Vocal Minority

End the Occupation! Teacher Threatens Arrest of Obama-Criticizing Student

Reported in the Blaze today, complete with a recording by a fast-thinking student:

Teacher: “You will not disrespect the president of the United States in this classroom.”

Student: “I’ll say what I want.”

Teacher: “Not about him, you won’t!” ...

Student: “Whenever Bush was president, everybody talked sh-t about him.”

Teacher: “Because he was sh-tty.”

END THE OCCUPATION! LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

 

Liberal Fascism: School Fined $15k for Operative Soda Machine

Jonathon Seidl at The Blaze reports:

A Utah high school is learning the hard way that the government is serious about nudging students away from food it doesn’t want them to consume. Davis High School in the Salt Lake City area is having to fork over a whopping $15,000 in fines to the Feds because it accidentally sold soda through a vending machine during lunch.

Federal law requires the school to turn off its soda machines during the lunch period, which is 47 minutes a day. And Davis High school did turn off the machines in the lunch room. However, the school didn‘t realize that there was another machine in the school bookstore that wasn’t being turned off. And when the food police realized it, the school was hit with a $0.75 fine per student for the duration of the offense.

Now the school is going to have to cut money to fine arts programs to make up the cost.

This one's for the "keep your laws off my body!!!" crowd.  Why do I say this? Because that's how illiberals debate the abortion issue: "My body, my choice!!!" they shout in self-righteous indignation. Maybe they shout it so loud so as to drown out the sound of the tiny living heart beating inside them, but anyway isn't it funny that for the same illiberals, "my body, my choice!!!" doesn't seem to apply to busybody leftist food fascists fining schools in Utah, banning Happy Meals in San Francisco, or outlawing trans-fats and salt in New York City.

You're hypocrites, all of you.

This is what happens when the federal government gets drunk on its own power. Now ask yourself: Did you vote for this and, more importantly, will you again?

 

Elizabeth Warren Roundup

I haven't posted much, if any, about this opportunistic far-left character since she bashed "factory owners" for having the nerve to be successful. With revelations that Ms. Warren cashed in on her being 1/32 Cherokee (which may not even be true), here's the latest from the right-osphere:

Learn from Elizabeth Warren.

I think the attacks against Elizabeth Warren, who pretended to be an American Indian to advance her career, are wrong.  To the contrary, she simply did what we all should be doing!  She sabotaged America's racist affirmative action regime, or -- the term I prefer to call it -- America's affirmative apartheid.

She should be our role model.  We should all do the same thing she did and proclaim ourselves members of whichever fashionable list of preferred "minorities" the racists administering affirmative apartheid happen to be promoting this week. ...

The problem has to do with the most common error in social science: the superstitious belief in "natural homogeneity."  This is the ridiculous belief in the axiom holding that, in the absence of discrimination, every single demographic and ethnic group in society should have numerical representation in all things, in all professions and all salary classes, proportionate to their numbers in the population.  Thus, according to this superstition, any departure from perfect numerical homogeneity in "representation" must be due to discrimination.  Never any need actually to document or prove discrimination.  The statistical disparity is all the proof needed.

Meanwhile ... from Althouse:

Catching up on the news about Elizabeth Warren.

1. "The University of Pennsylvania, where Warren worked from 1987 to 1994, listed her as a minority in a 'Minority Equity Report.'  The report comes after Harvard Law School claimed Warren as a diversity hire in 1996."

2. "There is nothing left of the claim that Elizabeth Warren is 1/32 Cherokee. The documentary sources have been debunked, and the genealogist and genealogical society which originated the story and upon whom the Warren campaign relies are not talking." 

And finally ... Preach it, brother Zo. "Spitting Bull" - love it!

As Expected, the Anti-Bully Crowd Have Become the Bulliers

When Big Education's anti-"bullying" campaign began a couple years ago I suspect two things would happen: (1) The tiniest expression of opposition toward any P.C. liberal-approved position will be labeled as "bullying" as a method of shutting  up opposition -- even if that means actually suspending a child for the alleged infraction. (2) The self-appointed intelligenti of the liberal left -- and that means in particular union teachers and their leaders -- will be the ones who actually bully and intimidate people. And they will do it with impunity and sanctimony.

Sure enough, that's what's happened, as Kyle Olson at Big Government reports: 

As an aside, I am troubled by the recent focus on bullying.  Bullying is a problem – yes.  But the threshold of “bullying” has dropped significantly to the point where virtually any disagreement or conflict in personal or religious beliefs constitutes “bullying.” ...

A classic case occurred in Michigan.  A Howell High School teacher wore “a purple shirt in solidarity with bullies LGBT youth.”  When a student objected to homosexuality on religious grounds – without ever intimidating or “bullying” anyone – the teacher argued with the student and ended up getting him suspended.

But what happens when the anti-bullying activists become the bullies?  Will they live by their own standards? Naturally, the answer is no.

Education Action Group recently reported on two different cases of intimidation – dare I say bullying, by the union’s definition – involving teachers. ...

Yes, these are the very same people that have the gall to lecture America about bullying.  The reality is they are the ones to use bullying and intimidation to get their way at the bargaining table.  They are the ones who dismiss any difference of opinion – be it personal, political, religious or otherwise – as bullying by the opposing view.

Bullying will become the new racism in that it will be the hand grenade tossed into the crowd that makes debate and civil disagreement more difficult to embrace.  It will be another mechanism by which to force the surrender of anyone disagreeing with their agenda, for fear of being labeled a “bully.”

It's the typical liberal prescription: Pick some crime against humanity, necessarily blow it out of proportion, and then clear the playing field so that you and you alone can engage in that crime unhindered. There's no level of behavior, even criminal behavior, that is out of bounds when a liberal seeks to have her way over you. But the second you have the nerve to express your opinion, they're the first to shout "Bully!" from the rooftops. It's quite Orwellian.

END THE OCCUPATION! LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

Another Black History Month: The Left's Favorite Time of the Year

From the inimitable Lloyd Marcus at AT.

Alas, another Black History Month...or as the left likes to view it, their annual "Opportunity To Exploit Race Month."  It is the month in which liberals attempt to convince us that race relations in America have progressed very little since the days of police unleashing dogs on civil rights activists.

Rather than presenting a balanced, honest look at black history, leftist schoolteachers and the media say America is still racist and whites should feel eternally guilty.  Also included in the left's message is that blacks must continue to vote monolithically for Democrats in order to keep rich white Republican racists at bay.  Yes, for the most part, Black History Month is a propaganda tool of the Democratic party. ...

 

End the Occupation: National Center for Socialist Propaganda Science Education

Are you one of those intelligent people who actually refuse to fall for the flawed theory of catastrophic man-made global warming climate change? Do you have a child attending a public school? No problem. A non-profit group called National Center for Science Education has created a program to help science teachers take on you neanderthals.

Meteorotologist, radio host, and author Brian Sussman has the story today at Human Events.

This month, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit group that denounces intelligent design and supports evolution-only curricula in the classroom, is expanding its mission. The organization is determined to silence global warming deniers, and is unfurling an aggressive effort to teach America’s schoolchildren that climate change is real and is being caused by human activity. ...

As a prime example of what the NCSE intends, the University of California at Berkeley operates the website GlobalWarmingKids.net.  On the site, instructors can order “Global Warming for Young Minds,” a handbook aimed at 6- to 10-year-olds. It also offers “Let’s Stop Climate Change” DVDs, in which Simon the hippopotamus encourages children to take action against the dangers presented by global warming.

In the class projects section of a similar website, HotStuffChillOut.org, school kids are told, “We all know about climate change. We all know what to expect. Now we must act.”

The tragic aspect of all such eco-brainwashing is that the scientific method is being bastardized as our students are being told what to think, not how to think.  ...

END THE OCCUPATION. LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

Homeless Long Island Teenager Is Intel Competition Semifinalist

CBS's NYC affiliate reports:

Samantha Garvey has good reason to be the recipient of high fives and congratulations from the faculty and students in the hallways at Brentwood High School.

The 17-year-old senior says she cannot believe that she is one of the semifinalists in the highly prestigious Intel Science Competition, in part because she lives in a Bay Shore homeless shelter with her parents, brother, and twin sisters.

“I am currently homeless. Like I’ve said, this motivates me to do better. I do well and I pursue my passion because it’s what I have and it’s a way out, you know, and it’ll lead to better things,” Garvey told WCBS 880 reporter Sophia Hall.

That last paragraph is the key. The young lady and her family are clearly going through rough times, but there’s no bitterness, resentment, envy, or sense of entitlement in her face or words.

The real tragedy is that country doesn’t seem to have enough Samantha Garveys.

 

 

End the Occupation! Class Credit for OWS Participation

At Columbia. No big surprise there. How proud these students' parents must be.

New Class At Columbia Focuses On Occupy Wall Street

End the Occupation! Liberals Out of the Schools NOW!

End the Occupation! - U.K. School Principal Keeps School Freezing to "Save the Planet"

This story from across the pond appeared today on Drudge:

A HEADTEACHER got a roasting yesterday for turning the school heating OFF on one of the coldest days of the year — to save the planet.

Pupils shivered in coats, hats and scarves as temperatures fell to just 1°C (34°F).

Head Rob Benzie switched off the radiators to show how the secondary school could cut its carbon footprint.

But some staff and parents slammed the "barbaric" plan.

One teacher called it "beyond stupid" and added: "It was absolutely ridiculous.

"I've never worked in such cold. I'm all for saving the planet but this was barbaric.

"Nobody could work properly and kids could not even grip a pen through their gloves." The mum of a 12-year-old at Ansford Academy in Castle Cary, Somerset, said: "She was shaking when she came home. I was absolutely furious."

A dad added: "Turning the heating off in December is just mental."

"I can't believe the kids learnt anything. I'm very angry with the school."

 But Mr Benzie, 52, defended the "successful" experiment last Friday — locally the coldest day of the winter so far — and vowed to stage regular "eco-days" at the 640-pupil school.

He said: "We cut the heat to see if we can lower our carbon footprint. We let pupils wear as many jumpers as they liked.

Oh gee, how gracious of you. Yeah, that's what I want to do as a schoolchild. Wear 20 layers for 6+ hours at school. That's going to help us get a lot of work done.

"Everyone seemed happy enough although it did get pretty chilly. We sent letters to parents telling them of the plan.

"We had only one complaint and that was from a member of staff. But in the end they just got on with it."

Um, that's not what the article says ...

Mr Benzie said he hoped for another eco-day next term, adding: "I'd like it to be a regular event. We have too much heating — sometimes I have to turn it down as it can make students fall asleep.

Well that's just stupid. Why does it have to be way too much heat — which is a problem in and of itself — or no heat at all. Are we too ill-equipped in the 21st century to have a system that produces moderate indoor temperatures?

 

"The idea was actually thought up by a small number of pupils from our student eco-group."

Oh sure, pass the blame on to a bunch of brainwashed kids. Real smooth. What a freaking joke that environ-MENTAL-ists like this are running schools (Oh believe me, there's more than one.)

You know what? I hope more schools do this. You know why? Because it's going to end up turning kids off to this global warming scam.

END THE OCCUPATION. LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

 

End the Occupation! - OWS-Inspired Socialism Being Taught in (Where Else) California

Brian Sussman at AT reports on a disgusting display of Marxist-socialist propaganda being pushed as curriculum for 4th-7th graders by the California Teachers Association. The inspiration for this latest scholastic infusion of leftism: Occupy Wall Street.

"Considering Democracy in Occupy Wall Street," was the title of a teaching guide recommended for grades 4-7. The lesson plan was assembled by the Morningstar Center, a leftwing organization that teaches "social responsibility."

In the guide we read,

"...there are some ways that our country isn't always democratic, even though people do have rights such as a vote and free speech. Ask students if they can think of some examples. (Examples include: people and corporations with lots of money can make political contributions that give them more influence over our government than other people. Another: people who have a lot of power and resources can pay to have their opinion heard.)"

What's ironic is that this material is being offered at a resource area sponsored by a very wealthy teachers union. Unions are corporations, and influence politics as much, or more, than most other organizations -- especially in California! [Exactly!]

As for people "who have a lot of power and resources," ask gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman how that worked out for her. She spent nearly $100 million of her own money in her quest to become the governor of California, but was defeated by union-backed Jerry Brown.

The guide goes on to describe the Occupy movement for the school children:

Occupy Wall Street is a group of activists who want to change the way money, wealth, and income are distributed in the U.S. They want to change the fact that there is a very big difference between how much money and wealth rich and poor people have. Also, they want to make our country more democratic so that even people with little money and power can have more of a voice.

Did you catch that? "Change the way money, wealth, and income are distributed". The economically illiterate Left continue to operate on the false premise that wealth (in the U.S. at least) is a zero-sum game: that is somebody lacks something, it's because someobody else has it.

It gets worse:

Also on the resource table was another lesson entitled, "Ten Chair Simulation of the Distribution of Wealth."  The plan was produced by Polly Kellogg, a teacher at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota (her specialty is "neocolonialism and global consequences of corporate capitalism").

Kellogg contends that, "The corporate elite who own the majority of the wealth not only control our economy, but also own most of the media and influence government policies. When students become aware of this concentration of wealth and power they begin to see the necessity of thinking critically about the system in which we live."

Kellogg uses a musical chairs theme to illustrate the collective net worth of those in the United States, as if the amount of money in America is a zero-sum game.

To begin the simulation I ask ten students to volunteer to line up at the front of the room seated in their chairs, facing the rest of the class. I explain that each chair represents ten percent of the wealth in the U.S. and each occupant represents 10% of the population, so that when each chair is occupied by one student, the wealth is evenly distributed. I explain that wealth is what you own: your stereo, the part of your house and car that are paid off, savings like stocks and bonds, vacation homes, any companies you own, your yatchs [sic], villas on the Riviera, private jet airplanes, etc. Then I ask students to estimate how much wealth each family would have if the wealth were equally distributed. Students usually guess about $50,000 and are surprised to hear that the answer is $250,000. I ask them what it would feel like if every family could have a $100, 000 home, a $10,000 car paid for and $140,000 in savings.

Oh gawd ... Where to begin?

Two (at least) major problems with this activity, one empirical, the other pedagogical. First, it can be argued that "wealth" is not only "what you own." To the Left wealth is always material, never spiritual or psychological. Wealth does not equal happiness, but to the Left no one can be happy if their next door neighbor has a nicer car or stereo than them. That's why on more than one occasion I've heard the cringe-worthy argument that an abortion is justified if the baby would be born in a less than perfect environment. To the Left, being dead is preferable over living with a 10-year-old Hyundai parked in your parents' driveway instead of a brand new BMW! If that's not sick, I don't know what is.

Pedagogically, this entire activity is based on feelings, not thought. This is another Leftist trait: Make decisions based on what you feel; don't form conclusions based on what you think. This is not how you create a generation of critically thinking adults. But it is how you create a generation of emoting Democrat-voters.

There is absolutely nothing in this lesson that explains the presumably unfair disparity of wealth among the participants. No where is the indespensible variable of personal choice. Nowhere is it suggested that student A might have $250,000 in wealth because they worked their ass off for 10 years in medical school and now works 60 hours a week as a doctor while student B might have slacked off their entire young life playing XBox and getting high with their dirtbag friends, barely graduated high school and managed to squeeze by into a college that gave them a two-year degree in "just staying out of jail."

Naturally I'm being extreme but my main point is important: Nowhere in this entire curriculum is the vital lesson that the amount of wealth you earn is highly contingent upon how hard you work and what kind of character you develop. To the Left, it's all result-oriented. It's merely: "Student A has $250,000, student B $50,000. And that's not fair. How do you feel about it?"

This is exactly how the OWS protestors think: Someone (THEM) has more than somebody else (ME) and that's not fair. Therefore, we demand someone with power (GOV'T) to steal it from them and give it to us. This economic illiteracy is dangerous and we are seeing the destructive results of it at Occupy protests around the country. The curriculum falsely teaches the schoolchildren that student B has only $50,000 because student A has $250,000 -- i.e., wealth has been unfairly distributed -- when the truth is that, through hard work and making the right life choices student B can earn as much wealth as she wants regardless of how much student A has!

Sussman concludes his report on the CTA curriculum with this quote from John Adams:

"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.  There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

Ain't that the truth.

Along the same lines, I'm reminded of the following brilliant monologue delivered earlier this week by El Rushbo about the OWS protestors. Essentially, they are the Democrat Party base:

The Democrat Party base is what is destroying this country, and the effort to coddle them and to take care of them and to continue keeping them in that position that they're in of total dependence, no opportunity at acquiring wealth or achievement. The rest of us have to pay for their crazy, stupid life choices. The rest of us have to see our wealth and income transferred and redistributed to people who've made rotten choices. (Among the worst choices they've made is to vote Democrat.) The Democrat Party base is the nation's losers, and we need to start pointing this out.

You want to start talking about people not paying their fair share? Yeah, it's the Democrat Party base that's not paying their fair share. It's the 47% or whatever the number is that don't pay income taxes who are not paying their fair share. It's not the top 1%. It's not the people working. It's not people getting up every day and doing everything they can to make this country work. They are not the ones who are not paying their fair share! The Democrat Party base are the people not paying their fair share: the 49%, 47% that are paying zilch, zero, nada; and they're the ones that we're told ought to get everything. They're the one who ought to get all the benefits.

They're the ones who ought to get all the transfers of wealth. Somehow, they're in their circumstance because of the 1%. "The 1% stole everything those people used to have!" Wrong. Those people are in the positions they're in because they have made rotten life choices, and they have had those choices confirmed and affirmed by the Democrat Party who want those people dumb and stupid and unproductive. That's who's not paying their fair share, and that's what the Republican Party needs to start pointing out. "This is a war," as James Carville would say. American politics is a war. We don't treat it that way. Not us. Not you and me, folks. I'm talking about the people that represent us in large part.

I, for one, have had it. I have had it with the people who are working in this country being called the people who aren't paying their fair share.  I have had it with people who are getting up every day and slogging against every effort this administration's making to kill this economy, to still go to work every day, make this country work. They are not the people who are screwing up.  They are not the people who are not paying their fair share. They're doing more than their fair share and they're facing obstacles like they've never faced before in this administration, and still they get up and they go to work every day.  It offends my sensibilities to hear these people described as not paying their fair share,  because don't believe for a moment that the Democrats simply mean that 1% is not paying their fair share.

They're after everybody that's working, they're after everybody that's paying taxes, and they want to raise them. And, meanwhile, the people who don't work, the losers that make up the Democrat Party base, that's for whom we're supposed to have compassion and sorrow, because of their life choices. We are the majority in this country, and we are the ones who make it work. I'm tired of being blamed, flat-out tired of having the finger pointed at me and you and everybody else who's working or trying to work or trying to get a job. Instead, what do we do? We're supposed to have sympathy and compassion for a bunch of whining losers! We're supposed to feel sorry for a bunch of people who are where they are because they have chosen it. And, as I say, their number one choice has been to vote Democrat. You get what you pay for.

This, in my opinion, is what the CTA want to create: This curriculum has nothing about education or learning. It's a political effort to produce a new generation of Democrats. Economically illiterate, lazy and unmotivated, non-critically-thinking and wholly emotional, perpetually jealous Democrats.

If this crap does not get removed from our public schools, all we are doing is created future generations of OWS protestors: economically illiterate brats who believe they're owed something that somebody else has. I don't believe I am overreacting. This nation is truly doomed.

END THE OCCUPATION! LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

Really Angry at the 1%, OWS? Protest Hollywood, the World Series, D.C., and Universities!

Forget global warming climate change. The real inconvenient truths are those that make liberals/Democrats react like Dracula to holy water. And for those of you who associate or sympathize with Occupy Wall Street, this one’s a doozy.*

If the OWS protesters are really serious about castigating the 1%’s alleged hoarding of wealth at the expense of the rest of us 99%, why are they only protesting Wall Street? Why are they not protesting the uber-rich Hollywood/celeb crowd, many of whose salaries make the average Wall Street financier look like a beggar? Why not six- or even seven-figured pro athletes? And let’s not forget about certain members of the public sector: public officials, public union bosses, educators, and administrators.

It’s time to shed light on who exactly is this 1% is.

It turns out, according to CNN Money—not exactly unfriendly toward OWS—that Wall Street workers make up only 14% of the eeeevil 1%!

Who Are the 1%?
by Tami Luhby @ CNN Money.

Think it takes a million bucks to make it into the Top 1% of American taxpayers?

Think again. In 2009, it took just $343,927 to join that elite group, according to newly released statistics from the Internal Revenue Service.

Occupy Wall Street protesters have been railing against the Top 1%, trying to raise anger and awareness of the growing economic gap between the rich and everybody else in America.

But just who are these fortunate folks at the top of the income ladder?

Well, there were just under 1.4 million households that qualified for entry. They earned nearly 17% of the nation's income and paid roughly 37% of its income tax. [Which means the eeeevil 1% actually don’t pay their fair share; they already pay more than twice their fair share. Yet, Marxist demagogues from President Hope&Change to Mass. Senate candidate Liz Warren to really fat cat Michael Moore to the increasingly dense NBC Today host Matt Lauer would have you think otherwise.] …

Many workers in the securities industry in New York likely qualify for the Top 1%.

These folks, many of whom work only blocks from where protesters are gathering in Zuccotti Park, made an average salary of just over $311,000 in 2009, according to the state Comptroller's Office. (This figure does not take into account certain income, losses and deductions that make up adjusted gross income.)

A separate study found that financial professionals made up about 14% of the top rank in 2005 [and probably a little less now].

Executives, managers and supervisors working outside of finance accounted for 31%, the largest share, according to an analysis by Jon Bakija of Williams College, Adam Cole of the Treasury Department and Bradley Heim of Indiana University. Medical professionals came in at 15.7%, while lawyers made up 8.4%.

Wait: 14% + 31% + 8.4% + 15.7% only comes to 69.1%. Who makes up the remaining 30.9%? Hollywood celebs? Surely they make the average Wall Street Banker look like a pauper. Amazingly, Obama is in Hollywood this week drumming up support and racketing up millions of bucks from these out-of-touch multi-millionaires.

This is why it is glaringly ridiculous when the likes of Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Kanye West, and Russell Simmons join these hapless tattooed and pierced lot of unemployable college graduates. It would be no more ridiculous if Dakota Fanning (or her younger sister, whatever her name is) picketed at the house of a town’s best paid preteen paperboy on the grounds he was making too much at the expense of other kids. I could just see it now, a bunch of jealous young thugs breaking into the garage and tearing the kid’s bike to pieces. The town’s local paper would report favorably about the mob, how they're "raising awareness" about the unfairness of it all and how the unruly mob of youngsters are justifiably expressing their anger and frustration ...

What about star athletes? Yup. In fact, Noel Sheppard at NewsBusters looked up the salaries of this year’s World Series teams and learns that:

The average player on the St. Louis Cardinals makes $3.9 million a year. On the Texas Rangers it's $3.2 million.

Hmmmm.

Next, what about government fat cats in Washington, (not to mention many state capitals)? Last week it was reported that federal employee- and lawyer-heavy Washington, D.C. has become the nation’s richest metropolitan area. And according to this 2009 article at About.com:

The median personal wealth for members of Congress grew to $911,510 in 2009, up from $785,515 in 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Nearly half of the members of Congress are millionaires. In FY2010 the Obamas made $1.8 million.

Read that again, friends: Nearly half of our taxpayer-funded Congressmen are millionaires, as is our president. And it’s supposed corporate greed people are rioting about? Why aren’t people protesting government greed? (Oh yeah, people have. They’re called the Tea Party. And the Democrat-media complex have been smearing them incessantly as extremist racists who don’t like the fact that a black man is in the White House!)

Finally, time to look seriously about Big Education. First, teacher union fat cats: Rishawn Biddle @ AmSpec writes:

The AFT alone collected $211 million a year in dues during its 2010-2011 fiscal year (most of it by force from the very teachers whose interests they proclaim to represent), while the far-larger NEA pulled in $397 million during its 2009-2010 fiscal year period. Each union, on their own, collects more dues than the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, Service Employees International Union, or the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. When one adds in the revenues collected by their affiliates, the two unions are billion-dollar organizations with budgets that match their corporate peers.

The leaders of both unions are as well paid as most midsized corporate chief executives and leaders in the nonprofit arena. AFT President Weingarten, for example, collected $493,895 in 2010-2011, a 15 percent increase over the same period last year; Weingarten’s NEA counterpart, Dennis Van Roekel, collected $397,221 in the previous year. Their staffs are also well-compensated. Four hundred thirty-three of the NEA’s staffers earned at least $100,000 in annual compensation; the 193 AFT staffers collecting six-figure checks include David Dorn, the union’s director of international affairs (who was paid $223,965 last year), and Hartina Flournoy, a longtime Democratic Party operative who earns $231,337 a year as Weingarten’s assistant.

When you consider that teachers’ union leaders at all levels collect lucrative sums from their unions and and additional salaries from the school districts that are servile to them, the wealth they acquire at the expense of taxpayers is astounding. New York City, for example, will shell out $9 million to 1,500 AFT officials even though they spend almost no time teaching. One of those double-dippers is Tom Dromgoole, an AFT representative who will collect $100,049 from the city (on top of his $50,461 paycheck from the union) even though he will only teach English classes for two days during the school year. And when they retire, they also collect sweet pension checks long after they left the classroom. Former NEA President Reginald Weaver, for example, collects an “annual annuity of $242,657” from Illinois’ busted pension system, thanks to a state law that allows union bosses to base their final year’s salary off their unionizing work; he’s one of 119 union players who get the proverbial fat of the land.

True, the high $100k’s and $200k’s are not quite the 1% -- it’s in the top 5% though, and that’s sure close enough -- but they are paid with our taxpayer money! And they way they get this money is arguably unwarrented and undeserved. These people produce nothing.

But just as hypocritical as a Hollywood celeb at Wall Street is a tenured university full-time professor at Wall Street. Lo and behold, last week several University of Pennsylvania professors attended Occupy movements. UPenn’s newspaper even David Horowitz’ Freedom Center released an official solidarity statement!

Yet here are some … um, inconvenient truths:

In 2000-01 undergraduate enrollment at UPenn cost:
Tuition + Fees = a little over $25,000. Room/board = approx. $7,800.
Total: $32,800.

In 2010-11 undergraduate enrollment at UPenn cost:
Tuition + Fees = about $40,500 Room/board = around $11,400. 
Total: almost $52,000.

 Why such a radical increase? Maybe because In 2000-01 the mean average salary for a full-time prof. at UPenn was $121,424. In 2010-11? $175,100. 

This figure does not include health benefits and pension. Plus, consider that full professors do not work 9:00-5:00, 5 days a week. (I spent over half a decade in an Ivy League grad school. I know quite well what these full profs’ work weeks look like.)

But wait, there’s more. In 1998-99 UPenn's president made $555,000 in salary and benefits. In 2002-03 it was $845,474 + benefits, etc. and in 2009-10 UPenn President Amy Gutmann brought home a total compensation of over $1.3 million. Now that’s the top 1%!

Professors and administrators are paid by taxpayer money and/or students who are now drowning in debt. Besides, you tell me in what other area do people’s salaries increase 45% over 10-11 years (with very little to show for it if you ask me, given the complete economic ignorance of OWS protestors)?

So who is screwing whom? Not Wall Street Bankers. Do young adults drowning in college debt have something to be angry about? Absolutely. But the target should be their institutions of "higher" education! These socialist profs with the six-figure salaries for doing a total of about six months of work have no business being among the rioters!

The Marxist left who rule the Democrat-media complex have their convenient template. An eeeevil rich banker sure makes for a better villain to the Marxist left than a Hollywood actor, baseball pro, a nameless faceless university president, or even the president of the United States who happened to make $1.8 million last year! Wall Street is the best distraction Obama and the Democrats can dream of. It takes all the attention away from their miserable failures, including their own culpability for the current economic mess.

*For the record, I do have one liberal Facebook friend who sympathizes with OWS, but also has asked publicly why Hollywood and athletes get a pass. This act of intellectual honesty deserves mention.

 

Fraud, Waste and Abuse

Most of us have picked ourselves off the floor after hearing President Hope&Change's latest jobs bill pitch. Soon afterward he addressed a group in Columbus where he lamented a public school there whose music teacher lacked drums. (Because Washington D.C. providing a school in Columbus, OH with drums both (1) is the federal government's business and/or responsibility and (2) will create jobs, for which O's bill is supposedly intended.)

Perhaps this money could've helped ...

Billions in Unemployment Benefits Paid in Error

Nearly $19 billion in state unemployment benefits were paid in error during the three years that ended in June, new Labor Department data show.

Source: Labor Department

The amount represents more than 10% of the $180 billion in jobless benefits paid nationwide during the period. (See a sortable chart of each states’ overpayments) The tally covers state programs, which offer benefits for up to 26 weeks, from July 2008 to June 2011. Layers of federal programs that help provide benefits for up to 99 weeks weren’t included.

The figures were released Wednesday as the Obama administration promotes its bid to reduce waste at federal agencies. The federal government foots the bill for administering the programs, and states are supposed to pay for the benefits. Many states exhausted their unemployment insurance trust funds during the long recession and slow recovery, prompting them to borrow from the federal government to replenish their funds.

Doug Powers at The Powers That Be also notes:

Thirty-one headquarters officers and employees of the National Education Association make $200,000 a year or more. Maybe Obama should have a chat with the union. Asking them for a little “shared sacrifice” would buy a lot of drums for music students!

Indeed.

From the Hell Freezes Over Department ...

Yours truly has just learned that a TEA Party org has been formed at ... Harvard Law School. Why yes, that was a pig that flew past your window just now.

Good luck, TEA Pahhhtiers. That is, until the university shuts you down on trumped up charges of "fomenting hate" or some other bogus reason.

Whaddaya Know: The People Choose Vouchers Over Public Schools!

Rob at Say Anything reports and comments:

It’s amazing what happens when parents and students get choice:

SOUTH BEND, IN – Weeks after Indiana began the nation’s broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils.

The new voucher program gave 3,200 students in the state vouchers, and 70% of those with vouchers are choosing to take them to private schools (mostly Cahtolic schools). Not surprisingly, school officials are less than enthused:

It’s a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools.

I think this speaks to a fundamental difference of opinion as to what these tax dollars earmarked for education are for. The education bureaucrats think we’re funding them. We’re not. We’re funding education for our students.

And the best way to do that is to give those students and their parents choice. Nobody benefits more from education than the students getting it. Thus, generally, nobody cares about education more than those students and their parents. Let’s fund them, not bureaucrats who are often more concerned with feathering their own beds and building their little empires.

If the public schools in Indiana want these students and the tax dollars that are tied to them back, let them earn them back by being better than the private schools. If they can’t, then maybe they shouldn’t bother opening the doors

More Tea Party Violence and Racism: Milwaukee

Oh wait, that's not the Tea Party. It's Obama-supporting Democrat-voting* public union teacher protesters -- again.

Yes, the Democrat-media complex still smear the Tea Party and anti-Obama conservative Americans as vitriolic and racist, and most recently "the real enemy" who can "go straight to hell." Meanwhile in the real world, actual vitriol and (by the left's own standards) racism occurred at the hands of union protesters in Milwaukee, Wisconsin both Thursday and Friday.

As reported by Milwaukee's local Fox-TV affiliate:

Vandals super glued the locks of several doors and a parking gate at Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee. School officials believe the people responsible for the vandalism were protesting the visit of Gov. Scott Walker Friday afternoon.

Gov. Walker was expected to arrive at 1 p.m. to speak to kindergarten and first grade students about reading.

Late Thursday night, school officials were informed that building alarms had been set off. Then, Friday morning, they discovered that nine locks on the property's exterior doors had been sealed with glue. The doors tampered with included a parking gate, several doors to the building and even a church building door.

That was Thursday. Then on Friday, a throng of protesters converged on the school while reviled Republican Governor Scott Walker was inside. The protesters shouted such intolerant things as for the school to get out of their neighborhood (specifically Christians; Messmer is a Catholic school).

This is bone-chilling. Here is a throng of left-wing Democrats intimating children while at school and shouting that they should get out of town. You know what that kind of activity is called? (Used to be at least): Terrorizing. And it's the Tea Party that's compared to the KKK and Jim Crow-era bigots?? Puh-lease!

So, where does the racism part come in? Well, the president and CEO of the Messmer schools, Br. Bob Smith, is black. One of the principals of the three schools (who I don't believe was present at the protest) is also black. And, at least according to these online images -- I couldn't find ethnic data on their website -- most of Messmer's student body are black or another ethnic minority. When Brother Bob came out of the school (as you will see in the video below), he was quite obnoxiously harrassed. (You might say he was given the John Lewis treatment. Hey, who's to say Brother Bob wasn't spat upon by a racist white public union teacher protester?)

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air links to this video below and goes on to explain that Messmer is a “choice school,” it operates outside the clutches of public teacher union and boasts a +85% graduation rate. By alarmingly stark contrast the public school graduation rate of blacks and Hispanics, is 49% and 54%, respectively. No wonder Wisconsin's left-wing Democrats hate this school and seek to demonize and eliminate it!

Bret Healy at Big Government also writes about this protest, saying:

The event was a perfect storm for the unhinged Left: A chance to combine their absolute hatred of the Republican governor with their complete disdain for the nation’s longest running school choice program.

SEIU, AFSCME and Milwaukee Public School officials combined forces with Students for a Democratic Society, self-professed Hippies and others to march, sing, chant and yell at not only the governor, but the students and staff of Messmer Preparatory School.

The Messmer story is inspiring, and one I’ll tell in greater detail here soon. What’s really striking to me is this obnoxious display of thuggery comes onthe heels of the release of the MacIver Educational Choice Census, which shows that throughout Wisconsin, parents are embracing educational options. In Milwaukee, nearly 4 out of 5 children attend a school other than the one geographically assigned to them by the public school bureaucrats.

By the way, other than local Wisconsin affiliates, have any mainstream news media outlets covered this blatant videotaped exhibit of violence, vandalism, and racism? Of course not. It doesn't fit the liberal lie that it's the Tea Party that's violent, destructive and racist and that it's liberals/Democrats who aren't.

Spread stories like this far and wide, dear readers. The real documentable truth is out there; more people just need to see it.

*How do I know these violent protesters were Obama-supporting Democrats? Believe me, I know.

End The Occupation! Why Johnny Can't Locate Iraq

A little over a year ago, I posted about discovering man-made global warming climate change propaganda at a public school in my town. A poster using Dr. Seuss characters to indoctrinate kids to help "save the planet" was displayed prominently in the foyer of the school. I noticed this poster last July at that school where my then-4-year-old was attending rec camp.

One year later I am happy to report that this poster no longer graces the walls of that school.

That's the good news.

Now for the bad news ...

On the way to pick up my son, now 5, from the same school today, I had New Jersey 101.5 on. On that station they were reporting about a recent study showing that U.S. students are embarrassingly non-proficient in geography. My blood was boiling while I listened to this. It was only a few weeks ago that were reporting that U.S. students score dismally in history!

When people hear news like this, there are always different explanations and excuses. Liberals will blame conservatives for fostering anti-intellectualism, for pushing the dominance of religion over science, and for our incessant and callous attempts to reduce spending on education (three arguments which are completely and utterly without substance, but then again, what liberal argument is? OK, yes, conservatives do want to lower education spending, but not because we're callous but because we're practical, and also because money does nothing to improve the schools but rather enriches greedy powerful public teachers unions and their political butt buddies.)

I prefer the conservative side's explanation as to why, despite throwing billions and billions into the public school system year after year, U.S. students seem to grow stupider and stupider: Liberals who have dominated the schools for decades now have replaced merit with self-esteem, cold hard facts with political correctness and propaganda.

What a coincidence that I heard this latest story about poor U.S. academic performance just minutes before picking up my son from camp. After I checked him out, he led me to the cafeteria where he had some art projects to pick up. As soon as I entered the large room, I immediately saw a disturbing trace of the recently completed school year. The following humongous hand-cut and colored letters appeared on the wall:

M U L T I C U L T U R A L     D A Y

Is it really any wonder why our children know less than they should? Our public schools are too busy filling their impressionable minds with garbage like man-made global warming climate change and multiculturalism. The proof is right there in a Crayola rainbow. 

Liberals sanctimoniously lament the anti-intellectual culture allegedly spread by conservatism. But they ought to look in the mirror. The public school system has been run by liberals for nearly 50 years. The money keeps flowing more and more each year, and our children seem to learn less and less.

END THE OCCUPATION! LIBERALS OUT OF THE SCHOOLS NOW!!!

Noam Chomsky Gets Half a Clue

The world's most renowned "intellectual" actually learns something? From Selwyn Duke at AT.

Of all idiots, none is so useful as he who can masquerade as a genius. ...

... [S]ocialism has only failed every time it's been tried, but I guess Chomsky's renowned intellect has finally figured out a way to do the same thing over and over again and achieve different results.

But some people never learn, and in our time they're known as leftists.  It's bad enough when a starry-eyed teenager gloms onto a demagogue and then registers surprise when the scorpion acts in accordance with his nature, but it's downright pathetic when an old man behaves as if he has been born yesterday. 

And Chomsky, it seems, is continually born again yesterday.  In the late 1970s, he defended the Khmer Rouge at the very time that those Cambodian communists were in the midst of a genocidal campaign that ultimately claimed 30 percent of their nation's population.  He steadfastly refused to believe reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities, calling them part of a "disinformation" campaign targeting a group that, he said, could usher in not only "national liberation but also ... a new era of economic development and social justice." ...

Admittedly, today Chomsky acknowledges reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities.  He just denies reports of Chomsky Khmer Rouge support.  He has his own Year Zero, I suppose, and it started when reality became sufficiently heavy to make rationalization seem like Holocaust denial.  Hey, that fellow in 1977 was a different Chomsky.  Renowned intellectuals just don't make such mistakes. ...

The great Roman orator and statesman Cicero once said, "Any man is liable to err; only a fool persists in error."  Chomsky exhibits that typical leftist inability to discern good from evil, friend from foe.  If he'd been a rabbit, he would have hopped into the fox's lair well before getting so long in the tooth.  And if he didn't live in the West's cocoon of safety and comfort, he would ages ago have been swept away in a whirlwind of his own design.  He just doesn't learn.

Of course, we all can learn.  But it requires that you're humble and sincere enough to admit error (at least to yourself) and are receptive to Truth.  It also helps if you realize that, no matter how many people call you a "renowned" intellectual, you're perhaps not all that smart.

 

 

 

Progressivism Masquerading as Education

From Arnold Ahlert at JWR.

This country is in serious trouble. We are producing legions of semi-educated kids with marginal abilities in math, reading, history and Constitutionalism. We're being forced to import engineers and scientists because we don't graduate enough people with those abilities domestically. American students are getting clobbered on international tests, scoring below some students from Third World countries. Three-out-of-four high schools graduates from some states require remedial courses in reading and math before they can do college level work.

Why I Left Liberalism #16 - They Reward Failure: Obama's Genius Economists

El Rushbo has mentioned this many times in the past, and today it is worth repeating: The Democrat Party rewards failure.

For instance, when Howard “Yaarrrrrgggghhhh!” Dean lost the 2004 presidential candidacy to John Kerry, he was rewarded by being made the DNC chair, at which post he boosted the integrity of his party by accusing the Republicans of being racists, sexists, homophobes, xenophobes, etc., etc., who want women back in the kitchen and blacks in the back of the bus. (This illustrious tradition, incidentally, is now continued by the new DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, but that’s another story for another blog post.)

Another example is when Hillary lost the nomination to President Hope&Change in 2008. For this she was rewarded by being appointed to Secretary of State, a position she shows to be grossly unqualified for on a frequent basis.

These are just party-internal failures. But what happens when the failures of Democrats translate to big problems for the American people at large?

Arguably the most egregious example of this is Al Gore. Soon after the man who “used to be the next president of the United States” lost the presidential race in 2000 to W., he began embarking on his man-made global warming climate change campaign full force. Within just a few years, Gore had become a celebrated “ambassador for the planet” to the Democrat-media(-Hollywood-academia) complex. For this role Gore is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars and currently sits in a humongous Tennessee mansion with multiple plasma screen TV’s, SUV’s private jets, and an Oscar award for a movie deceptively billed a documentary.

And what do we, the American people, get? We’re being threatened by draconian, oppressive environ-mental-ist regulations. We have toilets that need to be flushed three times because there’s not enough water in them anymore. A gaggle of unaccountable lawyers in black robes known as the Supreme Court has declared CO₂—a gas exhaled from every breathing creature and needed by plant life to survive—a freaking pollutant. In just a few short months the incandescent lightbulb will be banned. The oil and coal industry, which fuels our entire economy and ensures our comfortable modern lifestyle, is under governmental attack. Our children from grade school through college are being indoctrinated to “go green” and to demonize anyone who refuses to hop on the environ-mental-ist bandwagon.

Another salient example of the liberal/Democrat being rewarded for failure and concomitantly having disaster upon our nation: The many members of President Hope&Change’s economic advisory team. All these people who have gone in and out of this position like it’s a revolving door from academia to Obama’s Washington and then back to academia again. These people are, we are told, the best and the brightest. They hail from, we are also told, the most prestigious universities in the nation, for which parents pay tens of thousands of dollars to send their children to be educated by them.

But look at the economy right now. Has it improved one whit since Obama took office in January, 2009? No, just the opposite. Has the employement rate improved since then? No, just the opposite. Has federal spending been reined in? No, just the opposite. Have the debt and the deficit been reduced? No, just the opposite. Has the nearly trillion dollar “stimulus” package worked? No, just the opposite?

Yet the architects of every failed scheme and policy imposed by Obama at the advice of this crack squad of economic geniuses are still considered geniuses. They are still revered as experts despite the utter destruction they have wrought on this nation and its economy. And every one who has left the Obama administration is welcomed back with open arms by the prestigious universities they had left. To do what? To teach Marxist-socialist crap to unwitting college students. And get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year plus cushy benefits to do it.

Isn’t being a liberal/Democrat great? Get paid craploads of money to teach young people wrong things.

This week Obama’s current economic advisory chair, Austan Goolsbee, announced his resignation. This utter failure came from the University of Chicago School of Business where Michelle Malkin reports “He also pulled in a University of Chicago salary of $465,000 and additional wages and honoraria worth $93,000 …” This is in addition to “assets valued at between $1,146,000 and $2,715,000.” So, at least Goolsbee is good about making money for himself, just not for everyone else. So much for the liberal/Democrat claim to care about the little guy, spread the wealth around, pay your fair share, blah blah blah. The disgustingly rich Goolsbee joined Obama’s advisory committee when the employment rate was at 6%. He’s leaving when it’s at 9.5%, to return to a job that will pay him nearly a half a million dollars.

Isn’t being a liberal/Democrat great?

Here’s El Rushbo yesterday announcing the exit of Goolsbee:

So a failed economic advisor quits so he can return to academe and teach young skulls full of mush how to destroy jobs and run up the deficit. And we wonder why the country's in trouble. Failed liberals in government go back to their overpriced universities to teach liberalism to young skulls full of mush who don't know squat about the real world. These failed intellectual idiots are running what's called higher learning. … Goolsbee is fleeing his abject failure and is being welcomed with open arms back into the American academy. What is the old saying, those who can, do, and those who can't, teach.

Indeed. (Not to say all teachers aren’t capable of being doers. It just seems there are too many of them in our hallowed university classrooms, and definitely too many who are invited to join failed Democrat presidents’ failed administrations.)

But in the aforementioned Malkin piece demonstrates, Goolsbee is merely the last in a long list of intellectual morons who had a high-paid cushy university job before coming to Washington, who certainly had a well-paying job while totally screwing up things in Washington, and then return to that same high-paid cushy university job after fleeing Washington. There’s Christina Romer (UC Berkeley), allan Kreuger (Princeton), and Larry Summers (who would have still been president of Harvard had he not violated a sacrament of feminazi political correctness). Other geniuses who didn’t come from / return to academia but nevertheless are still sitting pretty in well-paid positions of various sorts: Peter Orszag and (Biden advisor) Jared Bernstein.

Isn’t being a liberal/Democrat great?

Why do Goolsbee, Romer, Summers, Orszag, and Bernstein even have jobs? If ours is truly a nation where success is rewarded, and not failure—and these days it is definitely not—then Goolsbee, Romer, Summers, Orszag, and Bernstein should be hanging their heads in disgrace and unemployed. Why do these people even still have jobs, let alone prestigious and high paying ones? Why would anyone who runs a university even want these people within 100 yards of a single student???

Why does Al Gore even have two dimes to rub together? Why are the names Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton not simply relegated to the ash heaps of American history?

Because liberals/Democrats take care of their own. It’s not how well you do; it’s what you believe, and it’s how much you do to further the agenda of the Left. Success be damned. And the American people be damned.

Related reading: Goolsbee Gone: Obama’s Economic ‘Dream Team’ Evaporates (Richard Pollock at Pajamas Media)

Kids 'Scared Straight' to Climate Activism

By Anthony J. Sadar and JoAnn Truchan at American Thinker:

Oscar Wilde once said, "In America, the young are always ready to give those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience." What was true in 1887 is still true today, as those with limited or non-existent adult responsibilities can find the time to take up causes. However, there is a reason why 13-year-olds are not allowed to drive, purchase alcohol, vote, or hold elected office -- they simply lack the experience to do so intelligently and with maturity.

Children especially are susceptible to outside influences such as the manufactured entertainment of "organized" activities and video games, manufactured celebrities (think Justin Bieber and Khloe Kardashian), and now manufactured causes. Adults can look at the claims of the climate-change activists and contrast the activists' assertions with factual revelations such as the Climategate scandal, biased atmospheric science studies, and cartoonish distortions of scientific realities presented in political propaganda films like An Inconvenient Truth.

Children, on the other hand, typically lack perspective and discernment. Therefore, it is unfair, even unethical, for adult activists to target the young when the activists have been unable to convince more-informed, less-gullible adults of a coming global-warming catastrophe attributable to human activity.

Nevertheless, from their earliest age, children are indoctrinated to these fabricated oncoming disasters by activist progressive educators. The kids then take the manufactured causes home to their parents -- or in the case of the iMatter March, bypass their parents completely in order to teach them. As Oscar Wilde continued, "Indeed, they spare no pains at all to bring up their parents properly and to give them a suitable, if somewhat late, education."

As adults continue to "learn" from the children, and as another school year "progresses," what is needed to improve education is to teach the children to be critical thinkers and help them become more-reasoning individuals. This will assist them with the skills necessary to evaluate complex concepts like global climate change and keep them from falling prey to adults with big, scary, unsubstantiated ideas. Otherwise, the kids may grow up to be the new promoters of such ideas.

Then again, isn't that the ultimate objective of the purveyors of the global-warming goblin?