How the New Deal hurt the poor

Poor people were principal victims of the New Deal. The evidence has been developed by dozens of economists. . .

"New Deal programs were financed by tripling federal taxes from $1.6 billion in 1933 to $5.3 billion in 1940. Excise taxes, personal income taxes, inheritance taxes, corporate income taxes, holding company taxes and so-called "excess profits" taxes all went up. . ." excise taxes on alcohol, chewing gum, candy, playing cards, movie tickets--hitting mostly the poor and middle class.

"New Deal taxes were major job destroyers during the 1930s, prolonging unemployment that averaged 17%. Higher business taxes meant that employers had less money for growth and jobs. Social Security excise taxes on payrolls made it more expensive for employers to hire people, which discouraged hiring."

Other New Deal programs destroyed jobs, too. For example, the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) cut back production and forced wages above market levels, making it more expensive for employers to hire people - blacks alone were estimated to have lost some 500,000 jobs because of the National Industrial Recovery Act. . . "

"For defenders of the New Deal, perhaps the most embarrassing revelation about New Deal spending programs is they channeled money AWAY from the South, the poorest region in the United States. The largest share of New Deal spending and loan programs went to political "swing" states in the West and East - where incomes were at least 60% higher than in the South. As an incumbent, FDR didn't see any point giving much money to the South where voters were already overwhelmingly on his side.

For the whole article.

Interesting thought. FDR channeling money away from the people supporting him to influence votes in another region.

Campaign volunteer story a hoax

Young female McCain volunteer who claimed she'd been attacked at an ATM has admitted she lied. Needed some attention, I guess. But this one isn't a hoax. At a place of business in Columbus, employees caught removing McCain bumper stickers from customers' or other employees' automobiles have been warned they will be fired. Nor is this one. There are yards in Upper Arlington with both Obama-Biden signs and McCain-Palin signs. Should make for some interesting dinner table conversation. . . or sleeping arrangements. We've wondered if the folks who live in these half-million dollar homes sprouting Obama signs can't get their calculators to work, or if they are just patriotic, as Joe Biden My Time claims.

I saw the cutest Obama logo/badge at another location that had been photoshopped with CNN on it. I won't show it because Obama's puppeteer is a media guru and it's probably copyright. But you can probably google it.

If your property for public benefit, why not your investments?

"Eminent domain is the power governments have to confiscate, or take, private property as long as it is for a legitimate “public use” and property owners receive “just compensation.” Whereas eminent domain was initially intended to ensure that public services, such as roads and highways, were available to the public, local and state governments often use eminent domain for any project that is considered economically beneficial. Public use, as a practical matter, has morphed into a more ambiguous “public benefit.”

An estimated 10,000 cases between 1998 and 2002 involved projects where private parties benefit substantially from government seizures of property under the banner of economic development or urban redevelopment." Eminent domain, private property and redevelopment

Yes, those of us who invested in 401-ks, IRAs, Roths and other vehicles (with or without our employers) got a tax break--and we fueled the powerful economy we've enjoyed the last 25 years. We, the investors, aren't the ones who brought it all down. Hands off, Congress. Hands off, Barney and Barack. You've done enough damage.

Finally someone bold enough to use the S word. No wonder Obama's hiding in Hawaii. I imagine he went there to cover for his Kenyan birth certificate and now has just decided he'd better lie low, or, just lie.

This comment at the USNews blog was good: "I'm encouraged that Obama will make our senior citizens earn their paychecks. Michelle spoke at length that people will be made to work and there will be no shortages of volunteering opportunities. Let's clean up our streets, get seniors out raking leaves, picking up trash, cleaning up dog droppings in our parks, mowing city property, mentoring children in the schools and serving other useful functions. Every government dollar provided should be met with enthusiastic joy and reciprocity by the receiving citizen. An idle citizen is an unappreciated citizen."

How the government takes care of retirees

1) Don't reform Social Security.

2) Destroy the value of your 401-k and 403-b and any other investments you have through a subprime mortgage meltdown they could have stopped (or never started). Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama made sure no one would stop their pet projects and kick-backs from the GSEs.

3) Steal the value of the 401-k that's left.

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. Workforce

Share the wealth, folks. Share the pain. You're next.

Dear Samuel Swann

I'm a big fan of free-circ serials and newspapers, and today I saw CityNewsUSA (serving Cleveland, Akron and Columbus) for the first time. I'm a retired librarian, and at one time I'd planned to write an article about the role of free-circs in the information food chain, lamenting that they aren't indexed (at least they weren't in 1999). They are an excellent source of news, advertising, and a good market for writers, but without being indexed, they are a hard to find segment. I gave up that project before I retired in 2000. By then I had collected about 40 that served our metropolitan area--pets, recreation, sports, leisure, politics, religion, fashion, home decor, cooking, parenting, book reviews, etc. Perhaps the internet advertising has solved the print indexing problem.

I was very impressed by your article "Making the Grade; gaps still exist between urban and suburban grad rates," on p. 8 of the Oct-23-29, Columbus edition. I just blogged on that topic two days ago, referencing a Columbus school teacher, the Wall Street Journal, and a current book review. Columbus and Cleveland were in the bottom five of 50 major cities. The WSJ article used the study you cited commissioned by America's Promise Alliance.

I am a big booster of marriage and parental involvement as the #1 best reducer of poverty and poor academic performance by children, and was glad to see that you included it as

The biggest reason we have so many drop outs in Cleveland is lack of parental involvement and the failure of the middle schools to continue the grammar school educational process."

I know your paper is a heavy supporter of Obama-Biden, however, I don't see this as a resource or funding problem as you also suggested. The Ohio parent who sued a few years ago was in a district that had much higher graduation rates with lower per-pupil state funding. For instance, Obama wants universal day care beginning in infancy, when we're already spending $11 billion on child care for at risk children, and it hasn't made any difference. How can children of poor single mothers compete with children from in tact homes with biological, married parents? (I'm speaking statistically--this is not to say individual single parents can't or won't do a good job.)

Keep up the good work of reminding parents that children need their involvement to succeed--and I would add a reminder that Uncle Sam is a poor step-father.

More wrong headlines

Greenspan admits errors
Now maybe the Democrats can take the stand and admit their errors? Don't hold your breath. The most breathtaking statement in this article by Kara Scannel in WSJ (Kara, don't you realize your job too is going down the tubes?)

"Greenspan dodged and weaved."

The finest weavers in the country first tied us in knots and now sit unraveling our economy in Congress. Barney Frank. Chris Dodd. Barack Obama. John Kerry. Ted Kennedy. The fraternity of fixers.

Forecasting, Kara, is not the problem. There clearly was time 18 months ago to stop this blood bath. Many Republicans tried to save the sinking ship, including John McCain and George Bush, and they were blocked by accusations of racism and defeating the dreams of the poor. And you guys who write that puerile, journalism school 101 nonsense as the "news" for WSJ, NYT, WaPo and USAToday just went along, and along and along. You never dug deep, never ask questions, but if the truth did peep through, you buried it somewhere beyond paragraph 15.

For edification, Kara, please read, "Would the last honest reporter please turn out the lights"

If there were no Fox News, I might be 2 or 3 points higher in the polls

Barack Obama told liberal journalist Matt Bai. Every major news source grovels before this man reporting or distorting every thought, word, and move. If there's one that doesn't, he whines about that alternative, the one that provided him with a long interview on O'Reilly, putting him at length in front of an audience who might otherwise tune him out because of the mainstream bias. The broadcast and cable media which has provided us with a steady frame-up of Republican Sarah Palin on ABC, NBC and CNN. This man's fragile ego is amazing! Palin has smiled through all the muck and yuk, and he's a cry baby. He and Team Obama cry "racist" at the most non-racial terms, like "that one," and "socialist." Which backbone is made of steel, is more prepared for the crisis Joe Biden is threatening?

It's hard to pin him down on legislation, however, he does write letters, and it's excruciatingly clear in this one to the FCC about a year ago (Oct. 22, 2007) about how he plans to further restrict our freedoms. Note certain themes, then remember "community organizer" and "ACORN," the oak tree harvest of Saul Alinsky. In your face, swamp the opposition, storm the meetings, community input. Words matter. History matters.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today sent the following letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin J. Martin, calling on him to launch an independent review panel to develop proposals to further promote media ownership diversity. According to press accounts, following an insufficient 30-day review, the FCC intends to modify existing ownership rules by allowing greater media market consolidation. This would allow large media outlets to become larger, potentially cutting out small business, women and minority-owned firms. Minority owned and operated newspapers and radio stations play an important role in the African American and Latino communities and help bring minority issues to the forefront of our national dialogue.

However, the Commission has failed to recognize the vital role these outlets play in our democracy and has not done enough to further the goals of diversity in the media. In the letter, Obama also asks for the FCC to reconsider the Chairman’s proposed consolidation timeline and start a public review of any specific proposed rule modifications. He also asks Martin to complete a study of the responsibilities that broadcasters have to the communities in which they operate.

Obama and Senator John Kerry have previously written to Kevin Martin asking him to address the issue of minority media ownership, and the impact that new rules would have on opportunities for minority, small business, and women owned firms. http://obama.senate.gov/press/071022-obama_fcc_polic/

In case you don't understand how "community" and "diversity" is used these days by special interest groups, let's look at an example in my quiet, suburban community, Upper Arlington, Ohio when parents went to the library board to ask that explicit, how-to gay publications (bundles of free-circ, boiler-plate newspapers) be removed from the library lobby. Not removed from the collection, but removed from the lobby. Representatives of the gay community packed the meeting, objected (they didn't even live in UA) on the basis of state funding of public libraries. The result? The publications were removed from the lobby, and brought inside the library and placed on an expensive, specially designed unit, now even more prominent. No library is required to be a launch site for free materials that are primarily supported by advertising--not gay newspapers, not church bulletins, not health insurance plans designed to look like health advice. The parents lost, just as they lost the computer filtering battle, and the x-rated video battle.

The power of special interest groups over the media even without new legislation was perfectly clear when Dr. Laura, the 2nd highest rated talk show, literally disappeared over night in 2001 because she was attacted by powerful pro-gay groups when she advised against gay adoption of infants, believing as a counselor and orthodox Jew that children thrive best in a home with a mother and father. A posse of thirty liberal Christian pastors in Columbus has tried to get Rod Parsley bounced by going after his tax exempt status.

This, my readers, is "community" and "diversity" in the 21st century. Not community standards, but "community input." It isn't your community--it's any group that calls itself a community. Since virtually every organization, non-profit and church ministry now receives government money, this leaves them wide open for pressure groups like ACORN or one of their little squirrelly off-shoots planting seeds.

Luther recommended book burning--his own

There's nothing like the political season to enjoy some good name calling and personal smears. No one mastered this like Martin Luther, who struggled with the Roman church whose defenders thought he'd gone too far in his reforms, and the other Reformers who thought he hadn't gone far enough. Coxcombs and blockheads, he called them. Today at my other blog, I write about his suggestion that his own books be burned because he'd learned so much from his critics.

How much for child care and development?

Obama's concern for children (who make it through the birth canal and aren't a product of a botched abortion) is evident on his web page under "Education." I can't find details on the proposed costs, but here's the bare bones for early childhood education.

1. Zero to Five Plan: The Obama-Biden comprehensive "Zero to Five" plan will provide critical support to young children and their parents. Unlike other early childhood education plans, the Obama-Biden plan places key emphasis at early care and education for infants, which is essential for children to be ready to enter kindergarten. Obama and Biden will create Early Learning Challenge Grants to promote state "zero to five" efforts and help states move toward voluntary, universal pre-school.
2. Expand Early Head Start and Head Start: Obama and Biden will quadruple Early Head Start, increase Head Start funding and improve quality for both.
3. Affordable, High-Quality Child Care: Obama and Biden will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families.

Would you like to take a guess at what we've been spending under mean old President Bush, those heartless Republicans? Would you believe ELEVEN BILLION in FY 2004 and FY 2005?

For both Fiscal Years (FY) 2004 and 2005, $4.8 billion in Federal CCDF funding was available through block grants to all 50 States, the District of Columbia,5 Territories, and 261 Tribal grantees in FY 2004 and 265 Tribal grantees in FY 2005 (representing over 500 Indian Tribes). Through CCDF and other funding streams available for child care––including State Matching and Maintenance of Effort (MOE) funds, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars transferred to CCDF or spent directly by States on child care services, and Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) funds––over $11 billion was available for child care in FY 2004 and FY 2005. Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF)Report to Congress for FY 2004-2005

To hear Obama tell, you'd think America's poor children have been left on street corners and with great grandmothers while their mothers go to work in sweat shops. These huge block grants to the states began back in the mid-90s under "welfare reform" so that mothers who needed to work had safe and reliable child care. I've looked through hundreds of these alphabet soup programs. I do have concerns about their effectiveness, however, lack of funding and pie-in-the-sky goals aren't it.

Keep in mind there's no hard evidence that Head Start type programs, even after 40 years, have any long term affect, because these youngsters will continue to compete their entire lives with children who have come from enriched environments, with two parents who value education. True, they would be even further behind if they hadn't learned to sit still, follow instructions, the names of colors, how to stand in line, etc., but they won't catch up no matter how many billions Obama or Bush throws their way.

Marriage is now the great divide in social class, education and wealth, and our government programs have been discouraging marriage for decades giving women with children money and keeping the fathers out of the home. The government "helps" discourage achievement, because benefits might be lost as one moves up the social and salary scale. A few hours a day in even the best enriched program cannot balance or play catch up--its a fairy tale that liberals, conservatives and religious people want to believe, in part I think, because there is so much government money waiting for those who do. Whatever gains they achieve by attending even good pre-schools are lost by second or third grade. There is some evidence that keeping mainstream kids in universal child care environments holds them back and creates more problems for their families, so perhaps thats the BO-Biden plan for fairness.

What to do with information?

Repackage and distribute for others to repackage and distribute for others to repackage and distribute, etc., etc. It's a commodity with a price tag and value added taxes, with distribution systems, with CEOs and worker bees, and it's much, much bigger than Wal-Mart, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and the federal government combined. Information, of course is important in education, but it is by far the biggest component in social services. It is sliced and diced, molded and shaped, digitized and dramatized, sifted, shifted, and sh*tted.

Since I was 5 years old I've been in the information business, and before that I had a sharp eye and was taking it all in without realizing it, analyzing, puzzling and disgorging it to anyone who would listen or look at my drawings (before I could read or write). With nearly 20 years of formal education, and probably fifty required, no-credit workshops, I went on to help other people find and redistribute information--helped them find obscure details for their novels, graduate from college, locate jobs, get tenure and promotion, nail down grants to do research, find a formula for a baby gorilla rejected by its mother, and bake blackbirds in a pie. I even published my own research on agricultural publications and home libraries by examining bits and pieces of other people's research who had done likewise.

In my pursuit to dig out, disgorge and distribute information, I held hands, wiped tears, observed love affairs, translated documents, got blisters on my ear from phone calls, created web pages, compiled bibliographies, nodded off in hundreds of meetings, lectured at conferences, ruined my rotator cuff and placed shaky fingers of the elderly on keyboards. I mopped water from leaking ceilings, tore fingernails changing print cartridges, handed out tissues, woke up sleeping students, and brought blueprints home, all in the name of organizing and distributing information. In thanks for my efforts for information I received a paycheck, benefits, thank you cards, flowers, and the occasional lunch out or box of pastries. In the late summer of 2000 I had five retirement parties. Two years later when the new library I helped design opened, I never even got an invite to the open house.

I'm eight years into retirement and think maybe it was all for nothing. 1) Repackaging of information is a huge industry in itself--but that information when it trickles down to the ordinary person doesn't seem to change lives or matter much. 2) Our ever expanding education system has created a class of people that expects and usually gets more, often by producing something other than information. It has also created yet another class, similarly well educated, who say it isn't fair for people with PhDs or MDs to earn more than social workers or government clerks, as they repackage and distribute information to earn their livings, but never produce anything.

More will follow.

CNN's ugly trick interview with Palin

The interviewer, Drew Griffin, took a comment from Byron York, where he reported some of the complaints about Palin within a longer piece basically praising her, then tells her on camera, a conservative has written it about her. Well, true, Byron York is conservative but the reviewer has turned his words inside out and upside down to throw her off. Really foul. Or fowl, as in "chicken" since this guy didn't seem able to get her on her policies and ideas. So I wrote CNN a complaint. They replied:

This auto reply is to thank you for commenting on CNN’s 2008 Election Coverage.

While we are unable to personally reply to every e-mail, your comments are important to us, and we do read each and every one. Comments become part of the viewer response report that is prepared and made available each day to our producers and senior management.

You betcha I won't be watching and waiting. Nor will I be watching election coverage by CNN now that I've seen how they lie. It's one thing to be in bed with Obama, but it's another to make us watch the love making.

Here's Byron's assessment of Palin:

". . . a look at Palin’s 20 months in power, along with interviews with people who worked with her, shows her to be a serious executive, a governor who picked important things to do and got them done — and who didn’t just stumble into an 80 percent job-approval rating."

He then went into great detail outlining her accomplishments and challenges. But according to the CNN interview, she's just a rube from the sticks.

The Obama Money Machine--Where's it coming from, where is it going?

African Americans were asking this question even before he was the chosen one. Video of Cornel West at Tavis Smiley Presents.



Comments at "The Empire and Inequality Report" via Black Agenda Reports, where it was noted that when he doodled waiting to give his speech, he drew a picture of himself.

Obama's power-worshipping campaign book The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006) - the book to which Obama refers reporters asking him for policy specifics behind his often vague statements - refers to the United States' rapacious, savagely unequal and fundamentally "materialist" capitalist economy as the nation's "greatest asset."

Audacity absurdly praises the "American system of social organization" and "business culture" on the grounds that U.S. capitalism "has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative and efficient allocation of resources" (8). It commends "the need to raise money from economic elites to finance elections" for "prevent[ing] Democrats...from straying too far from the center" and for marginalizing "those within the Democratic Party who tend toward zealotry" and "radical ideas" (like peace and justice). It praises fellow centrist Senator and presidential rival Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for embracing "the virtues of capitalism" (9) and applauds her "recognizably progressive" husband Bill Clinton for showing that "markets and fiscal discipline" and "personal responsibility [are] needed to combat poverty" (10) - an interesting reflection on the militantly corporate-neoliberal Clinton administration's efforts to increase poverty by eliminating poor families' entitlement to public cash assistance and privileging deficit reduction over social spending.

Obama's badly mis-titled book audaciously lectures poor people on their "duty" to feel "empathy" for wealthy oppressors (12) - including Bush and Cheney, who are "pretty much like everyone else"(13) - and on their need to understood how well off and "free" they are compared to their more truly miserable counterparts in Africa and Latin America (14). It deletes less favorable contrasts with Western Europe and Japan, the most relevant comparisons, where dominant norms and institutional arrangements produce significantly slighter levels of poverty and inequality than what is found in the hierarchical U.S (15).

Paul Street's article appears in Black Agenda Report --I couldn't get the link to the notes to work, put I've left in the numbers. You know how librarians swoon over bibliographies.

Headline gets it wrong

"Markets fall as fears of slump span world"No, it's fears of Obamanomics--higher taxes, more trade restrictions, more powerful unions and more environmental regulations. If you are wealthy, better to sleep on your cash in the "mattress" and sit this one out until your well-paid accountantants and lawyers can find the loopholes. Investors and money managers aren't stupid. A president like FDR who took a struggling market in 1932 and artificially inflated it with more government programs but no real job growth, extending the Depression another decade, is not building confidence. Even if Obama and the American voter haven't read history, chances are there are some out there in Japan and Germany who have.

Ode to a very bad plan
by Norma Bruce

Capitalists and Socialists alike
around the world
invested in our bad mortgages
bundled by our biggest banks
backed by our GSEs
promoted by our Congresses
protected by our Democrats
on the banking and finance committees
handing out with a wink big grants
to community organizers threatening
the writers of the mortgages
to fund the dream that
every Joe the Plumber
and each Maria the Barista
should have a PMI
they couldn't possibly afford
when the bubble burst
as all bubbles do.

Welcome University of Florida Facebook Friends

It was late when I noticed your visits (well, late for me anyway--about 9 p.m.), so maybe you've all come and gone. Look around, visit my other blogs, and my set-aside topics like family memories and poetry. I also have a special collection on finances, something you might want to consider as you prepare to launch yourselves to change the world. And thanks for the uptick on the stats!

Does Obama include himself in the draft proposal?

"But it’s also important that a president speaks to military service as an obligation not just of some, but of many. You know, I traveled, obviously, a lot over the last 19 months. And if you go to small towns, throughout the Midwest or the Southwest or the South, every town has tons of young people who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. That’s not always the case in other parts of the country, in more urban centers. And I think it’s important for the president to say, this is an important obligation. If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some."
Link

It's bad enough that the military has been forced to be a laboratory test tube for gender equality. Apparently he forgets that these young people have chosen to enlist, since we have an all volunteer, outstanding military. Young people in metropolitan areas have the same opportunity. And has he ever really looked at the data? Is he aware that rural schools have higher graduation rates than the city schools of Detroit or Cleveland or Columbus, and our military requires people of higher achievement? There are probably 25 year olds in the military who have more "leadership/executive" experience than he does. Does he know that the young people in the military are better educated and wealthier than a comparable group of young people in the civilian population? Or is he just again showing his elitist, liberal, smug opinion of people who choose to serve in the military, combined with his "clinging to guns and religion" bias toward fly-over country Americans.

. . . each year shows advancement, not decline, in measurable qualities of new enlistees. For example, it is commonly claimed that the military relies on recruits from poorer neighborhoods because the wealthy will not risk death in war. Our review of Pen­tagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005.

. . . in the most recent edition of Population Representation in the Military Services, the Department of Defense reported that the mean reading level of 2004 recruits is a full grade level higher than that of the comparable youth population.[8] Fewer than 2 percent of wartime recruits have no high school creden­tials. Table 2 shows the breakdown for the educational attainment of the war­time recruit cohorts. The national high school graduation rate taken from the Census 2004 ACS is 79.8 percent." Link "Who are the recruits?"

Opposing evil and doing good are essential obligations

"Some argue that we should not focus on policies that provide help for pregnant women, but just focus on the essential task of establishing legal protections for children in the womb. Others argue that providing lifeaffirming support for pregnant women should be our only focus and this should take the place of efforts to establish legal protections for unborn children. We want to be clear that neither argument is consistent with Catholic teaching. Our faith requires us to oppose abortion on demand and to provide help to mothers facing challenging pregnancies."
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

"Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues about which reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans of every faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism, how to restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the tax burden and reduce poverty, etc.

But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect."
Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University

Joe Biden My Time

USAToday finally mentioned his speech warning us that Obama would be tested (he did this in 2 planned speeches, so I guess it doesn't qualify as a gaffe, which is usually unplanned) on 5A today (5 days after the fact), but they never quoted him or gave any details. The reporter only referred to "test" predicted by Biden, assuming I suppose that there was no need to report his alarming message. In the same article, the writer devoted 2 paragraphs to McCain's World Series comments.

Then I turned the page to 6A and at the bottom there was a tiny article on Palin

The Alaska governor raised the idea of a "looming crisis" in response to Democratic rival Joe Biden's remark at week-end fundraisers that obama would face a generated crisis within 6 months of taking office.

Well, yes, Palin did respond, but he's the one who caused the puzzlement--is he just a gossip and is reporting what he's been told? Does he think our 7 years of no attacks under Bush has been a fluke? I still didn't see any mention in WSJ, although James Taranto covers it in the online version.

I truly think Joe Biden is a scary dude! On the one hand, he seems to be saying negative things about his running mate, but on the other he appears to also be stupid, and this from the party that is so critical of Palin's intelligence and abilities. And on the flip side, McCain doesn't seem to know what to do with this--maybe he and his writers were as stunned by stupid as everyone else and haven't found an appropriate response.

The Education Debate--the transcript

Last night the candidates had stand-ins at Teachers College, Columbia University to debate their positions on education. This is a rough draft.

"Your opening question is how would Barack Obama differ from John McCain as an education president?"

The Obama representative LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND after saying we need more investment in early childhood education and healthcare and teachers’ salaries says: “So we have fallen to 35th in the world in Math, to 15th in terms of college access. And we are at a graduation rate that has been stagnant for 40 years, and others are pulling ahead.”

Call me crazy, but I think we’re talking content here, not healthcare. Drill, drill, drill is probably what's working in those other countries. And concerned parents. The best example is Cleveland and Columbus that have lower graduation rates than the district of the family in Appalachia (DeRolph v. State of Ohio) that sued the state for more per-pupil money (and won) a few years back. Now they have more computers and nicer buildings, but it didn't change the outcomes--which were already better than the big city schools because of parent involvement, not healthcare, not buildings. Now the increased property taxes they have to pay to keep up the schools is hurting their communities.

The McCain representative LISA GRAHAM KEEGAN points out McCain's support for charter schools in a bipartisan effort that included Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich and that Obama opted out of the effort, although he himself had been sent to private schools by his single mother, something Democrats deny other people‘s children.

I think the strongest case for charter or scholarship schools is that liberals, even in good districts like Springfield, VA (DC suburb) choose private schools for their kids. These schools recruit a very select, acceptable “diversity” element to look good. Keeps out the riff raff their kids might face in public school. What stops them is they are joined at the hip with teachers' unions.

Here’s the transcript, and I think the moderator was much too talky, so maybe it’s good that I didn’t get the audio (I think you can register to hear it).

Sexy Criminals

I didn't remember what Bernadine Dohrn looked like, but one of my coffee shop friends who eats a cinnamon roll every day and is a decade younger than me told me she was "hot," 'cause he remembered. He grew up in working class Philly and says that in the 60s when he was in a rock band and would pick a girl up for a date, she would either start taking her clothes off in the car, or start rolling a joint. So I guess he had an eye for "hot." Today she's just another old lady with a past, but does look good in the preview below. Here's a review of The Weather Underground, and I suppose you can get it at your public library, since they really go for that sort of thing. Barack, btw, wasn't 8 years old in 1995 when he sought out Ayers as a mentor for his career in Chicago politics. This review is from NYT which really digs the fun stuff of terrorism and calls it smart and solid, now that 9/11 has faded a bit from memory.

''THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND,'' directed by Sam Green and Bill Siegel (unrated, 92 minutes). This documentary tells the story of the Weathermen, a splinter group from Students for a Democratic Society. This terrifically smart and solid piece of filmmaking lets the former members of the Weathermen, now on the downside of their 50's, speak into the camera and reveal a bit of their personal histories as well as what the peace movement meant to them. The documentary is also packed with some of the most powerful images of violence of the period, like a bound Vietnamese being shot in the head at point-blank range and the bloody bed of the Black Panther Fred Hampton after he was killed. Voluble and charismatic, the film's stars -- the members of the group determined to overthrow what they considered to be a criminal United States government that waged the Vietnam War and targeted groups like the Black Panthers -- spent a lot of time in the media spotlight. Young, white and articulate, figures like Bernadette Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, Brian Flanagan and Naomi Jaffe were clearly very sexy criminals. That exuberance and incentive has been captured by the directors. Mr. Green and Mr. Siegel have made a film of passions, and they establish a context that shows what a turbulent period the late 1960's were, slyly contrasting the peace-and-love vibe with events of the time. The film doesn't let its subjects off the hook, despite apparent sympathies toward their politics (Mitchell). The preview.

Why Obama never mentions the Annenberg Challenge

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, $49 million recruited by Bill Ayers, another $98 million added by the city, "(CAC) was an abject failure - their own research, which [Ken] Rolling recently tried to prevent the public from seeing - concluded the effort had "no effect" on student outcomes; and, of course, while sharing a fox hole with the unapologetic former terrorist Bill Ayers in the Chicago School Wars is harmless if one is planning, as Obama was at the time, on stepping into the shoes of the late black Mayor, Harold Washington, it is altogether a different matter when one is running for President of the United States." Global Labor and Politics

Chicago received $49 million from a $500 million endowment by Walter H. Annenberg, the billionaire publisher, for school reform efforts nationwide, and the city added $98 million in matching funds for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a philanthropic campaign that financed enrichment projects at a third of the city’s 600 schools.

Mr. Obama was nominated to the Challenge board and was elected chairman in 1995, said Ken Rolling, executive director of the group, which operated through 2001. Mr. Obama continued to teach law during his five-year unpaid tenure as board chairman, and he was twice elected to the Illinois Senate. NYT

I'm not sure why earlier in the NYT article the writer claims there's been a turn around, because I checked the annual reports and data sets of Catalyst Chicago, and although there were some improved teachers salaries, and some interesting things in non-red tape schools, I didn't see much else to write home about blog about.