a nonprofit based in San Jose, California, turns kids over to DreamBox for two hours a day. The chain boasts that it pays its teachers more because it needs fewer of them, thanks to such programs. Last year, Rocketship commissioned a study that showed students who used DreamBox heavily for 16 weeks scored on average 2.3 points higher on a standardized math test than their peers.


SPECIAL ED AS A GROWTH MARKET

Another niche spotlighted at the private equity conference: special education.

Mark Claypool, president of Educational Services of America, told the crowd his company has enjoyed three straight years of 15 percent to 20 percent growth as more and more school districts have hired him to run their special-needs programs.

Autism in particular, he said, is a growth market, with school districts seeking better, cheaper ways to serve the growing number of students struggling with that disorder.

ESA, which is based in Nashville, Tennessee, now serves 12,000 students with learning disabilities or behavioral problems in 250 school districts nationwide.

"The knee-jerk reaction [to private providers like ESA] is, 'You're just in this to make money. The profit motive is going to trump quality,' " Claypool said. "That's crazy, because frankly, there are really a whole lot easier ways to make a living." Claypool, a former social worker, said he got into the field out of frustration over what he saw as limited options for children with learning disabilities.

Claypool and others point out that private firms have always made money off public education; they have constructed the schools, provided the buses and processed the burgers served at lunch. Big publishers such as Pearson, McGraw-Hill and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have made hundreds of millions of dollars selling public school districts textbooks and standardized tests.

Critics see the newest rush to private vendors as more worrisome because school districts are outsourcing not just supplies but the very core of education: the daily interaction between student and teacher, the presentation of new material, the quick checks to see which kids have risen to the challenge and which are hopelessly confused.

At the more than 5,500 charter schools nationwide, private management companies -- some of them for-profit -- are in full control of running public schools with public dollars.

"I look around the world and I don't see any country doing this but us," Ravitch said. "Why is that?"
 _______________________________
IF YOU CANNOT COME OUT TO THESE RALLIES ON THE ISSUE OF POLICE BRUTALITY IN BALTIMORE AND THE INJUSTICE OF MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE'S BUDGET, PLEASE WRITE AND CALL HER AND YOUR CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS.........OFTEN!!!! THIS IS A GOOD GROUP TO SUPPORT FINANCIALLY....THEY ARE TRULY FIGHTING FOR THE PEOPLE.


4.  BALTIMORE'S BUDGET INJUSTICE


Mon., Aug. 6th – 3 P.M. UNITY MARCH* – STOP POLICE BRUTALITY &
ABUSE! JOBS & REC CENTERS NOW!
Gather at the Shot Tower, 801 E. Fayette St, Baltimore, MD 21201
(close to the Market St. subway station)
March to City Hall. Tell the Mayor and City Council – Get abusive
police out of our communities! Community Control Now! Jobs for All!
Keep all of the recreation centers and fire stations open – Say no
to privatization.

Called by: Baltimore Peoples Assembly
For more information call 410-500-2168 or 410-218-4835






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

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