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July 24th, 2014

7/24/2014

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Just a few more days on education policy------let's continue to look at higher education and Maryland is ground zero for the dismantling of our public education system at all levels.

Yesterday I showed that Economic students are demanding universities stop teaching only neo-liberal economics-----they said the field had become so narrow as to block all other thought.  Think how that translates to Common Core in our K-12.  They intend to do the same thing in our grade schools as they have done in universities.......narrowed the curricula to corporate policy.  'Competition' replaces personal best......'Getting the edge' becomes bullying........'Taking out the competition' becomes rape.  The level of aggression in our schools and universities is growing because of this corporate mentality.  Attacks on women are soaring even at universities because Chancellor Kirwan does not see himself as a public servant upholding public justice and Rule of Law-----


WE WILL SELECT WHOMEVER WE WANT TO BE HEARD IN ELECTION FORUMS AND THERE WILL BE NO DISCUSSION ON ANY UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND CAMPUS THAT IS ANTI-NEO-LIBERALISM!

We heard recently that UMUC----the online college structure that O'Malley spent hundreds of millions if not a billion dollars to create is failing miserably.  No one wants online education yet neo-liberals funded by Bill Gates and Wall Street are going to push this until we have no choice they say.  O'Malley even went overseas to push our active military to use their GI Bill education benefits on these online degree programs----IT IS A DISGRACE.  As you will see below there is absolutely no research that shows these online education programs are providing any quality or creating higher achievement.  The data is not there.  The only reason they are creating these online venues for 90% of Americans is that it is cheap and only prepares for a job.

FORGET THE WELL-BALANCED EDUCATION THAT IS BROAD AND ALLOWS GRADUATES TO APPLY THEMSELVES TO MANY FIELDS.

First UMUC was going to be made a non-profit so the public could not see how it operates.....now University of Maryland is keeping a failed structure alive but wants to deregulate.  Bill Gates requires online instruction and neo-liberals are going to give it to him!
  The amount of education funding wasted on these global corporate policies mirrors O'Malley's tying the public to Hilton and Hyatt hotels in order to keep them from losing money.  Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars are lost every year in all categories of industry in what is clearly public malfeasance and fraud against the citizens of Maryland.  Why do we need a UMUC Asia/Europe?

Meanwhile financial aid and grants are being cut and that aid given is being tied to these cheaper structures as WE THE PEOPLE see our strong public education dismantled by neo-liberals. 

DON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN TO CHANGE THIS----THIS IS REPUBLICAN POLICY-----NEO-CONS ARE JUST AS BAD.



UMUC’s Mission in Asia


The mission of University of Maryland University College (UMUC) in Asia is to offer academic programs to United States military communities throughout Asia and the Pacific. While serving overseas, students can take a single course or many courses leading to a certificate, an Associate of Arts degree, a Bachelor of Arts degree, or a Bachelor of Science degree. Since University of Maryland University College is accredited by the Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools, students can take courses with the intention of transferring their credits to other colleges or universities in the United States. Students may also continue their studies with UMUC online. Additional information is available at www.umuc.edu.

Although the educational setting is overseas, UMUC’s programs in Asia are in all respects comparable to those offered at public institutions of higher learning in the United States. Courses are taught by faculty whose credentials meet standards set by appropriate University of Maryland University College academic departments in Adelphi, Maryland. All UMUC courses taught in Asia carry University of Maryland University College resident credit. UMUC is committed to maintaining standards of academic excellence. The past 50-plus years demonstrate that those standards can be maintained in overseas settings.



UMUC Europe offers thousands of courses for students interested in associate's and bachelor's degrees and undergraduate certificates. UMUC also offers graduate-level certificates and several master's degrees in Europe. With UMUC's 150 locations worldwide, and extensive online offerings, students can begin and finish a degree with us regardless of where they are located.


I bet the citizens of Maryland did not even know UMUC was a global corporation.  Meanwhile fewer Maryland citizens are going to 4 year universities.


I don't hold any credence to these online workplace comment programs because they work like American Idol.  It is good to see a consistent referral to 'people needing to be treated with respect'. ' Low pay with no opportunity to grow'.  THIS IS NOT AN ENVIRONMENT WE WOULD WANT IN A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY.  THAT IS WHAT A CORPORATE STRUCTURE LOOKS LIKE.  That is because it IS  a corporate structure.  Under neo-liberals labor is treated as badly as if a Republican were in office yet every election Maryland labor unions get behind these neo-liberal pols.  We need the citizens of Maryland taking back the Democratic Party to reverse this failed neo-liberal/neo-con policy!



“Failing company, horrible management” Academic Advisor (Current Employee) Pros – Great vacation/time off. Get to become a state employee after 3 years.

Cons – Moral is so low! Micromanaged beyond belief, constant layoffs, not worth you time.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat us like the educated adults that we are. Learn to value your employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Add Employer Response
  1. Apr 8, 2014
    • Culture & Values
    • Work/Life Balance
    • Senior Management
    • Comp & Benefits
    • Career Opportunities
     

    “Not good. Too many secrets and financial problems” Administrative Assistant (Current Employee) Largo, MD I have been working at UMUC full-time for more than 8 years


    Pros: Convenient location and great benefits Cons: Low pay and minimal advancement Advice to Senior Management: Treat the regular people like people No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company… More

                    

Below you see what the deregulation issues discussed by Mikulski and Kirwan will include----as you see again everyone in the system is in the dark as to what these discussions look like.  WE DON'T ALLOW CITIZENS IN MARYLAND KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING SAY NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS.


UMUC considering plan to become independent nonprofit with ties to university system
Under proposal, it would no longer be a state entity; president seeks input from university community




By Nayana Davis, The Baltimore Sun

7:54 p.m. CDT, July 10, 2014

The University of Maryland University College, which has been struggling with declining enrollment, is considering severing some ties with the state university system to avoid burdensome regulations and work more closely with the private sector.

Under the proposal, the university would become an independent nonprofit organization that retains an affiliation with the state system. The school's president, Javier Miyares, said during a Thursday town hall meeting in Largo that the idea came from a task force of experts organized by the university as a response to a shrinking student body.

UMUC, a mainly online institution, has struggled with a competitive online education market and a smaller military. Members of the military or their families make up about half of the college's students.



The main objective of the proposal is to more readily secure partnerships with the private sector, including working with companies to make courses more employer-friendly and building relationships to help students secure jobs. Miyares said such partnerships can be challenging to forge as a state agency.

"This way we would not be bound by all the regulations and statutes that apply to a public state agency," Miyares said.

University officials also hope the move would help it attract more students outside the United States, though it would retain the University of Maryland name. Based in Adelphi, UMUC offers courses to students in 24 countries.

The plan would allow the university to keep ties with the 12-institution University System of Maryland, but the details have not been worked out. "The validity and credibility you get by being part of the University of Maryland system is huge," Miyares said.

No immediate action will be taken on the task force recommendation, as the school begins a process of soliciting feedback from the college community. University officials said there are few concrete ideas on how the effort would be implemented at this stage; Miyares said he wanted to get input first.

UMUC has the support of the University System of Maryland to look into alternate business models.

"The university is facing some significant challenges," said William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the system. "They are appropriately addressing those challenges."

Kirwan said a more concrete proposal would need approval from the system's Board of Regents before implementation, and possibly the governor and General Assembly. The governor's office declined to comment on the plan.

But some higher education experts expressed concern about the university putting out such a proposal with few details.


Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations and policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, said it's not uncommon for public universities to form private-sector relationships to outsource certain functions, but it's unclear what the change in status would mean for the university.

"Honestly, I don't know what to make of this," he said. "The decision to operate under a different set of rules is interesting. Whether the move is good, I don't know."

UMUC has been struggling with declining enrollment both stateside and overseas since fall of 2011. Although the rate of decline stateside has remained less than 10 percent in the past three years, overseas enrollment declined 20 percent for spring 2014.

The school has struggled to increase enrollment because of competition from traditional academic institutions that have started offering Web-based classes and popular massive open online courses known as MOOCs, university officials said.

A shrinking military, which is facing large-scale budget cuts, also is a factor in loss of enrollment.

University officials said that 90 percent of its budget comes from tuition and 10 percent from the state. Other colleges in the university system get about 30 percent of their budgets from the state.

"We don't know what the future is going to be like," Miyares said. "But if we don't adapt, we will go into a death spiral."

UMUC's struggles are "a reflection of how competitive online education has become," Kirwan said. "What we do need is to explore if operational flexibility is possible."


"UMUC has been quite unique in the university system," Nassirian said. "It had been mostly self-sufficient because it provides excess revenue back to the system, but that [online] business model has not fared well as of late."

Traditionally, changes in business models for colleges have occurred when a struggling nonprofit university becomes a for-profit venture after a large corporation acquires it. Nassirian gave the example of the Clinton, Iowa-based school Ashford University being purchased by Bridgepoint Education.

Miyares said the change could occur as early as next summer. Academic programs and staffing levels are not expected to be affected if the model changes, unless enrollment continues to drop.

The school laid off 70 staff members from departments at the Adelphi and Largo campuses earlier this year, and 58 the year prior. The university employs about 2,000 in the U.S.

"The whole goal is to get enrollment up," Miyares said. "If enrollment is fine, there should be no dramatic difference to the academic side. This is a pivotal moment in our history."

nadavis@baltsun.com



________________________________________________

The article above gives yet another spin----that UMUC and online colleges are being edged out by the popularity of MOOCs-----only MOOCs are not popular.  They are used less frequently then online UMUC.  We are being fed nothing but spin and this happens more and more because the public universities that would be the first to shout THAT IS NOT TRUE ----IT IS SPIN are now the ones handing us spin because they are corporations.  Maryland Assembly was the very first to pass laws that move the accreditation process towards making these online structures legitimate.  NO ONE THINKS THIS IS GOOD POLICY.  Needless to say when it comes to bad education policy it is Johns Hopkins pushing it in Maryland.  Indeed, Baltimore is cursed with a gorilla in the room that pushes the worst of policy all so they can make more profits.


This looks like a Gates Foundation study-------most employers in North Carolina have not heard of MOOCS but 3/4 of them think they are good. Meanwhile, there is no interest in the public for MOOCs outside of simple extracurricular help with existing university structures. Gates says he will buy these policy implementation yet! You know, because he is the 'good billionaire' as NPR always tells us.



All Hail MOOCs! Just Don’t Ask if They Actually Work | TIME.com

Why Do So Many Students Drop Out of MOOCs?www.brighthub.com/education/online-learning/articles/...



Study: MOOCs Viewed Positively Among Employers

April 2, 2014 Inside Higher Education

Most North Carolina employers haven't heard of massive open online courses, but about three-quarters of them view MOOCs as having a positive effect on hiring decisions, a survey conducted by Duke University and RTI International shows. The study, founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, also suggests 71 percent of employers could see themselves using MOOCs for professional development.

Think about how the real world views MOOCs but the article in the Maryland media makes you think they are supported.  It happens all the time because they can get away with it.  Online resources for education are good----everyone thinks online instruction adds to the classroom at any level.  The problem is that corporations have as a goal to replace the classroom with these online products ------aiming at the 90% of Americans becoming trapped by Vocational K-12.......
With all public education funding going to subsidize corporate research and Human Resources we have to make the cost of educating the 90% as cheap as possible say neo-liberals and neo-cons!  Calling MOOCS a democratizing tool in a nation with the strongest public education system in the world is a mockery.  STOP DEFUNDING AND DISMANTLING PUBLIC EDUCATION.


The University of Maryland is now taking a look at bestowing transfer credit to those who are able to demonstrate a specific level of knowledge after completing a MOOC.


- See more at: http://www.educationnews.org/online-schools/can-moocs-be-a-solution-to-the-us-student-debt-crisis/#sthash.uhO1mk7Y.dpuf


Are MOOCs really dead?

  • By Jake New, Editor, eCampus News
June 6th, 2014 Recent studies suggest that MOOCs are very much alive, but are not a threat to traditional higher education For some educators and journalists, the rasping final breaths of massive open online courses (MOOCs) began late last year.

They followed nearly two years of hype and excitement that even the most skeptical of instructors and reporters got swept up in. Many of those who denounced the courses did so in a similarly frantic fashion, writing proclamations and open letters condemning MOOCs, as though they were caught in a great academic war.

Then, suddenly, a blow was struck. And it came from one of MOOCs’ most famous creators.

“Sebastian Thrun, godfather of the massive open online course, has quietly spread a plastic tarp on the floor, nudged his most famous educational invention into the center, and is about to pull the trigger,” Rebecca Schuman wrote at Slate in November 2013.

It was a dramatic way of saying that Thrun had announced that his company, Udacity, would now focus its MOOCs more on vocational training rather than traditional liberal arts courses.

That Udacity was only one company of a growing number focused on MOOCs — and that many of these platforms, including its main competitor Coursera, still aimed to disrupt traditional higher education — did little to slow the wave of speculation.

It was the capper on a year of MOOC hand-wringing. If 2012 was the “year of the MOOC,” then 2013 was the “year of the MOOC backlash.” Those who trust Gartner’s “Hype Cycle” believed MOOCs were going through a common “trough of disillusionment,” that would soon be followed by a “slope of enlightenment.”

But by the start of 2014, many were already asking: “Are MOOCs dead?”

The answer is not as sensational as the question. MOOCs aren’t dead — not yet -- but they likely won’t be replacing any traditional means of higher education, either.




Here is the source of creating a massive online system of education for the 90% in Maryland-----Wall Street itself!  The quality of education drops each time they grow this online education industry.  Since it isn't working at the university level they are now talking of sending it to K-12 vocational.  Sitting children in front of computers for online classes the goal of education reform as vocational K-12----YOU BET


Johns Hopkins Offers Nine-Course Specialization in Data ...www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2014/coursera...   CachedThe series of nine MOOCs are now open for enrollment and free to anyone. ... 615 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205. ... Courses Careers Accreditation Web Policies ...

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July 08th, 2014

7/8/2014

0 Comments

 
CORPORATIONS ARE USING PRIVATE NON-PROFITS TO CONTROL PUBLIC POLICY.  THEY CAPTURE AN ISSUE AND PROMOTE POLICY THAT WORKS TO THE ADVANTAGE OF CORPORATIONS.  IN MARYLAND THE PUBLIC SECTOR HAS BEEN DISMANTLED AND IS REPLACED BY THESE PRIVATE NON-PROFITS.  IT IS WHY THERE IS NO PUBLIC VOICE OR CONTROL OF POLICY IN MARYLAND.  A DEMOCRAT WOULD NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN....NE0-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE DOING THIS!


I have spoken about Maryland's capture of politics centered in the movement away from a strong public sector which has been replaced by private non-profits controlled by corporations that simply place someone as head of the organization that makes sure public policy goes the way the corporations want.  In Maryland we have AGAB serving that goal.  Johns Hopkins creates and controls most non-profits in Baltimore and in doing so captures all public policy.  What we see less of in Maryland and Baltimore are real citizens coming out and organizing and controlling their own non-profits.  My non-profit, Citizens Oversight Maryland speaks freely because there is no corporate connection.  If you see a non-profit that is silent on all of the issues I address here-----they are being controlled by a corporation.  We have great groups doing good work in Baltimore but very few of them will shout against the power structures -----Johns Hopkins and Baltimore Development or identify the fact that all of Baltimore's politicians work for these institutions and not the citizens of Baltimore.  I told you about the anti-fracking environmental group that ran when I asked them to educate about Trans Pacific Trade Pact and the fact that it allows all environmental laws to be ignored.  Now, if an environmental non-profit is not talking about this----it is headed by a corporation.  This is why TPP is not even mentioned in Maryland.....corporations control all of our private non-profits.

PLEASE WAKE UP AND ENGAGE IN POLITICS FOLKS!  THE MIDDLE CLASS CANNOT WATCH AS THE POOR ARE BRUTALIZED BECAUSE WE KNOW THE GOAL OF NEO-LIBERALISM IS TO GET RID OF ALL MIDDLE-CLASS.  YOU OR YOUR CHILDREN/GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE THE POOR.  YOU CANNOT BE SILENT FOR FEAR OF YOUR JOB BECAUSE LOSING DEMOCRACY AND YOUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS IS MORE IMPORTANT.


Maryland and especially Baltimore is now running just a global corporations do overseas----Non-governmental organizations NGOs control our state and local governments as a 'quasi-governmental agency' and corporations 'donate' rather than pay taxes to private non-profits that then do what that 'donor' wants.  No doubt national non-profits have always been this way but now they are controlling all policy at state and local levels as well.  This is the capture we are feeling in Maryland.  The neo-liberals and neo-cons work to establish these private non-profits and then make sure that these groups are the ones heard in policy discussion.  This is why many community associations in Baltimore are silent to politicians pushing neo-conservative/neo-liberal policies that are killing the residents living in these communities.  They instead are the ones backing these same pols dismantling our democratic structures.  The heads of these organizations sound to be supporting the community when in fact they are working to push corporate policy.

As you see below you must have politicians in office that want the public engaged in public policy.  They build the structures to make sure to stimulate participation.  In Maryland all policy is written behind closed doors and the public is pulled from public meetings if they try to speak on the most important issues.  Go to Baltimore City Hall and you look at pols that are simply sitting there----they are no more connected to the people speaking than a man on the moon.  They are simply meeting a charter requirement to have hearings.

IT IS THE DISMANTLING OF ALL OF THE PUBLIC STRUCTURES OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT THAT HAS PRODUCED THE LACK OF PARTICIPATION AND IT HAS BEEN REPLACED BY THESE PRIVATE NON-PROFITS.



The Citizens Most Vocal in Local Government

View detailed demographic data from a national survey about the most and least likely people to speak up. by Mike Maciag | July 2014 Flickr/Kelby Carr


In his first few months in office, Park City, Utah, Mayor Jack Thomas has heard from quite a few constituents. His office phone rings off the hook. Going out for lunch takes about twice as long as before, too, as he constantly fields concerns from residents who walk up. “If you want a quiet moment,” he jokes, “you’ve got to leave town.”

The small resort community is home to some of the nation’s more vocal residents. In a recent survey, 28 percent of city residents reported contacting elected officials to express their opinions and 37 percent said they had attended a local public meeting over a 12-month period.

Nationwide, though, citizen participation in local government remains abysmally low. The National Research Center (NRC), a firm that conducts citizen surveys for more than 200 communities, compiled data for Governing shedding light on the types of residents who are most active. Overall, only 19 percent of Americans recently surveyed contacted their local elected officials over a 12-month period, while about a quarter reported attending a public meeting.

In many city halls, extremists on either side of an issue dominate public hearings. Those who do show up at the sparsely attended meetings are often the same cast of characters week after week. But some public officials have found ways to reach a much wider segment of residents.

Park City’s Mayor Thomas said he’ll go door-to-door along the town’s main corridor to gauge resident sentiment about everything from new development projects to air quality and garbage pickup. “If you want to have a government that’s rooted in the community, you better start that way,” Thomas said. “It’s all about trust.”

NRC survey data identifies types of residents who are the most active or, in some cases, the least vocal. Individuals living in a community for more than 10 years, for example, are about three times more likely to attend public meetings and contact elected officials than new residents. Among racial groups, Asians tend to have the lowest participation rates. Low-income residents also aren’t as active as those earning six-figure incomes.

In general, residents often aren’t compelled to weigh in on an issue unless it negatively affects them, said Cheryl Hilvert of the International City/County Management Association. It’s for this reason that much of the citizen engagement in communities is confined to typical hot-button issues, such as planning and zoning meetings.

Many residents don’t think they have time to participate. Others, particularly newer residents with lower participation rates, may not know where or how to get involved, Hilvert said.

Survey data further suggests that younger residents aren’t inclined to speak up. Those under the age of 35 attend meetings and contact elected officials at far lower rates than those over 35. Hilvert suspects their busy lifestyles may have something to do with it, especially if they have children.

Connecting with these groups of residents requires stepping outside of city hall and meeting residents on their own turf. Park City officials say they’ve held meetings in school lunch rooms, performing arts centers and with local homeowners’ associations.

“To truly engage the community,” Hilvert said, “managers have to think broader about it than in the past.”

Some localities employ unconventional approaches to raise the level of citizen engagement. When the city of Rancho Cordova, Calif., debated permitting more residents to raise chickens on their properties last year, it launched an online Open Town Hall. More than 500 residents visited the interactive forum to make or review public statements. “It is noisy and smelly enough with pigeons, turkeys, feral cats, and untended dogs without adding chickens to the mix,” wrote one resident. The city drafted an ordinance reflecting citizen input, then emailed it to forum subscribers.

Outreach efforts through local media or civic organizations help further community involvement. Some residents also form Facebook groups or online petitions to promote their causes.

The city of Chanhassen, Minn., relied heavily on social media to connect with citizens when it confronted an issue that’s about as contentious as any local government can face: a proposal to build a new Walmart. The city posted regular updates on its Facebook page and uploaded all documents online. Laurie Hokkanen, the city’s assistant city manager, said residents continued hearing rumors even after the city rejected the company’s rezoning proposal. As a result, staff kept lines of communication open.

“A vote by the city council does not end the issue for residents who are invested in it,” Hokkanen said. “It’s important to tell people you appreciate their input.”

Citizen Survey Data Across much of the country, citizens rarely voice their opinion to local governments. The National Research Center provided survey results from local jurisdictions throughout the country participating in the National Citizen Survey, collected between 2012 and earlier this year.

Two questions on the survey assessed how vocal citizens were in government. Survey respondents were asked if they had done the following in the last 12 months:

1) "Contacted [locality name] elected officials (in-person, phone, email or web) to express your opinion?"

  • Yes: 19 percent
  • No: 81 percent
2) "Attended a local public meeting?"

  • Two times a week or more: 1 percent
  • Two to four times a month: 1 percent
  • Once a month or less: 22 percent
  • Not at all: 76 percent
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We all know the quasi nature of Baltimore Development and the University of Maryland Medical Center but let's look at AGAB and how corporations 'donate' for tax write-offs and then simply write the public policy tied to that non-profit.

If you could look at what this organization does------and the details are very private-----you will see that corporations and the rich simply choose a category to contribute and then are allowed to write what that 'donation' will create.  So, greening as a category can channel money to paying for corporate parks that simply subsidize the costs of a corporation's headquarters.  Why pay to landscape your property when you can get a tax write-off as 'donation' to greening and have the city contribute a chunk for example.   A corporation wanting to 'donate' to eduction would direct that money to a national education non-profit controlled by corporations to go into schools and tell parents, teachers, and students just what 'wellness' will look like in the schools.  In Baltimore parents asking for recess for their children may not be discussed in these 'wellness' groups in many schools.

This entire system allows corporations not paying taxes in Baltimore and Maryland to instead 'donate' money and then control the public policy in whatever area they choose.  This is how the citizens of Maryland have lost their voices in their own communities.  When I first moved to Baltimore I had the nerve as a citizen to try to organize for an athletic field on a vacant lot in my community and the response-----JOHNS HOPKINS HOMEWOOD DEVELOPMENT WILL DECIDE WHAT WILL GO THERE----ARE YOU CRAZY?  As a resident of a community you must go to that development corporation for community grants to do anything and that allows that development corporation to decide what they want-----


AND ALL OF THIS IS THE CORPORATION THAT IS JOHNS HOPKINS AND BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT.



This is what happens when the public sector is dismantled-----all money is funneled through private non-profits that have no transparency and whose membership becomes ever more exclusive.

GET RID OF THE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ALLOWING THIS DISMANTLING OF OUR PUBLIC SECTOR----REMEMBER, IF YOU THINK GOVERNMENT HAS TOO MUCH CONTROL----CORPORATE CONTROL IS MUCH WORSE AS REGARDS DEMOCRATIC FREEDOMS.

About The Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers (ABAG)

ABAG's mission is to maximize the impact of philanthropic giving on community life through a growing network of diverse, informed and effective grantmakers.

The Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers is the region’s premier resource on philanthropy, dedicated to informing grantmakers and improving our community. ABAG was founded in 1983 to provide a forum in which colleagues could address common problems, approaches and interests.

Our members include more than 145 private and community foundations, donor advised funds, and corporations with strategic grantmaking programs - representing the vast majority of institutional giving in our area.

ABAG is …

  • The Resource on Grantmaking
ABAG provides critical information and services to the philanthropic and nonprofit communities.

  • The Network for Givers
ABAG convenes grantmakers and others to address issues and create lasting solutions.

  • The Voice for Philanthropy
ABAG represents the philanthropic sector to key audiences, including the media, legislators, and national organizations, raising public awareness and understanding about the role and impact of philanthropy on our society.


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Maryand Health Care for All and Baltimore Education Coalition are two examples of many.  Maryland Health Care for All is a Johns Hopkins non-profit created to make sure the Affordable Care Act was the health reform that moved forward in Maryland and not REAL health care for all like Expanded and Improved Medicare for All.  People see that the ACA is not about access----it is about building structures that will deregulate and consolidate the health industry killing oversight and accountability and denying most people most access to care.  Maryland has already disconnected from Medicare by receiving exemptions from the Federal government.  All of this makes Maryland have one of the worst health environments in the nation.  The poor have a life span  30 years less than affluent, people are fearful when going to the hospital because of poor quality and staff work in some of the most difficult conditions.  Now, the state health reform is creating a tiered health system that has most people only able to connect to clinic care.  We see this breakdown in health care in Maryland best if we look at the dismantled Veteran's Administration with Baltimore having the worst in the nation.  All of the doctors in this system were moved out and into private health systems that now cater to the world's rich------HEALTH TOURISM.  THIS IS JOHNS HOPKINS SPECIALTY NOW.



Below you see two Hopkins grads placed in charge of controlling the health care policy.  Bill and Hillary tried to do to health care what Obama has done with ACA at the same time they created the conditions for global banks---so this group in 1999 had the goal of moving health policy in that direction.  This is why Maryland sought the exemption from Medicare----to create the private health systems that are tied to the Maryland state health exchange.  Medicare and Medicaid fraud is rampant in Maryland because the oversight and accountability of the public sector was long ago dismantled.

The leaders advocating for the Affordable Care Act knew the goal was maximizing corporate profits and building global health corporations and not REAL health care for all.  The groups joining this coalition often did not.  They assumed they were actually working for health care for all.  This is an example of corporate capture of a policy.  Maryland spent this time from 1999 dismantling the public programs Medicare and Medicaid---and the Veteran's Administration and creating a tiered level of coverage that denied basic access by allowing health institutions to create the most profitable definition of care. 

While neo-liberals claimed to be building the most cost-effective health delivery system------patient outcomes in Maryland worsened and longevity declined.  So much for health care for all.  Johns Hopkins was able to build a global corporate empire with all that Medicare and Medicaid----not to mention Federal, state, and local grants and public funding. 

A GLOBAL HEALTH EMPIRE BUILT ON PUBLIC MONEY----THAT IS A SUCCESSFUL PRIVATE NON-PROFIT.

The people attached to Maryland Health Care for All really seeking this goal now need to join Expanded and Improved Medicare for All in Maryland to actually get health care for all.
  We need to replace the most private and profit-driven health system in the nation that is Maryland health exchange with this public structure that keeps Medicare strong.


The Founder of the Initiative is Peter Beilenson, MD, MPH, and the President is Vincent DeMarco, MA, JD.

The Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative Education Fund (“MCHI”) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit advocacy organization that was created in 1999 with a mission to educate all Marylanders about sound ways to achieve quality, affordable health care for all. In order to create a comprehensive, economically sound health care for all plan, MCHI organized the state’s largest coalition and solicited input from coalition members and thousands of Maryland citizens in town hall meetings.  National experts at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Maryland Law School then worked to incorporate this community input into MCHI’s Health Care for All! Plan.  In 2002, MCHI released its first plan and conducted a statewide campaign to educate people about how the plan would guarantee health care security for all Marylanders.  A revised version of the plan was released in 2008 by the same set of experts that created the original following another round of public stakeholder meetings. The updated plan includes similar components as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (2010) and is being used to guide analysis and planning for state and local implementation of the federal health reform law.

Over 1,200 faith, labor, business, health, and community organizations have joined the Health Care for All! Coalition to support enactment of MCHI’s plan.  This is the largest coalition ever created in Maryland and certainly one of the largest health care consumer coalitions in the country.

The Coalition successfully advocated for a number of laws that will increase access to care and prescription drugs.  In addition, MCHI continues to work with key state leaders to educate members of our broad coalition about how they can access health care programs now in existence.  In the years ahead, MCHI will continue to educate and activate its powerful coalition to increase health care access in Maryland.

___________________________________________


Baltimore Education Coalition is the Michelle Rhee of privatization groups again created by Johns Hopkins this time with the goal of capturing education policy and making sure reforms go the way of corporate control-----just as did Maryland Health Care for All.  In both cases the leaders knew the goal but the people joining often think they are really working towards the goal of health care for all or quality public education.  It is not until all of the bad policy the BEC unrolls that many people in these coalitions find they did not get what they bargained for.  Good people wanting to work for good public policy captured by joining private non-profits that exist to make sure that does not happen.

This is why activism in Baltimore and Maryland is so low----people trying to organize have to fight these corporate non-profits ! 

Please stop allowing corporate non-profits to control all public policy in Maryland.  Know what the policies these groups are advocating and know that they actually have a goal that works for the people and not only for maximizing corporate profit.

This is a prime example of why getting rid of neo-liberals and neo-cons is so important.  It is not only how they vote in City Hall or the Maryland Assembly.  It is the environment they allow to exist in public community organizations ------where is the public discussion-----is it open and inclusive?  Neither Maryland Health Care for All nor Baltimore Education Coalition would allow Cindy Walsh to come in to educate and/or speak against these policies.
  If they do not allow open dialog----they are hiding something and that is that what they are doing is not in the public interest!


Baltimore Education Coalition

We are public schools – traditional and charter. We are after-school programs and neighborhood associations. We are education policy organizations, religious institutions, broad-based organizations, and schools. We are policy analysts, teachers, students, parents, community members, grandparents, and Baltimoreans working together to organize, mobilize, and energize the City of Baltimore to achieve our mission that all Baltimore students receive an excellent education. We focus on the issues that impact our students and families the most. Together, we have stopped over $100 million dollars in proposed funding cuts to city schools. In the face of potential harmful cuts to School Based Health Centers the BEC responded and advocated to successfully keep this important resource in the budget. We have also worked together to address the deplorable facility conditions in Baltimore City including winning the bottle tax in Baltimore City to support the successful campaign to pass state legislation to provide an unprecedented financing plan providing up to $1 billion to rebuild or renovate schools in Baltimore City. This effort was successful due to the dedication and perseverance of the more than 3,000 parents, students, teachers, administrators, and community leaders who came to Annapolis and City Hall to make their voices heard for Baltimore City’s 85,000 students and their communities.



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June 03rd, 2014

6/3/2014

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TALKING ONE MORE TIME FOR NOW ON THE DISASTER OF PRIVATIZING PUBLIC HEALTH THROUGH PRIVATIZING UNIVERSITIES AND THE EFFECTS OF AFFORDABLE CARE ACT.  WE CAN SEE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT IN THE WAY THE PRIVATIZED PATENT SYSTEM AND THE LACK OF FDA OVERSIGHT IS MAKING OUR HEALTH SYSTEM DANGEROUS!

ALL OF MARYLAND CANDIDATE'S FOR GOVERNOR WILL CONTINUE THIS GLOBAL CORPORATE STRUCTURE FOR HEALTH CARE EXCEPT CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR



I listened to a NPR------corporate media all the time----report on the escalating problem of medical procedures and devices passing FDA approval and failing and sometimes killing the American people.  The numbers are soaring as the FDA is now working to send these products to market for profit and allowing the failures to be discovered after the fact by harming the citizens of America.  This NPR article looked at one medical procedure that was approved by the FDA after a supposed 'clinical trial' of a few hundreds of people.  The entire process looked to be filled with false data and sketchy connections with who and how the medical research was conducted and if any of the results were reproducible or if the efficacy was real.

  ERGO-----THE ENTIRE PUBLIC HEALTH CLINICAL TRIAL PROCEDURE IS BEING DISMANTLED AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC WILL NOW BE THE TEST SUBJECTS.  IF HARM IS DONE-----TOUGH LUCK AND WE WILL ALLOW THE BAD MEDICAL PROCEDURE TO CONTINUE REGARDLESS IN ANOTHER FORM.

This is what a corporate state looks like and it is Trans Pacific Trade Pact already in action as Obama has filled his Federal agencies with the same kinds of people that Bush did-----people committed to global corporate control of all public policy.

THIS IS WHAT YOUR ELECTIONS FOR GOVERNOR AND MAYOR ARE ABOUT-----WE THE PEOPLE MUST WIN THESE ELECTIONS!

What is happening as well is that Obama and your neo-liberal Congress person sent hundreds of billions of dollars to higher education under the guise of building stronger education but what they are building are corporate university research facilities complete with patenting of research done at this university.  Most institutions receiving those hundreds of billions to build their corporate R and D?  Ivy League universities like Johns Hopkins.  What this policy does is make these universities corporations that receive tons of public taxpayer money to subsidize research in the guise of education while it is simply a patent machine for corporate R and D.  When you see BIOPARK outside of Johns Hopkins or University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore (a quasi-institution, not public so they say)   ---you are seeing the public subsidizing with what is called education funding the profits of what are now corporations.

More important is combining this with the fact that the clinical trial structure and fast FDA approval of these patented procedures, devices, or medications that are simply rubber-stamped and you have ABSOLUTELY NO PUBLIC OVERSIGHT OF ANY OF THE HEALTH INDUSTRY ACTIONS.  Remember, universities----especially public universities ------were the one institutions charged with making sure the data and research of products protected the people.  These corporate structures built by neo-liberals like O'Malley and neo-cons like Erhlich are now doing just that.......creating an unaccountable and fraudulent system in our medical research structure.

OBAMA AND NEO-LIBERALS IN CONGRESS-----ALL MARYLAND POLS ARE NEO-LIBERALS------DELIBERATELY SENT MONEY TO BUILD WHAT THEY KNOW WILL HURT AND/OR KILL CITIZENS IN THE NAME OF CORPORATE PROFIT.


This is what Trans Pacific Trade Pact and the Affordable Care Act is all about.....consolidating the health industry into global corporate health systems that are deregulated and unaccountable and that will do harm without a second thought in pursuit of profit.  This is what the Maryland Health reform has done these several years under O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake in Baltimore-----created the structures to allow all this to happen and with no oversight or accountability structures.

SEE WHY CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND AND HER PLATFORM MUST BE KEPT OUT OF THIS ELECTION????


'The 510(k) loophole

Although the FDA requests clinical data in about 10% of cases, one concern over the 510(k) system is that testing is insufficient and so products that are either unsafe or ineffective could be released to market'.


Please read below to the 510 loophole.....it has made the FDA just as the SEC----working for corporate interests against the people's interests.  That is what a corporate state does.

How does the FDA 'approve' medical products?

Thursday 20 February 2014 - 8am PST

Written by David McNamee  Medical News Today



  You may have seen medical products that claim to be "FDA cleared," "FDA registered," "FDA listed" or "FDA approved" - but what do these labels mean? You would be forgiven for feeling confused.

In this feature, we look at what the differences in Food and Drug Administration (FDA) classification actually mean, what you need to be aware of as a consumer and what the future holds for the regulation and classification of medical products in the US.

Though you may see labels on a wide variety of medical products - from implantable defibrillators to smartphone apps - bearing legends such as "FDA registered," in reality these claims are often disingenuous. But regulation over the correct terminology is rarely enforced.

Class 1, 2 and 3 In truth, the only products that the FDA specifically "approve" are drugs and life-threatening or life-sustaining "Class 3" medical technology (such as defibrillators). These are submitted to a rigorous review process called "pre-market approval" (PMA), to prove that the benefits of the products outweigh any potential risks to the health of the patient.


The only products that the FDA specifically "approve" are drugs and life-threatening or life-sustaining "Class 3" medical technology. Scientific evidence from clinical trials must be provided by the manufacturers demonstrating the safety and effectiveness of their product. Just 1% of products pass PMA.

Over-the-counter drugs are monitored by the FDA, but they are submitted to a less rigorous testing procedure, especially if they are assumed to be safe.

Vitamins, herbs and supplements are not tested by the FDA unless they are an active ingredient in a drug that requires FDA approval - so manufacturers of supplements are not allowed to claim that their products can treat any specific disease, only that they "promote health."

Despite this, some supplement companies are known to illegally claim their supplements are "FDA approved." It is thought that the FDA are unable to intervene in every instance due to limited resources.

Low-risk medical devices, such as stethoscopes and gauze, are known as "Class 1" and are exempt from FDA review.

"Class 2" medical devices are defined as not life-sustaining or life-threatening, though this category covers a wide spectrum of devices, from X-ray machines to some exercise equipment.

The level of scrutiny attached to Class 2 devices is much lower than Class 3. The devices do need FDA "clearance" before they can be marketed and sold, but rather than submit their products for clinical trial, the manufacturers are required instead to convince the FDA that their products are "substantially equivalent" to products that have been previously cleared by the FDA.

Substantially equivalent means that the device has the same intended use and approximate technical characteristics as an existing product.

Products that pass this clearance process may be referred to as "FDA cleared" or "FDA listed," but this is not the same as "FDA approved," which only relates to the prescription drugs and Class 3 devices that have passed PMA.

This approval method for Class 2 devices has been the subject of mounting controversy. The process is known as "510(k)" - named after its section in the law.

The 510(k) loophole


Although the FDA requests clinical data in about 10% of cases, one concern over the 510(k) system is that testing is insufficient and so products that are either unsafe or ineffective could be released to market.


Under 510(k), devices that have passed clearance, but have later been found dangerous or ineffective and are recalled, are not automatically removed from the FDA's list of cleared products. Another worry about this process is that the more "substantially equivalent" (but not identical) products are listed, the more a chain grows of FDA-cleared products that increasingly move away from the original product.


But perhaps the most concerning feature of 510(k) is that devices that have passed clearance, but then have later been found dangerous or ineffective and are recalled, are not automatically removed from the FDA's list of cleared products.

This is a loophole that allows any new products bearing the same faults to remain eligible for FDA clearance through 510(k).

In a 2012 report, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommended that 510(k) be replaced with an "integrated pre-market and post-market regulatory framework that effectively provides a reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness throughout the device life cycle."

But these recommendations - though popular with consumer advocacy groups - were rejected by the FDA.

A congressman (now senator) for Massachusetts, Ed Markey, campaigned for the reform of 510(k) and proposed a 2012 bill to close the loophole.

But the bill was not passed. It received opposition from medical device manufacturers and members of Congress who claimed that the existing FDA review processes are already too time-consuming and unpredictable, compared with other countries, so inserting more safeguards and regulatory steps would have the effect of strangling innovation.

Medical News Today spoke to Dr. Michael A. Carome, director of the non-profit consumer rights organization Public Citizen's Health Research Group, about 510(k).

Dr. Carome cites a report that Public Citizen issued in 2012 highlighting "a concerted lobbying campaign intended to weaken the already lax regulatory oversight of medical devices."

"For example, in 2011 the medical device industry spent $33.3 million on lobbying, raising its total to $158.7 million since 2007. This lobbying campaign has been very successful and has generally drowned out calls for stronger medical device regulation from consumer advocates like Public Citizen."

Carome also sees a second obstacle in the FDA itself, "which has been very resistant to proposals to strengthen or replace the 510(k) system."


"The FDA seems beholden to the medical device industry and the mantra that promotion of 'innovation' is the most important goal in the regulation of medical devices," he adds.


More recently, Sen. Markey wrote to the FDA, appealing directly for them to reform 510(k).

Sen. Markey was satisfied with the FDA's response, announcing in December 2013 that database modifications proposed by the agency "will help decrease the dangers and increase the awareness of medical devices that may be made based on flawed models."

Dr. Carome feels, though, that the FDA's proposed measures "fail to adequately address the underlying flaws in the 510(k) premarket clearance process."

The central issue remains that new Class 2 medical devices found to be "substantially equivalent" to recalled but previously cleared devices are still obliged - by law - to be cleared by the FDA, despite whatever flaws the devices contain.

"The slightly improved transparency provided by FDA's revised database for 510(k)-cleared devices does not close this dangerous loophole in the existing law that threatens patient safety," Carome concludes.

But what are the Class 2 devices that have caused patient safety concerns?

Carome points to the DePuy metal-on-metal Articular Surface Replacement (ASR) hip implant - an "example of a medical device heavily promoted as being innovative and better than earlier types of devices."

In November 2013, DePuy - an orthopedics company owned by Johnson & Johnson - announced a $2.5 billion settlement to resolve more than 8,000 of 12,000 public liability claims filed in US courts after their metal-on-metal hip was recalled in 2010. The ASR was found to shed metallic debris as it wears, causing pain and injury to the patient.

The Myxo ring In 2008, a surgeon named Dr. Patrick McCarthy at Chicago's prestigious academic medical center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, was found to be installing a device he had invented - the McCarthy Annuloplasty Ring - into the hearts of cardiology patients without the informed consent of the patients.


"If you are planning to receive a medical device in a US hospital, there is no way to confirm whether the device is FDA approved, investigational or registered," says Dr. Rajamannan. Concerned patients were even more alarmed when they discovered that the ring had also not been submitted to the FDA for review.

"There are no guideposts for us. You don't learn about this stuff in med school," McCarthy was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as saying, when questioned on why he had bypassed FDA approval.

The ring's manufacturer, a company called Edwards Lifesciences, later falsely claimed that the device was exempt from the 510(k) process and so did not require FDA clearance.


When a concerned colleague of McCarthy's, Dr. Nalini Rajamannan, contacted the FDA, an investigation was triggered, which ultimately saw the ring cleared for use - despite having already been sewn into the hearts of 667 patients.

But further controversy surrounded the FDA's clearance, which simply relied on a clinical study Dr. McCarthy himself had written as evidence that the ring - now rebranded "Myxo dETlogix" - was safe and effective.

Dr. Rajamannan - who was co-author on that study before withdrawing when she learned that the patients involved were not giving informed consent - later wrote a book detailing the controversy and continues to campaign on behalf of patients installed with the Myxo ring.

Speaking to Medical News Today, she says that the concerns over the Myxo device have still not been addressed by the FDA:


"The FDA has written a formal letter stating that they would not be investigating the matter any further. These heart valve rings that are being cleared under the 510k process for Edwards Lifesciences are associated with over 4,000 adverse events and over 645 deaths."

"The other major heart valve manufacturers have less than 20 events for their rings in the FDA database."

What does the future hold for FDA regulation? As we have shown in this feature, the confusion over the various stages of FDA "approval" and "clearance" is not limited to patients. These examples show that FDA classifications and processes can also - naively or wilfully - be misinterpreted by manufacturers and medical professionals.

The concerns from doctors, patients and consumer advocacy groups on the lack of regulation of medical products and the conflicts of interest within those regulatory processes remain.

Dr. Carome recommends that the IOM's 2012 guidelines be implemented and suggests that more of the Class 2 products sped through to market under 510(k) need to be reclassified as Class 3, for which the PMA process is much more stringent.

"Manufacturers do heavily promote their devices as being new and innovative, and many health care providers and patients believe that a 'newer' or 'innovative' device must be better," reasons Carome. "However, in most cases, there is no evidence that the newer medical devices are any better than older devices or other less-invasive treatments that don't involve a medical device."

"It is a real safety problem," agrees Dr. Rajamannan, who adds: "If you are planning to receive a medical device in a US hospital, there is no way to confirm whether the device is FDA approved, investigational or registered."

"The patients in the US are at major risk and the FDA is doing nothing to help the patients."
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As I said, Maryland TV is plastered with injury law firms gathering patients that are victims of this horrendous system.  As we all know, the injury lawyers get all the money in the end and the patients are harmed for life.  This is what a third world nation looks like----citizens cannot even seek medical help without being fearful the procedures are happening in their interests and not for profit.

In Maryland, the Maryland Assembly has passed laws that make it as hard as possible for the public to seek justice in medical malpractice and it does not require medical malpractice insurance---meaning doctors prone to bad practices would love to come to Maryland.  NONE OF THESE POLICIES ARE DEMOCRATIC----YET MARYLAND IS CALLED A 'PROGRESSIVE' STATE.  It is a neo-liberal/neo-con state.





New Jersey Personal Injury Blog FDA Failed to Properly Test Medical Devices before Approval

By Blume Donnelly Fried Forte Zerres & Molinari
on March 9, 2011

CNN
recently reported that a review of recall data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that the majority of the 113 Class III medical devices that were recalled between 2005 and 2009 for serious, life-threatening dangers, did not undergo the FDA’s more rigorous pre-market approval process, also referred to as “PMA.” Instead, the agency cleared the devices using a less stringent process known as the 510(k) process, under which clinical testing is not required. This discovery brings to light that many medical products that were given clearance, such as automated external defibrillators (AEDs), artificial hip joints, and heart valves, were marketed to and used on consumers without undergoing clinical testing in advance.

Under FDA policy, all Class III devices are required to undergo the PMA premarket approval process, including clinical testing, in order to determine if “sufficient valid scientific evidence” is found that the medical device is safe for its intended use.

However, a report from the Government Accountability Office in 2009 discovered that approximately 66 percent of all Class III devices were approved using the less demanding 510(k) process instead of the PMA because it was “less burdensome”. An additional study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s Archives of Internal Medicine, found that approximately 71 percent of the 113 medical devices recalled between 2005 and 2009 were given approval through the 510(k) process.

Many believe the reasons for the shortcomings in testing are because the agency does not have the necessary funding and staff to conduct a clinical study for all medical devices requiring same. While a medical device’s manufacturer does pay for a fraction of the expenses related to a PMA approval, the majority of the cost falls to the FDA, which is under-funded. Choosing to approve a medical device under the 510(k) process is much less expensive.

The FDA has admitted that the 510(k) approval process needs to be toughened, and has stated it intends to take action to improve the process in 2011. Additionally, the FDA has stated it will evaluate all remaining Class III devices slated for the 510(k) process to determine if the device should undergo the PMA process. As a result, there may be dangerous medical devices on the market that have not received proper government approval.

If you believe that a defectively designed or manufactured medical device may have seriously affected your health or the health of a loved one, contact a New Jersey product liability attorney at Blume Goldfaden. Call 973-635-5400 to schedule a no-cost consultation with one of our lawyers.





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Keep in mind that a republican Bush slashed funding for most Federal agencies as a way to make oversight and accountability go away.  So, when Obama makes an increase of 2-3% he is doing nothing towards rebuilding these agencies.  In fact, much of the funding that makes it to these agencies is simply lost in private outsourcing with all its fraud and corruption.

When they say 'it's the sequestration and the national debt' 

WE SAY----NO, IT'S THE FAILURE TO RECOVER TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD THIS LAST DECADE.

This funding status quo simply keeps our Federal agencies in a mode of 'doing no harm' to corporate profits.

STOP ELECTING NEO-LIBERALS!  DO YOU HEAR YOUR POLS SHOUTING TO BRING BACK TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD!  MARYLAND POLS LOVE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION SO THERE IS NOT A WORD


Once again republican think tanks are crying foul but they are the ones behind all of the dismantling of these agencies creating the fraud and corruption and loss of trillions of dollars.  Their figures are right---$900 billion from Medicare will be taken from the patient's care and not hospital profits.


Reaction to Obama's 2015 HHS funding:

Various health care providers and organizations have responded to the proposal, with many calling for increased funding for health-related agencies and initiatives.

The Federation of American Hospitals criticized proposed funding cuts to Medicare, with FAH President and CEO Chip Kahn saying they would "further threate[n] seniors' access to vital hospital services" and noting that both Republicans and Democrats oppose such reductions (Demko/Zigmond, Modern Healthcare, 3/4). According to National Journal, the group is hoping to persuade Congress against the cuts by touting a new study estimating over $900 billion in Medicare savings over the next 10 years through cost cutting resulting from changes to the way providers deliver care (Ritger, National Journal, 3/4).

American Hospital Association President and CEO Richard Umbdenstock said the proposal contained some "problematic policies" that would hurt hospitals' abilities to improve the health care system and place patients' at risk of losing access to services (Demko/Zigmond, Modern Healthcare, 3/4).

Kasey Thompson, president and chair of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA and vice president of policy, planning and communications for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, called for additional FDA funding, saying, "Given that FDA regulates about 25 cents of every dollar of the gross domestic product, it does not have enough money to fulfill its public health mission."

Alliance for a Stronger FDA Deputy Executive Director Steven Grossman added that the group plans to ask Congress for more FDA funding (Lee, Modern Healthcare, 3/4).

The proposed increase in NIH funding also generated backlash. Research! America President Mary Woolley in a statement said that the U.S. "simply cannot sustain [its] research ecosystem, combat costly and deadly diseases ... and create quality jobs with anemic funding levels that threaten the health and prosperity of Americans," adding, "These funding levels jeopardize our global leadership in science -- in effect ceding leadership to other nations as they continue to invest in strong research and development infrastructures" (Viebeck, "Healthwatch," The Hill, 3/4).




_____________________________________________________


This is how crazy things have gotten.  California is indeed ground zero for this university as corporation model starting with Stanford and now consuming all public universities.  Remember, California had the best education system in the world----I had the pleasure of attending California schools at all levels-----but this move to corporatize has ruined the entire higher education system and they are now creating the tiered higher ed as they are in Maryland with working and middle class being tracked into vocational K-career college.

This is critical to health care because these large universities whether public or private are the source of public protections for health.  If the data is corrupt at universities-----no one is watching the health corporations either.  So, if you think funding universities by making them corporations is a good idea----THINK OF ALL THE FACTORS CONNECTED TO THIS.

It is interesting to note that Governor Brown-----who will try to run for President as a 'progressive' on his old record as a real progressive in the 1970s---appointed Napolitano-----HEAD OF HOMELAND SECURITY WITH NO EDUCATION BACKGROUND as Chancellor of California Higher Education School System.

THE CONTINUED USE OF INSIDERS FILLING APPOINTED POSITIONS AT ALL LEVELS.


When they talk of 'start ups from this university research' they do not tell you that 9 times out of ten those start-ups that are successful are simply absorbed into global corporations.  IT IS A PIPELINE.  Keep in mind that these corporate universities sell this corporate structure as funding schools but it is this structure that has student tuition sky high subsidizing this research and patenting process.  Maryland has done the same to its universities as this article shows in California and it is where all public funding for education is now going.  Johns Hopkins has had so much money funneled to it from our Congress neo-liberals that it owns much of the land in Baltimore's downtown and city center and it is all simply businesses connected to Hopkins.  THIS IS HOW YOU BUILD A GLOBAL CORPORATION THAT CONTROLS A REGION----

Patent-reform legislation spurs controversy among universities

Tina Pai/Staff By Tahmina Achekzai

Last Updated April 28, 2014

In 1994, Michael Doyle, then the director of a computer lab at UCSF, patented software that allowed doctors to view embryos online — the first “interactive” application on the web.

A few years later, the University of California licensed a patent to a company Doyle created called Eolas, which, claiming rights to the idea of embedding interactive content on web pages, sued Microsoft in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit.

The university, a co-plaintiff in the case, took a $30.4-million cut in what is now widely regarded as a classic case of “patent trolling.”

This week, Congress is marking up legislation in hopes of combating patent trolls — companies that purchase patents not to commercialize a product but to reap licensing revenue.

The UC system holds nearly 4,000 U.S. patents that have led to thousands of inventions and hundreds of startup companies. The University of California leads the nation’s universities in patent development, but pending legislation may change that.

Politicians vs. trolls

Traditionally, researchers apply for patents that give them full ownership of their idea or invention and then sell the rights to outside companies, hoping to take their discoveries from the lab to industry. But when the inventions seem to have little hope for commercialization, “patent trolls” may step into the picture.

Trolls, more formally known as patent-assertion entities, will find and subsequently sue businesses they accuse of infringing patent rights. Serving as a middleman between inventors and businesses, trolls collect licensing fees, a portion of which the inventors may receive.

According to the 2013 White House Patent Assertion and U.S. Innovation Report, suits filed by patent trolls tripled from 2010 to 2012, at which point they comprised 62 percent of all patent-infringement cases.

Experts say that because it costs millions of dollars to ascertain what a patent covers, companies faced with these lawsuits may choose to settle rather than to fight.

In November, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., introduced a bill hoping to increase transparency within the patent system and to curb the emerging trend of patent trolling.

The bill would require any patentee who has filed a lawsuit to disclose any financial interests. It also requires the Federal Trade Commission to exercise authority over the misuse of demand letters: notices to companies claiming restitution for breach of license.

Academic qualms

Though the legislation is designed to serve as a deterrent to patent trolls attempting to sue other parties, universities worry it will invariably impede their efforts to enforce their own patent rights.

Earlier this month, the Association of American Universities — of which the UC system is a part — signed a joint letter addressed to Leahy outlining its concerns. The letter was also signed by the Association of University Technology Managers, made up of representatives from “technology transfer” offices at many universities who guard university research.

“Much of the legislation that is currently under discussion in Washington goes far beyond what is necessary simply to prevent that abuse of the patent system,” said David Winwood, the vice president for advocacy at the Association of University Technology Managers.

Of particular concern among both universities and members of Congress is the possible addition of a fee-shifting provision, which would require the losing party in a lawsuit to cover fees and expenses incurred by the opposing party.

Carol Mimura, UC Berkeley’s assistant vice chancellor of intellectual property and research industry alliances, explained that the threat of incurring additional fees could discourage universities from filing lawsuits against actual infringers.

“The provision favors large, deep pockets, not the little guys,” Mimura said in an email. “Big companies and deep pockets create a David and Goliath situation that discourages investment, as opposed to encouraging it.”

While the university protects its employees, co-inventors are sometimes undergraduate students who are not protected and would have to pay for the damages. As a result, she said, they may be discouraged from filing patents — and, consequently, inhibited from advancing “innovation.”

Gary Falle, UC’s associate vice president for federal government relations, argues Congress needs to take a more “balanced approach” when addressing patent abuses.

“The UC is the lead in the nation in the number of patents (awarded annually), and we want to make sure that is protected,” said Falle. “We just want to make sure that the patents the university is awarded are able to move into technology, commercialization and innovation.”


Trimming the troll

Yet Robin Feldman, a law professor at UC Hastings College of the Law who researches patent trolling issues extensively, believes the legislation is vital to the abused patent system.

Feldman suggested universities might have underlying incentives in opposing the legislation. She noted that universities, while not filing patent lawsuits directly, may deliberately ally with nonpracticing entities to increase revenue.

“They do appear to be feeding the patent trolls at least to some extent,” she said. “There’s so much pressure on universities to find funding sources, and it is difficult for them to resist the temptation to sell to those who won’t make any products.”

Still, according to Mimura, UC Berkeley only licenses patents to commercial entities in accordance with university patent policy. And, despite what history may suggest, Mimura said the University of California does indeed support patent reform and has even reached out to Sen. Dianne Feinstein thanking her for support of patent reform.

In regard to current legislation efforts, the UC system only wants to shift the discussion in the right direction, Falle said.

“We believe that addressing bad behavior by stopping those who send multiple demand letters in the hope of extracting fees out of fear will be the focus of reform — not shutting down the entire patent system that is the goose that laid the golden egg,” Mimura said.

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June 02nd, 2014

6/2/2014

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PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH IS DRIVEN BY THE US AND IT IS ALL WRITTEN INTO THESE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACTS. THIS PACT WAS INITIATED BY BUSH AND CLINTON AND NOW OBAMA AND THE CLINTONS ARE OVERSEAS WITH US NEO-LIBERALS TRYING TO FORCE NATIONS ALL OVER THE WORLD TO SIGN A PACT THAT IS REALLY, REALLY, REALLY BAD FOR ALL CITIZENS INVOLVED.  WE HAVE A DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTROLLED BY NEO-LIBERALS AND SO DOES MARYLAND.  ALL THE CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND WILL EMBRACE TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT AND THE DISMANTLING OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR IS PART OF THIS.

For those that believe the hype about bringing jobs, remember what NAFTA did----it decimated our economy and TPP be worse!


The You Tube video below shows a good view of the concerns for public health in the US.  You can see that Affordable Care Act is an extension of what this TPP requires of all nations.  I will take this week to look at all public sectors to see what TPP will do to our rights as citizens and how it moves the US from second world now to third world after TPP is installed.
  Keep in mind that protests like this are happening all over the world and in the US but in Maryland------

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE THE MEDIA AND POLITICIANS ARE ALL CAPTURED AND WORKING FOR GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.



TPP protests hit Utah
www.youtube.com


Published on Nov 19, 2013

The lead negotiators for 12 countries involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership began meeting today in Salt Lake City, Utah. The TPP is a potential new trade deal that would open up markets among nations along the Pacific Rim. The negotiations have largely been secretive so far, but the agreement is expected to impact jobs, the environment, consumer safety and more. Last week, transparency organization WikiLeaks published leaked chapters of the TPP covering intellectual patents, and the organization's co-founder, Julian Assange, slammed the deal. Ameera David speaks with RT's Ramon Galindo, who is in Salt Lake City and attended demonstrations today against the TPP agreement.



This video is from 6 months ago.....Obama is traveling overseas to firm up this deal. If you think all of this buzz is hyperbole you need to learn about what TPP does. It sets US law in a way that gives corporations all the power of profit in all nations involved and the laws written and signed into affect by this treaty can only be changed by a global corporate tribunal.

IT ENDS OUR STATUS AS CITIZEN, OUR EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER LAW, OUR BILL OF RIGHTS AND THIS IS WHY WE ARE SEEING OUR WEALTH STOLEN, OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES AND RIGHTS OPENLY ABUSED....TPP IS ILLEGAL AND A COUP AGAINST THE US CONSTITUTION AS IT ASSAULTS OUR RIGHTS AS CITIZENS.

If your pol is not shouting this-----they are neo-liberals who intend on embracing TPP. Cindy Walsh for Governor of Maryland is the only candidate in the race that will use the governor's office to fight back and stop the TPP structures already being built in Maryland. We must return to a domestic economy. CONGRESS AND STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING....THIS IS WHY THEY ARE PRIVATIZING ALL THAT IS PUBLIC GIVING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS COMPLETE CONTROL IN OUR STATE AND CITY.

It's important to think about the fact that all of these TPP negotiations have taken place during all of Obama's terms in office and Congress knew these terms on health care because I KNEW THESE TERMS ON HEALTH CARE.....I AM JUST AN AVERAGE CITIZEN THAT DOES RESEARCH.  DO NOT LISTEN TO YOUR POLS AT STATE AND NATIONAL LEVELS TELL YOU THEY WERE IN THE DARK.



TPP would make health care even more expensive, less accountable, less accessible

June 21, 2013 Green Party

Health Council of the General Welfare Branch

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a deal that is being secretly negotiated by the White House, with help from more than 600 corporate advisors, and Pacific Rim nations including Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Chile, Peru, Australia and New Zealand. While the TPP is being called a trade agreement, the United States already has trade agreements covering 90 percent of the GDP of the countries involved in the talks. Instead, the TPP is a major power grab by large corporations.

The text of the TPP includes 29 chapters, only five of which concern trade. The remaining chapters are focused on changes that multinational corporations have not been able to pass in Congress such as restrictions on internet privacy, increased patent protections, greater access to litigation and further financial deregulation.

So far, all that is known about the contents of the TPP is from documents that have been leaked and reports from non-governmental organizations and industry meetings. Unlike other trade deals, the White House refuses to make the text available to the public. In fact, the negotiators refuse to publish the text until four years after it is signed into law.

From the information available, one thing is clear about the impacts of the TPP on health care. The intention of the TPP is to enhance and protect the profits of medical and pharmaceutical corporations without regard for the harmful effects their policies will have on human health.

We know that the TPP will extend pharmaceutical and medical device patents and provide other tools to keep the prices of these necessities high. This will make medications and treatments unaffordable for millions of people and raise the costs of national health programs, including public health systems in the U.S.. At its worst, the TPP will provide a pathway to infect the world’s health systems with the deadly parasite of for-profit health corporations that plague the United States.

The major health threats posed by the TPP include:

  • Extensive patent protections. Through the TPP, pharmaceutical and medical device corporations are seeking extensive patent protections using a process known as ‘Evergreening.’ The TPP gives twenty years of patent protection for pharmaceuticals and medical devices; however, patents can be renewed for another twenty years each time there is a change in an indication or delivery. 
    • Doctors without Borders criticized this practice, stating that patent protections in previous trade agreements raised the price of life-saving medications and made them unavailable to people in poorer countries. Patents prevent the production of low cost generic forms of medications. 
    • Because of the negative impact on public health from patent protections in previous trade agreements, such as the Korea Free Trade Agreement, former President Bush rolled some of these practices back. Unfortunately, the TPP will move them forward again. In fact, the TPP goes farther to require patents on surgical techniques, medical tests and treatments.
  • Prevention of necessary innovation. Doctors without Borders also expressed concern that patent protections encourage innovation based on profit instead of on the needs of people, particularly those in poor nations. Corporations do not see it as in their financial interest to address health conditions more prevalent in poor nations which do not have the financial resources to buy their products. But it is often in these situations where treatment can have the greatest impact on quality of life.
  • Attack on public health systems. An area of great concern is language within the TPP concerning State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs). These are institutions that are fully or partially owned by governments, which could include public health systems.
    • Corporate lobbyists are concerned that SOEs have ‘unfair advantages’ over private industry. These advantages include government subsidies, preferred tax status, low finance rates and access to capital. According to a leaked chapter, corporate lobbyists believe that there is a conflict of interest because SOEs have political considerations such as functioning to provide basic goods and services for their population and believe that instead SOEs should operate strictly as commercial entities.
    • The TPP requires SOEs to disclose any special advantages they receive and the government to give the same advantages to corporations. It also provides methods for corporations to sue governments if they believe that they are not being treated fairly.
    • Text from a section of the TPP called “Annex on Transparency and Procedural Fairness for Healthcare Technologies” was leaked in June, 2011. It reveals that medical industries are pushing on all fronts to keep their prices and prevent public health systems from negotiating to keep prices affordable. To medical industries, price negotiation is one of the ‘unfair advantages’ of public health systems. When a public health system negotiates a lower price, it is said to be exerting its market power. On the flip side, when a government extends patent protections to medical industries, this is not considered to be a use of market power by the industry.
  • Greater control over reimbursement. Medical industries are pushing for other concessions within the TPP to ‘level the playing field,” also known as forcing public entities to operate as market-based entities, such as factoring the cost of not just research, development and production of drugs and medical devices but also the cost of marketing them into what is considered to be a fair market price. And they only view prices negotiated without any government influence as fair. These provisions are significant because the TPP allows pharmaceutical corporations and others to challenge the legitimacy of any reimbursement decisions made by public health systems through the courts.
    • Patent and price protections for multinational pharmaceutical and medical device corporations based in the U.S. will benefit their bottom line and their investor’s pockets, but may bounce back and undermine public health systems in the U.S.. The leaked text indicates that the above provisions only apply to health authorities under the jurisdiction of the federal government. However, the loop holes are large enough that all of the U.S. public health systems, which include Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and the Veterans Health Administration, can arguably be considered to be federal.
To solve the health crisis in the U.S., we must move away from privatization of health care and towards a public health system with a mission to improve and protect the health of the public.

Therefore, the Health Council of the Green Shadow Cabinet opposes provisions within the TransPacific Partnership that make profit more important than public health. We oppose all provisions that restrict access to necessary medications, medical tests and treatments. Rather than the expansion of patent protections, there should be increased sharing of medical knowledge to promote improved global public health.

~ The Health Council is led by Secretary of Health Dr. Margaret Flowers, serving within the General Welfare Branch of the Green Shadow Cabinet.  This statement is one of over a dozen issued in support of the Green Shadow Cabinet's June 17th call for action against the TPP.

____________________________________________

Let's look locally to see how TPP drives Maryland health care reform.  Maryland is the only state in the nation that seeks exemption from Medicare and is given it.  This means that there is no Federal oversight or requirements that have to be met.  This is why Medicare is handled in Maryland as all health care----it is tiered rather than universal as the Federal program requires.  Maryland has spent these two terms under O'Malley dismantling public health and building private non-profit and corporate structures to handle public sector health care and it is building what is a clinic system for the lower/middle class that is modeled on third world clinic care.  Mind you, the working class and middle class that were driven into poverty from this massive fraud and now the capture of our economy with deliberate high unemployment has moved over 70% and rising of US citizens into or near poverty and they plan to keep pushing more into poverty.  So, this clinic care overage that is mostly preventative care will pertain to almost all US citizens.  Remember, public and private health plans are going to be sent to these state health systems as are Medicare and Medicaid and you will only received the amount of care your income category places you.  Medicare gives equal levels of care to all citizens because people pay their whole lives into Social Security and Medicare. 

TO PROTECT AGAINST THIS DISMANTLING OF OUR FEDERAL HEALTH PROGRAMS WE MUST MOVE FROM THIS PRIVATE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM TO EXPANDED AND IMPROVED MEDICARE FOR ALL.  OTHER STATES HAVE ALREADY MOVED THIS WAY AND MARYLAND NEEDS TO AS WELL.

No matter how much they tell you all of this clinic care is going to make things easier and offer more access-----THEY ARE LYING.



The TPP’s Threats
to Public Health



The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is an international trade and investment pact currently under
negotiation between the United States, Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Malaysia, Mexico,
New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. It is also specifically intended as a “docking agreement”
that other countries would join over time, with Japan, Korea, China and others already expressing some
interest.
U.S. negotiators are pushing to complete the TPP as soon as possible.
NEGOTIATIONS ARE HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION ON PUBLIC HEALTH


A roll back from the Bush administration. Leaked U.S. proposals for several chapters in the Trans-
Pacific Partnership reveal that U.S. trade negotiators have reversed hard-won reforms designed to
enhance access to affordable medicines that were made during the George W. Bush administration. In
addition to pushing for increased monopoly rights for drug companies,
the U.S. is also demanding new
rights for pharmaceutical firms to challenge pricing and other drug formulary policies used by many
countries to keep down health care costs.
PACT WOULD REDUCE ACCESS TO GENERIC MEDICATION BY EXTENDING DRUG PATENTS

Access to generic medicine is critical to saving lives. The first generation of HIV drugs has come
down in price from roughly $10,000 per patient per year to just $120 thanks to increased access to
generic medications. This reduction in price has helped to dramatically scale up the number of people
throughout the world who are now receiving treatment. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis
and Malaria, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, UNITAID and UNICEF all rely heavily on
access to quality generic medications. For millions of people throughout the globe, delaying access to
generic medications means delaying access to treatment.

The U.S. proposal would grant new monopoly patent rights, reducing access to generic
medicine.
If finalized and implemented, the leaked U.S. intellectual property proposal would roll back
access to generic medicine for people in
developing countries and throughout the
world. Specifically,
the U.S. proposal would
broaden the scope of patentability by making
it easier for pharmaceutical companies to
patent new uses and minor variations of old
medicines; slow the production of new
generics when patents expire by expanding
“data exclusivity” over clinical trials forcing
either the timely and costly replication of such
trials or an additional three-year delay
(beyond the current five) before such
“exclusivity” ends; constrict safeguards
against patent abuse by making it harder for
public health advocates to challenge
unjustified new patents; require new forms of
drug patent policing; and mandate that
countries allow patents on plants, animals
Trade Policy & Access to Medicine

and surgical methods. The U.S. is expected to also request extensions beyond existing 20-year drug
patents to “compensate” drug companies for time spent in regulatory approval processes.
International public health advocates are speaking out. According to Doctors Without
Borders/Medecins San Frontieres: “Access to affordable lifesaving medicines will be threatened where
they are needed most — in parts of the developing world — if the U.S. insists on implementing
restrictive intellectual property policies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement... The leaked
USTR position paper, now available to the public, reveals that the U.S. is pushing its trade partners,
including developing countries, to effectively lower the bar for granting patents, limit the capacity to
challenge patents, and impose new forms of intellectual property enforcement — all measures that
delay the introduction of more affordable generic drugs.”
EMPOWERING DRUG COMPANIES TO ATTACK COST-SAVING DRUG FORMULARIES
Governments use cost-saving drug formularies keep drug prices in check. Governments use
formularies to control health costs by listing medicines approved for government purchase or
reimbursement, and negotiating with drug firms to obtain the lowest prices. Among the current TPP
countries, such formularies are most associated with New Zealand’s Pharmaceutical Management
Agency (PHARMAC) and Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), but they are also used by
other governments, including a number of federal and state-based programs in the United States.
The U.S. proposal seeks to restrict cost-saving drug formularies. The leaked U.S. proposal for a pharmaceutical pricing chapter restricts the use of such formularies, by requiring that countries set up
new administrative and judicial appeal systems to help determine whether government programs
“appropriately recognize the value” of drug patents in their reimbursement proposals.
In Australia, the only country yet to implement such systems under a trade agreement, the result has been higher drug
prices.


NEGOTIATIONS HAVE BEEN TAKING PLACE IN THE
SHADOWS

The Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations have not
been transparent. Access to medicine has received the
attention it has because the U.S. proposals for
intellectual property and pharmaceutical pricing chapters
for the pact have been leaked. Neither of these, nor any
other negotiating texts, has been officially released. This
is completely undemocratic, and also outside the norm
for many international negotiations, including those at the
World Trade Organization, where draft negotiating texts
are regularly published. This excessive secrecy makes it
extremely difficult for civil society to comment on the
negotiations in a productive way while the pact is still
under negotiation and such comments could be valuable.



Learn more & get involved: www.citizenstrade.org


_________________________________________

The Affordable Care Act specifically states that Medicare PHARMA will now be generic in many cases and as we read above TPP seeks to greatly limit generics.  So, if policy pushes seniors towards using generics at the same time policy works to protect Brand names from generics-----

YOU SEE WHERE THIS WILL LEAD.  MOST PEOPLE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD NAME BRAND AND THE NUMBER OF GENERICS WILL BE VERY LIMITED AND RESTRICTED TO THE OLDEST OF FORMULAS.


Below you see what ACA promises as all over the world we know the opposite is planned with TPP.  I have a friend already affectived negatively by having to leave a brand name drug for a generic that does not work as well.  This will be wide-spread and people will die from simple lack of access to common drugs.

SELLING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

 Thousands in Savings by Providing Discounts in the Medicare “Donut Hole”
o More than 8 million seniors in 2007 hit the “donut hole,” or gap in prescription drug coverage in Medicare Part D. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will provide low and middle-income seniors a 50 percent discount on brand-name drug and biologic prices in the donut hole. It will also shrink the gap by $500 per senior for 2010.
 More Affordable Generic Drugs
o Some cutting edge drugs are simply too expensive for many seniors. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will create a pathway for the approval of generic biologic drugs to improve affordability of medications for seniors and all Americans.


Better preventative care for seniors and the poor!  Well, if all these groups will be able to access is preventative care -----will this be better?

OF COURSE NOT----THEY ARE SIMPLY BUILDING A STRUCTURE THAT A SUPER-MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WILL BE PUSHED TO.

Aren't neo-liberals just great allowing the American people the chance to buy yet another health insurance policy directed at long-term care?  The Social Security Disability program is being allowed to be gutted and emptied through fraud in the trillions of dollars and it will end.  Where will all those people with disabilities go?  Well, if you cannot afford yet another insurance policy you will see longevity fall steeply in America in just one generation.

IT TAKES A SPECIAL KING OF PERSON TO PUSH THIS AS POLICY ALL BECAUSE MEDICARE AND MEDICAID WAS GUTTED WITH FRAUD AND PROFITEERING AND NOW THESE HEALTH INSTITUTIONS NEED MORE PROFITS.


In Maryland the driver of these policies and in fact the institution writing these policies is Johns Hopkins University.  Mind you, they have made themselves a global health system through these massive frauds.


Preventive Care for Better Health

o Today, seniors must pay 20 percent of the cost of many preventive services. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will eliminate deductibles, copayments, and other cost-sharing for preventive care, and provide free annual wellness check-ups.

 Affordable Long-Term Care

o Sixty-five percent of seniors need long-term services at home, at an average cost of $18,000 each year. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will create a voluntary long-term care insurance program, which will provide a cash benefit to help seniors and people with disabilities obtain services and supports that will enable them to remain in their homes and communities.



_______________________________________________
The idea of the Affordable Care Act is to deregulate and dismantle all the public oversight of health care so that the industry can act with impunity just as banks do.  So, health care once controlled within the confines of medical professionals are now handed to private corporations acting as clinic care and of course this will be the only access for the middle-working class families not able to afford the Silver or  higher health plans.

That goal of deregulation takes the form of placing health care everywhere-----at the same time public justice and oversight and accountability is dismantled meaning the public never knows if care is happening or where the money went. I further devolves the US into this third world systemic fraud and corruption this time with our health care.  People will die because tons of money is misappropriated and stolen and people will not have equal access rights as people will be denied for any reason.  THAT'S WHAT LOSING EQUAL PROTECTION IS ALL ABOUT!


When you read that 30 million people will be entering the system it is mostly the people mandated to buy insurance with no protections on how high those insurance rates will go----and they will go high.

MANDATED TO BUY INSURANCE THAT ONLY ALLOWS YOU ACCESS TO PREVENTATIVE CARE AND THEN THOSE RATES CAN SOAR.....


PEOPLE WILL BE BANKRUPTED IN NO TIME AND LIVE IN POVERTY IF THEY TRY TO ACCESS ORDINARY MEDICAL PROCEDURES.

The Affordable Care Act Will Drive Retail Pharmacies To Higher Profits

Nov. 14, 2013 6:23 PM ET  |  Includes: ABC, CVS, ESRX, RAD, WAG Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. (More...)

It's been a good year for the three major retail pharmacy chains: YTD CVS Caremark (CVS) is up 31%, Walgreen Co. (WAG) is up 61%, and Rite Aid (RAD) has soared 286%. With more generic drugs coming to market and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) less than two months away, retail pharmacy chains are gearing up to welcome what is expected to be an onslaught of newly insured Americans. With the changes in healthcare, pharmacy chains are expanding their reach to become a one-stop healthcare shop for not just prescriptions, but for other medical needs such as flu shots and minor injuries. Soon these retail pharmacies will further encroach on an area where physicians once had the monopoly: managing chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma. This strategy should add to more revenue for the pharmacy chains with both CVS and Walgreen leading the way.

Adam J. Fein, a healthcare industry consultant who runs the Drug Channels blog, sees changes coming to the way people are currently treated. "Retail competition is coming to healthcare, and pharmacies are on the leading edge." According to the Congressional Budget Office, healthcare spending in America will balloon to 22% of gross domestic product in 2038, from 16.4% in 2011. That means that healthcare spending will account for more than a fifth of the economy, and retail pharmacies are looking for a larger piece of the pie as they move beyond filling prescriptions.

ACA -- Making Pharmacies A One Stop Shop


The government's ACA will bring in approximately 30 million newly insured customers into the healthcare system. Walgreen, CVS, and Rite aid recognize that the millions of people who stand to gain health insurance represent an opportunity for increased pharmacy business in all aspects of the store from drugs to personal products to acute medical needs. To insure a share of the new found customer base, the pharmacy companies have been working closely with the government in promoting uninsured customers to sign up for health insurance with the goal of having them visit the pharmacy clinic and load their baskets with front end merchandise.

____________________________________________
Raise your hand if you understand that policy with a goal of consolidating and deregulating the health industry combined with mandated purchase of insurance would lead to insurance industry capture of the American people!  EVERYONE

THESE POLS ARE NOT FIGHTING IT----THEY VOTED THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT INTO PLACE KNOWING THAT THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

It is just as when neo-liberals with Clinton broke the Glass Steagall wall and passed NAFTA killing the middle-class and creating unaccountable global corporations. 


THE SAME POLS IN OFFICE NOW DID THAT THEN AND WE KEEP VOTING THEM BACK INTO OFFICE!

In Maryland that is Cardin, Sarbanes, Cummings, Hoyer still in office from moving the US from first world to second world and now working to send the US to third world.


Remember, the Trans Pacific Trade Pact specifically states that any national law that interferes with corporate profit will be ignored by global corporations.  So, any law passed that supposedly controls cost will not legally stand when TPP is passed.
  A deregulated insurance industry will soak Americans for all they are worth.




'Powerful corporate interests want to use the TPP to:


- Offshore good-paying jobs to low-wage nations and undercut working conditions globally and further reducing wages in the United States

- Create new tools for attacking environmental, health, labor and consumer safety standards

- Expand the deregulation of banks, hedge funds and insurance companies


- Further concentrate global food supplies, displacing family farmers and subjecting consumers to wild price fluctuations

- Institute longer patents that restrict access to affordable, generic medications'


Health Insurance Premiums Are Soaring as Industry Profits Continue to Rise - Sen. Feinstein, Rep. Schakowsky, Maine Insurance Superintendent and State Insurance Experts Say Regulation Works to Hold Down Rate Increases

Wednesday, May 11, 2011 General News  MED INDIA

Who: Sen. Dianne Feinstein

Rep. Jan Schakowsky

Mila Kofman - Maine Insurance Superintendent

Harvey Rosenfield and Carmen Balber - Consumer Watchdog

What: Newsmaker Briefing: "How Health Insurance Rate Regulation Can Lower Premiums and Save Health Reform"

When: 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, May 11.

Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky will open the briefing

Where: 116 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Constitution Ave and 1st St NE, Washington, D.C.

Join Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky, Maine's top insurance regulator and state insurance experts to discuss spiraling health insurance rate increases and how regulation can hold down costs for consumers at a Consumer Watchdog briefing Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill.

Consumer Watchdog will also release a new report that examines health insurance rate regulation in the states, and finds that states that are instituting or strengthening laws requiring rate review and approval, including New York, Massachusetts and Maine, are seeing cost-control results.

Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schakowsky introduced legislation in the 112th Congress to require HHS or the states to reject excessive or unjustified health insurance rates.

Maine Insurance Superintendent Mila Kofman has used that state's law to conduct comprehensive reviews of rate increases -- including public hearings, consumer intervenors and transparency requirements -- to protect consumers from millions in unnecessary rate increases.

Consumer Watchdog founder Harvey Rosenfield wrote California's model law for review and prior approval of property casualty insurance rates that has saved drivers $62 billion.

Consumer Watchdog Washington, DDCD director Carmen Balber will outline HHS regulations from the federal health reform law requiring review of unreasonable rate increases, and highlight regulatory successes and failures in other states.

Health insurance premiums increased 138% in the last decade while medical inflation rose just 31%. 1st quarter 2011 financial reports show health insurance industry profits are on track to beat last year's huge results. Consumer Watchdog's report finds that, if premium increases continue unchecked, health reform will fail in its primary goal of expanding access to health insurance.

CONTACT: Carmen Balber, +1-202-629-3043, cell: +1-310-403-0284, Judy Dugan, cell +1-213-280-0175

/PRNewswire-USNewswire -- May 10, 2011/

SOURCE Consumer Watchdog






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May 29th, 2014

5/29/2014

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PRIVATIZING ALL THAT IS PUBLIC IS THE NEXT PHASE OF THE 21ST CENTURY OR NEW ECONOMY------NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS WORKING TO GIVE GLOBAL CORPORATIONS COMPLETE CONTROL OF ALL ASPECTS OF GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY.  WHAT COULD GO WRONG WITH THAT?  MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION AND LOSSES TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OF TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD AND FLEECING OF GOVERNMENT COFFERS.

Today I want to look at the privatization of the Port of Baltimore and two pay-to-play that will be an environmental nightmare for the citizens of Maryland but moves forward because it earns billions of dollars and advances political careers for corporate pols.  Let's look at why the Port of Baltimore has been given an 'F' in environmental stewardship ------BECAUSE, AS WE KNOW, NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. 

REMEMBER, TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT (TPP) IS ALL ABOUT ALLOWING GLOBAL CORPORATIONS WORKING IN THE US TO IGNORE ALL ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS IN THE PURSUIT OF PROFIT.  Do you hear your environmental or justice organizations shouting this?

All states have a Port Authority that is controlled by State and Federal governments.  So, when a decision to privatize these ports comes with public private partnerships----IT IS CORPORATE DEMOCRATS MAKING THIS DECISION.  Republican Erhlich and Democrat O'Malley pushed to hand the Port of Baltimore to a private investment firm HighStar-----yes, the same investment firm behind Water, Waste, and Sewage privatization-----behind bringing VEOLA and transportation privatization.  All of this is tied with HighStar shareholder Johns Hopkins earning billions in these privatization deals.  See why O'Malley and neo-liberals are working hard to privatize all that is public?  So, neo-liberals decided that instead of a few billion coming to the State Treasury from state business at the port------it should LEASE the port for a few hundred million and then give the billions of dollars earned from the port to HighStar.  NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS MAKING THE PUBLIC RENTERS IN ALL WAYS!!!!

This is not only a loss for the state financially------it is an environmental disaster for the bay.  Expanding the port to bring global cargo ships brings invasive species that choke native species and fill the bay with species that are generally of no value ----killing the bay.  This does not even take into consideration the level of chemical and waste pollution coming from these ships.  THE PUBLIC LOSES BILLIONS IN STATE AND LOCAL REVENUE AND ITS BAY IS KILLED.....THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL FOR YOU!  Meanwhile, there is no appreciable job creation as the port goes robotic and trains simply pass right through the city ------only the cost of infrastructure development for HighStar's port operations all paid for by taxpayers.  We have communities fighting what will be cargo train terminals that will kill their communities shouting THERE IS NO BENEFIT TO THE COMMUNITY OF CITIZENS OF BALTIMORE-----AND THEY ARE RIGHT.

REMEMBER, SUSTAINABILITY IS ABOUT GROWING DOMESTIC AND LOCAL ECONOMIES ------FOR A HEALTHY FUTURE.  THIS IS THE OPPOSITE.


Sparrows Mill Steel plant has been slated for closure for decades but recently a pay-to-play sent millions of Federal, State, and local taxes for a deal supposedly to restart this steel mill------and yet, the deal included nothing that required the mill owners to upgrade mill equipment that was a must to make the mill competitive and able to survive.  It handed this mill to corporate players who then took charge of dismantling and deciding who would own this huge and valuable property on the bay.  So, as would be expected, the new mill owners closed this mill two years after receiving all that tax money to open and went into bankruptcy to shed all the costs of labor contracts, pensions, and bills owned to venders and the city.  What the state and Baltimore County could have done is take this property into the hands of the state and dismantle this mill in a way that protected labor contracts and vendors and handed all the profits from salvage to public coffers-----instead, all the profits from salvage went to a Chicago corporation known to be connected to Obama's campaign.  THIS WAS A PAY-TO-PLAY.  Besides having the state and county lose control of valuable waterfront property-----the deals never included that the costs of environmental cleanup from decades of industry and a sewage problem that makes this area an environmental nightmare.  WE HAVE SOME MILLIONS GIVEN TO STUDY THE PROBLEM.  This mill was constructed in a way that Baltimore's waste water drains right into this mill and openly floods the Port of Baltimore. 

THE STATE COULD HAVE USED THE PROCEEDS FROM THE STATE OWNERSHIP OF THIS MILL TO CLEAN UP AND FIX WASTE WATER AND CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION----BUT DID NOT.


Now, guess who will be made to pay for all of this as part of a taxpayer subsidized waste water infrastructure upgrade and development of this former steel mill------TAXPAYERS. 


MORE CORPORATE SUBSIDY AND THE EXECUTIVES BROUGHT IN TO HANDLE THIS MASS MOVEMENT OF ASSETS OUT OF BALTIMORE COUNTY/ THE PORT-----MADE MILLIONS FOR THEIR TROUBLE.  The Steel workers lost pensions and health care as the mill was allowed to go into bankruptcy instead of being taken by the state for assets.

ALL OF THIS LAND NOW IN THE HANDS OF INVESTMENT FIRMS WILL NO DOUBT BE DESIGNATED 'TAX FREE'.


One more quick mention of the next environmental catastrophe for Port of Baltimore-----Harbor Point and the development of a toxic waste landfill right on the water's edge.  Even as the citizens are assured that none of the toxic waste will blow in the air and into people's lives and none of it will seep into the bay-----EVERYONE KNOWS TOXIC WASTE WILL INDEED DO BOTH.  This development is on land that could have simply been left natural as a public green space-----but NO-----we must maximize profits say neo-cons and neo-liberals.  All of this brings hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate tax breaks and the public building SEA WALLS around these Harbor East properties built right on waters edge because everyone knows global warming will have sea level rise 12-20 inches in just 20 years.  THE PUBLIC WILL PAY FOR SEA WALLS TO PROTECT DEVELOPMENT THAT SHOULD NOT EVEN BE THERE.

THIS IS WHEN YOU KNOW YOU HAVE NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS MAKING ALL THESE DECISIONS.  THEY COULD CARE LESS ABOUT PUBLIC INTEREST OR JUSTICE.
 

THIS IS WHAT TRANS PACIFIC TRADE PACT LOOKS LIKE.

Maryland was once again ranked with an 'F' in environmental stewardship as the Port of Baltimore is filled with trash, sewage, chemicals, and invasive species.....all while O'Malley and the neo-liberals in Maryland Assembly claim to be environmental and a Blue State.  Neo-liberals dismantle all oversight and accountability in government and that includes environment----so as they pass laws that make them look progressive, they then simply ignore these laws.  When O'Malley runs for President he will use all kinds of Maryland media making him sound environmental.

Keep in mind that it was the Maryland Assembly and Governor O'Malley that signed off on this so the idea that the Maryland Department of Environment comes in after all the deals are made to say these things are wrong is ridiculous.  Hilgo is the Chicago-based firm connected to Obama's campaign.

Sparrows Point owners warned on environmental allegationsAsbestos, sludge issues cited by state

March 13, 2014|By Alison Knezevich,

The Baltimore SunState environmental officials and the owners of the Sparrows Point peninsula are moving toward a settlement to correct alleged regulatory violations at the former steelmaking site.

Regulators say an array of problems have occurred over the past year on the 2,300-acre peninsula, including illegal open dumping of industrial sludge, improper handling of hazardous materials and the running of an unlicensed scrap tire operation.


"We are drafting a settlement in the form of a consent order which will provide terms and a schedule for corrective actions — and which will include a financial penalty," Maryland Department of the Environment spokesman Jay Apperson said in a statement. Apperson said the penalty amount has not been determined.

The steel mill at Sparrows Point, which employed tens of thousands in its heyday, closed in 2012. Officials are now eyeing the property, which has a decades-old history of environmental problems, for future economic development.

Baltimore County formed a partnership to explore ways to bring jobs to the peninsula. Last year, County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said county officials want to capitalize on the expansion of the port of Baltimore, with hopes of bringing a new marine terminal to the peninsula's Coke Point area. County leaders have said environmental contamination should not deter redevelopment of the land, contending much of the peninsula can be cleaned up in the near future.

In a December letter to owners Sparrows Point LLC and Hilco Industrial and to site contractor MCM Industrial Services LLC, Maryland Secretary of the Environment Robert Summers wrote that over the past year, inspections had revealed "a pattern of significant and ongoing violations of Maryland environmental laws" by the companies.

"Most troubling, however, is that many of these violations have been brought repeatedly to your attention and have been largely unaddressed," he wrote.

Since the letter was sent, representatives of the companies have met with state officials, Apperson said.

Randall Jostes, CEO of ELT, of which Sparrows Point LLC is an affiliate, said the company is working closely with the state agency to address the allegations.

The peninsula is a huge site "that has 100 years of history of steelmaking activity," he said.

"We're in the process of bringing down the legacy to reach the vibrant, redevelopment future," he said. "The process itself uncovers a lot of historical site issues and we are working with MDE on each and every issue discovered."

A spokesman for Hilco declined to comment. A spokeswoman for MCM said officials familiar with the matter were traveling and not available to comment.

Russell Donnelly, an Edgemere resident and environmental activist, said the community has dealt for years with polluted water in the area but has seen improvements in recent years. He said he doesn't want to see that progress reversed.

"I applaud MDE for at least keeping an eye out," Donnelly said. "I'm glad to see they're on the job."

The letter from Summers says the firms could have to pay substantial penalties.

Asbestos violations — which dealt with alleged failure to comply with regulations on packaging and processing asbestos-containing waste material — were initially corrected within 10 days, but then officials found other alleged violations, Apperson said.

The site has sparked environmental concerns for decades. In 1997, a consent decree was issued as part of a settlement between then-owner Bethlehem Steel and state and federal environmental regulators. The decree ordered Bethlehem Steel and any subsequent owner to investigate the existence of contamination and determine how best to remediate it.

Thus far, the current owners have not fully investigated the extent of contamination, said Jon Mueller, vice president for litigation at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

Mueller contends the new owners have tried to buy time and spread blame around about environmental problems on the peninsula.

"I think the government agencies are rightly concerned that the new owners are kind of playing the shell game," Mueller said, adding he was pleased that the state appears to be taking action.

The foundation, as well as Blue Water Baltimore and local citizens, sued the then-owner RG Steel in 2010, seeking an investigation and complete cleanup of the site. The lawsuit was dismissed in February through an agreement by all parties after they reached a plan to investigate off-site contamination, Mueller said.


The quick succession of owners has made it difficult to hold someone accountable and has "allowed this contamination to continue for years," Mueller said.

"There've been multiple owners since then, and the full investigation of the property hasn't even occurred, let alone full corrective measures," he said. "With all these different owners, it's made it really hard to pin somebody down to get this work done so these problems have lingered for a decade."

John Long, of the Dundalk-based environmental group, Clean Bread and Cheese Creek, said it's hard for residents to know what's happening on the peninsula.

"Nobody's communicated any type of oversight that's taken place on the dismantling process,"
Long said. "I think everyone would like to see the site become something that's useful and beneficial to the community, that's healthy."

___________________________________________

Below you see what was the biggest Baltimore City racketeering deal done completely out in the open.  If you look at the photos of development plans you see this massive complex built right on the water's edge-----PURE VANITY DEVELOPMENT.....and besides all of the corporate tax breaks they are going to get LEED certification for this building......more tax breaks from a LEED program rife with fraud and corruption.  LEED is about green construction given to this environmental boondoggle.

The racketeering charges come from the fact that Exelon----just handed BGE----was required by this merger to keep its headquarters in Baltimore so, there was no need to give Exelon $100 million tax break to 'keep this business in the city'----IT WAS ALREADY IN THE CITY.  So, this deal involves fraud and public malfeasance galore.  What is worse is the building on a toxic waste dump and the need to build sea walls all distorting all environmental issues in the area. 


THIS WAS OBSCENE DEVELOPMENT AND IT IS DRIVEN BY BALTIMORE DEVELOPMENT AND JOHNS HOPKINS------NEO-CONS WHO COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT ENVIRONMENT AND NEO-LIBERAL POLS.


Yet, when election time comes------labor unions and city justice organizations-----church leaders all tell there members to vote for the same neo-liberal pols doing all this damage. 

AS WE CLEAN UP THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY BY GETTING RID OF NEO-LIBERALS DO THE SAME WITH YOUR LABOR AND JUSTICE LEADERS.  None of this development means good jobs or help for the underserved communities and citizens.
  It is pure profiteering.

How do you mitigate these injustices?  You take away all the tax breaks as illegal and public malfeasance and you slap this corporation with the costs of the environmental damage and cleanup.


Why Exelon chose Harbor Point over downtown – more like suburbia

Baltimore Brew Stirring up News and Views in Baltimore Maryland

Thursday, May, 29th, 2014 29
Fern Shen


Reporters were given a bundle of new details yesterday about the planned $120 million Exelon Corp. building – including the developer’s hope it will be 22 stories high and get a crunchy-green “platinum” LEED certification – but something subtler was being delivered as well.

It was a tutorial on the development realpolitik of Baltimore from the chief emissary of the man who’s mastered the process, bakery magnate John S. Paterakis Sr.

“We are all connected. This project is downtown,” said Michael S. Beatty, president of Paterakis’ Harbor East Development Group.

As he spoke, Beatty gestured to the place where he was standing: the 24th floor of Legg Mason’s headquarters in Harbor East, adjacent to Paterakis’ Harbor Point, the site of the proposed Exelon tower that is about a mile – a very long mile – from the city’s “central business district.”

“Where’s My Office Park?”


In light of the civic fuss that arose because Exelon passed over four sites in the traditional – and ailing – downtown core, Beatty was offering a mollifying message, that Harbor Point is “growing the downtown of Baltimore” and “will help all of Baltimore.”

Calvin Butler, of Exelon, and Michael Beatty, of Harbor East Development Group, speak to reporters about Exelon’s new building. (Photo by Fern Shen).

But his presentation was also a treatise on why Beatty and Paterakis think downtown has been foundering over the last decade, while Harbor East has been booming.

“We’re going to go after those tenants that are leaving downtown Baltimore because they’re looking for this suburban dream of ‘Where’s my office park? Where’s my big floor-plated office building?’” Beatty said, as the panorama of Baltimore’s waterfront sparkled on the other side of floor-to-ceiling windows.

“The reality was, downtown Baltimore didn’t have the large floor-plated building,” he declared. No one piped up to note that there are three or four vacant sites in the “old” downtown where such a building could be constructed.

Branding Safety in the City

A feeling of safety, Beatty said, was another suburban feature they have marketed as part of their “brand.”

“Tenants were looking out to the suburbs and saying it was safer out in the suburbs, and the reality was there was an impression downtown Baltimore wasn’t a safe environment,” Beatty said, as a representative for their latest trophy, the energy giant Exelon, stood by smiling.

Nodding in agreement, Calvin G. Butler Jr., senior vice president for corporate affairs for Exelon, nevertheless insisted that the company’s site selection did represent its commitment to downtown Baltimore.

Artist’s rendering of how the Exelon building at Harbor Point might look. (Credit: Harbor East Development)

But the two downtown finalists – the Baltimore City Community College site on Lombard St. and the former McCormick spice plant site on Light St. – didn’t cut it with the company.

“We wanted to create a presence and make a statement,” Butler said of the Harbor Point site. Exelon is committed to paying $125 million for a 15- to 20-year lease on the building, he said.

Moving to the new building will be the 2,000 employees from Constellation’s current buildings on Pratt Street and Market Place (on the eastern edge of downtown), as well as employees from Exelon’s energy marketing operation in Kennett Square, Pa., and its corporate headquarters in Chicago, Butler said.

Cubicle Workers and a Lacrosse Field

An artist’s rendering of the Exelon building released yesterday shows a glassy tower very similar to the Legg Mason building. Construction is planned to commence upon completion of Exelon’s $7.9 billion acquisition of Constellation, likely to take place at the end of March.

“We are looking at occupancy by the end of 2014,” Butler said.

Also on display behind Beatty and Butler were sketches of the 70,000 square-foot trading floor and schematics of the entire $250-million Harbor Point development.

Harbor Point layout with new streets and waterfront park. (Harbor East Development Group)

The mixed-use project (which already includes Thames Street Wharf and the Morgan Stanley building) is rising from a 27-acre brownfield site where the former Allied Chemical chromium plant once stood.

When fully built out, the developers said, Harbor Point will include a million square feet of office space, 150,000 square feet of retail, 600 residential units, 250 hotel rooms and 3,000 parking spaces.

Double Tax Breaks

The Exelon relocation stirred up another hot-button issue in town along with the fate of the central business district – tax breaks.


A key factor in developing Harbor Point will be the $155-million tax increment financing (TIF) subsidy approved by the City Council in December 2010. Moreover, the site is located in a state enterprise zone, entitling the developer to an 80% cut in property taxes for five years.

Beatty answered some of the criticism by suggesting the subsidy was a good use of public funds in part because some of it was going to be used for open public spaces.

What’s that back behind the Marriott? Oh yes, the Inner Harbor and central business district. (Photo by Fern Shen)

The TIF financing, according to material the company released yesterday, would cover 2/3 of a mile of new roads and one mile of new sidewalks. The TIF also would also help finance 11 acres of open space, including a park and half-mile waterfront promenade, a central plaza, and a lacrosse field associated with a new U.S. Lacrosse complex on the site.

Finally, the TIF would help pay for a new bridge that would connect Central Avenue to Harbor Point. The bridge would run past the west side of a current Living Classrooms building, said Marco E. Greenberg, Harbor East’s vice president for development, standing on an open terrace and pointing the spot out to reporters.

Embry and Others Question Tax Breaks


Harbor Point’s designation as a state enterprise zone would reduce the amount of property taxes going to the city of Baltimore to virtually nothing.

That’s because the state’s partial reimbursement to the city for the enterprise zone break would go to pay off interest on the TIF bonds, not to the city’s coffers.

The prospect of this double tax break at Harbor Point was the subject of some pointed words today at a meeting by a task force on tax breaks appointed by City Councilman Carl Stokes.

Detailed layout of the former site of an Allied chemical plant. (Developer drawing)


Robert C. Embry, a former city housing commissioner and president of the Abell Foundation, expressed surprise that Harbor Point was part of a state enterprise zone.


Wondering how “one of the most affluent areas of the city” got this designation, he speculated that it qualified as a disadvantaged area because it is located near one-time public-housing projects, long since razed, along Lombard Street.

Embry asked “whether the city can get out of the enterprise zone” or when the designation expires. (The zones are enacted for a ten-year period.) Whenever that happens, Embry recommended that the city review the zone’s boundaries and economic justification.

How the Harbor Point site looks now, from Legg Mason’s 24th-floor terrace.
The site is capped over to contain hazardous wastes from the old chemical plant. (Photo by Fern Shen)

City Councilman James B. Kraft, whose 1st District encompasses Harbor Point, also expressed dismay about the tax breaks. He complained that Exelon “does not need to be subsidized by the city of Baltimore.”

Noting that the energy giant reported profits of $600 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, Kraft said the company “ought to be saying, ‘We don’t need it,’” and should voluntarily agree not to apply for the enterprise tax incentives.

Transit-Friendly or Car-Oriented?

Another question raised about the Harbor Point project is whether it will essentially be a car-oriented development, much like Harbor East.

“Definitely not,” Beatty told reporters yesterday.

He noted that many of the occupants of Harbor East’s residential units don’t commute. He cited city bus service and the Charm City Circulator, and pointed to a stop on the proposed $2.2 billion East-West Red Line light rail as possible mass transit options.

“Here’s the Red Line,” he said, “that’s probably seven years away.” (That’s a prediction that even state transportation officials aren’t comfortable making.)

As for cars, he noted that Central Ave. is due for a $24-million makeover designed to relieve congestion that already plagues the area.

Asked how many parking spaces the two developments will have, Beatty added up Harbor East’s current 4,000 spaces to Harbor Point’s proposed 3,000 and agreed that the development will feature 7,000 spaces.

That makes for a very big office park.


____________________________________________
Keep in mind that it is the same investment firm------HighStar that has been handed the private contract for most of these East Coast ports and is behind all of the global corporate cargo ships killing the environment.  In our case this is Johns Hopkins.  Everyone knew these invasive species would follow this port expansion and everyone knew it would cost the public taxpayers billions of dollars fighting to eradicate these species.  Note, HighStar does not pay to eradicate these invasive species-----the taxpayers do.  So, first you end these public private partnerships and you tax these corporations to pay for the cleanup.  Neo-liberals instead have eliminated all taxes paid by these investment firms and actually give copious amounts of corporate subsidy making profits soar.

NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS KNOW THESE DECISIONS WILL COST TAXPAYERS BILLIONS AND KNOW THE PUBLIC WILL LOSE CONTROL OF ALL PUBLIC POLICY AT THE PORTS.





Friday, May 17, 2013

More invasive species detected at US ports in the Mid Atlantic

               Insect as well as plant and animal species from around the world can hitch a ride in a manner of speaking, on cargo shipments, moving from their native lands to exotic foreign destinations, and sometimes stay and establish a new home. Ports of entry like Baltimore and Norfolk are doorways to establishment of species that may impact livelihoods by altering the characteristic services of ecological systems.
               The front-line of defense is the U. S. CBP, "one of the Department of Homeland Security’s largest and most complex components, with a priority mission of keeping terrorists and their weapons out of the U.S. It also has a responsibility for securing the border and facilitating lawful international trade and travel while enforcing hundreds of U.S. laws and regulations, including immigration and drug laws. Amopng other tasks," CBP performs two crucial roles in facilitating trade to and from the U.S. and around the globe: securing it from acts of terrorism and assuring that goods arriving in the U.S. are legitimate and that appropriate duties and fees are paid."[1]
Working with USDA ARS Systematic Entomology Laboratory and USDA APHIS Plant Inspection Stations, and APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ). the organizations work to protect American jobs, businesses and the ecosystems that support them. Recent interceptions of non-native and potentially harmful insect species provide  highlights of the impossible nature of their underfunded mission. USDA APHIS PPQ reported at the Maryland Invasive Species Council's May 2013 meeting the following interceptions.
Macroglossum stellatarum
tpittaway.tripod.com
               At the port in Norfolk, Virginia CBP intercepted for the first time, Macroglossum stellatarum  Linnaeus (1758), the hummingbird hawk-moth. The moth is found though out most of Europe, Asia and Northern Africa. While the species is unable to survive cold winters, the adults are strong enough fliers that they seasonally migrate from the Mediterranean region North to Sweden & Iceland. The Encyclopedia of Life notes that "The hummingbird hawk-moth is named for its long proboscis (straw like mouth) and its hovering behavior, which, accompanied by an audible humming noise, give it remarkable resemblance to a hummingbird as it visits flowers to feed on nectar."[2] Humans see various shades of dull brown or grey in the forewings of the moth. On the other hand, they reveal characteristic fluorescent yellow, violet, purple and green patterns under ultraviolet light . Thus to birds and other insects the moth is most likely brightly patterned.[3]
Coreus marginatus
www.britishbugs.org.uk                The Port of Norfolk also saw for the first time the arrival and discovery of Coreus marginatus Linnaeus (1758). The uninvited accidental visitor was found in a shipment of tile from Italy. This species if found throughout most of Europe where it feeds on plants in the genus Rumex. In addition inspectors also discovered at the Norfolk facility an adult moth hiding out amongst military cargo. The moth was identified as Autophila ligaminosa Eversmann (1851). This is the first time this species found in the sub-alpine region from the Balkans west to Afghanistan has been identified entering the US.   Autophila ligaminosa 
www.ppis.moag.gov.il -

               In the historic rivalry between Virginia and Maryland, the Port of Baltimore was not without its own early detection of non native visitors taking advantage of the enormous flow of global trade. And to make matters even worse one of the interception was yet another stink bug. Baltimore CBP found a moderate sized stinkbug in a shipment of tile that was later identified to be Sciocoris sideritidis Wollaston (1858). This is the first time this species has been identified entering the US. Just wait until an undetected mating pair of this new species to the shores of the United States sets up shop and works with the two existing invasive stink bugs already sucking their way through vegetables, fruits, and soya beans. Reducing USDA funding through political mismanagement and grand standing in Congress is a sure way to encourage this opportunity. 
Sciocoris sideritidis
www.naturedugard.org 

             And last but not least, remembering that airports are ports too, a baggage interception in Baltimore was confirmed to be Tetraleurodes andropogoni Dozier (1934), a type of white fly. This is the first time this species have been intercepted entering the US.  According to CPB "the insects were discovered on fresh leaves being carried by a passenger originating from Nigeria and arriving from the United Kingdom."[4]  


___________________________________________

Below you see an article that has the State of Maryland and O'Malley selling this idea of privatization as a boon for the citizens of Maryland.  More jobs, more businesses connected to the port.  In Red you see what actually happens.  Just as our BWI airport was privatized to great loss -----now the Port of Baltimore is seeing ever greater losses to the citizens of Maryland.  Lease revenue of a few hundred million replaces the few billion the state and local government collected in revenue from the port businesses.  Labor is immediately under attack for wage concessions to maximize profits.....as always.  Federal and state money is dredging in soil known to be filled with toxic waste from chemical plants.  Don't worry they say.  The costs of Homeland Security now worried about dirty bombs coming from world ports-----the costs of invasive species eradication-----

ALL COSTS BORN BY THE TAXPAYERS.  THE NET LOSSES TO MARYLAND AND FEDERAL TAXPAYERS WILL BE BILLIONS AS THE INVESTMENT FIRM HIGHSTAR POCKETS BILLIONS IN PROFIT.


THIS IS PUBLIC MALFEASANCE AND EVERYONE INVOLVES KNOWS IT!


As we see in red......the first thing that happened was a request to lower public lease amounts 'to make the port more competitive'.  So starts the chipping away of the little the state makes in leasing.


'An item before the Oct. 31 state Board of Public Works would give the Port permission to lower rates for “the lease and use of marine terminals or facilities owned by the MPA.”  '
*********************************************************

As we see in red------more and more Federal money coming to open this global port.....remember, the port was earning the state and local economy billions before this all started.  Look below and see rather than create jobs the investment firm is outsourcing jobs, automating much work and as expected----jobs are not created but destroyed.

'Last week, Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski announced $21 million in federal Department of Homeland Security funds to support shipbuilding and repair jobs at the U.S. Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay'.

116 Port of Baltimore workers to lose jobs

Wed, 05/12/2010 - 6:16am The Associated Press

Amports Inc. will lay off 116 workers at two auto terminals at the Port of Baltimore this summer.




Longshoreman Strike Shuts Down Port of Baltimore
Port of Baltimore Shutdown: Longshoremen in solidarity with nationwide labor struggle -   October 17, 2013

*****************************************************
Here is an assessment of the Port of Baltimore before all these privatization deals took hold.  The port was healthy-----workers earning good wages, lots of smaller and regional businesses creating a broad economic base.....and now----one great big global corporation starting to strangle-hold the port economy.

NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS----WORKING TO STRANGLE THE LIFE OUT OF THE US ECONOMY!

Because of all this, the Maryland Port Administration says that the Port is a major source of personal and business revenue in the state, shown by these statistics:

  • The Port was responsible for $3.6 billion in personal wage and salary income in 2006.
  • The Port generated $1.9 billion in business revenues in 2006.
  • Local purchases by businesses directly dependent on port activity amounted to $1.3 billion.
  • Activities of the Port generated state, county and municipal taxes of $388 million.
  • The U.S. Customs Service collected $507 million in duties in 2005.

Published: June 2007      
Baltimore switch Ports America Inc, the port operating arm of AIG Global Investment Group, has entered into an agreement with Universal Maritime Services Corporation (UMS) to take over operations at the Dundalk Marine Terminal at the Port of Baltimore.



This is the standard hype given by neo-liberals as they know they are selling the citizens of Maryland to global corporations and profits.


STOP ALLOWING NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS TO PRIVATIZE ALL THAT IS PUBLIC!!

Ports America Chesapeake Successfully Closes 50-Year Lease and Concession Agreement To Operate and Upgrade The Seagirt Marine Terminal In The Port of Baltimore
BALTIMORE, Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ --

Ports America Group ("Ports America") today announced that its subsidiary Ports America Chesapeake ("PAC") has successfully closed on a 50-year lease and concession agreement to operate the Seagirt Marine Terminal ("Seagirt") in the Port of Baltimore.  The concession was approved by the Maryland Board of Public Works on December 16, 2009.

The agreement provides more than $1.3 billion in value to the State of Maryland, creates 5,700 jobs, and delivers more than $15 million annually in new tax revenues.  Importantly, PAC will provide 100% of the funding to implement the Maryland Port Administration's ("MPA") long-standing vision and commitment to make Baltimore one of only two eastern ports capable of handling the large "Super Post Panamax" container ships that will begin calling the East Coast upon the completion of the Panama Canal widening project in 2014.  

"I share Governor Martin O'Malley's passion for the Port of Baltimore, and creating high quality jobs so critical to the Port's future and Maryland's competitiveness on the Atlantic seaboard," said Christopher Lee, Founder and Managing Partner of Highstar Capital.

"Baltimore is one of the best, most efficient ports in the country" Lee said. "I'm very proud to be a partner with the State of Maryland and look forward to our long association in making sure Baltimore maintains its great maritime heritage."

Commenting on the Baltimore Concession, Ports America Chesapeake CEO Mark Montgomery said: "We're proud and excited to work with the Maryland Port Administration, the International Longshoremen's Association, and all our ocean carrier customers, including Mediterranean Shipping Company and Evergreen, to help make this historic American port the most competitive facility on the East Coast."

Ports America is the largest independent American terminal operator and stevedore, with operations in 44 ports and 84 terminals. Ports America and its predecessor companies have served in the Port of Baltimore for over 88 years and have operated Seagirt since it was opened in 1990.

Ports America is owned by Highstar Capital, a leading independent operationally focused and value-added infrastructure investor that has directly invested over $5.2 billion of capital in infrastructure investments to date, primarily in the United States.  Ports America Chesapeake is the newly formed affiliate of Ports America that will be the day-to-day operator of Seagirt.

Goldman Sachs and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP served as financial advisor and legal advisor, respectively, to Ports America Chesapeake.  

About Ports America

Ports America, headquartered in Iselin, N.J., is the largest independent port terminal operator in North America, providing terminal management and a full suite of stevedoring and related services.  Ports America, including its predecessor companies, has almost 90 years experience operating American seaports. Its current business includes 44 ports and 84 terminals in North America, handling containers, roll on/roll off cargo, general cargo and cruise ship passengers and luggage.

For more information please visit Ports America's website at www.portsamerica.com

About Highstar Capital

Highstar Capital is an independent, owner-operated infrastructure investment fund manager with an operationally focused, value-added investment strategy.  Since it closed its first fund in 2000, Highstar has directly invested $5.2 billion for its limited partners and co-investors across its core infrastructure sectors of energy, environmental services and transportation.

For more information please visit Highstar Capital's website at www.highstarcapital.com

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May 28th, 2014

5/28/2014

0 Comments

 
THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES HAVE US NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS COME IN TO ACT AS A GOVERNING STRUCTURE BECAUSE NO WESTERN-STYLE GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE IS THERE.  IN THE US------A FIRST WORLD COUNTRY BEING TAKEN THIRD WORLD, ALL OF OUR EXISTING GOVERNMENT STRUCTURE THAT MAKES THE PUBLIC KING IS BEING REPLACED BY THE SAME NON-GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURES FOUND IN THE THIRD WORLD.  THIS IS HOW YOU BRING A FIRST WORLD TO THIRD WORLD.....ELIMINATE THE PUBLIC IN ALL AVENUES OF GOVERNMENT.

In Baltimore, this was preceded by a complete dismantlement of all public agencies of oversight and accountability back in the 1980s.  Right now, we have Baltimore Development Corporation and Johns Hopkins with their private non-profits running all public sector activities with absolutely no public oversight or accountability----JUST AS IS DONE IN A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.  Just as in a third world country-----the entire system if rife with fraud and corruption.

SEE WHY CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND MUST NOT BE MENTIONED IN A GOVERNOR'S RACE -----ESPECIALLY IN BALTIMORE????

Continuing on the second phase of social reconstruction now that the few have all the money -----THE NEW ECONOMY OR 21ST CENTURY ECONOMY------means they are coming back for the rest of public property and assets.  I want to continue with the taking of public property to benefit the same corporations that owe trillions of dollars in corporate fraud.

You don't have to be living in a city to experience this----rural areas are seeing the same thing happen and it spurs from the State of Maryland allowing these billions stolen in fraud and billions in corporate subsidy to empty government coffers and force privatization of all that is public.

Across the state O'Malley and the Maryland Assembly are working to make government offices and taxpayers 'renters' because we wouldn't want the public actually owning government office buildings----not when we have a corporate government!!!!!  The ridiculous policy of having the Federal, state, and local government pay rent to private building developers further deteriorates any ability of the people to have revenue OR public assets and services.  With so many vacant buildings downtown Baltimore and across Maryland corporate pols----whether Erhlich as a republican or O'Malley as democrat and this ultra-corporate Maryland Assembly instead make renters of the citizens of Maryland.

That's not all folks.  All of that prime real estate attached to public housing that is no longer public housing------plant a affluent residential highrise on public land and VOILA----that developer is not paying any property taxes and gets all kinds of tax subsidy for decades just for making millions in profit.  So, we have M and T Stadium, Hyatt, and Hilton all with these public land with billion dollar corporations keeping any tax base from entering Baltimore City coffers.  tHE CITY RIGHT NOW IS STARVED FOR DECADES BECAUSE OF BAD DEALS THAT ARE SIMPLY PUBLIC MALFEASANCE AND HURTS THE ECONOMY OF THE CITY -----NOT HELP IT.


THE CITY IS GOING BANKRUPT SAYS MAYOR RAWLINGS-BLAKE----WE MUST SLASH PUBLIC SECTOR WAGES AND BENEFITS BECAUSE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PENSIONS LOST 1/2 THE VALUE FROM PENSION FRAUD THAT WE ARE NOT GOING TO SEEK JUSTICE TO RECOVER!!!!


Malfeasance in office
From Wikipedia
The court then went on to use yet another definition, "malfeasance is the doing of an act which an officer had no legal right to do at all and that when an officer, through ignorance, inattention, or malice, does that which they have no legal right to do at all, or acts without any authority whatsoever, or exceeds, ignores, or abuses their powers, they are guilty of malfeasance."

Nevertheless a few "elements" can be distilled from those cases. First, malfeasance in office requires an affirmative act or omission. Second, the act must have been done in an official capacity—under the color of office. Finally, that that act somehow interferes with the performance of official duties—though some debate remains about "whose official" duties.



People need to remember, the economy is being held hostage by global corporations and their pols who want the economy stagnant and unemployment high-----it makes them rich.  All we need is to rebuild a DOMESTIC ECONOMY with small and regional businesses where Maryland citizens own the businesses and Maryland citizens are employed by these businesses----gaining wealth and spending to drive the economy and -----VOILA-----A HEALTHY ECONOMY.  So, all of this poverty is created deliberately to create the conditions of moving all public wealth to the top.

THAT'S A NEO-LIBERAL AND NEO-CON FOR YOU-----WORKING FOR WEALTH AND PROFIT.  SEE WHY ONLY BROWN, GANSLER, AND MIZEUR ARE ALLOWED MEDIA AIR TIME IN MARYLAND----THEY ARE ALL AIDING AND ABETTING THESE POLICIES.  WHAT MASSIVE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION SAY BROWN, GANSLER, AND MIZEUR.


  It is especially important in Baltimore that my campaign is unknown because heaven forbid a candidate running on rebuilding oversight and accountability and public justice actually get elected!!!

Let's take a look at how they are fleecing our public coffers with fraud and corruption and outright bad public policy:



Baltimore has completely mortgaged its future with these corporate tax breaks that are proven to do nothing useful for the public good.  It is public malfeasance by politicians using policy that everyone knows harms the public-----and these corporate tax breaks do just that.
 

Rethinking Property Tax Incentives for Business
(Policy Focus Report) Author(s): Kenyon, Daphne A., Adam H. Langley, and Bethany P. Paquin
Publication Date: June 2012

$15.00; 76 pages; Inventory ID PF030; English; Paperback; ISBN 978-1-55844-233-7

FREE DOWNLOADS BELOW PURCHASE PRINT EDITION Rethinking Property Tax Incentives for Business PDF 3.66 MB
Abstract The use of property tax incentives for business by local governments throughout the United States has escalated over the last 50 years. While there is little evidence that these tax incentives are an effective instrument to promote economic development, they cost state and local governments $5 to $10 billion each year in forgone revenue.

Three major obstacles can impede the success of property tax incentives as an economic development tool. First, incentives are unlikely to have a significant impact on a firm’s profitability since property taxes are a small part of the total costs for most businesses—averaging much less than 1 percent of total costs for the U.S. manufacturing sector. Second, tax breaks are sometimes given to businesses that would have chosen the same location even without the incentives. When this happens, property tax incentives merely deplete the tax base without promoting economic development. Third, widespread use of incentives within a metropolitan area reduces their effectiveness, because when firms can obtain similar tax breaks in most jurisdictions, incentives are less likely to affect business location decisions.

This report reviews five types of property tax incentives and examines their characteristics, costs, and effectiveness: property tax abatement programs; tax increment finance; enterprise zones; firm-specific property tax incentives; and property tax exemptions in connection with issuance of industrial development bonds.


____________________________________________
If you haven't heard about the states who have been renting space for their Veterans Administration buildings now being told they will not receive some Federal funding because these agencies are no longer recognized after 50 years of renting space and outsourcing VA operations......AS IF THESE POLS ARE SURPRISED BY THIS ACTION......it is happening all across America.  The amount of taxpayer money lost to government renting private property is tremendous.  Maryland has placed this practice on steroids with Erhlich and O'Malley racing to hand all of government into corporate hands.

Do we really need a Baltimore City Hall if Baltimore Development Corporation and Johns Hopkins runs the city?  Why not have the City Council meet in an auditorium at the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health? 


    When this article says these behaviors are not illegal------we need to ask-----if we know these decisions are not in the public interest and a politician takes an oath to protect and work in the public interest-----it becomes public malfeasance.

Below you see Baltimore's State Center being handed to private developers who get the benefit of building on public land, tax breaks for being there, and have the citizens of Maryland paying leases for government space to this developer.  Remember, the State of Maryland has dismantled all oversight and accountability and this is why the State Center has been emptied of agencies and employees.  The Department of Labor and Licensing DLLR is a shell of itself in this State Center facility.

NEO-LIBERALISM MEANS NO GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY AND ALL PROFIT GOES TO CORPORATIONS WHICH IN TURN WRITE ALL PUBLIC POLICY.  CITIZENS ARE ONLY NEEDED TO PAY EVER HIGHER TAXES TO SUPPORT ALL THIS CORPORATE SUBSIDY!!!! 



GOV. O'MALLEY ANNOUNCES BOARD OF PUBLIC WORKS APPROVAL OF STATE CENTER LEASES

US Fed News Service, Including US State News July 29, 2010

ANNAPOLIS, Md., July 28 -- Gov. Martin O'Malley, D-Md., issued the following news release:

Governor Martin O'Malley announced today that by a unanimous, 3-0 vote the Board of Public Works approved long-term leases at two new office buildings to be built as part of the redevelopment of State Center in Baltimore City. The state commitment to lease office in the redevelopment provides the private sector development team with the ability to seek the private financing necessary to build the first phase of the project.

"The Board of Public works took a big step today in shaping Maryland's future and bringing thousands of jobs to the heart of Baltimore City," said Governor O'Malley. …



NOTHING BETTER THAN USING TAX PAYER MONEY TO FILL OFFICE SPACE FOR PRIVATE DEVELOPERS AND HAVE PUBLIC PROPERTY ASSURE NO TAXES, PHYSICAL UPGRADES TO LEASED PROPERTY, AND PUBLIC MAINTENANCE OF INFRASTRUCTURE!  AND AFTER 50 YEARS----THE PUBLIC IS HANDED A TEE SHIRT AND TOLD TO LEAVE.

End Of Lease Cleaning O'Malley 2606




“Why waste time and effort cleaning your rental property when End Of Lease Cleaning O'Malley can do it spotlessly and efficiently?  And, best of all affordably?”

The professionally trained and fully equipped cleaning team at End Of Lease Cleaning O'Malley will take your rental property from its current condition and return it to you spotlessly clean in no time.  You won’t need to worry about a thing. 

Landlords can be fussy when it comes to final inspections – after all they are only protected their asset.  But, with the expert cleaning services of End Of Lease Cleaning O'Malley, you will have the peace of mind knowing that professionals are taking care of returned your rental back to its cleanest condition.

End Of Lease Cleaning O'Malley Perform The Following End Of Lease Cleaning Jobs –

Vacuum Carpets, Vacuum & Mop Flooring, Dust & Wipe Ceiling Fans & Light Fittings

Remove Cobwebs, Dust & Wash Cupboards, Wardrobes, Drawers, Wipe Down Doors

Clean Skirting Boards, Spot Clean Walls, Clean Windows & Window Frames, Dust Blinds

Scrub Tiled Areas, Shower, Bath, Shower Screen, Bath, Remove Soap & Mould (Light) Residue

Clean Drawers, Vanity, Tapware, Sanitise Toilet, Degrease Exhaust Fans, Clean Sink

Clean Oven, Stove Top & Grill

End Of Lease Cleaning O'Malley Perform the Following Optional End Of Lease Cleans –

Clean Decking Areas, Driveways, Garage, Remove Cobwebs, Clean Windows, Carpet Steam Cleaning

Using the expert services of an end of lease cleaning service is a reliable way of ensuring your rental is returned to its owner in its cleanest possible condition.  Call End Of Lease Cleaning O'Malley when you’re looking for an end of lease cleaning service that ticks all the boxes when it comes to reliability, price and quality of cleaning services.




__________________________________________


Social Security office to move to downtown Towson next spring High-rise at 28 Allegheny Avenue will be new home



The Social Security Administration is moving its Towson office from the West Road Corporate Center at 110 West Road to the Penthouse Condominium high-rise at 28 Allegheny Avenue in downtown Towson next spring, and the move is being seen by some as a boon for the downtown area.

"All those people who work for or visit Social Security will be having breakfast or lunch or doing a little shopping," said Nancy Hafford, executive director of the Towson Chamber of Commerce.

Some residents of the 28-floor Penthouse, though, are concerned that the presence of SSA could be problematic — depending on how many people the office draws to the building.

"There has been some discussion about bringing strangers into the building and people tying up the elevators," said Julio Gonzales. "And parking might be a big problem."


SSA spokesman Aidan Diviny said the new location will offer "the same service" as what's offered on West Road, but could not provide information about how many employees would be making the move and how many visitors come to that site routinely.

Gina Blyther Gilliam, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration, said in an email that the Social Security Administration currently occupies 11,365 square feet of office space at West Road, and has been there since June 2003.


She said the GSA awarded a lease for 11,618 square feet of office space with 45 parking spaces in May 2010 to Ravens Penthouse. The annual rent will be about $322,400, she said.

Towson resident Joe Werner, who owns the 300-space mid-rise garage adjoining the Penthouse, said he believes parking won't be a problem. Ravens Penthouse is providing free parking for the SSA, thanks to fifth- and sixth-floor parking spaces they will lease from him.

The Social Security offices will be on the fourth floor of the Penthouse, which is at street level on Joppa Road. It will feature an entrance for employees and delivery people.

Since street level is different in the front of the building, SSA clients will use the main entrance on Allegheny and be directed to walk up one flight of stairs to SSA on the fourth floor, Werner said. Most won't be using the elevators.

Those who are driving to the SSA office will park on the designated levels of his garage and take an elevator to the entrance to the Penthouse's fourth floor.

County Council member David Marks, who represents the 5th District, which includes Towson, said he's anxious for the Social Security move as a means of adding people to downtown Towson.

"Every little project produces more foot traffic," he said.

"There's a tremendous amount of action going on in the core," Marks said. "Allegheny Avenue will just be hopping. I hope we can spread that down York Road."




_________________________________________
This list looks the same in Baltimore City.  Public schools are being closed and often leased to charter schools and/or a private non-profit.  Now, Montgomery County residents are shouting about a shortage of public schools just as Baltimore residents are, yet all these schools are closed and are now rental property.
Can we use these schools for government business if indeed there is no need for them in these districts?  Many of these private non-profits look as though they are replacing the public sector health and social services.  Why does that matter?  There is no public transparency or oversight to assure equal protection and efficacy of programs.  This is why Maryland is having a rise in reports from the low-income community that they are not able to access many services, or the services received were poor.




OF COURSE WE CAN....YET, WE LEASE GOVERNMENT OFFICE SPACE.


Saturday, November 27, 2010

Montgomery Co. Leases for Closed School Sites

For your information, here is the list of leases for public school sites in Montgomery County for properties that are held in the name of the County.  (This list does not include properties that are held in the name of MCPS.)


How many of these leases include an option to buy? 


How many of these leases are standard Montgomery County lease forms signed by Montgomery County staff and how many of these leases have a unique arrangement and are signed by the County Executive. 


Post your results. A quick review of these documents shows that one of these leases stands out from all the rest. 

Closed Schools




1.Peary High School 
13300 Arctic Avenue
Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy
Lease

2. Aspen Hill Elementary School
4915 Aspen Hill Road
Sheppard Pratt Health Systems, Inc.
Lease

3. Alta Vista Elementary School
5615 Beech Avenue
Beth Country Day School
Lease

4. English Manor Elementary School
4511 Bestor Avenue
The Children's Learning Center
Lease
1st Amendment

5. Lower Parkside Elementary School
9504 Burnett Avenue
Acorn Hill School, Inc.
Lease

6. Forest Grove Elementary School
9805 Dameron Drive
Holy Cross Hospital
Lease

7. Dennis Avenue Health Center
2000 Dennis Avenue
Spanish Catholic Center, Inc.
Lease

8. Holiday Park Senior Center
3950 Ferrara Drive
Mental Health Association
Lease
1st Amendment

Holiday Park Senior Center
3950 Ferrara Drive
Interages
Lease 
9. Lone Oak Center
1010 Grandin Avenue
Centers For The Handicapped Inc
Lease
1st Amendment

10. Fernwood Elementary School
6801 Greentree Road
The Woods Academy
Lease

11. Gude Drive Shelter
600 E Gude Drive
Mobile Medical Care, Inc.
Lease

12. Randolph Junior High School
11710 Hunters Lane
Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School
Lease

13. Hillandale Elementary School
10501 New Hampshire Avenue
Centers For The Handicapped Inc
Lease

14. Colesville Elementary School
14015 New Hampshire Avenue
Maryland Child Services
Lease
1st Amendment 
Colesville Elementary School
14015 New Hampshire Avenue
Casa de Montessori
Lease 
Colesville Elementary School
14015 New Hampshire Avenue
Kappa Alpha Psi
Lease 
Colesville Elementary School
14015 New Hampshire Avenue
Colesville Council of Community Congregations, Inc.
Lease
1st Amendment 
Colesville Elementary School
14015 New Hampshire Avenue
Montgomery Volunteer Dental Clinic, Inc.
Lease
1st Amendment

Colesville Elementary School
14015 New Hampshire Avenue
Raising Hispanic Academic Achievement, Inc.
Lease

Colesville Elementary School
14015 New Hampshire Avenue
Bethah Associates
Lease

15. Clara Barton Community Center
7425 MacArthur Boulevard
Clara Barton Day Care Inc.
License
1st Amendment
2nd Amendment

16. Arylawn Elementary School
5650 Oakmont Avenue
YMCA
Lease
1st Amendment
2nd Amendment

17. Georgetown Hills Elementary School
11614 Seven Locks Road
The Ivymount School
Lease
1st Amendment

18. MacDonald Knolls Elementary School
10611 Tenbrook Drive
Centers For The Handicapped Inc
Lease
1st Amendment 
19. Broome School
751 Twinbrook Parkway
Threshold Services, Inc.
Lease


The lease for the Montgomery Hills Junior High School Closed School site is missing from this list.

That Closed School site is leased to the Yeshiva High School.

______________________________________________





To Rent Or Buy? For The Federal Government, It's Complicated

  By Laura Sullivan
Originally published on Wed February 12, 2014 3:25 pm

  • Listen 4:41


STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The Bureau of Indian Affairs is supposed to manage federal relations with many Indian nations across the country. But the bureau is accused of doing a bad job managing its own affairs.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

It faces questions about leases it's signed for many of its offices. A recent government report found the agency violated multiple rules that will cost taxpayers millions.

INSKEEP: Experts say it's just the latest in a long list of problems when it comes to federal property management. They say the federal government has lost track of what it rents, what it uses and what it owns.

NPR's Laura Sullivan reports.

LAURA SULLIVAN, BYLINE: The interior department's inspector general's office took look at 14 of the BIA's leases and found problems with all of them. The agency was overpaying for space or renting too much of it. In some cases, the agency didn't have the authority to lease space at all, all of which cost taxpayers an extra $32 million last year.

Leslie Paige with Citizens Against Government Waste says when it comes to federal property, that sounds about right.

LESLIE PAIGE: This is not illegal. It's just simply bad management practices that there are no incentives to fix.

SULLIVAN: Every year the federal government spends $4.2 billion renting office space. Some agencies rent instead of own because they're in critical locations with specific security or workplace needs. But others are more curious. Take Health and Human Services in Rockville, Maryland. When its lease expires, it will have paid rent on a private building for 60 years. Leslie Paige says that's crazy.

PAIGE: The truth is, some of this stuff is the big-ticket items. These are very expensive boondoggles that are going on.

SULLIVAN: Recent government reports have found many others. The Environmental Protection Agency in Seattle is renewing a lease that will put it in its building for 50 years. And these rents aren't cheap. The Department of Commerce in Alexandria, Virginia pays $60 million year in rent. But Kurt Stout of Colliers International, who represents companies that lease to the government, says leasing gives agencies flexibility to grow, shrink, upgrade or move.

KURT STOUT: It's kind of like buying a car. Over time, the annual cost of repairs and maintenance and upgrades to your space, and even things like furniture and telecom, far outweigh the actual cost of the real estate itself.

SULLIVAN: But if you're going to own that car for 30, 40 or 60 years, at some point you're doing better when you just flat out own it.

STOUT: I would agree with that. The thing is, is that ultimately in the federal government, capital is scarce, so a dollar spent on real estate is a dollar not spent on something else that maybe is more fundamental to the federal government's mission. And with private capital so plentiful in the commercial real estate world, why not take advantage of it?


BUT WAIT----THAT PRIVATE CAPITAL IN THE REAL ESTATE WORLD IS THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S MONEY STOLEN IN MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD OF TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS....SO THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT DEPLETE OF CAPITAL.....IT IS DEPLETE OF JUSTICE.

SULLIVAN: Capital is a huge problem. The government's watchdog group, the General Accountability Office, found in its reports that the government rarely has the money to cover the upfront costs of buying land and building, even if that means agencies will end up paying 10 times more than that in rent.

And then the situation gets more complicated. Once vested in a place, agencies start renovating space they don't even own. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in D.C. recently told Congress it plans to spend $95 million to renovate a building it's renting. The State Department, it just spent $80 million renovating office space for a lease that's up in five years.

It has an option to buy, but if it can't come up with the money, chances are the landlord will think about that when it's time to renegotiate the rent.

REPRESENTATIVE JASON CHAFFETZ: That's just is counterintuitive.

SULLIVAN: Congressman Jason Chaffetz from Utah sits on the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform. He's introduced legislation to help get rid of thousands of empty government buildings.

CHAFFETZ: When you see these departments and agencies leasing a building and then investing millions and millions of dollars to retrofit them for their specific needs, it just sort of drives you nuts. At the same time that we've got 77,000-plus buildings that are under-utilized.

SULLIVAN: Chaffetz says federal agencies like the General Services Administration have been unable to account for all the buildings the government owns so it's hard to know if they can be of use. General Services told Congress they're working on it. Laura Sullivan, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


___________________________________________

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that what is happening below is happening in the US.  All of it involves fraud and malfeasance and can be reversed if we elect pols who want to do that.  This is why elections in the US are so controlled and orchestrated to make sure that the only people getting publicity are those that will keep the status quo.

WE NEED THE CITIZENS OF MARYLAND TO WAKE UP------


Wake-up Call Resist the Corporate State

World Bank and aid donors accused of enabling land grabs




by Ellie Violet Bramley    Guardian   May 21, 2014

Aid donors and international institutions including the World Bank and World Economic Forum (WEF) have been accused of promoting an environment that fuels land grabs through policies and initiatives that pave the way for large-scale private investment.

In a report published on Tuesday, the NGO ActionAid says public money and policy incentives such as tax breaks and cut-price loans are facilitating land deals that threaten the lives and livelihoods of small-scale farmers in poor countries.

ActionAid warns that the consequences of such deals, which are too often happening behind closed doors and with little or no consultation with local communities, include “forced evictions, human rights violations, lost livelihoods, divided communities … rising food insecurity and, ultimately, increased poverty”.


THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR!!!!!!

A spokesman for the World Bank said it was also concerned about the risks of large-scale land deals and stressed that it did not support investments that took advantage of weak institutions in developing countries.

ActionAid’s report says weak governance and regulation of land use and agricultural investments have left millions of smallholder farmers and indigenous people in vulnerable situations “lack[ing] recognition over their land rights, even if they have resided in or used the area for generations”.

ActionAid’s campaign manager, Antoine Bouhey, said a “nexus of different policies” at the global level, which encourage private investment as a route to development, were also to blame.

“Governments are turning to private capital to fill the massive shortfall in public spending but too often this blind rush for investment is leading to land grabs which are leaving communities landless, homeless and hungry. Growth cannot be achieved at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable,” he said.

The NGO’s report points to the G8′s New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition as one of the international initiatives “via which taxpayer money and public policies are fuelling land grabs” and failing to ensure strong safeguards to protect the poorest.

The New Alliance was condemned as a new form of colonialism this year, after African governments agreed to change seed, land and tax laws to encourage private investment.

Last month, World Development Movement, the anti-poverty group, said the New Alliance was in effect carving up Africa in the interests of big business.

ActionAid’s report also looks at how governments of developing countries are facilitating large-scale land deals through direct intervention in sales and lease agreements, and by introducing public policy incentives such as tax holidays for agribusiness investors.

It says such deals, often justified on the basis of attracting increased investment into food and farming, have come at great human cost.

Public and private investment should be redirected towards supporting sustainable agricultural practices suited to the needs of smallholder farmers, particularly women, says ActionAid. A “zero-tolerance approach” must be taken by governments over land grabs and the incentives that fuel them.

Most of the 1.4 billion people worldwide who live on less than $1.25 a day reside in rural areas and depend largely on agriculture for their livelihoods. Globally, an estimated 2.5 billion people are involved in small-scale agriculture.

A World Bank spokesman said the organisation provided roughly a third of all aid to support countries in improving governance of land tenure. “Securing access to land is critical for millions of poor people. Modern, efficient, and transparent policies on land rights are vital to reducing poverty and promoting growth, agriculture production, better nutrition, and sustainable development,” he said. “Our role is to be a leader in assisting countries to improve land governance and the behaviour of private investors.”

Lisa Dreier, a senior director working on food security and development at the WEF, said its New Vision for Agriculture helped found the Grow Africa initiative, which created 33,000 jobs and gave 2.6 million small farmers in Africa access to technology, financing and new markets.

“Smallholder farmers are key to the future success of Africa’s agriculture and governments can support them by implementing clear rules on land ownership that protect smallholder rights and encourage investment,” she added.
What is a land grab?

“Many land deals are, in fact, land grabs carried out without proper consultation, consent and compensation,” says ActionAid.

The NGO uses a definition of land grabs that draws on the Tirana declaration, agreed at a 2011 international conference. The declaration defines land grabs as deals that are “in violation of human rights, particularly the equal rights of women, not based on principles of free, prior and informed consent, or are in disregard or fail to thoroughly assess social, economic and environmental impacts, not based on transparent contracts … ” or are not based on “effective democratic planning, independent oversight and meaningful participation”.

Conclusive, independent data on the scale of land grabs worldwide is hard to come by. ActionAid’s report looks at data from the international Land Matrix project, which suggests that the vast majority of large-scale deals have been struck in sub-Saharan Africa (41%), south-east Asia (32%), and the Americas and Caribbean (19%).
- See more info at: http://farmlandgrab.org/


0 Comments

May 24th, 2014

5/24/2014

0 Comments

 

This is not a done deal-----we can reverse this but people must become engaged in politics and stop voting the same global corporate pols into office!!!


ANTHONY BROWN, DOUG GANSLER, AND HEATHER MIZEUR WILL ALL CONTINUE THIS PRIVATIZATION AS WILL THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES.


Folks, do not allow neo-liberals play on this----'we have to teach evolution in the classroom' as an excuse for standardization of all information. This is not about bringing education quality up----it is about controlling all information students receive. So, republican states will be the first to reject this-----but remember, Common Core was started in the Bush Administration and is a very neo-con policy.

Remember, in Maryland simply reinstating Rule of Law and oversight and accountability will have State Treasury flush with revenue to fully fund all public schools.


Published Online: May 23, 2014
Okla. House Votes to Repeal Common Core Standards

By The Associated Press

Oklahoma City The Oklahoma House has voted overwhelmingly to repeal standards for math and English instruction that more than 40 states have adopted and to replace them with standards developed by the state.

The House voted 71-18 Friday to reject the Common Core standards. The bill now goes to the Senate.

Supporters say it gives the state control over its education system and prohibits the federal government from having authority over state education standards. Rep. Jason Nelson of Oklahoma City says state educators want to control Oklahoma education standards regardless of whether it makes sense to the federal government.

But opponents say the standards were developed by a group of states, not the federal government. Rep. Ed Cannaday of Porum says the measure politicizes education.


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As citizens of Baltimore know, our schools are already eliminating these critical courses under the guise of integration into English Language.  We see time and again media questioning the average person on the street who doesn't know very basic history, geography, and civics. 

THIS IS HOW THIRD WORLD EDUCATION WORKS.  YOU DO NOT WANT 90% OF CITIZENS KNOWING HISTORY OR CIVICS......THAT IS FOR THE FEW SELECTED TO LEAD.

The Age of Enlightenment is a period in European history after the citizens of nations across Europe sent an aristocracy packing through revolution declaring that all people are citizens and would be educated in humanities and liberal arts so as to be well-rounded citizens.  YOU CANNOT LEAD IF YOU DO NOT HAVE PERSPECTIVE.  What neo-liberals and neo-cons are doing is trying to take the US back to the days that had 99% of people with access to only vocationally tracked education.

THIS HURTS ALL US  CITIZENS

BUT IT ESPECIALLY HURTS WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOR.  Do not think this will happen to someone else----it will take all public schools.

Remember, Boston is Harvard which is Wall Street.  Baltimore is Bloomberg which is Wall Street.  We are ground zero for this Wall Street capture and we must stop it NOW.


Network H-High-S

Boston Public Schools to Eliminate History & Social Science Departments

Joseph J Ferreira, Jr.Wednesday, May 21, 2014

It was announced today that the Boston Public School department is "reorganizing" by eliminating all Departments of History & Social Sciences in all schools and folding the departments into the Department of English Language Arts as a "Humanities Department" with the currciculum determined by the ELA Common Core Standards.  Certified history department heads/chairs are being laid off and, apaprently, no certified history specialist will be hired to replace any of these teachers. This essentially eliminates history and the social sciences as one of the core academic departments in the Boston Public Schools and subordinates HSS to ELA.  This appears to be the first major metropolitan school district to reduce history and the social sciences to merely a supporting role in the education of students.

As it might appear to be a political issue, I will leave it to H-High-S network members to research this issue and the various petitions, political issues, etc. that are circulating about this matter, but as this addresses a core element of our network's raison d'etre, history education, I hope this will generate both interest and discussion.



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Baltimore and across the nation are seeing Catholic churches taking the lead in charter schools and often in urban areas where they have historically played an expanded roll.  They are doing it so their religious schools can be funded with public money.  Now, I am not against private religious schools---they often provide strong education.  I want these Catholic leaders to know that Wall Street will not be allowing religious charters-----there will be no homeschooling----everyone will be forced into this autocratic school system being built by Wall Street and pushed upon us by neo-liberals. 

REMEMBER----NEO-LIBERALS ARE NOT DEMOCRATS---THEY HAVE SIMPLY TAKEN CONTROL OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.  GET RID OF THEM.


There is nothing wrong with parents of children having high learning skills wanting their children in classrooms that offer stronger learning environments.  We can have that in each school in all communities----that is how it worked for decades.  You do not have to send your child across town to find a good school because equal protection, opportunity, and access will have advanced placement classes right in your community.

So, why are these privatizers creating separate facilities?  Because they say education is wasted on 90% of students and those will only have access to vocational K-community college tracking.  You know what?  I may have fallen into this category growing up as my family was working class.  Instead, I had access to as much education I needed everywhere I moved in the country.  When the rich and corporations are not paying taxes then education must be cheapened.



THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRATIC AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EDUCATION LOOKS LIKE.


Catholic Churches need to stop supporting this charter movement you know will end badly for all.

Cash-Strapped Catholic Schools Resurrect as Charters To combat declines in enrollment and tuition revenue, they close and rent properties to charters. Many Catholic schools are transforming into charters during times of financial distress.


By Allie Bidwell May 1, 2014


Niya White began her teaching career as a member of AmeriCorps – a national community service organization that in 2003 brought her to what used to be known as Assumption Catholic School in Washington, D.C. 

After serving as a fourth-grade teacher, a fifth-grade teacher and a middle school English teacher for several years, she says the school's staff – along with those from six other inner-city Catholic schools – were told a hard story about the dire financial situation of the schools. 

"We were losing families because of the economy," White says. 

[READ: Common Core: A Divisive Issue for Catholic School Parents, Too]

At that time, the executive director of what was known as the Center City Consortium suggested that rather than closing their doors for good, the schools would submit an application to transform into charter schools as a way to remain as a school choice for the same families and communities they had begun to lose. 

Now known as the Congress Heights campus of the Center City Public Charter Schools, the school is just one example of a growing trend: Catholic schools are dropping their religious affiliations and becoming charters to have a chance of survival.

Private school enrollment has been on the decline for years, and is projected to continue to do so, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In the last 10 years alone, there have been almost 600,000 fewer students in Catholic schools, according to Christian Dallavis, senior director of leadership programs at the University of Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education. 

In the same time, more than 1,800 Catholic schools have closed their doors, he says. 

"Most of those are in urban areas and serving low-income communities," Dallavis says. "It's a real challenge our schools are facing, as the cost to educate rises and our ability to collect tuition, especially in communities that serve low-income families, doesn't rise with the cost."



"We really struggle to find ways to sustain our schools," he adds. 

In a report released Monday, Andrew Kelly and Michael McShane of the American Enterprise Institute found the schools that do choose to make the switch generally see increases in enrollment and growth in the percentage of minority students served. 

While it's good for the communities, it can be a blow for the Catholic schools. Charter schools offer for no cost some of the same benefits – uniforms, discipline and a strong focus on character development – for which parents once turned to Catholic schools. 

White says she chose to stay in the same school – regardless of its secular affiliation – because she didn't want to lose the community she had built over several years. 

"No one ever wants to lose the students and parents and families they fall in love with," White says. "You don't want to look at a building that has helped you grow developmentally [as an educator] and watch the doors get closed."

White says that since she took over as principal in 2012, the students have thrived. Student test scores have risen by double-digit percentages in one year, she says. 

[ALSO: AFT, Advocacy Group Want More Accountability for Charter Schools]

"It's the best offer in education I've ever been given, as the Congress Heights campus has been able to rock and roll," White says. 

Although more schools are making the switch (there are just 18 noted in Kelly and McShane's report) the decision is often met with strong opposition among Catholic leaders, Dallavis says. 

"There's a sense in some ways that closing your school to make it a charter is … sacrificing your core identity for money," Dallavis says. "That's something that really challenges a lot of Catholic school leaders who find themselves in a difficult financial situation."


But it's not all bad news for the Catholic schools. They may lose students to the charters that take their place, but the schools that do not make the switch in dioceses where others do change over have seen a large revenue stream, Kelly and McShane write. The properties for Catholic schools are typically owned by parishes or dioceses. When Catholic schools close and charters open in their places, they rent the property to the charter operators. In the 2011 fiscal year, the Center City Public Charter Schools paid more than $3.2 million in rent, according to the AEI report. And a large portion of that money goes to fund scholarships and tuition assistance for low-income students at the remaining Catholic schools.

And in Indianapolis, where two Catholic schools closed and reopened in 2010 as Andrew Academy and Padua Academy, $1 million of annual funding from the archdiocese is split between four schools rather than six, Kelly and McShane write. 

Catholic schools are also attempting to combat declines in enrollment and revenue by supporting policies that provide incentives for families to be able to choose the schools their children attend. That can come in the form of tax credits or voucher systems, which are championed by Republicans but criticized by Democrats and teachers' unions who say they siphon money from traditional public schools.



Dallavis says his organization works with three Catholic schools on the south side of Tucson, Arizona, that were on the verge of closing a few years ago. During the last four years, he says, the schools have seen enrollment growth of more than 25 percent, largely by mobilizing the resources the tax credits make available but also focusing on the academic quality of the schools.

He says policies that allow parents, especially those below certain income thresholds, to receive funding to send their children to the school of their choice, is a continuation of the Catholic schools' legacy to serve the poor. 

"We see those policies as essential to our families' ability to choose the best school for their children," Dallavis says. "There's clearly a lot of demand among parents for their kids to be in Catholic schools. It's just a matter of whether they can afford it and whether there are policies that make it possible for them."


Charter Schools' Expulsion Rate Vastly Higher Than... As it continues to modify strict disciplinary policies in an effort to keep students in the classroom, Chicago Public Schools released data on Tuesday showing privately-run charter schools expel students at a vastly higher rate...


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All unbiased education research shows that Race to the Top is lowering achievement in great bounds.  It is not only the implementation----it is the model.  No academic in education would support this as all of the learning research over decades has been tossed out to simply push a policy with a goal of privatization and not achievement.  Foundations pushing Race to the Top will fund research to 'prove' success but parents, teachers, and communities know they are seeing achievement decline and the broad and detailed subject matter and disappearing.  AS ONE PARENT IN MARYLAND'S HOWARD COUNTY SHOUTED -----YOU ARE DUMBING DOWN OUR SCHOOLS.  Indeed, they are.

This is not a democratic or republican issue-----everyone hates this.  It is being pushed by global corporate pols working to create Wall Street businesses out of our public school system.  In Baltimore Johns Hopkins Education is pushing this and O'Malley and Rawlings-Blake are allowing our education schools in the area be taken with teaching this philosophy to our education students.  

STOP ELECTING GLOBAL CORPORATE POLS IN BOTH PARTIES FOLKS!!!
  THE GOVERNOR APPOINTS PEOPLE TO STATE EDUCATION THAT EMBRACES STRONG PUBLIC EDUCATION OR EMBRACES PRIVATIZATION AS IS THE CASE NOW.

This is why in Maryland you hear the Maryland State Education Association---MSEA backing this reform----they are appointed by O'Malley.  Meanwhile, American Federation of Teachers AFT----not supporting this reform.  Look as well at PTA/PTO organizations that are being co-opted into this reform.  You will not hear the Maryland PTA shout out against this even as parents across Maryland do.

The Maryland AFL-CIO joined the Baltimore Teachers Union to campaign for Anthony Brown------WHO WILL SHOVE THIS REFORM THROUGH NO MATTER WHAT!  Why would Baltimore's Teacher's Union support a Wall Street privatization that will kill the teaching profession, kill unions, and kill the opportunity children in these communities might have in the future?

BALTIMORE CITY SCHOOLS ARE BEING STACKED WITH EDUCATION PRIVATIZERS---FROM TEACH FOR AMERICA AND VISTAS----TO PRINCIPALS GRADUATING FROM THESE HOPKINS EDUCATION PROGRAMS.


This is not a done deal-----we can reverse this but people must become engaged in politics and stop voting the same global corporate pols into office!!!

News from EPI

New Report Examines Realities of Race to the Top ImplementationFailure to address root causes of achievement gaps and mismatches between states’ goals and their resources have hindered educational improvements

September 12, 2013

Race to the Top has done little to help most states close achievement gaps, and may have exacerbated them, according to a new report by Elaine Weiss, National Coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education. In Mismatches in Race to the Top Limit Educational Improvement: Lack of Time, Resources, and Tools to Address Opportunity Gaps Puts Lofty State Goals Out of Reach, Weiss takes a comprehensive look at the Obama administration’s signature education initiative, and finds a few notable successes but many more shortcomings.

Race to the Top offered federal funding to states that committed to meeting a series of goals—including developing new teacher evaluation systems that rely substantially on student achievement, identifying alternative teacher certification systems, turning around low-performing schools, and substantially boosting student achievement and closing achievement gaps. In her report, Weiss examines how much progress states have made over the first three years of the grant period. With a year to go before funding is scheduled to end, states are largely behind schedule in meeting goals for improving instruction and educational outcomes.

“This report should be a wake-up call, not only to states and districts implementing Race to the Top, but to states implementing No Child Left Behind waivers and those beginning to roll out the Common Core State Standards,” said Weiss. “Real, sustained change requires time and substantial, well-targeted resources. Raising standards in schools cannot work without accompanying supports that make attaining them possible for all students, not just the most advantaged.”

Key findings of the report include:

  • States made unrealistic promises in order to secure Race to the Top funding, and have found greater-than-expected challenges to meeting their goals.
  • The narrow policy agenda and short time frame prescribed by Race to the Top have hampered state and district abilities to improve teacher quality, while failing to address other core drivers of opportunity gaps.
  • Shortcomings in Race to the Top have spurred conflicts between states, school districts, and educators that have further hindered progress.
This report draws on studies from the U.S. Department of Education and others, state and local reporting, as well as a survey of district superintendents and interviews with parents, teachers, and state and community education leaders. The report also includes in-depth case studies of two Race to the Top states, Ohio and Tennessee. Weiss’s analysis provides the most comprehensive picture to date of the successes and challenges states have faced throughout Race to the Top and the policy implications at both the state and federal level.

“This paper details the results of careful examination of implementation of Race to the Top and whether or not it has produced the game-changing improvements proponents promised,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director, AASA, The School Superintendents Association. “The report represents the first comprehensive look at the program, the challenges states face in implementing grants and key implications for moving forward, and bolsters what AASA has long advocated—while Race to the Top has some positive impact on education, there are better alternative strategies for improving education, including prioritizing existing federal statutes like ESEA and IDEA, and ensuring that all students in all public schools benefit from limited federal funding. AASA applauds Broader, Bolder for its leadership on this report and we’re grateful for the opportunity to collaborate on the project for the past two years.”

It is especially important to look at challenges posed by Race to the Top as states adopt and implement the Department of Education’s Common Core standards. States’ struggles to reliably and productively hold schools and teachers accountable, and to raise student achievement under the current standards, are likely to grow as demands increase while time, staffing, and other resources remain flat or are further diminished.


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May 13th, 2014

5/13/2014

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PLEASE DO NOT LOOK THE OTHER WAY AT ATTACKS ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE HAPPENING TO THE WORKING CLASS AND POOR-----THE MIDDLE-CLASS KNOWS IT TOO IS VICTIM AND THESE ASSAULTS BELOW WILL COME TO YOU AND I.


As a middle-class professional I try in my blogs to encourage the upper-middle and middle class to not be complacent with the loss of civil rights and liberties of the working class and poor in our country.  Remember, neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism is about making all but a very few impoverished so you and/or your children and grandchildren will be facing this dismantling of public justice and Bill of Rights.  Residents in cities may think its good to push out the poor but let's think how an injustice to one becomes an injustice for all.

There is a social media meme circulating that says----

the richest are telling the richer
to tell the middle-class the problem is the poor.

Well, the problem is that the richest have stolen tens of trillions of dollars from the US economy and off-shored it to overseas accounts and our entire democracy and public justice and public sector works and services are being dismantled.  This is causing poverty to soar and crime and violence with it.  So, the problem is the richest have yet to have Rule of Law brings back the loot THEY STOLE FROM GOVERNMENT COFFERS AND INDIVIDUAL'S POCKETS.

The US is now in a state of propaganda as is found in second and third world countries.  When corporations control data creation-----they will skew it to their benefit and not the public interest.  Whether at the Federal level with Obama or the State level with O'Malley, or the city level with Rawlings-Blake-----ALL DATA BEING PRODUCED IS SKEWED. Below you see how corporate media now simply reports the propaganda as news.  For people liking public radio, NPR in 2009 was doing a fine job holding power accountable.  In 2010 NPR was reorganized to corporate control and the reporters made clear that they were being forced to report 'spin'------propaganda----and not journalism.  This is what you see below.  Maryland is king of spin.....Baltimore is supreme.  The middle-class in Baltimore now have to watch as citizens are completely stripped of all rights as citizens-----they are stripped of any way to earn money and are reduced to crime to survive------and of course it is the small businesses and middle-class who become the targets of desperate attempts to get money.  The violence of poverty is skyrocketing with the huge increase in poverty in Baltimore and will come to all communities as people lose hope and embrace retaliation.  THAT IS WHAT THIRD WORLD SOCIETIES LOOK LIKE.  This is Baltimore City today.

Gentrification is a natural process.  It has happened throughout civilization.  It can be done equitably and within Rule of Law.  The State of Maryland and Baltimore lose billions of dollars each year to fraud and corruption that should be going to these communities to rebuild opportunity. 

STOP THE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION AND SEND MONEY TO DEVELOP THESE UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES FOR THE UNDERSERVED.

That does not mean the poor cannot be moved or ratios of populations cannot change.  It means that development will be fair in making sure people stay in the communities or areas they have lived all their lives.  It means that development funded with Federal, State, and local tax money be held to the laws of equal opportunity and access in housing and education.  You do not use Federal money from HUD to dismantle public housing buildings and then not provide public housing nearby.  It may not need to be public housing if grants allowed low-income and homeless to occupy these thousands of blighted houses all through these neighborhoods.

Instead, public policy written by Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore Development Corporation are set on forcefully removing all working class and poor from city center and downtown and go so far as using city services to bankrupt low-income homeowners with deliberately inflated water bills and tax bill and fines----driving these homeowners into bankruptcy and foreclosure.  As I have said----Johns Hopkins is the most neo-conservative institution in the world having Baltimore democrats pushing these undemocratic policies. 

WE NEED TO REBUILD THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AWAY FROM CORPORATE CONTROL AND BACK TO THAT OF PUBLIC INTEREST AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.


When a society allows the deliberate targeting of communities with fraud and corruption in order to advance development----you have an autocratic society.  Using police brutality and misconduct to scare people away and jailing people known not to have committed a crime is all intimidation tactics used in covert warfare folks.  IT IS AUTOCRATIC AND IGNORES ALL RULE OF LAW----IT DOES NOT BELONG IN AMERICA.

If you do not care if the poor lose their rights as citizens think of what is happening to the middle-class with the attack on retirements, home equity, pensions, health care coverage and Medicare, and even our children's students loans----all losing wealth from corporate fraud and government corruption.  So, this is not simply something hitting the lower class-----it pushes all of us into impoverishment and loss of rights as well.

WAKE UP======AN INJUSTICE FOR ONE WILL BECOME INJUSTICE FOR ALL!
Below you see martial law being implemented in Baltimore City because City Hall has defunded communities and community services, have put minority and women contractors and the people they hire out of business......they have eliminated the public sector and cleansed the school system of the city's middle-class killing all of the ability of families to provide support for  extended family.  City Hall allows people's homes to be stolen, police brutality to run wild, fraud and corruption to take a billion and more from city coffers each year -----money of which would help these youth.  They are doing it because the goal is to make it impossible for the working class and poor to survive in the city.  Two decades of these kinds of attacks on the poor with O'Malley and now Rawlings-Blake and the neo-conservative Baltimore City Hall has succeeded in pushing some of the poor out to the counties-----but you know what-----these people simply come back because there is no support mechanism for these families.

THE ENTIRE SOCIAL SERVICES AND SOCIAL WELFARE SYSTEM IN BALTIMORE IS BROKEN.


Mind you-----these children are living in homes torn with drug abuse and parents incarcerated on and off through life.  This children have parents having to work 3 jobs because Baltimore has a system of enslavement in lieu of wages that allow citizens to actually support themselves-----all driven by Johns Hopkins.  Closing community recreation centers where youth could go for support?  REALLY???????  The use of national corporate/ church non-profits  etc.  to replace these public community centers takes the one avenue for social gathering and organizing, developing of leadership, for political discussion out of the communities
. 

YOU MUST NOT BRING POLITICS INTO THESE NON-PROFITS AND IF WE DO-----WE WILL DECIDE WHO TALKS AND ABOUT WHAT. 


That is what Baltimore City Hall is creating in Baltimore.  It is totalitarian in its exclusion of the public and in enforcement of law.
  Mind you-----Baltimore has some fine private non-profits and community groups doing good work-----they are fighting for funds and support and these connected groups receive the bulk of funding.  The #1 institution receiving and then deciding how public policy as regards the working class and poor unfold-----JOHNS HOPKINS IS BALTIMORE'S PUBLIC SECTOR.

There's no doubt these children need to stay off the streets and especially at night.  If they have no computers, cannot afford phones, have no real parks and amusement facilities.....and now, no rec centers-----WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THESE YOUTH TO DO?

An autocratic society crushes these families with more fines, penalties, and exposure to police action.


Council approves tough new curfew for city youths Some kids would be required to be inside by 9 p.m.




By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun 8:24 p.m. EDT, May 12, 2014

A tough new curfew forcing kids off the streets as early as 9 p.m. was approved Monday by the Baltimore City Council over objections it will place too much stress on the Police Department and lead to conflicts between youths and officers.

The legislation requires one more vote for final passage, which is expected next month. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has said she'll sign it into law.

The bill's sponsor, Councilman Brandon Scott, said it is intended to keep small children from wandering the street, becoming victims of crime or suffering from neglect.

"We have to do something," Scott said. "Young children are out there. ... This bill is not about arresting kids. This bill is not about dropping crime. It's about connecting young people and their families with the services they need."

The legislation, approved 11-2, calls for youngsters under 14 to be indoors year-round by 9 p.m. Youths ages 14 through 16 could stay out until 10 on school nights and 11 on other nights.

Currently, all children and teens younger than 17 can stay out until 11 on weeknights and until midnight on weekends. Parents can be fined up to $300 if their children are caught outside after curfew.

TALK ABOUT IT: Should Baltimore enact an earlier curfew for city youths?

The legislation increases penalties to $500, though they could be waived if parents and children attend counseling sessions provided by the city.

"We all know that when children are on the streets late at night without proper supervision, they are more likely to either become the perpetrators or the victims of violent crime," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. "I believe this legislation will be another much needed tool to help reduce the number of juveniles on the streets at night, while furthering a commitment my administration has made to provide more services for young people we know are vulnerable."

The bill was opposed the American Civil Liberties Union and criticized by the head of the city's police union. City Councilmen Carl Stokes and Warren Branch voted against it.

Branch, the chair of the council's public safety committee, said he worried the legislation would force yet another responsibility on police.

"There should be more agencies involved instead of putting the stress and pressure on our Police Department," he said.

Sonia Kumar, an attorney at the ACLU of Maryland, sent a letter to council members expressing concern about the "constitutionality and policy implications" of the curfew.

"The bill is a very significant expansion of Baltimore's curfew laws," she said. "Whatever the intention of the bill, there's no evidence that the bill will accomplish those goals. There are really significant reasons for not entangling young people and their families in the criminal justice system."

Kumar said she saw difficulties in enforcing the legislation fairly without police stopping kids and demanding they produce an ID card.

"The breadth of what is proposed is deeply troubling and a poor use of city resources," she said.

Rawlings-Blake has announced plans to expand the city's curfew center to become two year-round Youth Connection Centers for kids and teens who violate the curfew.

"We continue to invest in programs such as basketball leagues, jobs programs and rec center improvements that provide constructive alternatives for our young people," she said. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach."

The legislation continues current exemptions from the curfew, including a provision for youths to be out late if they're with a parent, or going to or from a job, religious event, or school or recreational activity. The legislation eliminates an exception that has permitted young people to run errands for their parents.

Scott said those opposed to the bill have an outdated view of the curfew center.



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The City of Baltimore loses a billion dollars and more to fraud and corruption, gives a billion more to subsidize global corporate wealth in development, and loses hundreds of millions more in waste and mismanagement of Federal and State funds----this is why it just cannot seem to find a million to fund strong public recreation centers for the citizens of all communities.

REMEMBER, THE GOAL IS TO PRIVATIZE ALL THAT IS PUBLIC INTO THE HANDS OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.

Keep in mind that these rec centers being closed are run by the communities themselves.  The goal of tying the new recreation centers to charter schools-----which will be the new school buildings identified as where these new rec centers will be built----is that charter schools will be taken private and run by corporations----yet another end of public gatherings and freedom to discuss, organize, and implement policy as the community sees fit.

Lack of funding could close Baltimore City rec centers
11:26 PM, Oct 24, 2011 5:31 AM, Oct 25, 2011 BALTIMORE -

Advocates say the 55 recreation centers around Baltimore City give kids a safe place to play and learn after school. But now there's a controversial plan that could result in the closing of many of those rec centers.

The Cecil Kirk Recreation Center doesn't look like much from the outside. In fact, the sign on the wall is missing some letters. But "The neighborhood kids come here. We're packed all the time in there," said parent Russell Smith, who also coaches basketball at Cecil Kirk.


It's packed, he says, day after day -- with kids from this neighborhood near North Avenue. "If I wasn't here I would probably be at home, but being at home wouldn't be as much fun as being at the rec," said Alanna Jones, who visits the center every day after school.

They come after school to find a safe place to play, meet friends, and get help with homework.


"There are some of us who are still barely making it and we need places like Cecil Kirk," said Angelique Jones, Alanna's mother.


A plan proposed by City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake would shift the funding and operation of many of the city's 55 rec centers to private companies, or charities.

But a call for bids on running them brought only six viable entries. A spokesman for the mayor tells ABC-2 news that could mean many of the centers will be forced to close in just a couple months.

"If they're closing the recs where are we going to send our children to? What are we going to do?" Angelique Jones said.


Several members of city council say they have concerns with the mayor's plan.
Monday night, Councilman Bill Henry (D-4th) called for a public hearing on the issue. "This is not something that the city can step away from. We say all the time, the kids are our future. But if we mean that, we would spend money on them," he said.

Ian Brennan, a spokesman for Mayor Rawlings-Blake, said "The (privatization) plan is part of a larger effort to revitalize the rec center system. We need to stop doing things because that's the way we've always done things."


But parents outside Cecil Kirk say the old way, still works for them. "They're still serving their purpose because kids still come here," Smith said. "I could see if the kids weren't coming. That's a different story if the kids are not showing up. But the kids are here, and what are you going to do with them?"
The mayor's spokesman says they are looking for more companies and organizations to bid on running those rec centers.

The councilman's hearing, in which the head of the Rec and Parks Department is expected to come before council and explain how the plan would work, is expected to be on November 2nd.
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This is just one example of the largesse sent to national corporations for no reason at all----this case was actually racketeering.  Downtown has mortgaged tax collection for the richest of corporations and developments while the city residents send their tax revenue to maintain and build this infrastructure. 

Meanwhile, the citizens of Baltimore simply want small and small and regional businesses in their communities.....not corporations that are ground zero for massive fraud and corruption.

City Council votes on controversial Harbor Point tax plan $100M tax break is on the line for developer


UPDATED 7:07 AM EDT Aug 13, 2013
A $100 million tax break from Baltimore City is on the line for a developer who wants to rebuild a piece of land between Harbor East and Fells Point.

The most controversial part of the measure is the tax break. The city wants to use tax dollars to help finance the Harbor Point project.

The City Council took a preliminary vote on that strategy Monday night and passed it.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called this a once in a generation project that she and supporters said will eventually mean thousands of jobs and a much bigger tax base for the city.

Plans call for Harbor Point to house the new regional corporate headquarters for Exelon and other businesses. There's also supposed to be high-end living space and retail, along with a hotel.

The tax break from the city is supposed to help pay for infrastructure and other improvements to the site of the project.


But opponents of the tax break deal are skeptical about it and who it will actually benefit. Some said the developer, William Beatty, should give a portion of his tax break to the surrounding impoverished neighborhoods and city schools.

"It really doesn't contribute to uplifting the people who live in that community. This seems to be an intentional, direct benefit to a developer and all of the hangers-on of this developer, and I don't see that the residents or the surrounding community are going to benefit," concerned citizen Kim Trueheart said.

A final vote on the whole project is expected to happen Sept. 9.

_________________
The idea that we want Baltimore's youth coming into contact with a police force known nationally as being one of the most brutal in the country----the idea we want these working class and poor families ticketed and fined right into jail===where by the way they will find a job as private prison and jail contractors now work the incarcerated for $2 an hour doing formerly public sector work-----a middle-class job.

From stop and frisk to high speed police chases ending with citizens shown to have nothing but maybe a previous arrest record----to police deliberately planting drugs and guns to create the reason for apprehension.....we all know this is happening and using yet another assault on public justice and rights on youth----is a disgrace.  It is a policy written by Johns Hopkins----the City Hall are neo-conservatives running as democrats!

Baltimore City Officer Suspended On Allegations Of Excessive Force

July 30, 2013 5:52 PM

Christie Ileto Christie Ileto joined WJZ's News Team in the fall of 2012.

BALTIMORE (WJZ)– A city police officer is suspended for allegedly using excessive force on a suspect in their custody.

Christie Ileto has more on the incident being investigated by top brass.

Sky Eye Chopper 13 caught the aftermath of a car crash Baltimore City police say started as a pursuit on Belair Road on Monday evening.

“During the course, the vehicle went off the road and collided,” said Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez.

Members of the regional auto theft task force were trying to stop a car they believed to be stolen.

“By the time I got the corner, a little young dude, a teenager, was laying on the ground,” said a witness.

Baltimore City police say it wasn’t the pursuit of the young driver, but what happened after he crashed into an auto car lot that had top brass concerned.

“They threw him on the ground, and it looked like the other police smacked him,” a witness said.

“The message is clear. We will not tolerate officers breaking the law in order to enforce the law,” Rodriguez said.

Police brass say the alleged assault occurred after the juvenile was on the ground.

And rather than a citizen filing a complaint, Rodriguez says police initiated the investigation themselves.

“While the age of the individual certainly gives us concern, we want everyone to be treated fairly and professionally,” Rodriguez said.

City police have policies that allow them to use force and instruct them when it’s appropriate to initiate a pursuit. But Rodriguez couldn’t tell us at this point if any rules had been broken.

This case is under investigation.

Police have not been able to confirm the age of the driver or his name.

The department says not only will they investigate the officer allegedly involved, but his supervisor’s actions as well.



__________________

Congress included in the Affordable Care Act that authorities can now sedate a citizen without their consent -----setting the stage for the kinds of imprisonment of political dissidents in third world countries.  More importantly, our children are being subjected to high levels of drugging all in an effort to control behavior.  Behavior problems in city youth often come from chemical exposures like lead----from parents with drug addiction and abuse at home.  All of this is tied with poverty.  So, to reverse these problems you end poverty......NOT SUPERSIZE IT. Are these youth reacting to dosing with anti-psychotics and hyperactivity drugs in a negative way-----?   Wealth inequity is a myth.  The rich at the top simply stole tens of trillions of dollars and left massive amounts of impoverishment at the lower levels. 

SIMPLY REINSTATING RULE OF LAW AND RECOVERING THOSE FRAUDS WILL BRING RELIEF FROM POVERTY AND MANY OF THE SYMPTOMS.


If the middle-class cannot see how these policies will come to your neck of the woods----WAKE UP!!!!
Dosing children with drugs known to have serious side-effects and physical reactions is unethical and immoral.  It is policy you would find in China and Soviet Russia to control citizens.  We do not do this in America. 

THINK WHO YOU ELECTED TO OFFICE IN BALTIMORE CITY HALL AND MARYLAND ASSEMBLY TO SEE WHO IS ALLOWING THESE POLICIES TO ADVANCE.  THEY ARE NOT DEMOCRATS.


Antipsychotic Use Skyrockets in America's Poorest Children


Fran Lowry

March 12, 2013

Investigators from the University of Maryland in Baltimore found that from 1997 to 2006, use of antipsychotic medications in this population increased 7- to 12-fold, with most of the increased use associated with treatment for behavioral problems.


"Awareness of the expanding use of antipsychotic medications in the emotional and behavioral treatment of children has been noted in several studies of community-based pediatric populations," lead author Julie Magno Zito, PhD, from the University of Maryland, told Medscape Medical News.

"But," she added, "additional information is needed on trends in our neediest youth, namely according to how antipsychotic users differ in terms of their eligibility for Medicaid insurance coverage and the reasons for use. Such information would help to characterize the 'who' and 'why' of expanded antipsychotic use."

The study is published in the March issue of Psychiatric Services.

Call to Action

In the current observational, cross-sectional study, Dr. Zito and colleagues analyzed claims data for 456,315 youths aged 2 to 17 years who were continuously enrolled in Medicaid in a mid-Atlantic state from 1997 to 2006.

They focused on the use of antipsychotic drugs in the following Medicaid-eligibility categories: foster care; State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), currently known as the Children's Health Insurance Program; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), for children whose family income was at or below the federal poverty level; and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

The researchers found that the prevalence of use of antipsychotic medications almost tripled, from 1.2% in 1997 to 3.2% in 2006.

This growth was greatest in youth enrolled in SCHIP (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 5.9), followed by those in foster care (AOR, 4.1) and TANF (AOR, 3.6), and least among children with SSI (AOR, 2.8).

"The children on SSI are the ones we would presume to be the sickest," Dr. Zito noted. "This 6-fold increase for near-poor or SCHIP children and the 3.6-fold increase among poor or TANF children in a decade means that there was increasing use among the vast majority of enrollees and not, as one would expect, among the small minority, approximately 10%, on SSI, who qualify as the most vulnerable."

During this decade, 9320 children received a prescription for an antipsychotic. The growth in prescribing was most pronounced for pediatric bipolar disorder (AOR, 3.77) and behavioral conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (AOR, 3.48).

The researchers also found that the proportion of children using antipsychotics from 1997 to 2006 increased significantly more among African Americans and Hispanics than among whites.


"These data support a call to action for outcomes research to better establish clinical appropriateness and to encourage system-wide oversight for quality assurance," Dr. Zito said.

Postmarketing surveillance studies are also needed to assess the outcomes of community-based psychiatric treatment, she added.

"This is particularly true when medications are used for off-label conditions that have minimal or no evidence of benefit relative to medications with FDA labeling for a particular diagnosis," she said.

Psychotherapy Undervalued

"This is a continuation of the important work by Dr. Zito and her group," R. Scott Benson, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in private practice in Pensacola, Florida, told Medscape Medical News.

In this article, the researchers acknowledge that there are many factors involved in the increased rate of prescriptions for antipsychotics in children, Dr. Benson pointed out.

"There is always the suggestion that these children are given a diagnosis without the benefit of the comprehensive assessment that these psychiatric conditions demand. And there is the suggestion that the reimbursement system undervalues effective psychotherapy interventions and overvalues prescribing medication," he said.

He added that the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have developed guidelines for the evaluation of children and the use of evidence-based treatment.

"Florida and other states have developed consultation services for physicians who are providing care to these children, and we have seen a reduction in the prescription of these medications. Also, when they are prescribed, there is closer monitoring for safety and effectiveness," Dr. Benson said.

_____________________

SPEAKING OUT:

Baltimore’s Poverty Cleansing Program


by Brendan Walsh      

REMEMBER the game of musical chairs? Players circle around assembled chairs until the music stops. Then everyone rushes for a chair. There are never enough chairs for each player. The object of the game is to gradually eliminate the players until one player grabs the last chair. During the game, stronger players often knock weaker ones off the chairs. It can be a fierce game if you want to win. And you can always assure victory if you control the music and own the chairs.
      We are playing this game in Baltimore. It’s a “poverty-cleansing” game, and the poorest of the poor are gradually being eliminated. No one is assessing the ramifications of the policies that are causing people to lose life’s necessities--a home, a just living wage, a real chance at an education, and even basic food stamps.
      According to “Plan Baltimore,” more than 156,000 Baltimoreans live in poverty. That’s 24% of the city’s population struggling to hold on to the “chairs” that sustain life.
      To live a human life, to raise a family, to build a community, you need housing. You need meaningful work that pays a living wage. You need food, a sense of dignity, human recognition and respect, and hope in large doses. Poor people are being denied each of these necessities.
      Keep a close eye on our housing programs, our jobs and wages, our incarceration rates, and our educational disasters. We are developing a “zero tolerance” for poor people. We are, intentionally or through neglect, cleansing Baltimore of poor people.
      On July 3rd, when the Murphy Homes were demolished, there was rejoicing. Buildings designed to “teach the poor a lesson” were leveled in a controlled implosion. Bleak, sterile, cheap places of confinement were removed from the landscape. It also means the loss of 658 units, housing for 1,500 to 1,700 people.
      One decade ago there were 18,162 public housing units, 18,526 “other subsidized” units, and 53,002 families “still in need” in Baltimore City. These numbers represent at least 90,000 families--more than 200,000 Baltimoreans, some of the poorest of the poor--all of them desperate for housing.
      But, as we enter the new millennium, we learn that the federal government is getting out of the housing business. When they level places like the Murphy Homes, they do not build new units for the majority of those displaced. The major fact in Baltimore is demolition. Houses are bulldozed without rhyme or reason. There is no comprehensive plan. Of the 66,000 rowhouses in center city, the plan is to demolish 20% by the year 2004. Virtually all of these houses are in the poorest neighborhoods.
      Think about it. We have a poverty rate of 24%. We are in the process of tearing down all public housing and 20% of the existing affordable rowhouses. So where will the poor go?
      We are told that the private sector, through programs like Section 8, will take up the slack. It is suggested that the poor should just get themselves to the five surrounding counties and “things” will work out. The unbinding of Baltimore will save us all. Does anyone believe there is a welcome mat in Baltimore, Howard, Carroll, Anne Arundel and Harford counties?
      The reality is that the poorest of the poor will just go wandering--a forced march to nowhere. Or they will “double up” with a relative or friend, or simply hide out in whatever abandoned building is still standing.
      If you are one of our 50,000 addicts, you will not be considered “housing-ready.” Thus, you will not be eligible for any subsidized housing. If you have been arrested for some drug-related offense, you too will not be eligible for subsidized housing. The number of people not “housing-ready” grows daily.
      Look at jobs and wages in the Baltimore metropolitan area. According to the recent report of the Job Opportunity Task Force, 62% of all jobs in the region are “low skill” jobs, and two out of three of these jobs are located outside the city. A “low-skill” job means a “low-wage” job--a poverty wage. The economic boom of the ’90’s has clearly created a sharp division between “high-skilled,” well-paid workers and “low-skilled” underpaid workers, and more and more unemployed. For every “low-skill” job, there are three “low-skill” job seekers.
      Our response to this crisis is abominable. We continue to remove the necessary chairs. There are more cries for “quality of life” arrests and we build more and more prisons. We lock people up and add fuel to the fire. People get out of jail fully enraged and then return to poor neighborhoods with no skills, no hope.
      One big result of our “welfare to work” program is that young children often have no adult parent or guardian at home when they return from school, or during the summer months. At our soup kitchen, more and more children are coming without an accompanying adult.
      When we began Viva House 30 years ago, we only saw single men over the age of 50. Now women and children are 70% of our guests. By the year 2004, will it be only children coming to soup kitchens?
      We are going in exactly the wrong direction.
      It is time to end the game of musical chairs. We can’t eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor. The federal government can’t drop out of the housing business at precisely the moment people are in dire need of housing. We can’t permit 62% of our labor force to work “low-skill,” “low-wage” jobs, while a few people pile wealth on top of wealth. We need to invest in the poor. In their lives. In their schools. In their neighborhoods.
      We can either change priorities, or that big bulldozer will level all of us.
      Everyone is entitled to a chair at the table.
____________________

The same people creating the subprime fraud are now receiving all the foreclosures and state funding for affluent development using the subprime mortgage fraud while victims remain homeless.  This article shows the plan to corner people forced into renting in a captured real estate market that will be predatory and criminal. 

This is what Baltimore City Hall thinks is great!  This is what has Baltimore youth disconnected and disenfranchised.
  These residents are what is replacing public housing and section 8-----


Last Updated: March 31, 2014

Delancey Closes on 3rd Baltimore Multifamily

By Erika Morphy | Baltimore

BALTIMORE—"We feel that Class B multifamily is the right place to invest due to the opportunity to buy properties below replacement cost that generate significant yield, and have a captive renter base," says CEO Daniel M. Kline.


___________________
WPC is a market-based policy group pushing privatization of public education.  Baltimore is ground zero for ending public education and handing all education to corporations, creating schools as businesses and vocational tracking from K-college.  Underserved children and schools are taken first because they have no advocates protecting public education.  Once established in Baltimore---this privatized system will expand across Maryland.

Underserved schools are subjected to tiered funding---principles literally cannot afford toilet paper.  Students are placed in front of computer terminals and online lessons that do not engage and have the students feeling negatively about education.  This is what youth in Baltimore have to face as the one community source that should be positive.  Making these youth travel by buses to reach schools that offer enriched programs means students will drop out or be truant more times than necessary.  These are the public policies that create negative youth behavior.  If you do not respect a person----that person will not respect the system.


As you see below, Baltimore is one of a few that subject its schools to tiered funding -----deliberately defunding schools for underserved and special needs creating a warehousing that ends democratic public education.  These schools will simply become Wall Street charter chains---and this will expand to middle-class public schools as well.

Alonzo is a Bloomberg---Wall Street ax-man willing to dismantle American public education for corporate control and profit.
  Students drop out rates and truancy are soaring in Baltimore with Alonzo's and Wall Street's reforms.  Remember, this is Johns Hopkins policy pushed by Baltimore City Hall and Maryland Governor O'Malley---formerly of Baltimore's neo-conservative pols running as democrats in Baltimore.  Anyone in Baltimore can tell you this article below is pure propaganda.....schools are not doing well, the curricula is hated, the students are falling in performance and leaving school----ergo, the problems that extend to the streets.

What We Can Learn from Baltimore City Public Schools


By Liv Finne, Director, WPC’s Center for Education

, October, 2010 Forward-thinking school superintendents, like C.E.O. Andres A. Alonso of Baltimore City Public Schools, are reorganizing the way they run their schools, and achieving dramatic gains for students. They are implementing Fair Student Funding. This reform shifts control over school spending from central districts to individual school principals. Under Fair Student Funding, school principals are able to control the actual dollars in their school budgets, instead of having to manage a building already staffed by the district. Principals with budget power are then able to customize their programs to meet the individualized educational needs of their students. In return for this new flexibility and control, school principals are held accountable for student performance.

Thirteen other school districts across the nation have adopted Fair Student Funding, also known as Student-Centered Funding, student “backpacking,” or Weighted Student Formula.
The idea is the same. Instead of providing funding based on staffing ratios or categorical program, the money follows and funds the child, weighted according to his educational needs. The districts employing this strategy for funding schools include the following: Belmont Pilot Schools in Los Angeles, Boston’s Pilot Schools, Renaissance 2010 Schools in Chicago, Cincinnati, Clark County (which includes Las Vegas), Denver, Hartford, State of Hawaii, Houston Independent School District, New York City, Oakland, Poudre School District in Colorado, St. Paul, and San Francisco.

The story of how Baltimore City Public Schools achieved this reform is well worth telling. It started with a visionary leader: Andrés A. Alonso. He was selected as Chief Executive Officer of Baltimore City Public Schools in the summer of 2007.

Elements of Fair Student Funding

  1. Create a system of great schools led by great principals who have the authority, resources and responsibility to teach all students well.
  2. Engage those closest to the students in making key decisions that impact them.
  3. Empower schools, then hold them accountable for results.
  4. Ensure fair and transparent funding that schools can count on annually.
  5. Size the district appropriately -- schools and central office -- to address the realities of revenues and expenditures.
  6. Allow dollars to follow each student.
  7. Put the resources in the schools.
Read the full Policy Note here








0 Comments

May 06th, 2014

5/6/2014

0 Comments

 
ALL CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR EXCEPT CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR WILL CONTINUE TO DISMANTLE ALL EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND EQUAL ACCESS AND SPECIAL NEEDS WILL BE HURT THE MOST!

I speak to teachers who are getting tired and fed up with these reforms that just throw more and more impossible work on them with negatives thrown at the profession and I tell these dedicated teachers that Race to the Top is about getting rid of dedicated and passionate teachers and replacing them with temporary Teach for America types that will have K-12 looking like university adjuncts----part time business people brought to teach university classes.  That is the goal of all of these policies implemented with no rhyme of reason. 
THEY JUST WANT TO FRUSTRATE THOSE WHO REALLY CARE ABOUT TEACHING.  WHEN YOU HAVE A GOAL OF THIRD WORLD EDUCATION YOU DO NOT WANT PASSIONATE TEACHERS----YOU WANT COGS WITH NO CONNECTION.



Maryland is dismantling all of the public sector including equal opportunity and access for people with disabilities.  Baltimore schools are no longer funded to provide for special needs children as they are now on a tiered funding placing special needs children lowest in funding.  This means that if your child is special needs you are likely not going to be able to find a school in your community that will accept him/her.  When schools operate as businesses as Johns Hopkins has pushed in Baltimore, special needs is too expensive to accept and schools find ways to reject or eject these students.  When this happens these special needs students often find there way to underserved schools and are mainstreamed into classrooms where the teachers know nothing about teaching special needs and teachers that have their hands full simply dealing with discipline and students needing learning skills development.  You see, there is no recipe for success in these schools----underfunded and having the children needing the most resources.  That is what neo-liberalism is all about-----only fund schools with children who can become productive workers.  That is how things where done in the dark ages and it is third world mentality.
  Tracking special needs children into schools where it is impossible for the teachers to provide needed attention simply warehouses children with no disability training waiting after they become adults.  In Baltimore, they are returning to having disabled doing simple manual labor and corporations are no longer required to hire disabled because----they are no longer workplace ready.


THE ENTIRE EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND ACCESS FOR THE DISABLED IS BEING DISMANTLED IN BALTIMORE AND SOON TO BE EXPANDED TO ALL MARYLAND.  THIS IS SUPPOSEDLY A DEMOCRATIC STATE.

This is happening because corporations and the rich are no longer paying taxes and the revenue that used to fill state coffers are now going to subsidize corporate profit.  STOP ELECTING CORPORATE POLITICIANS.  WE DO NOT WANT TO BECOME A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY.


Let's see what corporate non-profits with a goal of ending special needs in all schools is doing:



Mainstreaming is good policy.....allowing special needs children to be included in regular classrooms but having special needs classes to augment education development. Consider what happens when the mainstreaming happens in already stressed underserved schools where behavior and learning skills are already the dominate issue for these teachers.  Remember, parents of special needs move to a community and the school tells them this community school does not take special needs and sends those parents to a different part of the city to a schools that does----and it is underserved and underfunded.  Tens of thousands of Maryland parents of special needs are shouting against turning the clock back to the dark ages of warehousing special needs children and adults.  A few schools in affluent communities have the successful model of mainstreaming.....and most others have the failed model. 

THIS IS RACE TO THE TOP EDUCATION REFORM-----TIERED LEVELS OF EDUCATION WITH UNDERSERVED RECEIVING LESS FUNDING AND SPECIAL NEEDS EVEN LESS.




Mainstreaming, in the context of education, is the practice of educating students with special needs in regular classes during specific time periods based on their skills.[1] This means regular education classes are combined with special education classes. Schools that practice mainstreaming believe that students with special needs who cannot function in a regular classroom to a certain extent "belong" to the special education environment.[2]

All of this is simply steps taken to end all of disability protections gained from the civil rights and liberties era of the 1960s.  Neo-liberals do not want money going to help the working and middle-class----WHO PAY ALL OF THE TAXES---- because they want to use taxes as corporate subsidy.  So, dismantling all of equal opportunity and equal access-----A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT-----brings more money back to profit.  Think about how many children are categorized as disabled---it is not only physical----it is emotional and mental disabilities and your child will be tracked into these warehoused schools if testing shows them meeting the term 'disabled'.  Remember, the US had one of the strongest programs in education and moving the disabled into the workplace providing wide opportunities in employment before Reagan/Clinton started dismantling public education.


PRE- K /ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TESTING WILL DETERMINE HOW THE STATE (IN BALTIMORE THAT WILL BE JOHNS HOPKINS) CHOOSES TO TRACK YOUR CHILD.




Are mainstream schools doing enough for special needs children? Attending mainstream schools proves to be a double-edged sword for most special needs children because they don't get enoughhelp in class,

writes Elaine Yau

PUBLISHED : Friday, 15 March, 2013, 12:00amUPDATED : Friday, 15 March, 2013, 10:05am Elaine Yau elaine.yau@scmp.com

 

ADHT sufferer Willie Lam was ignored at school. Photo: Paul Leung The numbers threaten to overwhelm. About 28,000 special needs students now attend mainstream schools, the result of an inclusive education policy introduced in 1997. The idea is to place children with learning disabilities in conventional classrooms, where they can develop alongside other youngsters. But academics and social workers working with such students find the broad range of needs in a school means many do not receive sufficient help so they struggle in class. And as the first special needs teens under this system prepare to leave school, the path ahead is murky.

Consider Willie Lam Chi-yung, who recalls secondary school as a blur of disappointments and put-downs. Many teachers found his presence disruptive - he would talk loudly and walk around the classroom at will - so they left him to his own devices. But Willie, 17, couldn't help himself: he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"I played all the time at school and the teachers just ignored me," he says. Although diagnosed at age 13, Willie attended a government school in Kowloon where he rarely received the help that he needed. As he advanced to secondary classes, where there were more rules to be followed, his behavioural problems were exacerbated.

Peggy So Sin-lee, his school social worker, says Willie did not mean to make trouble. "He couldn't control his impulses. His parents thought he was just being naughty and boisterous, and did not seek medical help. We arranged for him to visit a private psychiatrist, who made the diagnosis.

"His case was later referred to government psychiatrists, but he only got to see them once every few months, and his condition did not improve at all."

Thousands of Hong Kong students have experiences similar to Willie's.

Dr Kenneth Sin Kuen-fung, an associate professor at the Hong Kong Institute of Education, says more than 80 per cent of the city's 1,000 mainstream schools now include special needs students.

For every special needs pupil enrolled, schools receive between HK$10,000 and HK$20,000 in addition to annual funding to employ more staff, or pay for specialist services.

"Schools use the extra funding in different ways, with some employing outside speech or occupational therapy services for special needs students. But not all students need the same type of services. Many parents complain their children do not benefit at all, even though each of them is entitled to the extra funding.


"The government made it compulsory for schools to enrol teachers for on-the-job special needs training. But just 20 to 30 per cent of the [50,000] teachers have completed this training so far. Besides, the 30-hour programme hardly equips them to deal with the different kinds of special needs students," says Sin.

Intensive therapy from an early age can work wonders (see box) but few parents can afford frequent private sessions.

The inadequacy of special needs services starts in preschool. Social Welfare Department figures show more than 6,700 children competed last year for 6,230 places on its remedial programme, which is free to youngsters up to age six.


"The period up to six years old is considered the golden time to help special needs children catch up with their peers. Those who miss this window will be handicapped," Sin says.

So argues that with its inclusive policy, the government should make special-needs education part of undergraduate teacher training instead of the current piecemeal approach. Teachers won't be able to devote sufficient attention to special needs students in an integrated class. But the school can gather them for support sessions for help from specially trained teachers.

"The government should also set rules on how the special needs subsidy is used. Now, some schools just use the money to employ more teaching assistants, who have no special needs training and are just assigned to lessen teachers' workload."

Many wind up like Willie Lam, muddling through their school years and unsure about what to do with their future. To fill the gap for special needs assistance in schools, the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society launched a career-counselling programme last year for senior secondary students.

The series of weekly workshops, designed to identify their areas of interest as well as strengths and weaknesses, are complemented by industry visits. Jacqueline Ng Wai-ling, the society's senior manager in youth services, says the aim is to help special needs teens set their life goals.

It has been a revelation for Willie, one of 60 students who have completed the programme so far. Inspired by what he learned about graphic design, he is studying for a diploma in information technology at the Vocational Training Council.

"I like making computer graphics. After talking with the career counsellor, I decided not to go on to Form Four; all those academic lessons don't interest me anyway. I enjoy studying for the diploma," Willie says.

"After I joined the programme, I began to think about my future career. I never thought about it in the past, as no one at school told me anything about jobs."

The transition to adult life is no easier for autistic teens attending special schools. Few are able to keep a stable job after leaving school, even high-functioning autistics, says Christina Chan Ying-ha, of the Heep Hong Society's Jockey Club Parents Resource Centre.

"I have been working at the centre for over 10 years we have never had anyone earn a university degree. Of all my charges, there are not many who can get a job. Many work in sheltered workshops and others continue to receive training so that their ability to look after themselves will not deteriorate," Chan says.

Some obvious traits prevent them from holding a job for long, she says.

"Autistic people tend to have poor social skills. They often mumble to themselves and speak in a loud voice. Not many employers are patient and understanding enough to accommodate such differences."

Chan says training can help them better cope with life as adults. "Social training is crucial. The biological and mental changes that come with adolescence can be a shock. They begin to develop an interest in the opposite sex, but don't know how to deal with it. We need to help them better handle the transition to adulthood. I have seen some get married and have a family, but they are in the minority."

That's why the future is a constant worry for Wan Yan-tai, whose 24-year-old son Wong Ying-ki is autistic.

Although considered high-functioning, she says, "he doesn't know how to talk to people. He keeps talking about his favourite cartoon characters and people think he's a child.

"I am worried that he won't be able to set up a family, although he can take care of himself now. He's always eager to help people. If a person asks for directions on the street, he will go out of his way to take the person where they want to go. But I am worried that he might run into criminals."

Wong showed telltale signs of autism as a toddler - he was obsessed with moving things like wheels and he suffered speech delays.

Despite being diagnosed at age two, Wan says, there was little assistance available for her son's condition. "As a preschooler, he received speech and vocational therapy only every one or two months because places were limited and there was a long queue. I enrolled him in training classes offered by NGOs like Caritas."

He later attended a mainstream primary school, which did not provide any help, so Wan enrolled him in Heep Hong for remedial programmes.


Her son went on to Fortress Hill Methodist Secondary School, which catered to children with severe learning difficulties, but even there the reception could sometimes be unsympathetic.

"His [Form One] teacher scolded him for looking at the fan all the time. He didn't understand why he was different from the others," Wan recalls. That's when she told him about his condition.

"As he grows older, what most worries me is his failure to understand the complexities of life. He's innocent like a child," she says.

Happily, her son seems to be adapting. A hotel internship that was part of a vocational training course run by the Hong Chi Association has led to a job as housekeeper.

"It took half a year for him to relax," says Wan, recalling how his clothes were drenched with sweat when he returned from work because he was so nervous.

"Now he talks to me about his work all the time. I never get complaints from his boss and colleagues. I am glad that he loves his job."

_________________________________
Below you see a letter from a parent in Baltimore that showed how hard it is to navigate the school system and find what are fewer and fewer options for special needs children in the city.  The state funding designated as helping special needs students goes to private corporate non-profits and not the schools and these non-profits in turn often do nothing but pretend to be advocating for special needs.  Corporate 0private non-profits handling disabled adults in housing and hiring are also taking a pro-advocate stance to moving towards simple warehousing and manual employment.  We are losing the best system in the world for supporting all people to be whatever they can be.



'This is my daughter, my sacrifices, the wind beneath my wings, the whole of my heart,my one and only and the catalyst for my advocacy. 3 months ago I posted that my daughter was being bullied in school. The school did not act responsibly & I removed my daughter from school for her safety & to keep me from going to jail.
I stepped down from many of my community efforts to focus on my daughter and my family. For 3 months I studied the history of Balto City's special education & the legislation that is in place to protect our children. I can confidently say that the school system does not take our children's future seriously. My daughter has been out of school for 3 months and no one has contacted me to see if she is alive or dead. I soon realized why it's possible to have such a high percentage of special ed students go from the school system to the prison system and homelessness. It's not just the school system's fault, parents have to start showing up & representing their children. We have a small window of time to set the stage for our children's future.
  My daughter will began attending her new school on Monday for an appropriate safe education. If this could happen to us, an informed parent & special education advocate; imagine what could happen to a parent that is not showing up. The disparity and heartache I endured as a parent, brought me to my knees so many times. I was preparing to leave Maryland in order to give my child the best there was to offer. I never ask people to pray for me because I believe my relationship with God & Universe is solid, but I asked a new to pray for me because my spirit had broke. I don't want another parent's spirit to break while wanting better for their child. Though some in the community may be disappointed, my focus will remain with my daughter, my real estate business and special education. 32,000 special ed students were arrested in Maryland last year and no one cares. I believe that I can make a difference in the prison and homeless rate with our children and I'm going to try.
Thank you MH for your prayers. When much is given, much is required.'


_____________________________________

Baltimore special needs schools-----doesn't sound like inclusion to me!  Indeed, what Baltimore is doing is creating a policy of warehousing.  There will be a few winning schools but when you warehouse----most schools will be allowed to become substandard and neglected.  Marginalizing for profit----that's a corporate neo-liberal for you!

ALL OF MARYLAND DEMOCRATS ARE NEO-LIBERALS.  ALL OF BALTIMORE DEMOCRATS WORK FOR JOHNS HOPKINS WHICH IS THE MOST NEO-CONSERVATIVE INSTITUTION IN THE WORLD.....SO BALTIMORE POLS ARE NOT DEMOCRATS FOLKS!  STOP RE-ELECTING THEM.



Jun 24, 2011, 7:05am EDT

Baltimore special needs schools looking for staff


Further Reading
  • Baltimore-area private schools are hiring
Carolyn M. ProctorResearch DirectorEmail Children with special needs require special skills from their educators, and if you’ve got them, you could do a lot of good here in Greater Baltimore. While compiling our annual List of the largest special needs schools in the area, I also asked each one whether they’re hiring in the coming months. Here are those who are looking to fill positions now:

Children’s Guild is seeking special education teachers, a teacher assistant and an IEP aide.

Good Shepherd Center is hiring more therapists, residential staff and school staff.

The Harbour School in Annapolis and Owings Mills is hiring a certified occupational therapy assistant, a speech therapist and a teacher.

Kennedy Krieger High School Program is looking to hire a new social worker.

Kennedy Krieger LEAP Program is seeking a program aide, a teaching assistant and a behavioral resource associate.

Kennedy Krieger Lower/Middle School is hiring a behavioral psychologist, a behavior resource specialist and an assistant teacher.


_______________________________________



Do not be fooled------the education reform happening in Baltimore and across Maryland is not legal.  If we had a Maryland Attorney General and a MD ACLU functioning as public justice none of these reforms would be moving forward.  You cannot pretend you are providing for special needs children and then not provide.  Sending money to private corporate non-profits handling special needs education and then not providing oversight-----PARENTS AND TEACHERS ARE SHOUTING
THAT NOTHING IS BEING DONE FOR THESE CHILDREN IN BALTIMORE!!!!!


This is just another example of public money being funneled to a private non-profit assigned the work of the public sector
but doing little if nothing in providing service.  The money is going elsewhere.




School Law in Maryland - Educational Rights of Children with Special Needs

The Maryland State Bar Association’s Public Awareness Committee and the Advocates for Children and Youth, the Maryland Disability Law Center has prepared this information. It is intended to inform the public and not serve as legal advice.

Please note that the online version contains information not available in the print edition.

Introduction

Under the federal law called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and corresponding state law, a child with a disability, which affects his or her learning has a right to a free and appropriate public education. A child is entitled to a program, which is designed to meet his or her individual learning needs. This includes specially designed classroom instruction and related services needed by the child to benefit from the education program.

Who is Eligible for Special Education Services?

  • Children with disabilities from 3 to 21 years old may be eligible for special education services.
  • Infants and toddlers up to age 3 may receive early intervention services through the Infants and Toddlers Program.
  • A child is considered eligible for services if he or she is having trouble learning in school because of mental, physical and/or emotional disabilities.
Some of the disabilities that can make a child eligible for special education and related services are: mental retardation, emotional disturbance, learning disabilities, autism, deafness or hearing impairment, blindness or visual impairment, physical or orthopedic disabilities, brain injury, speech and language impairment, traumatic brain injury, multiple disabilities or other health impairments.

What is the Process for Determining Whether a Child is Eligible for Special Education Services?

A child becomes eligible for special education services when he or she is identified as disabled by the school’s Individual Education Program (IEP) team.

A parent or guardian is a member of the IEP team and has the right to participate in the IEP meetings about the child. Other members of the IEP team include a special education teacher; a regular education teacher; a school official who knows about the special education system and the general curriculum; and school personnel who can interpret evaluation results. The student may be a member of the IEP team if it is appropriate. Also, the parent may bring anyone else to the meeting, who would be helpful, such as a family friend, an advocate or other professionals who know the child.

Before the child is identified as disabled, the school system must evaluate the child. The evaluation process consists of three parts: (1) screening, (2) assessments, and (3) a review of the assessments.

The IEP team must complete the evaluation process, including the initial meeting, completion of the assessments, within 90 days of receiving the written request for an evaluation.

Screening: If a parent or guardian believes that his or her child may need special education services, the parent or guardian should make a request for an evaluation in writing and send it to the principal of the child’s school.

The IEP team will meet to determine if additional assessments are needed and decide whether the child is eligible for special education services. If the IEP team suspects that the child may have a disability and needs special education, the IEP team will order additional assessments after obtaining permission from the parent or guardian.

Assessments: During the assessment stage, the tests recommended by the IEP team are given to the child. School professionals, such as a psychologist, educator, speech pathologist, and physical or occupational therapists assess the child. The types of assessments that should be performed depend on the child’s suspected disability. Assessments determine the child’s disability and what kind of educational services he or she needs as a result of the disability. The school system is responsible for scheduling and paying for all the assessments it has recommended.

Review of the Assessments: Once the assessments are completed, the IEP team must meet to review the assessment results and determine whether the child qualifies for special education services.

The Individualized Education Plan

Within 30 days after the IEP team meets to review the assessments and determines that a student needs special education services, the IEP team meets again to develop the IEP. The IEP is a document, which sets the plan of services, and accommodations that the child will receive through the school system.

For a child who is already receiving special education services, the IEP team must meet at least once a year to review the child’s progress and revise the IEP’s accordingly.

The IEP has many requirements. For example, the IEP should describe a child’s disability, strengths, and needs and the present levels of educational performance. In addition, the IEP should set annual goals for the child and short-term objectives, all of which must be related to enabling a child to be involved in the general curriculum.

The IEP must also include any of the following that the child may need: related services, such as occupational or physical therapy, or transportation, assistive technology devices or services; behavior strategies; extended school year services, Braille; language and communication services; and/or transition services.

Once the IEP is developed, it must be implemented as soon as possible and must be in effect at the beginning of the school year.

Placement Issues

A “placement” refers to the actual class and school a child attends in order to receive his or her special educational services. The IEP team determines the placement after the IEP document has been developed.

The law requires that a child receive his or her special education services in the “least restrictive environment.” This means that an eligible child must receive special education services with non-disabled children as much as possible and preferably in the neighborhood school. This is often referred to as “inclusion.” The school system must provide extra aid or services if it would allow a child to participate in a less restrictive environment.

What Can a Parent or Guardian Do if an Agreement Cannot be Reached with the School System?

There are times when a parent or guardian may not agree with the evaluation, IEP or placement offered for his or her child. If a parent or guardian disagrees with the school system at any stage of the process, he or she has the right to request mediation or a due process hearing.

Mediation is a voluntary process in which a trained mediator tries to help the family and the school system reach an agreement. If a parent requests mediation and due process at the same time, the mediation must be held within 20 days from the date of the request.

A due process hearing is a formal way to resolve a dispute between the parent and the school system. The hearing is set up by the Office of Administrative Hearings and takes place before an administrative law judge. A parent can request a dues process hearing by submitting a request in writing to the school system. The hearing must be held within 45 days of the date the school system receives the request.

Parents have the right to bring an attorney or advocate to represent them at the hearing. There are important rules regarding due process hearings, which families should be aware of before requesting a hearing. For example, parents and school official must exchange a list of witnesses (including potential witnesses) and copies of all documents they intend to use at the hearing at least 5 business days prior to the hearing. If a party does not comply with this rule, the administrative law judge could exclude that party’s evidence.

If a parent believes that his or her child is not getting the services listed on the IEP, or if the school system does not comply with the timelines or other procedures, the parent can file a complaint with the Maryland State Department of Education. Under federal law, the state has 60 days to investigate the complaint and issue a decision.

What is Section 504?

Some children with disabilities may not qualify for special education services under the IDEA, but may still need specific adaptation to their educational program to allow them to participate fully in their classes. For example, a child who uses a wheelchair may not need special education services but may need some accommodations to access the school building. The federal law that applies to these children is referred to as Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Children with disabilities who need accommodations and services under Section 504 are entitled to a Section 504 Plan. This Plan sets forth the accommodations and services that the student will receive from the school system. As with the IEP, the Section 504 Plan should be reviewed and revised regularly to ensure that the child’s needs are being met.

Suspension and Expulsion of Children with Special Needs

Schools must provide an education to all students and may not discriminate against students with disabilities. This means that the school may not suspend or expel a disabled student for behavior that results from his or her disability.

Children who are eligible for special education services or who have a 504 Plan are entitled to a manifestation meeting when the school proposes to suspend them for more than 10 days in a semester or to expel them. This meeting determines whether a child’s actions were caused by his or her disability and must be held within 10 days of the child’s removal from class. At this meeting, the IEP team must determine:

  • Was the child’s IEP appropriate?
  • Was the IEP implemented as written?
  • Is it true that the child’s disability did not impair his/her ability to control the behavior subject to disciplinary action?
If the answer is no to any of the above, then the child must be returned to class immediately, unless the charges involve weapons or drugs. If the team determines that the child’s behavior was not caused by his/her disability, then the child goes through the regular suspension/expulsion process.

What Services are Disabled Students at the College Level Entitled to?

College students with disabilities are in a slightly different position from students in elementary and high schools. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protect students at the college level, rather than IDEA.

College students with disabilities are entitled to reasonable, appropriate accommodations in the instructional process. A student is responsible for informing the college of his or her disability and needs, and for utilizing the support services provided. Accommodation plans should be written for eligible students; however, these plans will not modify the curriculum or reduce course requirements. Generally speaking, the accommodation plans will simply address the learning differences.

For more information, college students should contact their schools’ ADA Coordinators.



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April 28th, 2014

4/28/2014

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ALL CANDIDATES FOR GOVERNOR OF MARYLAND EXCEPT CINDY WALSH FOR GOVERNOR WILL MOVE THESE KINDS OF POLICIES FORWARD.  HAVE YOU HEARD THEM SHOUT AGAINST ALL OF THIS?


Neo-cons and neo-liberals are working hard to privatize the US military.  Clinton started it and now Obama and Hillary have this on steroids.  Last count it appears that over 70% of US military is private military contractors.  The Defense Department was given the green light by neo-liberals in Congress and Obama to recruit troops overseas who are not citizens but will work as a US military contractor employee in nations around the world.

Remember, a public military is sworn to protect WE THE PEOPLE AND OUR NATION.  A private military contractor employee simply works for that global corporation and falls under no US Rule of Law.  This means that these troops will not look at US citizens as those to be protected but will act in defense of corporations and their profits.

THIS IS WHAT TOTALITARIANISM LOOKS LIKE FOLKS!


An extension of this is the fact that these private military employees are now coming back to the US to work as police and special forces in states across America.   People living in Baltimore know that BAltimore police have gotten brutal in their approach to people they encounter.  People are dying from simple infractions and are jailed as 'resisting arrest' when people pull away from what we know are illegal acts by police.  Cities across the US have as a goal of privatizing police and fire departments as an extension of these military contracting corporations.  We already see in Charles Village ---Baltimore----Bank of America guarded by a global security force.

THIS IS WHAT TOTALITARIANISM LOOKS LIKE FOLKS!!!


Remember, the US has a Constitution that provides Equal Protection under law and that provides a Bill of Rights that protects our civil rights and liberties.  When a rogue government comes in and suspends Rule of Law they are acting illegally.  The Supreme Court is impeachable for rulings that seek to take away the rights of US citizens.  So, all of these policies and rulings CAN BE REVERSED. 

STOP ALLOWING A NEO-LIBERAL DNC CHOOSE YOUR CANDIDATES----RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE IN ALL PRIMARIES.



Below is my blog on the privatization of military and police:



Regarding VoteVets.org as a political PAC for 21st Century Patriots:

Raise your hand if you understand that dismantling the entire public structure of the Veterans Administration and handing it to corporate private non-profits to make veterans beg for charity rather than receive the promised support being a member of the US military awards!!!!!! EVERYONE.

WE NOW HAVE TV COMMERCIALS ASKING AMERICANS TO DONATE TO VETERANS NON-PROFITS BECAUSE THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION IS BEING DISMANTLED.
At the same time we are hearing vets tell us they are getting no help from this private non-profit structure and the public VA has been gutted of staff.

Below you see how far neo-liberals have gone into third world politics. Today, the Maryland people had to listen to what should be public media------but is corporate and captured media-----go so far as to pretend that the group below actually works for veterans. This is an example of a private non-profit pretending to be progressive that is a great big neo-liberal private military contractor group. When you hear the words 21st Century Patriots you know you are listening to the private military complex and no doubt there are veterans of private military corporations. The US military is over 70% mercenary thanks to Bush, Obama, and Hillary. So, do corporate veterans care about the US military public troops? WELL, IT LOOKS NOT!

What this PAC represents is the killing of public sector unions or in this case public sector military and its benefits. Blackwater retirees would be the 21st Century Patriots for example.

Knowing this------it would be understandable that VOTEVETS would be backing Anthony Brown because O'Malley/Brown has been 100% behind privatization of the Veterans Administration in Maryland. See how it sounds different when you know what a private non-profit group is about? Indeed, this PAC is backing the most privatizing of Wall Street candidates because it is heavily invested in this private military complex. The absurdity of Maryland campaign of Brown, Gansler, and Mizeur is that they are all neo-liberals who will work to privatize the VA as well. So, Gansler bashing Brown is like Bush bashing Cheney.

PLEASE KNOW WHAT THESE CAMPAIGN PACs REPRESENT----THEY WILL ALL PRETEND TO BE PROGRESSIVE!

If a PAC supports the most Wall Street global corporation in the race for Governor of Maryland------it is a private mercenary patriot group.


O'MALLEY/BROWN HAS PLACED PRIVATIZATION OF VETERANS ADMINISTRATION ON STEROIDS IN MARYLAND SO WHY WOULD A VET GROUP SUPPORT BROWN?  GANSLER WOULD BE JUST AS BAD.

VOTEVETS DEMANDS APOLOGY FROM GANSLER FOR SLUR AGAINST VETERANS

By VoteVets.org | Press Release
PUBLISHED: April 21, 2014

Annapolis, MD – The largest progressive group of veterans in America, with over 400,000 supporters, VoteVets.org PAC, is demanding an apology from Attorney General Doug Gansler for saying that those troops who served in Iraq didn’t have “real jobs.”

At a forum this morning, Gansler said, “You know I’m running against somebody [Iraq War Veteran, Lt. Gov Anthony Brown] who has never managed anybody, never run anything, you know his ads are about how he was a lawyer in Iraq, and that’s all fine and good but this is a real job.”

In response, Jon Soltz, Iraq War Veteran and Chairman of VoteVets.org said, “Doug Gansler needs to stop smearing those of us who served in Iraq as not having had a ‘real job.’ It’s a horrible insult to all those men and women who put their lives on the line, and especially those who died, in service to this country. Additionally, Mr. Gansler, if he chooses to attack an Iraq War Veteran, ought to at least admit that the person he is attacking has been serving as Maryland’s Lieutenant Governor. This kind of slime ball politics is what turns people off to our democratic process, so Mr. Gansler is doing no favors for Maryland or our democratic electoral system by playing in the gutter like this.”

VoteVets.org PAC endorsed Brown’s campaign.

Founded in 2006, the mission of VoteVets.org Political Action Committee is to elect Veterans to public office, with a focus on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, and hold public officials accountable for their words and actions that impact America's 21st century troops and veterans. Though VoteVets.org PAC is non-partisan, candidates it backs must support VoteVets.org's core mission and beliefs.

____________________________________________
Maryland is ground zero for surveillance industries.  This is no doubt why our election process is captured because you need to be selective as to who would support this road to totalitarianism.

Johns Hopkins built their own surveillance corporations all from taxpayer money funneled to them by Mikulski, Cardin, and Cummings.  SAIC is one such corporation headquartered in VA and MD now building surveillance systems in cities across America.  Believe me-----this is not about keeping people in poor communities safe or keeping the middle-class safe from crimes of poverty.....it will be used as a tool against citizens living in a first world taken to a second world and now moving to a third world society.  THEY KNOW WE THE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE ANGRY.




Combatting the Surveillance Industrial Complex

August 9, 2004

THE PRIVATIZATION OF SURVEILLANCE
The U.S. security establishment is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by hiring or compelling private-sector corporations to provide billions of customer records. The explosive growth in surveillance by government and business is creating a "Surveillance-Industrial Complex" (PDF) that threatens all of our privacy.
 

Make a Difference Your support helps the ACLU stand up for human rights and defend civil liberties.

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ABOUT THE REPORT
This report makes the case that, across a broad variety of areas, the same dynamic of the "privatization of surveillance" is underway. Different dimensions of this trend are examined in depth in four separate sections of the report:


"Recruiting Individuals."
Documents how individuals are being recruited to serve as "eyes and ears" for the authorities even after Congress rejected the infamous TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program that would have recruited workers like cable repairmen to spy on their customers.

"Recruiting Companies." Examines how companies are pressured to voluntarily provide consumer information to the government; the many ways security agencies can force companies to turn over sensitive information under federal laws such as the Patriot Act; how the government is forcing companies to participate in watchlist programs and in systems for the automatic scrutiny of individuals' financial transactions.

"Mass Data Use, Public and Private." Focuses on the government's use of private data on a mass scale, either through data mining programs like the MATRIX state information-sharing program, or the purchase of information from private-sector data aggregators.

"Pro-Surveillance Lobbying." Looks at the flip side of the issue: how some companies are pushing the government to adopt surveillance technologies and programs based on private-sector data.


_____________________________

Keep in mind that Egypt has a state structure with the military as the most powerful branch of government and that there are large numbers of 'generals' in Egypt that are billionaires everyone knows are simply extensions of Wall Street.  It is this military structure that is being built in the US now and we must stop it.

Do not sit and allow police brutality to occur in your city or community because it is the canary in the cage.  Baltimore has over 20 citizens killed unjustly with no accountability in just a few years.  This is unheard of in a democracy.  Placing City Hall and police and fire departments with separate benefit plans and wages from other public sector employees is a sign of creating a tiered class surrounding corporate governance.  You see with the dictators toppled this decade it is always this small group of administrative class that fights for the dictator.

These are the things we need to watch for and stop in their tracks.  It is happening in small increments so do not allow it to expand!


A Capitalist System Gone Awry

The Military Industrial Complex has solidified its ties and deeply inserted his long horns into the arteries of the American taxpayers.

By Rev. Richard Skaff

December 10, 2012 "Information Clearing House" -  Creating wars to feed the blood-thirsty and greedy beast of the military industry complex has been a common practice in an allegedly democratic nation. Taxpayers’ have flipped this bill for decades under the guise of self-preservation and protection. As always government has used fear to fashion people’s consent and obedience. Meanwhile, corruption is prevalent, our national debt is skyrocketing, and our parasitic superpower is broke. Parasitic it is, because you can’t become super-rich or super-powerful unless you suck the blood and the life out of someone else. In this case, it is the taxpayers (the proles).

Under the guise of the Private-Public Partnership (PPP) phenomenon, the Military Industrial Complex has solidified its ties and deeply inserted his long horns into the arteries of the American taxpayers. Citizens for responsibility and ethics in Washington (CREW) has recently issued a scathing and disturbing report exposing this unethical and frightening phenomenon where high-ranking generals and admirals earn their stars, their stripes, and then, they earn their the big cash.

The CREW report found that 70 percent (or 76) of the 108 three-and-four star generals and Admirals who retired between 2009 and 2011 took jobs with defense contractors or consultants. In at least a few cases, the retirees have continued to advise the Department of Defense while on the payroll of defense contractors, suggesting the Pentagon may not always be receiving unbiased counsel.

The retired generals and admirals moving into the private sector in general do not appear to be breaking any rules. Nonetheless, their heavily traveled path through the military-industrial complex continues to raise important questions about the intersection of national security and the interests of private companies that stand to make billions of dollars. [1].

A 2010 Boston Globe investigation revealed that the number of retired three-and-four star Generals and admirals moving into lucrative defense industry jobs rose from less than 50 percent between 1994 and 1998 to a stratospheric 80 percent between 2004 and 2008, findings that brought new scrutiny to this unethical revolving door. [2], [1]

CREW’s research shows the number of high-level retirees taking those jobs has since ticked down, though the vast majority of retiring generals and admirals continue to sign on with defense contractors vying for their services.

Every year, the Pentagon awards hundreds of billions of dollars in contracts to the
defense industry. [3], [1] Retired generals, with their strong relationships, robust contact lists, and insider knowledge, are valuable assets in the competition for contracts and can easily make more than their base pay – currently $164,221 per year for a three-star general and $179,700 for a four-star general – by serving on a single corporate board. [4], [1]

A recent study found that when a defense company announced the hiring of a former defense department political appointee, on average, the company’s stock price increased. [5], [1] The relationship was statistically weak but positive, suggesting investors believe such hires bring benefits. [5], [1]

In 2011 alone, the Department of Defense committed to spending nearly $100 billion
with the five largest defense contractors – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. [3], [1] At least nine of the top-level generals and admirals who retired between 2009 and 2011 took positions with those five companies. In addition, 12 generals who retired during that period have gone on to work for Burdeshaw Associates, a “renta-general” consulting firm specializing in helping companies obtain defense contracts. [2], [1]

Burdeshaw’s clients have included Northrop Grumman. [2], [1]

Further, CREW found some retired generals and admirals work for defense contractors
while they continue to advise the Pentagon. Per example, both Gen. James Cartwright, who retired from the U. S. Marine Corps on September 1, 2011 after serving as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Gary Roughead, who retired from the Navy in 20119 after serving as the chief of naval operations, were appointed to the Defense Policy Board on October 4, 2011. [6]. [1] The board’s charter mandates that it provide the secretary of defense “with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning major matters of defense policy.” [7], [1]

Gen. Cartwright, shortly after his retirement, was elected to the Raytheon Co. board of
directors. [8], [1]

Raytheon, a public company that reports director compensation, disclosed paying
each of its non-employee directors an $85,000 annual cash retainer in 2011, as well as a $1,500 meeting fee for each board or committee meeting attended in person or by teleconference.[9], [1]

In addition, directors received $120,000 worth of restricted stock grants in 2011. [9], [1] Gen. Cartwright is also on the board of advisors of TASC, Inc., [10], [1] a former subsidiary of Northrop Grumman that advises military agencies, [11], [1] and a member of the U.S. federal advisory board of Accenture Federal Services.[12], [1].

Less than four months after his retirement, Adm. Roughead joined Northrop Grumman’s
board, for which he is paid $115,000 per year. [13], [1] Northrop Grumman, a public company that reports director compensation, will also pay him an additional $10,000 per year for serving on the board’s audit committee, and he receives an annual grant of $130,000 in deferred stock.[13], [1] Adm. Roughead also sits on the strategic advisory council of The SI Organization, [14], [1] a systems engineering and integration company previously owned by Lockheed Martin. [15], [1].

In some cases the revolving door spun quickly, with senior military officers retiring and
almost immediately taking industry jobs related to their military work. The examples are numerous (see CREW report for more details about our generals). In addition, the revolving door doesn’t stop at the generals’ doors but expands its horns to the lobbyists.

CREW’s research shows defense companies also covet lobbyists with backgrounds in appropriations and strong connections on the Hill. CREW analyzed the employment history of in-house lobbyists registered on behalf of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics as of the first quarter of 2012 and found at least 68 percent had prior public sector experience. Nearly half of the 84 lobbyists had worked for Congress. In addition, 21 percent, or 18 lobbyists had worked for a federal agency. Of those lobbyists with experience on the Hill, roughly a third – 14 lobbyists – had worked for either the House or Senate Appropriations Committees, the powerful panels responsible for directing billions of dollars in government spending. There were also other connections to the appropriations committees: of the 16 lobbyists who worked directly for members of Congress, seven had worked for members of the appropriations committees. [1]

The five companies spend millions of dollars on federal lobbying every year, and receive
billions of dollars in federal contracts. Lobbying records show their collective spending on lobbying increased by nearly 40 percent between 2007 and 2011, skyrocketing from $44.6 million to $62.3 million. Over the same period, the total amount of dollars committed to them in federal contracts increased by roughly 13 percent, growing from $100.61 billion in fiscal year 2007 to $113.28 billion in fiscal year 2011.[48]

The five companies spent roughly $33 million lobbying during the first half of this year,
indicating a likely overall increase for 2012 as well. As defense contractors step up the fight against planned budget cuts, well-connected lobbyists and senior military personnel are likely to become even more valuable. [1]

Boeing

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 25

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 21

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $86.93 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $7.58 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle:

  • Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)

  • Total dollars obligated to Boeing for Defense Department contracts in 2011: $20.49 billion. [1]

General Dynamics

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter of 2012: 10

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 2

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $53.08 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $4.79 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Rep.

  • Buck McKeon (R-CA), Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI)

  • Total dollars obligated to General Dynamics for Defense Department contracts in 2011:

  • $17.98 billion. [1]

Lockheed Martin

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 26

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 18

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $74.23 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $ 8.03 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Rep.

  • Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX), Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL)

  • Total dollars obligated to Lockheed Martin for Defense Department contracts in 2011:

  • $35.76 billion. [1]

Northrop Grumman

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 10

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 7

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $83.85 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $6.19 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Rep.

  • Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD)

  • Total dollars obligated to Northrop Grumman for Defense Department contracts in 2011:

  • $11.88 billion. [1]

Raytheon

  • Registered lobbyists as of first quarter 2012: 13

  • Revolving door lobbyists: 9

  • Amount spent on lobbying since 2007: $36.84 million

  • Campaign contributions since 2008 cycle: $5.85 million [2]

  • Top congressional recipients of campaign contributions during the 2012 election cycle: Sen.

  • Scott Brown (R-MA), Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI)

  • Total dollars obligated to Raytheon for Defense Department contracts in 2011: $13.57

  • Billion. [1]

Conclusion
Finally, The CREW report titled “Strategic maneuvers, the Revolving Door from the Pentagon to the Private Sector” is a stunning report of immense importance because it clearly exposes a capitalist system that has gone awry. The Defense Industry as well as other global corporations have co-opted and owned everyone in the Federal government under the guise of Public-Private Partnership. All of the watchdogs have been transformed into lap-dogs and sacrificed their integrity and country for few dollars and for ephemeral power. Meanwhile, the public continues its unconscious path by empowering the ten horned beast that has devoured everyone in its path.

The final solution would be to kill this beast by ceasing the cash nexus that perpetuates its strength, and to dethrone the harlot (our public leaders and elected officials) who is riding him and driving the American people and the nation into the abyss.


______________________________________________




Monday, May 25, 2009

Privatizing the Police: A Developing Model in the U.S.A.

By Jody Ray Bennett

Three months after 9/11, The New York Times ran a quiet story that highlighted a developing trend concerning a sudden increase in the number of police officers retiring from their jobs for careers with private security companies (PSCs). “The heightened hunger for private protection in the aftermath of history's worst terrorist attacks is fueling the potentially destabilizing exodus,” the story claimed.

The daily suspected that police officers were being lured by the lucrative salaries and benefits offered by the private sector, finding that within the New York Police Department, a “supervisor who plays matchmaker between retired officers and security firms [was] asked to provide hundreds of names to industry executives.”

Indeed, the article identified what at the time was thought of as a marginal development, but is now almost commonplace:

“In the Sept. 11 disaster that never seems to stop exacting its toll, one of the subtler but more serious losses is a consequence of the booming private security industry, which is draining the [NYPD] of some of its most desirable workers: the serious, smart and experienced senior officers the city needs most in a crisis.”

Fast forward nine years later and one finds a young industry built almost entirely on the backs of former military and police personnel who have provided everything from diplomatic, convoy, embassy, weapon storage and energy infrastructural security to gathering intelligence, conducting interrogations, patrolling borders on land, fighting pirates at sea and transporting goods and personnel by air. It would seem there is nothing these forces cannot do.

On private patrol

Policing some of the most dangerous US cities has quickly become the newest line of business for many of these companies, which have already replaced police officers in cities from Portland to Baltimore.

The phenomenon runs deeper than the normal shopping center or bank security guard. While in many cases private security personnel act more as city cleanup, organization or local ambassadors, some cities are pushing for armed private security personnel to patrol the streets, perform arrests and transport civilians. This is somewhat of a cause for concern, especially because of the more controversial issues surrounding the role of private military and security companies abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cities are turning to the private sector for a variety of reasons. Some local and state governments are under pressure from budget deficits and are often convinced that privatized industries are more cost-effective than state agencies and bureaucracies. Other cities have an already overstretched force that cannot respond to increases in crime, so private contractors are seen as a quick fix and an easy force multiplier.
 
From Oakland to New Orleans

Oakland, California is the latest city looking to hire private companies to patrol some of its rougher neighborhoods in the wake of record municipal budget deficits. Last April, according to the Wall Street Journal, the city successfully voted to outsource part of its police patrol to International Services Inc, but later retracted after “two of its vice presidents were accused […] by the Los Angeles District Attorney's office of defrauding the state of California out of more thanUS$9 million in workers compensation.”

According to the daily Portland Mercury newspaper, Portland, Oregon’s downtown area is patrolled by armed personnel with arrest powers that are supplied by Portland Patrol, Inc, a company which, according to local media, has repeatedly evaded requests to appear before the city’s oversight committee.

Over 2,000 miles away, Chicago has turned to a company that currently operates in police-like automobiles marked “special patrol,” according to CBS News, and are expected to have their powers expanded as the city combats increased crime rates with an overstretched police force.

Down south in New Orleans, Louisiana, armed private guards patrol wealthy neighborhoods and private schools. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, “Some areas of New Orleans have used armed private patrols since 1997, when residents in an east New Orleans community petitioned Louisiana's legislature to create a tax on property owners to pay for a private force. About 20 residential tax districts have been established, employing an estimated 100 private guards. This month, seven more neighborhoods voted to create such districts.”

During the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was patrolled by approximately 150 heavily armed Blackwater personnel alongside several other big contractor companies like Dyncorp, Wackenhut and most interestingly, ISI, an Israeli company that flew in former Israeli Special Forces commandos.

Most notably of all of these companies is Capital Special Police, which not only supplies guards and corporate escorts, but also offers “real police officers [that] arrest for felonies and misdemeanors; issue citations for infractions; and enforce local ordinances.”

In January 2007, the Washington Post reported that the company was “one of dozens of private security companies given police powers by the state of North Carolina.”

“The more than 1 million contract security officers, and an equal number of guards estimated to work directly for U.S. corporations, dwarf the nearly 700,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States,” the daily wrote.


A 2000 report from American University in Washington, DC, concluded that “The great contemporary challenge confronting public safety in the United States is not primarily about whether privatization and civilianization are good things. It is about how best to serve the public’s need for protection against crime generally and, in particular, how to shape and coordinate our resources and energies to secure the safety of those quarters of society that are least able to afford effective security, public or private.”

Beginning of the boom

To this end, American cities might soon find a large surplus of job-seeking private security personnel when and if President Barack Obama pulls troops and contractors out of Iraq. Indeed, several US cities have already created public-private police associations in an attempt to bridge cooperation between the two forces. Suffice to say, the private policing boom is only just beginning.

The phenomenon transcends the public-private goods debate and indicates a new shift in how security is allocated by the state. Where the monopoly of force once consisted of exclusively state-owned functions, these have now been outsourced, in part or whole, to private entities.

In a post-Cold War age that heralds neoliberalism as a part of an “End of History,” privatization of police and military force should not come as a terribly big surprise. On the other hand, the transfer of security to private power (or the penetration of private power into a state’s monopoly of force) should hold serious implications over how the provision of security is conceptualized, as well as for the forces that create state power.

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Jody Ray Bennett is a freelance writer and academic researcher.  His areas of analysis include the private military and security industries, the materialization of non-state forces, and the transformation of modern warfare.

This article was originally published at ISN Security Watch (05/18/09).  The International Relations and Security Network (ISN) is a free public service that provides a wide range of high-quality and comprehensive products and resources to encourage the exchange of information among international relations and security professionals worldwide.





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This is the best assessment of the state of affairs regarding the world banking cartel and the capture of world governments.  It also shows the intent of private military buildup in the Western nations and it is indeed what is happening as local governments 'reform' police departments.  You can see once public union leaders being selected to move this privatization forward and the pay structures have the heads of public agencies paid as corporate executives-----because that is what they are intended to be.

The time is now to stop and reverse this process.  IT IS NOT A DONE DEAL WE SIMPLY HAVE TO ENGAGE AS CITIZENS IN POLITICS AND TAKE BACK OUR GOVERNMENT.  IF YOU ARE SILENT AND APATHETIC YOU WILL BE LIVING IN A THIRD WORLD IN A FEW DECADES.



The Road to World War III – The Global Banking Cartel Has One Card Left to Play
September 23rd, 2010 |

Editor’s Note: The following is Part I to David DeGraw’s new book, “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III.” This is the second installment to a new seven-part series that we will be posting throughout the next few weeks. You can read the introduction to the book here. To be notified via email of new postings from this series, subscribe here.


Part One I: Economic Imperial Operations
II: Violence on the Horizon
III: The IMF Riot, Step 3.5
IV: Bang the Drums of War
V: The Chinese Scapegoat: Trade &
—-Currency Wars

VI: Moves Upon the Grand Chessboard
VII: Resource Wars
VIII: Private Military Complex
IX: History Repeats Itself




I: Economic Imperial Operations

When we analyze our current crisis, focusing on the past few years of economic activity blinds us to the history and context that are vital to understanding the root cause. What we have been experiencing is not the result of an unforeseen economic crash that appeared out of the blue with the collapse of the housing market. It was certainly not brought on by people who bought homes they couldn’t afford. To frame this crisis around a debate on economic theory misses the point entirely. To even blame it on greedy bankers, while essentially accurate, also misses the most vital point.

This crisis is the direct result of a strategic economic attack on the existence of a middle class and democracy worldwide. The stock market and economy have become weapons of mass oppression manipulated by an imperial banking cartel to impose order and exploit the masses. This crisis boldly represents the manifest evolution of the fascist spirit reasserting itself as the dominant ideology.

Any fairytale notions of the United States being a democratic republic built on the rule of law have been utterly dispelled. As a nation we have been bred and conditioned to be dangerously naïve to the darker forces which operate beyond the spotlight of the mainstream media. We have been blinded to what has been developing throughout the world.

The economic imperialism that has now blown-back to the United States and Europe has been evolving for decades and can be directly traced back to the end of World War II, to the birth of the CIA, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

For those of us who have been paying attention to economic imperial operations that have been carried out against countries throughout the world, this looks all too familiar. The IMF and global bankers have conquered the second and third world, and they have now moved on to countries within the first world. Western European and American working classes are in the cross-hairs now.

Economic and societal indicators, along with recent G-20 policy decisions, clearly demonstrate that they are carrying out and escalating systemic economic attacks throughout Europe and the US.

To put it in technical terms, the United States government has been taken over by a financial terrorism network. They have bought off leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and have established a dominant role in all three branches of government and throughout the mainstream media. They have complete control of the economy, stock market, US Treasury, Federal Reserve, World Bank, IMF and global banking system. Free market capitalism has collapsed; it’s now a rigged global market. This is an organized criminal operation, an imperial fascist movement that is determined to destroy our very way of life.

A war has already been launched against us.

In just the past three years we have lost an unprecedented amount of national wealth, trillions upon trillions of our tax dollars have been looted by Wall Street, endless wars, enormous subsidies for the most profitable global corporations and tax cuts for the richest one percent of the population. Never before, in the history of civilization, has a nation been so thoroughly and systematically fleeced.

This is all the result of a coordinated economic attack by a global banking cartel against 99 percent of the US population.

Until we can become politically intelligent enough to see this as the reality and root cause of our current crisis, we will not be able to overcome it, our living standards will continue to decline and we will all be sentenced to a slow death in a neo-feudal system built on debt slavery.

The average American is horribly naïve to just how depraved, corrupt and addicted to power this banking cartel is. Through their control and domination of the mass media, they have kept their crimes against humanity out of public consciousness. We have been shielded from the global devastation and death toll that they have already wrought. The result is an unsuspecting population of confused and passive people having their future ripped out from under them, right before their eyes, without any organized defense or resistance.

II: Violence on the Horizon

As the entrenched global banking cartel continues to control domestic political policy, the next phase of this crisis will inevitably feature an escalation into mass violence. As the Army War College stated, the Pentagon is preparing for “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” and “widespread civil violence” due to “purposeful domestic resistance.”

In clear signs of what is to come, rioting and violence as a result of economic turmoil has already been experienced in many countries throughout the world. However, civil unrest has not yet occurred within the United States. There are many theories as to why there has been so little resistance from the US population thus far, and several factors play into it. The most significant factor is that social safety net programs have been vital in preventing people from resorting to extreme measures. Currently, a stunning number of Americans, 52 million, are receiving life-sustaining assistance from government “anti-poverty” programs, such as food stamps, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and Medicare. This has already stretched a social safety net system that is designed to handle significantly less people to its limit. This safety net system has now been drained of all reserve resources over the past two years, and is obviously not sustainable under current economic and political conditions.

As social safety net programs have been drained of reserves, many US citizens have also been burning through their personal savings. Over the past few years the percentage of Americans living paycheck to paycheck has dramatically increased. In 2007, 43 percent of Americans were living paycheck to paycheck. In 2008, the percentage increased to 49 percent. In 2009, the number skyrocketed up to 61 percent. The most recent number for 2010 has exploded to a shocking 77 percent. This means in our nation of 310 million citizens, 239 million Americans are one setback away from economic ruin and millions more are in danger of having to rely on government assistance for survival.

So as this prolonged economic crisis continues, these safety nets, that are already overwhelmed, will have to support more and more people and will inevitably break down. As we have just begun to see, budget cuts to vital social programs on the state and federal levels will become increasingly severe right at the point when many more Americans will need them. As the 52 million Americans currently surviving in “anti-poverty” programs are gradually cutoff from life-sustaining government assistance – and as the 239 million people now living paycheck to paycheck, buried in debt, stressing out and working their asses off just to make ends meet realize that things are not going to be getting any better — and are only going to get worse — social unrest and outbursts of violence will eventually start to bubble up to the surface and the ruling elite will no longer be able to maintain power by simply deceiving the masses via mainstream media propaganda.

When an overwhelming majority of the population directly feels negative effects upon their own living standards, the propaganda system collapses. The illusion comes crashing down and people will finally start to get wise to the horrific scam that is being played on them. When they wake from their media-induced American dream state and realize that they are now living in a nightmare, as crazy as it may sound, people will actually stop voting against their own interests. The apathetic majority, that doesn’t vote, will become active in the interests of self-preservation as their survival instincts kick in.

The handwriting is on the wall and the ruling class has to realize that by the time 2012 rolls around, their puppet politicians will be voted out of office, or their heads will roll, quite literally.

Looking at this from a purely technocratic sociological viewpoint, avoiding mass riots and violence while this many desperate people lose life-sustaining programs appears to be an impossible task, and given our current economic and political environment this seems inevitable.

In an article titled “A Planet at the Brink: Will Economic Brushfires Prove Too Virulent to Contain?” Michael T. Klare explained:

“As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, plant managers, landlords, immigrants, and ethnic minorities. (The list could, in the future, prove long and unnerving.) If the present economic disaster turns into what President Obama has referred to as a ‘lost decade,’ the result could be a global landscape filled with economically-fueled upheavals.”

Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski expressed his fears:

“I was worrying about it because we’re going to have millions and millions of unemployed, people really facing dire straits. And we’re going to be having that for some period of time before things hopefully improve. And at the same time there is public awareness of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels without historical precedent in America….

And you sort of say to yourself: what’s going to happen in this society when these people are without jobs, when their families hurt, when they lose their homes, and so forth?”

Outbreaks of civil unrest are something that the US government and Pentagon have been expecting, and preparing for. Former US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee stating that the greatest threat facing the US is not terrorism, it’s the current economic crisis:

“The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications. The crisis has been ongoing…. Of course, all of us recall the dramatic political consequences wrought by the economic turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s in Europe, the instability, and high levels of violent extremism.”

Intelligence Committee Vice-Chair Christopher Bond said the economic crisis is now “the primary focus of the intelligence community.” As the Army War College has warned, the response to this coming phase of the economic crisis “might include use of military force against hostile groups inside the United States. Further, DoD [the Department of Defense] would be, by necessity, an essential enabling hub for the continuity of political authority in a multi-state or nationwide civil conflict or disturbance.”

Journalist Chris Hedges summed up this report:

“The specter of social unrest was raised at the US Army War College in November in a monograph titled ‘Known Unknowns: Unconventional ‘Strategic Shocks’ in Defense Strategy Development.’ …

The ‘widespread civil violence,’ the document said, ‘would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security.’

‘An American government and defense establishment lulled into complacency by a long-secure domestic order would be forced to rapidly divest some or most external security commitments in order to address rapidly expanding human insecurity at home,’ it went on….

In plain English, something bureaucrats and the military seem incapable of employing, this translates into the imposition of martial law and a de facto government being run out of the Department of Defense. They are considering it. So should you.”

III: The IMF Riot, Step 3.5

The International Monetary Fund is predicting a “social explosion” due to this crisis. The IMF and World Bank have a long history of creating social upheaval. Leaked documents from within the World Bank refer to the next phase of the crisis as the “IMF riot.”

Journalist Greg Palast obtained classified planning documents, which shed light on the covert economic imperial operations, Structural Adjustment Programs, that the IMF, World Bank and US Treasury have used in the past as a playbook for destabilizing and conquering foreign nations. In the UK newspaper The Observer, Palast interviewed Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who was a former World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, turned whistleblower. They revealed the four-step IMF plan. Though the strategy is slightly modified based on the nation being attacked, here in the United States we are currently about to enter a variation of step-three, which is currently being phased in throughout Europe. This step inevitably leads to a significant portion of the population losing the ability to obtain basic necessities essential for survival. Once this happens, riots inevitably occur, or as they put it: step 3.5 is executed.

Here is how Palast and Stiglitz summed it up:

“At this point, according to Stiglitz, the IMF drags the gasping nation to Step Three: market-based pricing – a fancy term for raising prices on food, water and… gas.

This leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls ‘the IMF riot’.

The IMF riot is painfully predictable. When a nation is, ‘down and out, [the IMF] squeezes the last drop of blood out of them. They turn up the heat until, finally, the whole cauldron blows up,’…

What Stiglitz did not know is that Newsnight obtained several documents from inside the World Bank. In one, last year’s Interim Country Assistance Strategy for Ecuador, the Bank several times suggests – with cold accuracy – that the plans could be expected to spark ‘social unrest’.”

To sum up, the interlocked IMF and World Bank set the conditions for ‘social unrest’ and then once it occurs they move to step-four, which is the ultimate in disaster capitalism – they profit off the misery and the civilian population is then buried in a neo-feudal system of severe debt and poverty.

So what is the IMF saying right now about our situation in Europe and the US? A recent Telegraph report reads:

“IMF fears ‘social explosion’ from world jobs crisis

America and Europe face the worst jobs crisis since the 1930s and risk ‘an explosion of social unrest’ unless they tread carefully, the International Monetary Fund has warned….

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, said the percentage of workers laid off for long stints has been rising with each downturn for decades but the figures have surged this time. ‘Long-term unemployment is alarmingly high: in the US, half the unemployed have been out of work for over six months, something we have not seen since the Great Depression,” he said….

The IMF said there may be a link between rising inequality within Western economies and deflating demand. Historians say the last time that the wealth gap reached such skewed extremes was in 1928-1929…”

To show you how insidious the IMF is, they have recently launched a propaganda campaign to publicly decry deficit budget cuts and austerity measures. However, behind the scenes they have been forcing implementation of them and making their usual demands for cuts in vital social services and public spending, once those cuts are in place, the riots obviously follow.

A recent Washington Post report states:

“IMF issues broad call for US financial prudence
Cut Social Security. Ditch the deduction for interest on home mortgages. Tax gasoline.
The United States recently opened itself to the most intense scrutiny yet by the International Monetary Fund, and on Thursday was offered a bitter pill when the agency criticized some well-defended aspects of American culture — cheap fuel, subsidized housing, and a government retirement check…. “

Economist Dean Baker writes:

“The central bankers and their accomplices at the IMF are dictating policies to democratically elected governments. Their agenda seems to be the same everywhere, cut back retirement benefits, reduce public support for health care, weaken unions and make ordinary workers take pay cuts.”

In another report Baker adds:

“The IMF program calls for cutbacks in government support for healthcare, pensions, and a wide range of other public services. It also calls for weakening labor market regulations that provide workers with job security.

These recommendations are being given in a context where the world economy is suffering from a massive shortfall of demand. In other words, tens of millions of people are unemployed right now because there is not enough spending to keep them employed. The IMF’s program is almost certain to reduce spending further leading to even larger shortfalls in demand and more unemployment….

The IMF’s track record gives us reason not only to question the institution’s competence but also its motivations…. It is possible to see a similar pattern in the IMF’s latest set of policy recommendations to deal with the economic crisis.”

In an article entitled, “The Attack of the Real Black Helicopter Gang: The IMF Is Coming for Your Social Security,” Baker continues:

“Last week, the IMF told the United States that it needs to start getting its budget deficit down. It put cutting Social Security at the top of the steps that the country should take to achieve deficit reduction. This one is more than a bit outrageous for two reasons…

While the IMF has no problem warning about retired workers getting too much in Social Security benefits, it apparently could not find its voice when the issue was the junk securities from Goldman Sachs or Citigroup that helped to fuel the housing bubble.

The collapse of this bubble has not only sank the world economy, it also destroyed most of the savings of the near retirees for whom the IMF wants to cut Social Security. The vast majority of middle-income retirees have most of their wealth in their home equity. This home equity largely disappeared when the bubble burst.”

So the IMF and global banking cartel are setting the conditions for social unrest and pushing for policies that will provoke it, and the Pentagon is preparing for a military response. As scary and unbelievable as all this may sound, we are on a fast track to this scenario.

To Sum Up

The American and global economy have already been looted and destroyed beyond repair. Most serious economists will admit that governments have already exhausted their capital by bailing out the banks and taking on unprecedented amounts of debt. The bailouts and recent return to high profits were just the final phase of the looting and a further consolidation of wealth on an unprecedented scale. There are still tens of trillions of dollars in debt hidden off-the-books and hundreds of trillions of dollars in dark pools of derivative liability. As the downturn continues, there is nothing left to revive the economy, the reserves and safety nets have already been stretched to their limits.

We have a political and economic system that has been overrun by organized corruption and theft. Along with a mass media system that does not inform the populace and has effectively marginalized and isolated the majority of the population. Meanwhile, bubbling just under the surface is a very heavily armed population with a militia movement that has doubled in size over the past year, and their memberships continue to rapidly grow. Without the necessary general political intelligence or infrastructure to organize an effective mass non-violent movement, we are steamrolling toward spontaneous riots and outbursts of armed insurrection.

In other words, as this economic downturn continues, what is now a passive and confused population will eventually devolve into an explosion of violence. Without a coherent non-violent movement to provide a viable alternative, without an outlet for severe and legitimate grievances that provides any chance for urgently affecting necessary political change, people will resort to violence as a last desperate act of vengeance and frustration. As time passes, these forgotten and isolated people, tens of millions of them, are quickly running out of options, and they will act out just as exploited people throughout the world always have.

A man who sparked a revolution against the same banking cartel that has caused our crisis described the general attitude among a population that successfully rebelled through armed insurrection:

“The people are weary of being oppressed, persecuted, exploited to the maximum. They are weary of the wretched selling of their labor-power day after day — faced with the fear of joining the enormous mass of unemployed — so that the greatest profit can be wrung from each human body, profit later squandered in the orgies of the masters of capital….

The feeling of revolt will grow stronger every day among the peoples subjected to various degrees of exploitation, and they will take up arms to gain by force the rights which reason alone has not won them.”

Whatever your preconceptions of the man who said this may be, the voice of Che Guevara can now be clearly understood and related to by the overwhelming majority of people throughout the United States.

Already, despite intensive propaganda, a stunning 80 percent of the US population believes that the government has failed them. The health care and financial reform bills have proven that our politicians are much more concerned about the short-sighted necessity to please the Economic Elite and raise campaign funds, than they are to understand the consequences of millions of Americans being forced into situations where their very survival is threatened. In a system where most elected officials are millionaires, this lack of perspective and understanding is ultimately what will lead to violence. Whether it is by arrogance or ignorance, perhaps both, it appears that our ruling class has suicidal tendencies. Unless they quickly recognize the growing threat posed by the dispossessed masses, our puppet politicians will themselves be in harm’s way.

To show you how incredibly out of touch our current elected officials are, and to give you a clear indication of the prevailing attitude on Capitol Hill, a recent report from the Washington Post summed up their response to the recent news that a record number of Americans are now living in poverty:

“The reluctance of political leaders on both sides of the aisle to directly confront the fact that growing numbers of Americans are slipping into poverty reflects a stubborn reality about the poor: They are not much of a political constituency.

‘We talk to many people on Capitol Hill who do believe poverty is important and is a blight on our nation, but we are also up against a general recognition that poor people don’t vote in great numbers. And they certainly aren’t going to be making campaign contributions. That definitely puts them behind many other people and interests when decisions are being made around here.’”

And that sums up our current crisis, doesn’t it? The “poor people don’t vote” and they don’t make “campaign contributions.”

As the Rage Against the Machine song goes, “The riot be the rhyme of the unheard.”

IV: Bang the Drums of War

How will this imperial fascist banking cartel respond to revolt? How will they maintain their power over an increasingly radicalized and hostile US population?

In an attempt to stave off organized rebellion, they are already escalating their propaganda efforts in attempts to divide and distract the population. The tactics of their divide and conquer strategy are already on full display. Their mainstream media outlets have drastically increased coverage and focused attention on the rhetoric of division – using divisive issues like immigration, racism, religious bigotry, the “lazy unemployed,” “entitlement welfare” and gay marriage to divide and distract the population and prevent the masses from organizing against their true oppressors.

This propaganda effort is only a temporary measure and will not suffice over the long-term. As the economy continues to collapse, the banking elite risk being overthrown as a result of their own greed. So they will then turn to physical, military-based violence to suppress populations that can no longer be controlled through propaganda and economic coercion.

To paraphrase policy analyst Anatol Lieven, the classic strategy of an endangered oligarchy is to divert discontent among the population into nationalistic militarism. It is time, once again, to bang the drums of war and “whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor.” The source of the following quote is unknown, but the evident wisdom of it is something that we have already experienced firsthand in the recent past:

“Beware the leader who bangs the drum of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.”

An increased external threat will lead to an increased internal crackdown, which creates the pretext and conditions for a police state. As we have already seen in the first phase of the crackdown on civil liberties since the “War on Terror” began, when rioting and outbursts of armed insurrection begin within the US, external threats, real or imagined, will again be presented to justify extreme measures to suppress American citizens, and to further repress and divert internal dissent. Without an external enemy to rally the population against, the population will rally against the pre-existing internal powers.

To put a slight twist on what Guy DeBord insightfully said back in 1988: the banking cartel “constructs its own inconceivable foe, terrorism. Its wish is to be judged by its enemies rather than by its results. The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive. But they must always know enough to convince them that, compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.”

V:The Chinese Scapegoat: Trade & Currency Wars

As millions of Americans and the majority of the global population look for vengeance on those responsible for severely declining living standards, the global banking cartel are not going to blame themselves, so they will deflect blame to China, a most convenient target.

As a result of the crisis, national currencies are reeling, and the dollar, although currently one of the strongest paper currencies, is losing power as the crisis escalates. The IMF is working to replace the dollar as the world reserve currency and have begun discussing the possibility of making their Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) the new world reserve currency. A plummeting dollar will obviously put the American population in a severely desperate situation and the US-based banking cartel needs an excuse to divert political backlash. In China, the nation poised to replace the US as the preeminent global superpower, they have the perfect scapegoat.

US-based global corporations have been shifting their business to China and off-shoring millions of jobs to the region due to their extremely low worker wages. So the American population is already pre-disposed to blaming China, as opposed to the companies who are exploiting the cheap labor. US politicians have been conveniently shifting blame for unemployment from themselves to China. Meanwhile, China also owns a significant portion of US national debt. US Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has recently declared that the national debt is the number one security threat. As Mullen stated, “Tax payers will be paying around $600 billion in interest on the national debt by 2012.” A significant portion of this interest will be going to China.

As national governments attempt to survive in an increasingly hostile global economy, trade and currency wars will flare up and escalate. China is in perhaps the strongest position to win these conflicts. China and Japan have just engaged in a fierce currency battle. This currency battle is not to be underestimated. We are talking about the world’s second and third largest economies, after the United States. China has just overtaken Japan for the number two position. The militant rhetoric between these two nations is escalating. US politicians were quick to jump on the situation with calls to classify China as a “currency manipulator” and impose trade tariffs and penalties against them.

International economic reporter Barry Grey recently summed up the situation in an article entitled, “Economic crisis threatens to unleash global currency wars:”

“The eruption of currency exchange conflicts is bound up with mounting signs that the global economic crisis is systemic, rather than merely conjunctural, and growing fears that a genuine recovery is not in the offing. The European sovereign debt crisis and the weakening of US economic growth have led governments around the world to seek to secure a greater share of export markets. Under conditions of slowing growth and stagnant markets, this inevitably heightens trade conflicts between competing capitalist nations.

In particular, the US and the European Union, spearheaded by the export power Germany, have aggressively pursued a cheap currency policy in order to gain a trade advantage against their rivals. Of the major economic powers, Japan has suffered the greatest damage from these policies, as investors and speculators have shifted from dollar- and euro-denominated investments to the yen, driving up the currency’s exchange rate.

This has embittered relations between Japan and both the US and the EU. Japan has also denounced China for artificially keeping its currency low while bidding up the yen by increasing its purchases of Japanese government securities.”

The global banking cartel’s leading puppets on Capitol Hill, Senators Chris Dodd, Chuck Schumer and Richard Shelby were all quick to attack China. Barry Grey continued:

“In opening the Senate Banking Committee hearing, Chairman Christopher Dodd declared China a currency manipulator and said its ‘economic and trade policies’ present ‘roadblocks to our recovery.’ He went on to accuse China of stealing intellectual property, violating international trade agreements and dumping goods. He also denounced China for acquiring national resources in developing countries and building up its military.

In his opening statement, the ranking Republican on the committee, Richard Shelby of Alabama, declared, ‘There is no question that China manipulates its currency in order to subsidize Chinese exports. The only question is: Why is the administration protecting China by refusing to designate it as a currency manipulator?’

Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said, ‘China’s currency manipulation is like a boot on the throat of our recovery and this administration refuses to try to get China to remove that boot.’”

On top of all this, China has now overtaken the US as the world’s top energy consumer. Michael T. Klare reports on China’s new position of power:

“The main point: by becoming the world’s leading energy consumer, China will also become an ever more dominant international actor and so set the pace in shaping our global future.

Because energy is tied to so many aspects of the global economy, and because doubts are growing about the future availability of oil and other vital fuels, the decisions China makes regarding its energy portfolio will have far-reaching consequences. As the leading player in the global energy market, China will significantly determine not only the prices we will be paying for critical fuels but also the type of energy systems we will come to rely on. More importantly, China’s decisions on energy preferences will largely determine whether China and the United States can avoid becoming embroiled in a global struggle over imported oil and whether the world will escape catastrophic climate change.”

China’s rise in power, mixed with the decline of western economies and the need for an external scapegoat sets up a global collision and inevitable confrontation between vying superpowers. Currency and trade wars will likely be a prelude to military confrontation.

VI: Moves Upon the Grand Chessboard

Based on early maneuvering it is evident that the masters of war have already drawn up sides. You may have missed it, but the US, Israel and the NATO Alliance have already put Iran, Lebanon, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia and China on notice. And the “withdrawals” from Iraq and the Af-Pak region are over-hyped. The occupation of these countries continues with no end in sight. In fact, they aren’t withdrawing as much as they are repositioning and shifting their forces, preparing for an escalation. In many ways the wars in Iraq and Af-Pak have only been the initial phase of a global attack, positioning forces and building massive military bases in pivotal geo-strategic locations. The operations in this region have essentially been a warm-up for much wider-ranging attacks against much stronger countries. While most of the US population is playing checkers, seeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as one-off battles, the global banking cartel is playing chess, using these wars as only initial geo-strategic moves in a grand strategy toward total world domination.

The intensity of military maneuvering presently occurring is alarming. Read through these recent news reports pulled from the AmpedStatus database, all from just the past few weeks, and let me know if you think I’m being extreme in foreseeing World War III:

- See more at: http://ampedstatus.com/the-road-to-world-war-iii-the-global-banking-cartel-has-one-card-left-to-play/#sthash.U9ibA1cf.dpuf

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

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