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How Is the White House Seder Different From All Others? First Family and Friends Put Own Spin on Passover Tradition

Posted by Marvin on March 23, 2013 at 10:26 am

For those unfamiliar with the custom of wishing for

a zissen peysach (a sweet Passover):  In the

Haggadah (‘the  telling’- a narrative of the Exodus from Egypt that constitutes the main part of that service) Jews read how we must see ourselves as though we personally went out from Egypt. This is a central message of the Passover holiday–the fundamental experience of the seder (the rictual feast) . It’s not enough just to imagine what it was like for the Israelites as slaves leaving Egypt. On a gut level, we are to feel as though it happened to us: we literally taste the bitterness of slavery through the maror, the bitter herb. Jews feel the wonder and terror of the plagues. It is through the stories that we tell that we build our understanding of the world, of who we are, of the nature of Truth. 

 

What better time for President Obama to travel to Israel?

 

 

From the Jewish Daily Forward
For a president of the United States, the personal is inevitably political. But there is one annual event at the White House that truly is personal for its current chief resident – or at least as personal as anything can be in the most watched building in the country.

 

President Obama’s upcoming Passover Seder, scheduled for March 25, will host just 20 or so participants this year–more or less the same core crowd that has been attending it since 2008, when three young staffers began the tradition while on the campaign trail and then-senator Obama surprised them by dropping in.

 

In many ways, this presidential Seder resembles that of many families, if you can look past portraits of former first ladies adorning the walls, the elegant crystal chandelier hanging over the guests’ heads and the White House china on which the gefilte fish is being served. The Haggadah of choice is Maxwell House, and the Passover fare is traditional,

featuring classics like matzo ball soup, brisket and kugel.

 

But there are some differences in the ceremony itself – such as the annual reading of the

Emancipation Proclamation right before Elijah sneaks in, and the president’s vocal impersonation of Pharaoh. And, of course, the Secret Service always knows where

the afikomen is hidden. “When you work in politics, the people you work with are your family,” said Arun Chaudhary,one of the campaign aides who began the now annual tradition, explaining the uniquely personal nature of this Jewish White House event.

 

It was in 2008, during the rough Pennsylvania primary, that Chaudhary, Eric Lesser and Herbie Ziskend unknowingly began an Obama White House tradition. Disappointed that they wouldn’t be able to return home for Passover, the three aides made plans to meet up at 10 p.m. in a basement conference room in the Sheraton Hotel in Harrisburg. Weaving through cheerleaders from a convention the hotel was hosting, the trio brought their collected Seder items: a burnt bone from the hotel kitchen, Maxwell House Haggadot, shmura matzo squirreled away from Penn Hillel by Lesser’s cousin, and a bottle of Manischewitz wine.

“The spirit of Passover is, if you’re traveling, you do the best you can, and you celebrate it anywhere, under any circumstances,” said Lesser.

Just as they started the Seder, Obama stopped in to join them. “He peppered us with questions, keeping with traditions of a Seder…. We had a great time. It was a very special moment… in the middle of an exhausting campaign,” Lesser explained.

At the end of the Seder, after everyone raised a glass and said “Next year in Jerusalem,” Obama “raised his glass and said ‘Next year in the White House,’” Lesser recalled.

A year later, on the way to a meeting in the White House, “the president shouted, ‘Hey, are we doing the Seder again?’” to Lesser, who by then was working as a special assistant to Obama’s senior political adviser, David Axelrod. “Yeah. Sure,” he yelled back.

That year, the original staffers, plus a few others, and a handful of Obama’s friends and family, initiated the first official White House Seder. Planned by the original trio, it was intended to be “true to the original spirit” of the 2008 Seder, Lesser said, though, he joked, “it was in much nicer surroundings.” Still, the group stuck with the Maxwell House Haggadah, served Manischewitz wine and shmura matzo, and tacked on the line “Next Year in the White House” to the end of the Seder.

The traditions have stuck. The evening’s readings are done, as always, as a round robin. “We do a rotating leader. When you’re with the president, it’s presumptuous to say we lead it, but we start it,” Lesser said. (The “president does the best Pharaoh voice around,” Chaudhary added in an email.)

The Seder service is fairly short and efficient, in deference to the president’s busy schedule. Nevertheless, some additions have been made – most notably by Dr. Eric Whitaker, a personal friend of the Obamas who reads the Emancipation Proclamation aloud nearly every year.

“There are interesting and poignant similarities between the Passover story and the African-American experience, and that’s not lost on the participants,” Lesser explained. The Seder, he noted, is “a moment to reflect on justice and themes of redemption and freedom in biblical, historical and present contexts.”

Despite the addition, the Seder is decidedly nonpolitical, though Chaudhary acknowledged that given its theme of liberation, “in a way, every Passover is a political discussion. Ours is also like that, but no more so.” The evening he said, includes “a bit of argument, a bit of figuring it all out and time to get together.”

For its three originators, it’s also a kind of homecoming. All have moved on to jobs outside of politics. But each Passover, Chaudhary said, “it’s very comforting and very familial and very familiar.”

As in other family Seders, participants have taken on specific roles over the years.

Chaudhary jokingly calls himself the crazy uncle. “I always make a big speech about the Hillel sandwich,” he said. “It was a major breakthrough in Passover technology and predates the Earl of Sandwich.” (The earl is often credited with inventing the sandwich.)

Ziskend takes charge of breaking the first matzo and hiding the afikomen each year. “It’s no different than you hiding it at your grandmother’s house, except there’s a Secret Service person watching you stash it away. And the house is a bit bigger,” he said. Malia and Sasha Obama recite the Four Questions. They also hunt down the afikomen in exchange for small gifts – like a rubber chicken for their dog, Bo, and bottles of nail polish – instead of money.

“It’s a great honor, but it’s become like [a] Seder we have at home,” Ziskend said.

The White House staff adds important touches to preserve that atmosphere. There is, for example, the 1950s-era Seder plate complete with cartoonlike drawings from Chaudhary’s mother-in-law, instead of a fancy silver or crystal option.

But the most notable staff effort is the food. The menu consists of recipes submitted by Seder participants. Cristeta Comerford, the White House’s executive chef, re-creates them, incorporating produce from the White House garden when possible.

“It is always challenging to duplicate a grandmother’s recipe,” Comerford said. “Their years of expertise cooking a traditional recipe passed down from generation to generation is quite tough to duplicate.”

According to Lesser, Comerford succeeds. The first time he tucked into his family’s carrot soufflé at the Seder, it was a “jarring experience,” Lesser recalled. “I’m sitting in the dining room of the White House, with portraits of first ladies and a beautiful setting and I had a flashback to the house I grew up in.

Previous Seders have also featured a roast chicken breast recipe from Ziskend’s grandmother, and a rich matzo ball soup recipe from Patricia Winter, the mother of Seder attendee Melissa Winter, a deputy assistant to the president and senior adviser to the first lady.

This year’s menu will include brisket and kugel, along with new matzo ball soup and haroset recipes. The haroset recipe, courtesy of Patricia Winter, includes apples, walnuts, ginger and Manischewitz wine. “Of course,” said Melissa Winter, “[my mother] thinks I should go down to the White House kitchen before the Seder to taste it and make sure it’s just right.”

 

Obama: Peace is necessary. Peace is just. Peace is possible.
President Obama advanced the argument that Israel’s long-term security depends on achieving peace, and that peace is necessary, just and possible. He also made clear that “neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer.”
AIPAC and J Street backed separate letters in the US Senate Tuesday welcoming US President Barack Obama’s trip to Israel, with the former emphasizing Israel’s security challenges and the latter calling for US support for a two-state solution. 

27 Senators signed on to a letter authored by California Senator Dianne Feinstein calling for a sustained US diplomatic initiative to help forge a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians based on a two-state solution. J Street supports the letter and its national leaders lobbyied Senators to sign it.

 

An AIPAC-backed letter by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) and Susan Collins (RMaine) begins by labeling Palestinian unilateral efforts at the UN “unacceptable” and urging Obama to clearly reject this strategy as well as de-legitimization of Israel.  The letter also refers to the need for Palestinians to stop incitement and renounce Hamas, and stresses that the current upheaval in Arab countries is “not directly related to the peace process” even as a peace deal remains important.

 

Watch President Obama’s speech

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The Survey Says–Congress able to edge out Lindsay Lohan, the Ebola virus, the Kardashians and North Korea in favorability survey

Posted by Marvin on March 22, 2013 at 11:59 am

1. The Myths:

You have likely received the email below.  It has found its way to my mailbox several times over the past few years.  Certainly it was not originated, as claimed, by Warren Buffet. Actually, there’s no way that the Oracle of Omaha would have penned it. It would give him his usual chuckle. Also, there’s no ‘act’ other than in the originator’s mind.

 

Despite the fact that its claims are false, the ‘petition’ does serve a purpose: shining a spotlight on many of the niceties that Congressmen/women enjoy.

 

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward

this email to a minimum of twenty people on their

address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

 

Article 1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they’re out of office.

Article 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

Article 3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

Article 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

Article 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

Article 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

Article 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/31/13. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

 

2. Debunking the myths:

 

FactCheck.org debunks much of the content of the petition. 

 

The petition is actually a rant against Congress that has been circulating since (2011), urging passage of a “reform act” to correct abuses of power by Congress. But as we often find with these chain messages, the author doesn’t know very much about the subject.

He or she (the author is anonymous, of course) repeats a number of false claims that we have debunked before. The author:

  • Demands that members of Congress be forced to “participate in Social Security.” But members of Congress already participate, paying Social Security payroll taxes just like nearly every other worker. Once upon a time that wasn’t true, but members of Congress were brought under Social Security way back in 1984. Yet bogus claims like this continue to circulate more than a quarter-century later,despite our best efforts.
  • Urges that “Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose.” But as we’ve explained before, the idea that Congress has exempted itself from many of its own laws is also somewhat out of date. A law enacted in 1995 applied 13 civil rights, labor, and workplace safety and health laws to Congress, removing the basis for earlier criticisms. It’s true that members of Congress retain a degree of immunity from arrest or prosecution, but changing that require an amendment to the Constitution, which grants that immunity in Article I, Section 6. (The authors of the Constitution didn’t want any president to try what King Charles I of England had done in 1642 - sending troops to arrest his critics in Parliament.) The message is confused, at first mentioning earlier constitutional amendments, but then describing the proposal as an “act,” which refers to legislation.
  • Recommends that “Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.” But Congress doesn’t do that now. Under current law, pay increases are determined by a cost-of-living formula, and they take effect automatically, unless Congress votes to stop them. And in fact, that’s what has happened for the past two years. Congress denied itself any pay raise in 2010 and in 2011, as we’ve reported.
  • Calls for stripping members of Congress of their current health care benefits and forcing them to participate “in the same health care system as the American people.” But which “system”? Most Americans are covered either by employer-sponsored health insurance or by various government-sponsored programs, such as Medicare for those age 65 and over or Medicaid for lower-income persons. Currently members of Congress have the same health insurance options as millions of other federal employees and retirees and their families. The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program gives them a wide choice of private insurance plans. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 51 million persons in the U.S. had no health insurance at all in 2009 – just under 17 percent of the population. (The author may have been laboring under the false impression that Congress somehow “exempted” itself from the new health care law, a bit of nonsense that was based on a number of misrepresentations that we addressed last year.)
  • Urges that members of Congress should “purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.” But that’s also nonsense. Relatively few Americans buy retirement plans entirely out of their own pockets. In fact, just under half of all Americans worked in 2009 for an employer that sponsors a retirement plan, according to the most recent information from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. And among those who worked full time for the entire year, 54 percent actually participated in an employer-sponsored plan. About 12 percent are self-employed, EBRI says, and so may be in a position to buy a retirement plan for themselves. But 27 percent had incomes of under $10,000 that year, too little to be putting much if anything away for retirement.

The author of this message advocates setting 12-year term limits on members of Congress, saying they “should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.” It also calls for voiding “all contracts” with past and present members of Congress, which may be a clumsy way of calling for cutting off all pension and health care benefits even for those who have already retired. (We’re not sure what “contracts” this person was thinking of.) Those are all opinions, with which readers may choose to agree or disagree. We take no position either way. What we do say is that the author argues for these opinions by making factual claims that betray a profound ignorance of the system he or she proposes to “reform.”

 

3. The Facts: 

 

Members of Congress do enjoy some pretty neat perks. I prefer to think of them as entitlements: 

 

Fun Money: The base salary for a member of Congress is $174,000. But all members enjoy access to a separate piggy bank known as their “allowance.” This funding generally goes toward maintaining their offices and building up a legislative entourage. In the House, representatives are allowed to spend more than $900,000 on salaries for up to 18 permanent employees. They get about a quarter-million dollars more for office expenses, including travel, and additional funding for a well-known congressional perk known as “franking.” Franking is the term for the mass constituent mail sent out by members of Congress and paid for courtesy of the taxpayer.

 

Senators enjoy the same privilege but get a much bigger allowance for their office expenses. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the average allocation for fiscal 2010 was more than $3.3 million. Personnel money varies depending on how big of a state a senator represents — a senator from New York is going to get more than a senator from Montana. But for starters, each senator is given a $500,000 budget to hire up to three legislative assistants. 

 

Nice Digs: A seat in Congress comes with office space — lots of it. Not only do members move into an office on Capitol Hill, they maintain space in their home districts and states too. For senators, this benefit has a pretty high cap – up to 8,200 square feet. The CRS report said there is “no restriction” on the number of offices they can open in federal buildings in their home states. Plus senators get to shop at the equivalent of Congress’ IKEA — furniture supplied through the Architect of the Capitol. Every senator gets $40,000 — and potentially more — for furniture in their home-state offices.

 

Bonus Tax Deduction: Members of Congress can deduct up to $3,000 for expenses while outside their home districts or states.

 

Insurance/Retirement: All members of Congress can sign up for the same health plan and life insurance policy available to other federal workers. But there’s more. In an age when the 401(k) often becomes a substitute for a pension, representatives and senators enjoy access to both. First, members of Congress can sign up for a 401(k)-style “Thrift Savings Plan,” a tax-deferred investment in which members’ contributions are matched up to 5 percent.

Then there’s Social Security. Then there’s the pension plan. The pension payments and eligibility vary — in a nutshell, members are eligible for an immediate, full pension at age 62 if they’ve served five years or more; they’re eligible at age 50 if they’ve served 20 years; and they’re eligible at any time after they’ve served 25 years. The annual amount of the pension depends on a lawmaker’s salary and the number of years he or she served — typically the amount is considerably less than a lawmaker’s outgoing salary.

 

Down Time: Perhaps there’s no such thing as down time for a member of Congress, what with the constant shuttling back and forth between Washington and their districts, media appearances and constituent meetings. But the work week lately has been relatively sparse. The Senate has averaged about three working days on Capitol Hill – three-and-a-half if you count Monday nights. Plus there are several breaks, which Congress calls “work periods,” penciled in the calendar throughout the year. This year, members of Congress returned to their districts for a Presidents Day break, a spring break, a Memorial Day break, an Independence Day break and a summer break. Congress is about to adjourn again until early November so members can campaign. Of course, that’s good old-fashioned time off for senators not up for re-election this year.

 

Retirement Benefits: Members of Congress are eligible for a pension at age 62 if they have completed at least five years of service. They are eligible for a pension at age 50 if they have completed 20 years of service, or at any age after completing 25 years of service. The amount of the pension depends on years of service and the average of the highest three years of salary. By law, the starting amount of a member’s retirement annuity may not exceed 80 percent of his or her final salary.

 

4. The Point of this Exercise: 

 

Personally, I have little problem with any of these niceties–if they are deserved, that is. Unfortunately, members of Congress are among the most entitled Americans.

 

Therefore, Congress’ entitlements ought to be part of any balance-the-budget considerations.

According to a Think Progress survey:

 

The Democratic-leaning firm Public Policy Polling recently asked respondents to compare their favorability of lawmakers with a long list of decidedly unpopular things. 

While Congress was able to edge out Lindsay Lohan, the Ebola virus, the Kardashians and North Korea, it failed to best other items on the list, including Genghis Khan, NFL replacement referees, used car salesmen, lice, and the band Nickelback.

 

Polling Report presents an extended survey:  Polling Report’s Congress Job Report

Personally, I find these ratings (2005-2013) a tad too favorable.

 

The most recent Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just eight percent (8%) of likely U.S. voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Sixty-seven percent (67%) rate Congress’ performance as poor.

 

Wouldn’t it be nice if members of Congress acted as the people’s representatives and worked on behalf of the interests of their constituents. If they did so, we would probably have little difficulty with the goodies they receive.

 

Your thoughts?

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If Somehow You Have Missed It, CPAC Confirmed that Republicans are Committed to Policies of Greed and Economic Inequality

Posted by Marvin on March 19, 2013 at 11:39 am

We will be hearing more and more about the ‘market place’ as Republicans scramble to hold together a party that has been on the wrong track since the election of Ronald Reagan. They hold dear to two guiding principles: (1) The market is the best regulator of the economy; and (2) ‘starving the beast’ will slowly shrivel the government’s role in assuring fairness.
Will Hutton is a British economist engaged in social and economic policy.  He promotes the progressive notion of fairness as good things should happen to good people and bad things should happen to bad people; they should happen proportionately and impartially.
If only that was the way the world we live in functioned. Hutton may be a dreamer but he is not naive. He promotes the sense that people can be held responsible for their successes and failures, and should not be treated simply as victims of circumstances. To this he brings attention to the element of luck. People can be lucky and unlucky as well as deserving and undeserving.
He contends that people should share in others’ good fortune and be compensated for their own bad luck. I am reminded of a recent public infomercial in which Lawrence O’Donnell emphasizes that some kids come to school with empty bellies while others bring an array of resources to their classroom experience.  He poses, How can we expect both sets of children to perform at the same level?

How much of each child’s circumstance is market and how much is luck?  Just as we are born with varying shades of flesh, born into the religion of our parents, born with healthy (or not) bodies, we are born into poverty or wealth or somewhere in between.
This goes to the center of the market philosophy of conservatives.  It is the centerpiece of all that happens in the world of uber-conservatives.  If only we could get the Tea Party to understand this. It might just change their understanding of entitlements
(. . . but don’t touch my Social Security).
Maybe this is what W Bush meant by compassionate conservatism. Of course, his talk never approached his walk.  He continued Reagan’s starve the beast approach to government spending and went, as we know, far beyond.  His view of conservatism was set aside as he lied and paid for two wars with funny money, convinced Congress to pass two major tax cuts during wartime, and introduced a pay-off to big-Pharma under the guise of a Medicare Rx plan.
Most recently, economic fairness continues to lose ground to austerity. Republicans know its a bad idea (even Paul Ryan knows it. He’s just too deep into his plan to save our economy to do an about face).  The numbers from all points of the globe confirm that austerity is a losing proposition–certainly short-term.
Ryan and his Tea Party brethren are unable to reconcile their radical view of governing with a pragmatic alternative to expanding economic inequality that remains the primary reason for a sluggish return to a vital economy.
The CPAC circus confirms Republicans’ inability to view fairness as a good thing.  That is why moderate members of the party were excluded.  They might utter the f-bomb: fairness. Or, the r-bomb might slip out: redistribution.  They prefer the e-bomb:entitlements.  
Hutton offers this response: We don’t provide smokers free treatment for lung cancer (he’s English) because we believe it was bad luck for them to get cancer, but out of pity for their suffering.  He argues that fairness is just as important for conservatives as progressives: Those who defend the egregious rewards of the financial elite fail to understand that fairness is capitalism’s indispensable value. 
Posing the question, Why does innovation thrive in some societies more than others?,  Hutton suggests the answer lies in a commitment to fairness. The explosion of science and technology unleashed by the Enlightenment was stimulated by the dismantling of the entrenched elites and monopolies, opening up society to talent. When entrepreneurs can expect to reap the rewards of their efforts, they are spurred on to innovate. In open societies, this mechanism from effort to reward is the dynamo of the economy. But if financial elites receive rewards disproportionate to the social value of their contribution, the connection between innovation and reward gets lost.
He is asking the question of the day: What is it fair to reward and what is a fair reward? Bankers make the big bucks because of the values that investors attribute to them. Given that circumstance, Jamie Dimon and Vikram Pandit earn every penny they receive.  If everyday people drove the market, however, the notion of fairness would compensate those who do not spend their days moving money back and forth. That would be the idea of firemen, policemen, nurses, teachers.
Hutton demonstrates his sense of fairness in his take of the recent financial crisis–cities run wild, with politicians incapable of providing the moral leadership to challenge the market. The short-sightedness of the market is the natural consequence of its relentless focus on shareholder value, driving spurious “financial innovation” that enriched bankers while ruining the economy.  In other words, government can’t run an economy based upon derivatives (and the sort) that only a few understand and even fewer manipulate.  You can’t run a marketplace economy that refuses to permit regulation.The marketplace, perhaps more than ever due to new technologies that often control it, is increasingly inefficient, dysfunctional, and socially destructive.  In contrast to a free-market approach of minimal state involvement in the economy and little to no social protections, progressive economists embrace the concept of a mixed economy; that is, private economic freedom coupled with government regulation, social protections, and the maintenance of public infrastructure.
And yet, the hype out of the GOP remains that we need deficit reduction NOW. ASAP.  Most economists concur that our nation’s debt-to-GDP ratio is not close to crisis level. There is agreement that we can fix the economy in the short term by infusing dollars into the system, putting people to work, increasing tax revenue, creating demand, stimulating the economy.
Hutton, like other Keynesians, argues that the government, in the short term, needs to halt the process of privatizing everything in sight–from bridges and tunnels, to schools and testing. Corporations do not have hearts.  They understand only the bottom line.  Humans are capable of both.  Call it mixed economy.  Call it a balanced strategy.  Whatever you call it, call it fairness and economic equity.

If and when the two parties get around to serious negotiation of economic policy based upon fairness and our country’s future, the solution will lie in a balanced approach.  Progressive economics will result in striking a fair balance between private and public action ensuring greater stability and equitable growth.

 

Conservatives will label it redistribution of wealth. Conservatives are committed to reversing America’s progressive traditions of regulation and social welfare while restoring a system of minimal government and maximum private control over the economy that disproportoinately favors corporations and the wealthiest Americans.  Their utopian economics theory is being deconstructed. We just need to recall the very real consequences of decades of deregulation and nonintervention in the economy–the most recent collapse of the financial and housing industries.

 

Progressives will label it fairness and greater economic equality. The biggest banks will be split up.  Schools will return to educating.  Government will regulate the economy and provide Americans with greater economic security from unemployment, injury, old age, disability, and health problems that continue to leave too many Americans unnecessarily poor.  A return to labor unions and the not-for-profit sector as effective nongovernmental institutions will temper some of the excesses and problems rising from a purely capitalist economy.

 

Progressive economics stresses the importance of social cooperation over pure self-interest as the basis for a more stable and just economic order. And all of America will be better for it.

Elizabeth Warren Gets It and She’s Scaring the Hell Out of the GOP
You’ve likely heard her quoted often: There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there – good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea – God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.  

More recently:

 

Many of the Wall Street banks right now are trading below book value. And I can only think of two reasons why that would be so. One would be because nobody believes that the banks’ books are honest, or the second would be that no one believes that the banks are really manageable.

 

Warren made these statements before taking her seat in the Senate.  That’s precisely why the banking industry did everything in its power to see that she was defeated.  Warren immediately began to rip into legislators.  She suggested that banks might be engaged in cooking the books at her initial appearance at a meeting of the Senate Banking Committee.

 

In response, a Wall Street executive accused Warren of shameless grandstanding when she suggested that one reason the stocks of big banks might now be trading at surprisingly low levels is investors don’t trust their accounting is real.

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CPAC: A Trough Act to Follow

Posted by Marvin on March 16, 2013 at 9:38 pm

CPAC: A Trough Act to Follow
Breaking news: Americans, fed up with partisan gridlock in Washington, place blame on an inept two party system.
And, by now, having been enlisted into one camp or the other, few Americans, if any, will consider moderating their positions.  Our president can invite Republican leadership to one coffee klotch after another, nothing is at all going to change. Name the issue.  Clarify the positions.
Take ten dimes from a dollar–no change.
The sequester continues to threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs smack dab in the middle of an anemic recovery. Government is deadlocked thanks to obstructionist conservatives who continue to cling to an un-winnable argue that any budget deal must impose greater hardship on the working class and retired or they won’t be satisfied.
The exclamation point–to date–came this week during which the GOP has held its annual rant. The big finish is an absolute joke. Ted Cruz, the latest Republican savior, will be keynote speaker. No doubt his made-for-tv confirmation hearing interrogation of Chuck Hagel earned him the spotlight. His more recent lecture of Diane Feinstein cemented his image as a total jerk. Peel away the Cruz costume and you’ll find the intertwined bodies of Louie Gohmert and Donald Trump.
As I write this piece, warming up in the bullpen for appearance are Scott Walker, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin.  This is hardly bringing in Mariano Rivera as your closer.  More like Brad Lidge (2009), Dave Smith (1991), or Jose Mesa (2003).  Of course, none of these–both great and awful–are running for president of the United States.
CPAC‘s grand finale will, as usual, engage conservatives in a straw poll on who the 2016 Republican presidential pretenders might be.  Something like two dozen possibilities will be on this year’s ballot.  It will be interesting to see which of these unfortunate choices will emerge front-runners. 

Last year’s straw poll winner was Romney.  Fortunately for America and the world–he lost in November.  In previous years, beginning with 2006, straw poll winners have been George Allen just ahead of McCain, Giuliani, and Rice; a troika of Romney, Giuliani and Brownback; W. Bush; Romney; Romney and Jindal; Ron Paul.   Recent keynoters have been Limbaugh and Beck. And, not to our surprise the 2010 Ronald Reagan Award was given to the Tea Party.

 

Somebody explain to me how Barack Obama is expected to move the country forward at a time that neocons and neanderthals refuse to budge on any issue.  We repeatedly hear GOP leaders state that their party has to change its message. You can’t change the message without changing messengers.  In a party addicted to the status quo, new leadership emerging is comparable to Romney picking up the tab for the 2012 deficit.

 

The only way new names are added to the GOP straw poll is by having said and/or done something further to the right than one’s predecessors. Ted Cruz is the perfect example. One need not look back further than the most recent Republican primary when the lineup consisted, other than Romney, of Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Johnson, Paul, Pawlenty, Perry, and Santorum.

 

With lineups like that, I dare any self-respecting fan of the Knicks, Jets, Yankees, or Mets to say anything negative about their team’s respective 2013 rosters. Everything is relative.

 

The problem is not that America has an inept two-party system.  It is that America has one party that is reasonable,  moderate, and capable of negotiation and a second party that is dominated by greed and intolerance.

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Stop the Madness!

Posted by Marvin on March 12, 2013 at 9:29 am

A Principal’s Letter to His School Community–Stop the Madness!
I am writing to you because I want you to watch your children. Are they acting differently than in past years? Are they talking differently about school than they have in the past? Are they anxious, even nervous, about coming to school and the forthcoming tests? If they are, ask yourself, “Why?” And, “Is this what I want for my child, year after year after year?” If you are as upset as I am, put this letter down and write your own to the bureaucrats asking them to ‘Stop the Madness!’  

Many will read Dr. Sternberg’s letter as educators. Others as parents.  It matters not.  What matters is that you ‘get it’–and, hopefully, do something about the situation.

 

What I share with its author is rage.  Rage caused by a denial of curiosity that every child should enjoy.  Anger the result of children not experiencing the wonder of discovery.

Fury that non-educators place their self-interest before the interests of generations.

 

I do not recall having met Dr. Sternberg.  Wish I had.  We were contemporaries and share a common view of teaching and learning.  We also share an acute awareness that great abuse is happening in every school in America because of corporate and political abuse.  It is no longer (at least not in New York State schools) about corporal punishment.  In the ‘good old days’ abuse was physical and readily observable by parents.

 

Nowadays educational abuse is far more insidious–by definition, operating or proceeding in an inconspicuous or seemingly harmless way but actually with grave effect.  Parents are increasingly aware but seemingly helpless.  The outcome is, too often, that they become enablers.

 

My recent letter (March 9) presented a clinical view on what is happening to generations of students because of a corporate takeover of America’s schools.

 

See Don Sternberg’s letter as a plea. An entreaty. An appeal.  Feel his anguish. Understand his admonition.

 

I wish I had communicated as well.  Received lots of responses from readers. Most, happily, are in compelling agreement. Others posed reasonable questions–to which I hope my replies are helpful. The former group is likely composed of teachers and parents (flip sides of the same coin).  The latter group seems to be made of people who had not been in a  classroom in some time.

 

Both cohorts need to take time to let Dr. Sternberg’s retirement letter resonate.  It needs to marinate.  In the end it demands that we, in turn, (1) hug the kids, (2) empathize with educators, and (3) tell the politicians and the corporations to get out of the classroom. Find some other group to rip off.  Leave the kids alone.

 

Allow children the luxuries of curiosity and play; opportunities they will enjoy for too short a time.  Provide them with time to explore, to share, to experience frustrations that can only come with opportunity.  That’s how we learn to problem solve, to discover what is most important for each individual, to find personal gratification that can best be derived from meeting a challenge, to apply stuff to new sets of circumstance.  That’s how we best prepare for life.

 

None of which can be measured by a short answer test.

 

 

February 26, 2013

 

Dear Parents,

 

I want to thank you for the many good wishes that I have received since announcing my retirement after 32 years as the Wantagh Elementary School’s principal. While time and circumstance have pointed me in the direction of retirement, I feel that I am, in some way, abandoning my students at a time that they might need my voice the most.

 

The direction that educational reform is heading is a place where non- educators (politicians, statisticians, and big business) are in control. The misinformed public seems to desire change because they are being led to believe that something is wrong with our educational system. The public is being duped into thinking something needs to be done to avert ‘the crisis in education.’ Ironically, the same people purporting that there is a crisis – the politicians, statisticians, and big business – are, in fact, the ones causing the crisis!

 

While there are pockets within New York State where reform is necessary – places where high school graduation rates are low and students heading into the workforce and post-secondary school need better skill-sets – this is not universally the case, although pseudo-pundits would have you believe otherwise. The solution presented by these politically-based educational ‘experts’ is not to differentiate and treat academic issues where and when they arise, but rather to treat the metaphorical broken leg and hangnail with the same remedy.

 

Why aren’t school districts that already meet the education reform goals presented by the federal government exempted from the process? I believe the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which gives states responsibility for education is still in effect. However, the federal government has skirted the Amendment (47 states, including New York State, essentially have relinquished their constitutionally guaranteed control over education by accepting Race-to-the-Top funding) because states and local districts desperately need the federal dollars associated with this federal initiative. The result: assessment upon assessment upon assessment! (For your information: Although Wantagh is subject to every assessment associated with Race-to-the-Top, our district received $0.00 of Race-to-the-Top funding.)

 

The rigors associated with the national Common Core standards are outstanding and will serve all of our children well. Common Core is starting to approach the rigor of an International Baccalaureate (IB) program which I believe should be the basis of all school academic experiences. However, I am seeing and hearing about more and more students who do not want to come to school or who are manifesting the stress of these new requirements in the form of stomachaches and the like. Add the additional pressure from all the mandated assessments associated with the Race-to-the-Top funding and you have a groundswell of emotion-based malaise. I find this deeply troubling.

 

The issue that most upsets me, and that I see as counterproductive, is the desire to record, in a quantifiable fashion, the educational development of our children. There is clearly a ‘quota system’ being applied to schools, school children, teachers and principals – and it is negatively impacting our children! When I was growing up I was never measured with some insidious number that categorized my ability and progress, and that served to measure the effectiveness of my teachers and my school. We are constantly told that when the students of the United States are compared to other countries from around the world, we do not measure up to them. I ask, measure up to what? All that is being compared is a measurement against other measurements.

 

Other countries admire American creativity and problem-solving abilities. We haven’t cured cancer yet, but I’ll bet that when a cure is discovered, it will be by an American. We are the only country to put people on the moon (and then bring them back). We developed and perfected the Internet! Apple! McDonald’s! Microsoft! Starbucks! Google! None of these endeavors or companies were started by excellent test-takers! I fear that our present cadre of educational reformers – the non-educators noted above – are creating children who are great little test-takers, who can select A, B, C or D as an answer with the best of them, and whose performance can be placed onto a nice little spreadsheet. But we must ask ourselves, at what price? Is effectively selecting A, B, C or D how we want our children to excel? We are not creating life-long and creative learners; we are creating wonderful test-takers!

 

I shiver when I see and hear students asking their teachers, “Is this the way you want it?” or, “Did I do this the right way?” We are systematically testing our kids at multiple times every year to a point where they think that the only measurement of success is a state assessment result! Often students cannot think critically or are afraid to be creative and produce something independently. Will you really be satisfied that your child is doing well in school because a test indicates such? Or will you expect more? Testing at the elementary level is replacing a love for learning that we want to instill in every child. The proper use of assessment is to drive instruction, not to be the definitive evaluation of a child or to serve to fill a state or federal statistical data bank.

 

Past practice clearly has shown that students will succeed if they are given the time to learn – not weeks of test prepping and hours of testing masquerading as learning. We have been forced to narrow the curriculum to only that which will be tested. Please let me be clear, we are spending your tax dollars for months, teaching to the tests because in today’s statistician-based educational reform movement, that is the only thing that counts. This has resulted in very few of the students in our school feeling enthusiastic about learning or even about coming to school. This is something I have never experienced in my decades as an educator.

 

I entered the field of education to inspire, motivate, challenge and captivate young minds; not to assess ad nauseam and be a data collector.

 

Why am I sending this letter to you now? I am writing to you because I want you to watch your children. Are they acting differently than in past years? Are they talking differently about school than they have in the past? Are they anxious, even nervous, about coming to school and the forthcoming tests? If they are, ask yourself, “Why?” And, “Is this what I want for my child, year after year after year?” If you are as upset as I am, put this letter down and write your own to the bureaucrats asking them to ‘Stop the Madness!’

 

If we (Wantagh) are already reaching the goals of Race-to-the-Top, and if we do not get any monetary or intrinsic value from RTTT that supports our kids, then our students are serving as a ‘control group’ in a bureaucratically-induced statistical experiment! Our children’s education is consequently an anomalous exercise to gain data.

 

My pappy always said to me; “Sonny, always leave a place better than you found it.” Alas, for me, due to our existing educational system and how bureaucrats are presently designing it, that will not be the case.

 

Sincerely,

Don Sternberg, Ed.D. Principal

Wantagh Public Schools

 

 

 

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A Sorry But True Tale of Lost Generations of Learners

Posted by Marvin on March 8, 2013 at 6:10 pm

A Sorry But True Tale of Lost Generations of Learners

Under the W Bush education framework,  No Child Left Behind, we used test scores to judge schools. That didn’t work, so now we have  Race to the Top, so we use test scores to judge schools and teachers. Explain to me again how this is a step forward.
I have no idea who wrote the letter to an editor.  I suspect it was a teacher or a parent.  But that matters nil. The testing phenomenon has become the American way. And generations of potentially bright and curious children will see little if any benefit. Just a lot of money spent that could have gone to teaching and learning.
Frustrated by a lack of long-term solutions to improving our schools–without making them a budget priority–W Bush came up with the idea that testing kids was the all-in-one solution. Of course it would prove to be an extraordinarily expensive solution, but one that could be sold to Americans coast to coast.  
I am a grade 5/6 teacher.  I’m experiencing a situation with our national assessment of literacy and numeracy tests coming up. So much of the important foundational part of the school year is lost to teaching to the tests. You know it’s a problem when your students can read your stress but I guess that’s the situation that arises in a society where there always needs to be someone to “blame”.
 Many of our members are/were educators.  For them this newsletter will not bring meaning since they have lived the life.  Others are parents who worry about the dumbing down of curriculum in order to make corporate test publishers, test scoring services, test curriculum publishers, and test consultants to state education departments and school districts, very rich.
As it turns out, the testing and curriculum publisher is often the same company.  And it may very well be that the very same company also is paid to assess the outcomes, reporting the test scores and distributions, train the teachers in teaching to the test, and advising educational systems what they can do with the data.
Did you know? Following the passage of NCLB in 2002, annual state spending on standardized tests rose from $423 million to almost $1.1 billion in 2008 (a 160% increase compared to a 19.22% increase in inflation over the same period), according to the Pew Center on the States.
 
Sound a bit insidious? There is, after all, a crafty and treacherous relationship between the schools of America and the corporate interests that are increasingly working behind the scenes to control education.  This is a huge industry.  A highly profitable industry.  And an industry that places its bottom-line interests before the needs of students, teachers, and our country’s long-term welfare.
Did you know? The current use of No. 2 pencils on standardized tests is a holdover from the 1930s through the 1960s, when scanning machines scored answer sheets by detecting the electrical conductivity of graphite pencil marks. 
On most days one can find a report that brings worry to parents, to students, to graduates, to industry, to government about the continued failure of America’s educational system. Privatization is not limited to changing Medicare to a voucher system. Taking basic elements of our culture private is the new American way.  Nowhere has it become more apparent than in schools. Boards and administrators are invested in achieving higher test scores for their districts.  This is, in no small way, related to property values.  Wonder why so many Board members are realtors or in jobs associated with that real estate?
Okay, I may be meandering a bit. If so, that’s because the issue of bad education reform is so pervasive. And so critical to the future of our children, our seed corn as politicians frequently make reference.
Did you know? The Sacramento Bee reported that “test-related jitters, especially among young students, are so common that the Stanford-9 exam comes with instructions on what to do with a test booklet in case a student vomits on it.”
Happily, there may finally be an emerging force to turn this sad situation around.  It won’t be easy–but it sure is worth trying.  The New York Times had a piece this week–unfortunately relegated to page 16–Advocacy Group to Monitor Reform Efforts in Public Schools.
The issue of education reform deserves far more attention than 1/32 of a page. But at this point, we’ll take what we can get.  There has been little, if anything, in mainstream media about the downside of both Bush’s No Child Left Behind and Obama’s Race to the Top. While the Obama administration approach is by far the better of the two approaches (it is not built on the model of punishing schools, administrators, teachers, students, and parents), Race to the Top is hardly a solution.
At their cores both programs are built atop test-taking.  Raise student scores and all will be happy.  That is likely true–for the moment.  In the real world and for generations to come, the test-based folly is ruinous.  But going up against Bill Gates and his reformist brethren will not be easy.  It won’t come cheap.
The Network for Public Education, co-founded by Anthony Cody, a former teacher, will try to bring together parents, teachers and other local interest groups from across the country through social networking.  Diane Ravitch, not so long ago a national champion of high-stakes testing, hails NPE for its  broad-minded public school curriculums that included arts, sciences, foreign languages and physical education; better financing for schools; more respect for teachers; and the “appropriate use of testing to help students and teachers, not to punish or reward students, teachers, principals, or to close schools. 

Did you know about Scantron?  From the Scantron Corporation website:

Today, 80% of  the largest 100 school districts in the United States use Scantron products. Scantron offers two types of classroom testing solutions: standalone scanning devices and software-based solutions. Scantron Testing Scoring Machines, combined with Scantron Genuine Forms, have been education’s gold standard for automated, reliable classroom test scoring for over 30 years. And, through our Loan Program, schools receive the use of Testing Scoring Machines free of charge.

 

 

Gold standard? Not even lead-based standard.  The sale of lead-based paint is not permitted because it is known to be harmful to the health of children. Hopefully, test-based schooling will come to be outlawed as well.

 

Did you know about Pearson? It’s website brags: Pearson is the world’s leading education company, providing educational materials, technologies, assessments and related services to teachers and students of all ages. Though we generate approximately 60% of our sales in North America, we operate in more than 70 countries. We publish across the curriculum under a range of respected imprints including Scott Foresman, Prentice Hall, Addison-Wesley, Allyn and Bacon, Benjamin Cummings and Longman. 

We are also a leading provider of electronic learning programmes and of test development, processing and scoring services to educational institutions, corporations and professional bodies around the world.

 

Why doesn’t government just give Pearson the same anti-trust status enjoyed by pro sports? Unfortunately, they are not the only team in their league so concern of monopoly in the corporate testing sector is spread among a number of companies.

 

There will continue to be loads of data placing blame on teachers and parents for the failure of students  to meet standards. In some cases, this has to be true.  But it is not where primary blame needs to be placed.  Hopefully, the Network for Public Education will put public back into America’s schools where it needs to be.

 

More Did You Know? 

 

This section is lengthy.  Only read the material if you have no children of your own or do not care about children or our country’s future. 

 

Standardized testing has not improved student achievement. After
NCLB passed in 2002, the US slipped from 18th in the world in math on the
Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) to 31st place in 2009, with a similar drop in science and no change in reading. A  National Research Council
report found no evidence test-based incentive programs are working: “Despite using them for several decades, policymakers and educators do not yet know how to use test-based incentives to consistently generate positive effects on achievement and to improve education.”

 

Standardized tests are an unreliable measure of student performance. A study published by the Brookings Institution found that 50-80% of year-over-year test score improvements were temporary and “caused by fluctuations that had nothing to do with long-term changes in learning…”

 

Standardized tests are unfair and discriminatory, because students with diverse backgrounds and skill levels are expected to answer questions written for the white, abled majority.  English language learners take tests in English before they have mastered the language.  Special education students take the same tests as other children, receiving few of the accommodations usually provided to them as part of their Individualized Education Plans (IEP).

 

Standardized tests measure only a small portion of what makes education meaningful. According to late education researcher Gerald W. Bracey, PhD, qualities that standardized tests cannot measure include “creativity, critical thinking, resilience, motivation, persistence, curiosity, endurance, reliability, enthusiasm, empathy, self-awareness, self-discipline, leadership, civic-mindedness, courage, compassion, resourcefulness, sense of beauty, sense of wonder, honesty, integrity.” 

 

“Teaching to the test” is replacing good teaching practices with “drill n’ kill” rote learning. A five-year University of Maryland study completed in 2007 found “the pressure teachers were feeling to ‘teach to the test’” since NCLB was leading to “declines in teaching higher-order thinking, in the amount of time spent on complex assignments, and in the actual amount of high cognitive content in the curriculum.”

 

NCLB tests are drastically narrowing the curriculum. A national study by the Center on Education Policy reported that since 2001, 44% of school districts had reduced the time spent on science, social studies and the arts by an average of 145 minutes per week in order to focus on reading and math. A 2007 survey of 1,250 civics, government, and social studies teachers showed that 75% of those teaching current events less often cited standardized tests as the reason.

 

Instruction time is being consumed by monotonous test preparation. Some schools allocate more than a quarter of the year’s instruction to test prep. [Kozol] After New York City’s reading and math scores plunged in 2010, many schools imposed extra measures to avoid being shut down, including daily two and a half hour prep sessions and test practice on vacation days. In 2002, students at Monterey High School in Lubbock, TX, were prevented from discussing the first anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks because they were too busy with standardized test preparation.

 

Standardized tests are not objective. A paper published in the Fall 2002 edition of the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Resources stated that scores vary due to subjective decisions made during test design and administration: “Simply changing the relative weight of algebra and geometry in NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress) altered the gap between black and white students.”

 

Standardized testing causes severe stress in younger students. According to education researcher Gregory J. Cizek, anecdotes abound “illustrating how testing… produces gripping anxiety in even the brightest students, and makes young children vomit or cry, or both.”  On The Sacramento Bee reported that “test-related jitters, especially among young students, are so common that the Stanford-9 exam comes with instructions on what to do with a test booklet in case a student vomits on it.”

 

Older students do not take NCLB-mandated standardized tests seriously because they do not affect their grades. An English teacher at New Mexico’s Valley High School said in Aug. 2004 that many juniors just “had fun” with the tests, making patterns when filling in the answer bubbles: “Christmas tree designs were popular. So were battleships and hearts.”

 

Testing is expensive and costs have increased since NCLB, placing a burden on state education budgets. According to the Texas Education Agency, the state spent $9 million in 2003 to test students, while the cost to Texas taxpayers from 2009 through 2012 is projected to be around $88 million per year.

The billion dollar testing industry is notorious for making costly and time-consuming scoring errors. NCS Pearson, which has a $254 million contract to administer Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test, delivered the 2010 results more than a month late and their accuracy was challenged by over half the state’s superintendents.  After errors and distribution problems in 2004-2005, Hawaii replaced test publisher Harcourt with American Institutes for Research, but the latter had to re-grade 98,000 tests after students received scores for submitting blank test booklets.

 

The multiple-choice format used on standardized tests is an inadequate assessment tool. It encourages a simplistic way of thinking in which there are only right and wrong answers, which doesn’t apply in real-world situations. The format is also biased toward male students, who studies have shown adapt more easily to the game-like point scoring of multiple-choice questions.

 

America is facing a “creativity crisis,” with testing and rote learning “dumbing down” the nation’s schools and jeopardizing the country’s economic future. A 2010 College of William & Mary study found Americans’ scores on the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking have been dropping since 1990, and researcher Kyung-Hee Kim lays part of the blame on the increase in standardized testing: “If we neglect creative students in school because of the structure and the testing movement… then they become underachievers.”

 

Excessive testing teaches children to be good at taking tests, but does not prepare them for productive adult lives.  China displaced Finland at the top of the 2009 PISA rankings because, as explained by Jiang Xueqin, Deputy Principal of Peking University High School, “Chinese schools are very good at preparing their students for standardized tests. For that reason, they fail to prepare them for higher education and the knowledge economy.” China is trying to depart from the “drill and kill” test prep that Chinese educators admit has produced only “competent mediocrity.”

 

Using test scores to reward and punish teachers and schools encourages cheating.  A 2011 USA Today investigation of six states and Washington DC found 1,610 suspicious anomalies in year-over-year test score gains.

 

Open-ended questions on standardized tests are often graded by under-paid temporary workers with no educational training. Scorers make $11-$13 per hour and need only a bachelor’s degree, not necessarily related to education. As one former test scorer stated, “all it takes to become a test scorer is a bachelor’s degree, a lack of a steady job, and a willingness to throw independent thinking out the window…”

 

An obsession with testing robs children of their childhoods. NCLB’s mandate begins in third grade, but schools test younger students so they will get used to taking tests. A 2009 research from the Alliance for Childhood showed “time for play in most public kindergartens has dwindled to the vanishing point, replaced by lengthy lessons and standardized testing.”A three-year study completed in Oct. 2010 by the Gesell Institute of Human Development showed that increased emphasis on testing is making “children feel like failures now as early as PreK…”

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At Odds with the Needs of the People

Posted by Marvin on March 7, 2013 at 7:25 pm

 Consider the following list of budget priorities
1.   funding infrastructure
2.   increasing military funding
3.   providing unemployment benefits
4.   increasing border patrol
5.   providing housing assistance
6.   cutting domestic programs
7.   extending health care reform
8.   maintaining the existing minimum wage
9.   developing comprehensive immigration reform
10. preventing any and all tax increases
11. funding universal preschool and nutrition programs
12. cutting back education grants
13. advocating gun control reform
It would not be odd if you selected numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13.  It would make you just as odd as I may be.
On the other hand, if you settled upon numbers 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, it would make you even–even as bad as Republicans who have made it their life’s ultimate goal to eliminate fairness while exacerbating inequality.
The GOP offer this week of a continuing resolution is intended to get even.  Get even with whom?  The American people?  For what?
It’s a symptom of a type of disturbance chemical-electric part of the brain

If they would, for a single moment, consider President Obama’s economic accomplishments during his first term, they might be able to comprehend that he has found any number of ways of reducing the deficit while leading our country away from war and out of recession. Republicans say he is increasing the deficit, doing an exorcist-180 to ignore that the Bush years got us where we are today.

You know the biggies–two wars on a credit card, two ill-advised, economy-crunching tax cuts while our nation was fighting the wars, and pandering to the Rx industry that is costing Medicare dearly.  They refuse to acknowledge the trillion or so bucks cutbacks to discretionary programs wrung from the people who most need it during a time of economic woe.
This is not a short-range or temporary phenomenon that can be hung on the Tea Party alone. This is the long-range projection for a Corporate America.  Push the life and liberty stuff aside.  Reject one man, one vote.  Eliminate any and all traces of Roosevelt’s New Deal  and Johnson’s Great Society.  Humbug to the Voting Rights Act. Play ‘prove it’ whenever global warming is raised as an issue.  Play ‘gotcha’ with Cabinet appointments. They’re like children in denial.  Perhaps an exorcism is in order? Whaddya think?
Let’s get past the odds and evens. Take a look at the numbers in this video which has gone viral on the internet:  Video on Wealth Inequality in the U.S.

A few days ago corporate media went ga-ga when the Dow Jones surpassed its all-time high (actually it remains below prior records of 2000 and 2007 when inflation is factored in). But who were the people most ecstatic? The one percenters.  They were downright giddy on the stocks channels. Understand that the wealthiest one percent of Americans own fifty percent (50%) of the stocks. Understand that the poorest fifty percent (50%) own less than one-half of one percent (<0.005) of all stocks. 

To further make the point (should not be necessary): The top 1% owns 40% of the nation’s total wealth. The bottom 80% own just 7.0%  of the nation’s total wealth.
Economic disparity is greater than at any time in our country’s history and is escalating at a time that President Obama is obstructed at every opportunity to improve circumstances of the working middle class.
A recent study done at the Stanford Center for Poverty and Inequality showcases twenty facts about US inequality that everyone should know.  Here’s one: In 1965, CEO pay in the United States was 24 times higher than the average pay for workers.  By 1977, it had risen to 35 times.  It then doubled to 70 times by 1989–during the first decade of the Reagan presidency. During the 1990s, thanks in no small part to the Republicans’ Contract with America, it rose to a peak of nearly 300 times.  Today, it stands at roughly 380 times.
No matter how recent data is collected and synthesized, one stubborn fact remains: unsustainable economic inequality continues to increase. The inequality is not only of outcomes; it is about opportunity long the measure of American capitalism.
So what will the Republicans do to improve things? Just ask Paul Ryan, Mr. Austerity. The newest House GOP budget plan will expect low-income and middle-class Americans to shoulder the entire burden of deficit reduction while simultaneously delivering massive tax breaks to the richest 1 percent and preserving huge giveaways to Big Oil. Here we go again with the one percent stepping on the necks of the rest of the 99%.

The GOP budget threatens the middle class while doing nothing to add jobs or grow our economy. It ends the guarantee of decent insurance for senior citizens, breaking Medicare’s bedrock promise. It slashes investments in education, infrastructure, and basic research, all of which are key drivers of economic growth and mobility. Meanwhile the Ryan plan would cut taxes for those at the tippy-top of the economic ladder, while demanding the middle class to foot the bill.

 

Here we go again. Wonderful news for those who picked the even numbers. Devastating news for those who went with the odd ones.

Apparently anticipating a Ryan austerity budget, economist Joseph Stiglitz recently wrote in the NY Times:
These problems are two sides of the same coin: with inequality at its highest level since before the Depression, a robust recovery will be difficult in the short term, and the American dream – a good life in exchange for hard work – is slowly dying. . . Our skyrocketing inequality – so contrary to our meritocratic ideal of America as a place where anyone with hard work and talent can “make it” – means that those who are born to parents of limited means are likely never to live up to their potential. . . Even were we able to ignore the economic imperative of fixing our inequality problem, the damage it is doing to our social fabric and political life should prompt us to worry. Economic inequality leads to political inequality and a broken decision-making process . . . Despite Mr. Obama’s stated commitment to helping all Americans, the recession and the lingering effects of the way it was handled have made matters much, much worse. . . What’s needed is a comprehensive response that should include, at least, significant investments in education, a more progressive tax system and a tax on financial speculation.     
 
But things these days are backwards.  Even with significant investment, progressive taxation, and the elimination of special entitlements available only to the wealthy,
we can get ourselves out of the mess we’ve been in.  Odds are the Republicans cannot and never will recognize the advantages to our country, to the American people, of a more equitable distribution of wealth.

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There Are Far Better Ways to Govern

Posted by Marvin on March 6, 2013 at 5:56 pm

There Are Far Better Ways to Govern
There is real reason for concern that the United States may not be the world’s greatest economy in ten years.  China’s emergence over a single decade has been extraordinary.  Meanwhile America’s, Europe’s, and Japan’s economies continue to take on water.  The major reasons for this are not diminishing natural resources or talent or innovation.  Rather, it is political systems that continue to inflict damage on the world’s strongest economies.
The reason is political gridlock.  Our elected officials have created such division that there seems little, if any, opportunity to accomplish anything.  Certainly not the kind of change that is necessary to correcting course.  The damage being done by fiscal crisis following fiscal crisis is shaping the view of America throughout the world.  We were, not so long ago, held in esteem.  Recent events lead others to question that democracy is a system of government to be envied and imitated. In the past few years both the American and British economies have been downgraded.  And yet there has been no political will for electeds to come together to strive for rational solutions.
Residents of Nassau County need not look far to see, and experience, the outcome of partisan gridlock.  Nowhere has there been greater evidence than the County’s legislative dysfunction over redistricting.  And yesterday’s session was textbook.  I saw many of you at the Legislative Chamber yesterday.  You recognize exactly what I am about to describe.  A shameful scene, a sham, conducted by shills.
There are no innocents here–although the Republicans certainly have their thumb on the scale of justice since they remain the majority and are desperate to retain that advantage. The incompetence, the disrespect, the inanity of three February-March sessions almost denies description. But I’ll try.
For those who somehow remain unaware of our legislators’ political shenanigans over redistricting, I’ll provide references below.  Suffice that the Republicans hold a 10-9 edge (there are 19 legislative districts) and are keenly aware that the demographics of Nassau continue to trend in favor of Democrats and will not favor the GOP in years ahead.  Using the most recent census data, each party has concocted a map of its own.  A deadline of March 5 arrived yesterday making the session significant.
The actors:

Understand that the three recent sessions were opportunities for the audience to share its perspectives and to question the legislators.  Further understand that the Republicans have taken the position that they are there to listen–but not to respond.  Hence, all questions were made rhetorical.  They understand that their map is not defensible.  I’ll get back to this.  They remained aloof, smug, defiant–rendering the hearings useless. Worse, setbacks for the democratic process.
The cake had been baked.  They could have called the headline into Newsday months ago: Republican Redistricting Map Approved 10-9 in Party Line Vote. All of us could have stayed home unless we prefer a good farce.  The previous session had an overflow crowd, so great it had to be moved to space adjoining the chamber. It really made no difference whether or not one was in the chamber itself because no meaningful interaction took place. Yesterday far fewer attended likely having come to the realization of what’s the point?
One after another residents from all parts of the County vented their frustrations. Every argument presented was logical and heartfelt.  But there would be no
Dewey Wins–No Truman Wins headlines on this day, the verdict had long ago been determined.  The fix was in.  And everybody in the room–facing in both directions–knows it.
At each of the two most recent sessions, an informal poll of the audience was taken. On both occasions one hundred percent of those assembled in the chamber were against the Republican map. Not one attendee, at either hearing, spoke in favor of the GOP map.  Not one. The Republican legislators ritually ignored residents, refusing to interact. The cake, after all, had been baked.  They had nothing to gain and much to lose.
A singular reaction came from the Five Towns legislator who created a mess by introducing racism. He was prompted by his Democratic colleagues that he was thin-skinned and argumentative. Whatever, it was the only reply from the ten GOP legislators.  And very unfortunate in tone and purpose.
What end has the sessions served? They continued a pretense of democracy. They granted lots of people opportunity to vent. Whoopee. Republicans proved, once again, that our legislators do not listen to the people.  They listen to their bosses. A Grover Norquist-Joseph Mondello analogy is as real as it is frightening.
Conclusion: They may be legislators–having been elected to the title and granted the power to  make law–but they are not representatives. They take their marching orders from a party leader and, perhaps fearing they will be defunded or primaried, act as good soldiers.
The map:

The Republican map is a joke. That it shifts 360,000 residents into different legislative districts is only to ensure Republican majority. Actually, to create a new super majority. For ten years. The Democratic map would result in 20,000 residents being redistricted.  Everyone recognizes that adjustments are likely necessary and acceptable once each decade.
The Republican map defies understanding. This is not by accident.  Boundaries are not identifiable.  It is as if someone took a set of water colors and flung the paint at a wall. Once dripping had stopped, numerals 1 through 19 were added to provide a laughable sort of legitimacy.
Without going into unnecessary detail, the Five Towns, Rockville Center, and Hempstead took, perhaps, the biggest hits.  Inwood was matched up with Elmont.  The eastern half of Hempstead was mated with Bethpage.  Roslyn was sliced and diced.
Cries of gerrymander filled the room.  Two professionals who relied upon maps for their careers–a military officer and an air traffic controller–derided the GOP Map as an infantile expression of how one party would dream things to be.
Republican Map
Inquiries were made of the consulting company, hired by the Republicans, that had prepared the data and drawn the map.  The consultant was not available and no Republican legislator dared to address questions posed by the audience.

A Nassau United Reform Redistricting Planprovides an alternative to the partisan dysfunction and hyper-partisan gerrymandering that typically characterizes this County’s legislative process.

 

The Coalition Redistricting Plan is based upon existing legislative districts and makes adjustments based upon objective redistricting criteria:

  1. Equal Population - follow the principle of “one person, one vote” in the US Constitution by drawing districts and exercising good faith to create equipopulous districts with a population deviation of no more than +/- 5% from the ideal average value.
  2. Voting Rights Act/Fair Representation for Racial and Language Minorities - ensure that districts maintain the rights of minority (racial and linguistic) groups to have a fair opportunity to elect their preferred candidates and to engage in the democratic process. Nassau County legislative redistricting should reflect the strong growth in the County’s minority communities. From 2000 to 2010, the non-Hispanic white voting age population declined by nearly 9%. NH Black VAP rose by 17% while Hispanic VAP and NH Asian VAP rose even faster, increasingly by 49% and 68% respectively.
  3. Respect for Political Subdivisions - district lines should respect the borders of towns, villages, and school districts when possible, keeping residents with common interests together in a single district and helping facilitate a stronger relationship between local officials and their county-level representatives.
  4. Respect for Communities of Interest - generally defined as a local population with shared socio-economic characteristics and political institutions that would benefit from unified representation by a single legislator. A local community with unified and cohesive political leadership tends to have stronger influence in the legislature. On the other hand, if a community with shared interests is redrawn and divided by political district lines, the representation of those interests will also be divided and weakened.
  5. Compactness & Contiguity - district shapes should be as compact as possible and districts should connect separate areas divided by water or other impassible features.
  6. Barring Uses of Partisanship and Political Data - follow an “incumbent blind” process and one that does not utilize any political data (percentages and actual data related to voter registration, voters’ membership data by political parties, election races, turnout rates by precinct, etc.) or seek to advantage any particular political party in drawing the lines.
The audience left no stone unturned in its questions or its opinions. Over the three days, each of the six guiding principles was addressed in various ways by residents.  Each and every time residents were given three-minutes to speak followed by an invitation to return to their seats.
The Coalition’s map reflects the six principles and recognizes the importance of maintaining communities of interest as well as reflecting their community growth trajectories.

 

As an educator I recognize what a great field trip experience this would be for high school students as they approach voting age. The recalcitrant Republicans make it plain that their role as elected legislators is to serve their masters, to preserve an inequitable status quo, to protect their positions, at any length. No high schooler would fail to notice the amateur protectivism of the GOP legislators–foregoing their role as representatives of the people who put them in office and contributing to a  political reality that is being visited upon Americans at local, state, and national levels of government.

 

It’s partisanship to the extreme.  It’s gridlock. It’s unacceptable.

 

The given outcome of this mockery of democracy is that citizens lose.  The protected win.  Is this any way to run a democracy?

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I Met a Young Man on Furlough

Posted by Marvin on March 5, 2013 at 6:30 pm

I Met a Young Man on Furlough
Riding an elevator yesterday, I noticed a young man wearing a Federal Environmental Services jacket and asked him how things were going. Once he realized I was asking about the status of his employment, he shared that he was experiencing his first of twenty-one furlough days. Additionally, the federal government match of his pension deduction would never be realized for these days.  In the lobby he began to describe how this is impacting his life–he was about to get married–and his frustration was evident.  This is but one of several hundred thousand stories that will be told across the country.  My brother-in-law, working for the federal government has been told to expect forty-plus days of furlough.  I imagine each of us has a family member, friend, or neighbor whose day-to-day life is assaulted by the sequester.                           Have a story to share?
Meanwhile, corporate and bank executives will receive bonuses and incentives that are unconscionable while continuing to avoid taxes on much of their good fortune.
It is too late to avoid the sequester. It may be even too late to expect Congress to make corrective adjustments for the current fiscal year. But know about a House Progressive Caucusplan that was offered to replace the entire sequester with a plan identifying equivalent savings and that was highly favored in a survey. Its main points:
  • end subsidies to fossil fuel companies
  • close several tax loopholes
  • cut the corporate meal and entertainment tax deduction at 25 percent
  • enact a 28 percent limit on certain tax deductions and extensions

SurveyMonkey‘s poll, which surveyed 550 people, focused on congressional proposals. Polls findings:*

  • The plan that polled the strongest was the House Progressive Caucus plan. More than half of respondents supported it compared to sequestration and just a fifth of respondents were opposed.
  • A plurality of people – 28 percent – believed the House Progressive Caucus Plan would have the least financial impact on them personally. This makes the most sense, as only 14 percent of respondents reported having income over $150,000.
  • Shockingly, 47 percent of Republicans preferred the House Progressive plan to the sequester. This means that Republicans supported the House Progressive plan just as much as they supported their own party’s plan.
  • Support for the Senate Democrat plan was weak, with just fewer than half of respondents preferring that plan compared with the sequester.
  • Opposition to the House Republican plan was strong, with 57 percent preferring the sequester to that plan.
  • Twice as many Republicans supported sequestration as Democrats.
  • One-fifth of Democrats prefer the sequester when compared to the Senate Democrats’ sequestration replacement plan. About one-quarter of Republicans prefer the Senate Democrat plan to the implementation of the sequester.

The poll presented each plan without a label (sponsor).  The no-label methodology was designed to avoid knee-jerk partisan reactions based upon one’s political inclinations by not indicating who had conceptualized each of the plans:

  • The Senate Democratic plan cancels the $85.3 billion in 2013 sequester cuts and replaces them with a mix of spending cuts and tax hikes. The plan saves $27.5 billion by cutting farm subsidies and raises $55 billion by cutting tax deductions for oil companies and by implementing the Buffett Rule, which sets a minimum tax rate for incomes over $1 million.
  • The 2012 House Republican plan would cancel the $55 billion in sequester defense cuts for 2013 and replace them by shrinking funding to food stamp programs, cutting $11.4 billion from the public health fund in the Affordable Care Act, and cutting the Social Services Block Grant program, among others.
  • The House Progressive Caucus plan replaces the entire sequester with a new plan with equivalent savings. It accomplishes this by ending subsidies to fossil fuel companies, closing several tax loopholes, cutting the corporate meal and entertainment tax deduction at 25 percent, and enacting a 28 percent limit on certain tax deductions and extensions.

*SurveyMonkey is a web survey. 
The Congressional Progressional Caucus statement:

    We would prefer to replace the sequester with a balanced approach to deficit reduction. The Progressive Caucus already introduced a bill called the
Balancing Act that reflects  

what the American people voted for in November. It replaces the sequester with a fair approach to new revenue and necessary Pentagon budget cuts, and it creates jobs all over the country. It equalizes the budget cuts we’ve already made with revenue by closing tax loopholes for America’s wealthiest individuals and corporations.
     We shouldn’t sacrifice our economic recovery because Republicans are unwilling to vote for a penny in new contributions from their billionaire friends. . . 

 

     The consequences of more massive budget cuts are real. Economic growth will slow, hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost, and more people will have to rely on government assistance to meet their basic needs. . . 

     In 2013 alone, seventy thousand children will be kicked off Head Start. More than one million kids will see their schools lose education funds. Emergency responders will lose their jobs, meaning slower response times and weaker disaster preparedness. Layoffs and furloughs for Social Security workers will cause delays and hassles for millions of seniors who depend on Social Security to put food on the table. Cuts to air traffic controllers and airport security agents will mean longer waits and travel disruptions. . . 

     Unlike the majority of our Republican colleagues, we opposed the Budget Control Act and sequestration when Republicans held the world economy hostage in 2011. They created this crisis, and Congress should fix it for the sake of the country before people start getting fired. . . 

    It’s time Republicans wake up to what’s really about to happen to America’s families. It’s time to eliminate the sequester. . . 

Don’t Be Fooled
There’s a really slick website promoting the notion of fixing our nation’s debt. Photos atop its banner represent what most of us believe America should look like. Don’t be fooled. This is a charade, a false promise, corruption of a solution.
Fix the Debt touts a citizens’ petition, with 346,000 names. However, the Center for Media and Democracy, which last year used leaked documents to report on the secretive
American Legislative Exchange Council, has traced the corporate ties and lobbying records of Fix the Debt leaders.
Its Board is composed of people on the corporate boards of GE, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, major private equity firms, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
CMD‘s director:  They really are posturing as a grassroots movement. They are putting forward this notion of these business leaders not as job creators, but as problem solvers on the economy – when in fact the record shows that a lot of these companies are actively lobbying to keep tax loopholes open and to promote other corporation-friendly policies.

You may or may not be surprised to see the Fix the Debt‘s leadership: Who We Are

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Accomplishing (or Not) Something Simple through Complex Means

Posted by Marvin on March 1, 2013 at 3:04 pm

Accomplishing (or Not) Something Simple through Complex Means
1930: Rube Goldberg. The cartoonist became famous for depicting complex devices that performed simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways.  Example: The self-operating napkin.
2013: Republicans. The greedy politicians who managed to figure out the most convoluted mechanism for solving a simple problem.  Example: The self-destructing GOP.
The 2013 version would begin with the relatively simple task of putting together a budget. Republicans continue their assault on a fairly progressive agenda that began with McConnell’s promise to defeat this president.  It would become his calling to see that Obama will not achieve success.  Regardless of its impact on America.

The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.
That was an early component of the Rube McConnell-Boehner Newfangled Budget Machine.  The process’ origin predates the dynamic duo. Until 1974 Congress had no formal timeline for creating a federal budget. When Richard Nixon began his presidency by refusing to spend funds that the Congress had already allocated, Congress adopted a formal means by which to challenge him.
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 created the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
House and Senate Budget Committees begin consideration of the President’s budget proposals during February/March. Other committees submit requests and estimates to the Budget committees.
According to the United States Constitution

 
All bills relating to revenue, generally tax bills, must originate in the 

That is why appropriations bills begin with “H.R.”–indicating a bill that originated in the House. The Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills. In practice, the Senate and House each drafts and considers its own bill. The Senate then cuts-and-pastes, substituting the language of its bill for the language of House bill. The two houses confer and come to agreement on revisions. The bill is sent to the president for signature.

Pretty simple and straightforward. Right?
But, nooooooooooooooo.  Why have a simple process that can be convoluted and inefficient?
Because it works better for the Republicans if they can demonstrate that President Obama can’t manage the country’s affairs. To this end they create a process that is unnecessarily convoluted, baffling, complex, confused, impenetrable, serpentine, tortuous, tangled, perplexing, and labyrinthine. Stir into this
William Bendix or Bob Young?

That is where we are at the moment thanks to a gang of malcontent losers. What a revoltin’ development this is.

 

 

 

 

 

Redistricting in Nassau County 
Show up and speak up. The next step in this process will take place Tuesday.
Please make every effort to attend the hearing.   Most likely, our next step will be the courts.
A hearing and a vote will take place Tuesday, Mar. 5, the last day the map can be approved.
Any map decided upon would be used in November when all 19 County legislative seats are up for election. This is serious business.
The previous session closed at 1 a.m. after legislators had met in closed session for hours. It has been reported that proposed changes will be included in the revised bill: (1) Dave Denenberg’s house will be restored his current district LD-19. The map would merge the districts of Democrats David Denenberg of Merrick and Joseph Scannell into a redrawn 5th District in Baldwin. Denenberg’s current 19th District would have no incumbent; (2) the section known as Jericho Gardens will be restored to Robert Troiano’s district LD-2.  Troiano contested that the changes for his district would be in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act by diluting residents’ voting influence.
The Republican-gerrymandered plan needs to be dumped and a fair plan introduced.
A  map drawn up by the Democrats on the County’s Temporary Redistricting Commission has not been given any attention. This map limits to 20,000 the number of who would be shifted into new districts, by far minimizing the disruption  that would result from the Republican map.
League of Women Voters’  co-president Nancy Rosenthal asked, “Why do the Republicans appear unwilling to engage in a public discussion of their map? This makes it appear to many that the real reason for the draconian changes made in these districts was to ‘pack’ some of the districts with as many registered members of the opposition as possible.”

       Nassau County Legislative Chambers, 10am 
     1550 Franklin Ave., Mineola
  Plan on arriving early (between 9:00 and 9:30).  Seating in the chamber is limited to 250 persons, with numbered passes distributed on a first-come-first-served basis.  Others can wait in a standing area outside the chamber where proceedings can be watched on monitors. A real positive about this area is the opportunity to interact with lots of standees.
Once inside, you may sign up for an opportunity to address the legislature. All comments and objections are entered into the record.
Note:  Ample parking space behind the shopping area south of the legislative building. Parking tickets are issued to timed out meters along the street.

Weekend Meeting at Town of Hempstead Democratic CommitteeStorefront in Valley Stream
Do not underestimate the importance of the TOHDC meeting place in Valley Stream. The facility is available to local clubs and organizations.
Everyone benefits from a progressive discussion
     Last Saturday, a well-attended
Pay the Rent Party provided a terrific opportunity to catch up on local matters.
Lots of laughs amid the chatter.

Tom Suozzi and Dave Denenberg dropped by
Coffee and desserts were served.  The place is a great gathering spot with a new bathroom facility and ample  and comfortable
 seating.
Brainstorming
The address is 124 Brooklyn Avenue, adjacent to Sunrise Highway.  Hope to see you there soon.  Those interested in booking the space for a meeting or event contact Matt Hynes.      

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