And when do we hear what is going to be done to rectify the situation?

Not long ago Weasel “The ACORN Slayer” Welch joined his radical right wing friends and allies in the House to attack the low income advocacy group ACORN. Weasel Welch based his assault on this group (ACORN is dedicated to empowering those our governments have gleefully helped to dis-empower) on video clips that were so heavily cut what got presented to the public was lies … and Weasel “The ACORN Slayer” Welch, long time prosecutor he is, went for it … with alacrity.

Here’s the latest update from Brad Friedman of the BradBlog.

So I ask you again Weasel “The ACORN Slayer” Welch … when do we hear an apology and a plan to undo the immense amount of damage you participated in creating?

After being hammered by the public, it seems Vermont’s DOE Education Challenges Design Team has retreated from insisting on closed door meetings.

(And special thanks appears to be owed to the Dover, VT  school board for their leading role in this.)

But the rationale for hiding the goings on in our state government is still being upheld:

[VT DOE spokesperson] Remick said it was easy to understand why a finance manager or a superintendent would want to be able to talk about issues without worrying how their comments would be perceived by the public

(Decision reversed: Ed. dept. opens meetings to public, Brattleboro Reformer, 03/13/10)

Uh … no, Ms. Remick, you have it entirely wrong. It’s easy to understand why we shouldn’t trust decisions based upon comments that have to be hidden from view, but it is most assuredly NOT easy to understand why a professional in their respective fields should feel hamstrung by the notion that people are going to make interpretations of what they, the professionals, say.

What we need is a robust defense of the public’s right … not necessarily need … to know, because otherwise we end up re-arguing the above over and over and over.

The Brattleboro Reformer has this story (Clerical error closes LeFevre) discussing the closing of a local ambulance service. Apparently they weren’t able to make payroll much less pay anything else.

The owner said the company had to begin using a new Medicare number for billing purposes, but they hadn’t received it yet … so they couldn’t bill.

Okay, that is a problem … but the reason for not getting the new Medicare number:

National Health Insurance Company, the Medicare Part B carrier for Vermont, has not sent LeFevre its new number, LeFevre billing supervisor Katherine St. Martin said, due to a broken fax machine in the insurance company’s office.

Couldn’t transfer a number because of a broken fax machine? FAX MACHINE??

Have I slipped back to the 1980’s?

Is this really just a Star Trek re-run?

Is this why we pay so much for insurance?

FOR A FREAKIN’ FAX MACHINE?

In other news Louisiana Entergy has said they intend to spin their Entergy Yankee nuclear power plant off to a newly formed church ala Scientology. “We’re truly a holy place,” said the spokesperson, “and obviously we’ve miraculously located underground pipes that weren’t there.”

According to the Governor’s office, Douglas supports the plan saying it’s important to our energy future and jobs that The Church of Enterology be moved forward post-haste. “In the end,” said Douglas, “It’s all about having faith in them, isn’t it?”

Show me the numbers.

Lately I’ve been reading and hearing a lot about various ideas in the governor’s office and state house regarding stealing the final vestiges of educational local control and accountability.

Hell, apparently there was a hearing in the state house yesterday allegedly giving Vermonters a chance to testify on this very subject … actually designed to tell a select committee why they should go ahead and take accountability for our kids education away from the local communities. Yeah … great place for that hearing … well away from the folks who stand to lose the most … the kids and their parents and the concerned community members too busy to pander to your schedules and locations.

The songs are all the same: if only the STATE could run our schools, if only we had fewer school boards providing oversight and policy guidance, if only there were fewer school districts, if only those nasty dirty locals didn’t get in the way … if only … THEN everything would get inexpensive and the heavens will open up and school building choice (not educational choice mind you) and better course offerings will ensue.

Show me the numbers.

Show me how substituting a super-superintendent and 3 sub-superintendents is going to save money over having 3 superintendents. Because that is what is going to happen when you consolidate supervisory districts. Oh, you may not call all of them superintendents, but that’s what they’ll be in form and function and you’ll have to pay the commensurate salaries.

Show me how much better things will get for grade school kids when they have to spend hours each school day in a school bus getting to and from their now non-local primary school buildings. Or, if you acknowledge they shouldn’t be doing this, tell me why the individual town’s aren’t better suited to watching over their youngsters as opposed to the STATE? Hasn’t Burlington already shown folks a path forward? Do you really have to steal that idea as your own?

Tell me about these savings that will be guzzled up by the gasoline and diesel fuel required to send the k-12 generations all over the map because, once centralization and school closings begin, that is exactly what will happen.

Tell me about the savings in salaries you’re expecting? Are you going to shift gears and give yourselves wider latitude in who can be hired as a teacher to save a few bucks … the same latitude you refuse the local school boards? Or maybe you’re going to make use of shared resources and modern communications technology … you know … what the local schools are already doing?

Tell me why the most heavily centralized school districts in the country, mostly the urban ones, are the exact same school districts that required a federal law (no child left untested) to correct?

SHOW ME THE NUMBERS!

PS. I do understand you can’t really show me the numbers. I’ve read enough to thoroughly understand the numbers contradict this drive for centralized command and control over our kids education.

PPS. Odum, if you don’t think moves like this are designed to kill off public education: just think about loss of control and accountability with a parallel increase in mandated cost. People will be dying for a voucher to a religious school that discriminates in who it accepts and saves them a boatload of cash. These assholes know what they’re doing.

(I don’t necessarily agree with Rama that the point here is to destroy public education, but I have no doubt that at least part of the point is ultimately to bust the union. – promoted by odum)

When you’re out to destroy public education, it certainly helps to keep the annoying public out of the discussion:

The Dover School Board held an emergency meeting Monday morning to draft a letter protesting the closed-door policy of a design group named by the Department of Education.

(Dover objects to closed-door meetings, Brattleboro Reformer, 03/09/10)

The excuse by Douglas’ little boy?

Tom Evslin, chief technology officer for the state of Vermont and coordinator of the Challenges for Change efforts, said the meetings were designed to include just the team members to allow for a more free exchange of ideas.

(ibid)

Yeah, that’s where the best “let’s drown our government in the bathtub” come from … a place far from the sunlight of public oversight and participation.

Because we just know all about those wonderful ideas that should never be discussed in public.

We’ve reached a point in Palestine where even Hamas has openly accepted the concept that Israel will exist in part of Palestine …

so what do the bigots of Israel do?

Why, they figure out how to keep a war from ending of course.

Jerusalem’s mayor yesterday unveiled details of a controversial and long-expected plan to demolish Palestinian homes and make way for an Israeli-sponsored tourist park in a neighbourhood of the city’s Arab eastern sector.

(Mayor unveils plan to raze Arab homes, NZ Herald, 03/04/10)

A majority of Israeli Jews learned their lessons well on the lap of Adolph Hitler and his Nazi Party. A master race and lebenstraum … look it up.

with apologies to weasels other than our own federal representative welch.

You remember peter welch right? He’s the “liberal” rep who couldn’t wait for a chance to join his radical right wing compatriots in bashing ACORN – a national group dedicated to empowering those who have been economically and politically disempowered.

On Sept. 15, 2009, my office began an investigation into possible criminality on the part of three ACORN employees. The three had been secretly videotaped by two people posing as a pimp and prostitute, who came to ACORN’S Brooklyn office, seeking advice about how to purchase a house with money generated by their ‘business.’ The ‘couple’ later made the recording public. That investigation is now concluded and no criminality has been found.

(ACORN cleared in Brooklyn: ‘No criminality’, Politico.com, 03/01/10)

Thanks to The Brad Blog which has been doing a yeoman’s job of uncovering the abject dishonesty that our weasel the welch has helped perpetrate on the American people.

Hey, did I say “Thanks, peter” yet? No?

I’m not talking about the math being taught in our local schools (although that’s an issue too); I’m talking about the math public figures use to advance one educational agenda or another.

The primary local culprit has been the Douglas/Vilaseca team. Douglas, for example, used his final state of our state speech to tell us

Employers of all sizes, in all sectors, have made clear what they need to restart the engine of our prosperity: lower taxes; universal broadband and wireless; reliable, affordable energy; a well-trained workforce; and an education system that is top-notch without being top-dollar.

(State of state, 1/7/10)

After telling us about the need for a “top-notch” educational system, Douglas used his follow up comments to talk about defunding the system by way of reducing our tax supports.

Vilaseca? Runs around the state with alacrity parroting Douglas.

Et tu Obama? Of course! (You don’t think it’s coincidental that our right wing guv get’s his mug next to Obama, do you?)

Mr. Obama said he was particularly troubled by the dropout rate. He said 1.2 million students left school each year before graduating from high school, at a cost to the nation of $319 billion annually in potential earning losses.

(Obama Backs Rewarding Districts That Police Failing Schools, NY Times, 03/01/10)

There are a lot issues I have with that comment of which only one is really germane to this post.

Speaking as a three time high school drop out who has successfully self educated in multiple fields, I really don’t see drop outs as being a problem. You’ll find plenty of them who went on to be the happily self-employed. Far from being a drag on the nation’s coffers, this three time high school drop out has been a tax paying citizen since the age of 13.

And “potential earning losses”???????? What the fuck is that?

I would suggest before we bust balls on the schools over standardized math test scores, we bust balls on the likes of Obama, Douglas and Vilaseca for their lack of any realistic numbers and math in their part of the education discussion.

PS. If this sounds like the anti-IRV repeat parrots who keep assuring us if folks had voted other than how they did, the outcome would have been different … well it is. It’s the same concept: baffle ’em with enough bullshit, and the public will sit down in front of the tellie to watch sitcoms.

Hey … weasel Welch … the attacks from your buddies in the whacko political right and you on a group dedicated to politically and financially empowering those in the lower economic classes is bearing some fruit!

The embattled liberal group ACORN is in the process of dissolving its national structure, with state and local-chapters splitting off from the underfunded, controversial national group, an official close to the group confirmed.

(ACORN ‘dissolved as a national structure’, Politico, 02/22/10)

Of course “controversial”, as weasel Welch heartily agrees, means “supports the political and economic empowerment of folks from the lower part of the economic ladder”.

Hey weasel … did I say thanks?

On the ACORN front:

I caught up with Hannah Giles, co-star of the ACORN sting videos, after she accepted one of 10 “Buckley Awards” handed out in the XPAC lounge for young conservative leaders.

. . .

“We never claimed that he went in with a pimp costume,” said Giles. “That was b-roll. It was purely b-roll. He was a pimp, I was a prostitute, and we were walking in front of government buildings to show how the government was whoring out the American people.”

(Hannah Giles Explains Those Pimp and Prostitute Outfits, The Washington Independent, 02/19/10, with special thanks to The Brad Blog for the pointer)

Of course this forthright admission on the part of Ms. Giles is directly counter to the “reporting” of many major “news” outlets. I’m talking about lies that claimed the (so heavily cut that they were not anywhere close to the truth) tapes showed the duo of Giles and O’Keefe wearing pimp and prostitute outfits into the ACORN offices.

These were the same lies that our own federal representative weasel welch used to join the radical right wing of Amercian politics in an attack against a group, ACORN, who’s sole crime has been to fight for the economic and political power of our nation’s lower economic classes.

HEY WEASEL WELCH … you owe the good, honest, hard working folks of ACORN a loud and public apology.

And then you have to explain why you, a supposed one-time prosecutor, would rely on lies and misdirections in assigning guilt to a party … or should I ask how many people you fraudulently imprisoned in your time as a faux prosecutor?

Did I say thanks, weasel welch?