Here is a new twist on logic. New York University will be offering a class on “Occupy Wall Street.” Will these be courses on finance, banking, economics or managing a hedge fund? Unlikely.

According to the free student newspaper of NYU: Washington Square News (WSN), the university’s “Department of Social and Cultural Analysis” will offer a class about the “history and politics of debt and take a deeper look at the economic crisis the movement is protesting.”

It has been confirmed that “Cultures and Economies: Occupy Wall Street” will be available next semester and taught by Professor Lisa Duggan as an undergraduate course.

But there is a kicker to this. OWS hates the top 1-percent but it may be necessary to be in a higher income bracket to pay for the course. You see, NYU was ranked 2nd on the 2011-2012 list of America’s most expensive colleges from CampusGrotto. The College Board lists per credit hour tuition at $1,159 at NYU.

This may actually fly in the face of NYU standards since the OWS ilk tend to walk out of classes, refuse to pay their student loans and drop out of college in protest of those loans.

However, the protestors are in favor of Professor Duggan who states:

“Occupy Wall Street has done us all the service of illuminating [the fact] that the economy operates within the framework of political, social and cultural conflicts, and not outside them.”

Maybe Professor Duggan should also mention taking personal responsibility for your actions such as paying for loans you have accepted. But if you take a look into the professors biography you may see personal responsibility isn’t really an attribute. Her areas of research and analysis include:

“Modern U.S. cultural, social, and political history; history of gender and sexuality; lesbian and gay studies.”

She also writes for the left-wing publication The Nation (which gets funding from the left’s big donor: George Soros). Imagine that!

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Defending Romneycare, providing meaningless answers to questions, tap dancing and avoiding hard questions. This is what Mitt Romney seems to do best as candidate Romney.

One more glaring reflection on Mr. Romney is he seems to think the Department of Education is a good thing and that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has the correct mojo with the latest destructive federal takeover called “Race to the Top.”

Race to the Top is one more federal ploy, one more liberal policy intended to takeover state responsibility and pay off the union thugs with stimulus slush money for votes and power.

During a townhall meeting last week in Miami Mr. Romney touted Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and praised Race to the Top which rewards state education systems for reaching specific goals.

“I think Secretary Duncan has done some good things,” he said. “I hope that’s not heresy in this room.”

Romney has some views but how do we decipher the conflicting statements?

1. Education should not be confined to a teacher’s union only. There should be involvement from parents, the state, federal government with the support of the teachers.
2. He supports the concept of ‘No Child left behind’.
3. Romney supports the elimination of Federal Department of Education and favored keeping educational reforms to the lowest level involving parents, teachers and community.
4. Romney supports a means tested school voucher programs which gives students opportunity to attend any public or private school of their choice.

I see a conflict here. Surprise, surprise! In bold print above you see contradiction. Romney wishes to involve everyone including the federal government while supporting the federal program “No Child Left Behind”, supporting the elimination of DOE all while praising Obama administration follies such as Race to the Top.

It’s time for Mitt Romney to come clean on his education stance and to tell the American public exactly what he would do to reduce the size of government, if he would dismantle the Department of Education and if he would turn education responsibility over to the states.

Much has been written about Rick Perry and his support for higher education and illegal immigrants in Texas. As Governor Perry said to Heritage in October 2010:

“Our reforms that we’re putting into place that have been fine-tuned for Texas and our very diverse population out there [are] working.”

Texas doesn’t need a one-size-fits-all plan from Washington, and its social studies standards are a good case in point. Governor Perry has reaffirmed Texas’s commitment to the principle of federalism in education.

I would hope Mr. Perry feels this way about other states and their individual state’s rights. Mr. Romney needs to leave the comfort of his special spin room and answer the questions specifically. Also, the other GOP candidates need to back off of Rick Perry and start pointing to Romney and themselves with more specifics on all their programs and how they will reduce the federal government and return to the principles of the US Constitution.

Race to the top or a race to the founding principles of America? Mitt Romney and all the candidates owe that much to American’s prepared to take America back in 2012.

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Those so-called American’s are Marxists, Bolsheviks who are constantly playing the race card, the class warfare game, the anti-rich, anti-prosperous, anti-successful bunch who want redistribution of wealth, they want the so-called rich to pay up with their sweat equity.

Barack Obama was to be the left’s hero but many don’t like the fact that he hasn’t totally transformed America into a banana republic, third world afterthought. These people want hardcore socialism and the don’t want Conservatives getting in the way. Afterall, the Conservatives are radical, extremists, bent on destroying the America the Marxist have desired for decades.

Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, would change all that. Rick Perry isn’t a Beltway, status quo, DC parrot. Rick Perry has contempt for the politico’s in Washington and his record is one of success in Texas that hopefully would translate into success in all 50 states.

From the UK Telegraph:

It is a pocket of rural America that has changed little in a century and is about as far removed from the bustle and marble monuments of Washington DC as one could imagine.

But Paint Creek, where ranches and wooden homes, some now abandoned, are dotted beside cotton and wheat fields, is the place that defines the man who some Republicans believe could unseat President Barack Obama next November.

Governor Rick Perry was part of the fifth generation to work the land at Paint Creek, some 200 miles west of Dallas on the flat expanse of plains known as “the Big Empty”.

It was here that he was imbued with the country values of church, family, neighbourliness, thrift and hard work that now seem part of a bygone America beyond places like West Texas.

Back in the late 1950s, he was known as Ricky Perry, a mischievous boy, always smiling, who lived with his parents and older sister Milla in a rented wooden house that lacked indoor plumbing. He wore a cowboy shirt hand sewn by his mother, a locally renowned quilter, and his highest ambition seemed to be to become an Eagle Scout.

You won’t read positive stories about Gov. Perry in the United States press. They fear Rick Perry like they fear Michelle Bachman and Sarah Palin.

“There were three things to do in Paint Creek: school, church, and Boy Scouts,” Mr Perry said last year, looking back on the late 1950s.

“That’s it. And it was plenty.” Paint Creek was “one of the most beautiful places or it could be one of the most desolate” depending on the weather. As a child, he ventured, it was the home of “some of the most principled, disciplined people in the world, and faithful”.

America needs principled people, faithful people, the kind that believe in the can do American spirit of exceptionalism. Ronald Reagan was principled and we need a principled leader in the White House who will faithfully abide by the US Constitution, shrink the federal government, bring back optimism and pride in America the way President Reagan did. We need someone to reverse course in American and a leader who will, to paraphrase Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), “compromise means going along with my plan.”

Rick Perry will cross the aisle to inform the Leftist opposition that he won’t compromise his principles, he won’t compromise the Constitution and he won’t compromise American exceptionalism. Rick Perry won’t compromise our freedom and liberty.

Mr. Perry, who has championed Israel and called for a muscular foreign policy, has the ability to appeal to all five elements of the party – fiscal, social and national security conservatives plus the Tea Party. However, the “establishment” isn’t real crazy about Rick Perry and that’s a good thing. If you want change with plenty of real hope thrown in for good measure than Rick Perry is your man, your candidate.

Mr. Perry’s friends believe he never intended to run for president but now feels he has to move beyond his beloved Texas because his country is in peril. The coming months will tell whether the boy from Paint Creek could be hailed by voters as a potential national saviour.

I believe Rick Perry is the antidote for Marxism and Barack Obama. I now have my candidate for President of the United States.

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And how do these goofs walk? Does it matter how fast because they’re in no hurry to get over to the neighbor, the tattoo parlor or the corner to hang out and sell drugs. As long as the paneled ball cap is tilted at the correct degree upward, or sideways or backwards it’s cool. And how stupid does it look to see people of all ages wearing a ball cap backwards when it’s not a fitted cap with a strap and opening exposing their forehead and hair if they have any. It looks stupid but that’s fashion.

Before I continue keep in mind I haven’t used the race category for this post because the “fashion” and symptoms of our society and today’s youth crosses all racial lines. Although the Mayor of Philadelphia spoke out about today’s youth and that gentleman is black and he was addressing black youth. I’m afraid if you’re paying attention race doesn’t really come into play here. The symptoms move across to whites, blacks, Hispanics and any other group or race you can come up with. However, I don’t recall seeing Asians taking on the current fashion statement maybe I should broaden my horizons.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter, telling marauding black youths ‘you have damaged your own race,’ imposed a tougher curfew Monday in response to the latest ‘flash mob’ — spontaneous groups of teens who attack people at random on the streets of the city’s tourist and fashionable shopping districts. ‘Take those God-darn hoodies down, especially in the summer,’ Mr. Nutter, the city’s second black mayor, said in an angry lecture aimed at black teens.

“Pull your pants up and buy a belt ’cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt.’ If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you?”

“‘They don’t hire you ’cause you look like you’re crazy,’ the mayor said. ‘You have damaged your own race.’”

The head of Philadelphia’s chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, J. Whyatt Mondesire, said it ‘took courage’ for Mr. Nutter to deliver the message.

“These are majority African-American youths and they need to be called on it,” Mr. Mondesire said.

As I wrote above this transcends across all race lines and everyone should watch the HBO series “The Wire” to get a good look at the problem. In “The Wire” the problem is in the black community but the corruption in the police department and city hall (Baltimore) demonstrates they are a big part of the problem too.

Political corruption does an incredible job at destroying communities through waste of taxpayer dollars and asking for more money to waste is not solving big city problems. Accountants do budgets and the public workers and legislators establishing city budgets are clueless, inept and unqualified to manage money. Politicians send millions down the rabbit hole, don’t adequately provide resources, waste the resources given to them and then campaign for the next election so they can continue to play the same movie over and over.

Today’s youth can’t find a job because many of the people the mayor is talking about are making more money selling drugs on the corner so they’re not looking for a job in the private or public sector. When they end up in jail the cost rises as taxpayers fund prisons to house the youth with the baggy pants.

It’s typical of politicians to think they have the answers, they have the solutions, they need more and more money to implement their ideas to solve the ills of society. What’s next, government demand to clothing makers to stop making the pants that sell? Rules and regulations and public dress codes? If we have indecent exposure then laws already exist, they need to be enforced.

“‘So every one of these kids has two parents who were around and participating at the time. They need to be around now.’ The mayor told parents, ‘If you’re just hanging out out there, maybe you’re sending them a check or bringing some cash by. That’s not being a father. You’re just a human ATM. … And if you’re not providing the guidance and you’re not sending any money, you’re just a sperm donor.’ At City Hall on Monday, the mayor said gangs will be confronted. ‘If you want to be aggressive, we’re going to be aggressive,’ Mr. Nutter said, before sending a warning. ‘Let me just share this with you. We’ve got the biggest, baddest gang in town — a committed group of citizens and a committed government — and we’re working together and we’re not going to have this nonsense anymore.’”

Is this an election year in Philadelphia? This could be “The Wire” redux only in a different American city. You must understand, the politicians have helped create the problem and it’s not about baggy pants, belts or no belts, butt cracks or exposed underwear.

These fashion statements cost money and not the kind of money you earn working at the local fast food joint. It’s takes real money to buy the expensive shoes, shirts, hats, the look. It’s takes real money to buy the latest IPod, the music downloads, the cigarettes by the carton, the Cadillac Escalade completely tricked out with the latest ornaments.

What happened to the “War on Drugs?” It is now the inner city “Drug War.” It’s a turf war, war for space to sell the drugs. Mayor Nutter is only speaking out because the drug wars and violence are escalating in Philadelphia and he’s under pressure.

Does the mayor of Philadelphia really believe getting a haircut and buying a belt is the answer to getting a job? Does the mayor of Philadelphia really think the fatherless homes, encouraged by the welfare laws are going to suddenly regenerate in homes and families with two parents and responsible parents at that?

No, this mayor is a big fan of Barack Obama. Philadelphia is the city where “New Black Panthers” stood at polling stations intimidating white voters without consequences. Eric Holder refused to prosecute and we didn’t hear Mayor Nutter protesting.

This is one more politician not telling the truth, a politician lying, a politician ignoring the truth about school graduation rates, school dropout rates, the disintegration of the family, kids having babies, and uneducated youth who are unprepared for the regular workplace.

Video from “The Wire”:

The mayor of Philadelphia and mayors across America know that the youth who don’t go to school, come from broken down family systems, are left out in the cold having no place else to go but on the corner, selling drugs, eventually using drugs and then eventually dying at a young age.

So Mr. Mayor of Philadelphia it’s not about the clothes and the haircut. It’s about the system, a system that corrupt politicians and liberal mentality created. While politicians grow their power base, prepare for their next election, play the game the neighborhoods disintegrate, the families disintegrate, the moral fiber of society disintegrates.

It’s not a white problem, a black problem – it’s merely the problem. The youth on the street are playing the natural game of survival and like all youth they want to fit in. Those clothes and cars cost money and the job that pays to get those things comes from drug sales. The risk is the danger the street brings – drug addiction and premature death.

Final analysis – Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia is a liar and stupid. But like many politicians, he’s crazy like a fox.

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Yes, Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan say too many kids are failing so they need to scrap that pesky No Child Left Behind standard of accountability for social promotions. In other words, let’s continue to pass children deficient in math, reading and science because that tough love isn’t working anymore.

Duncan is announcing a new waiver system but the details will have to wait. School is starting soon and everyone in the education system is getting worried they can’t get the little boys and girls to grab their boot straps and learn.

The objective of No Child Left Behind is to have all students adept in mathematics and also reading by 2014. States are already mandated to deliver more students up to the math and reading requirements annually, determined by testing that typically occur every spring. Step-by-step gradual increases of the 9-year-old legislation has generated heartburn in states and many school districts, due to the fact increasingly more schools tend to be defined as failures since an inadequate number of of their pupils satisfy assessment targets.

Pundits claim benchmarks are generally impractical and labels schools as failures even though they make advances. Schools and districts in which not enough children pass exams for a number of years are usually susceptible to sanctions that may consist of firing instructors or shutting down the school completely.

Via waivers, schools will receive relief for a time from pending deadlines to fulfill testing objectives once they consent to adopting other sorts of education reforms including increasing requirements, assisting instructors and principals to develop, while concentrating on rectifying the lowest performing institutions.

“I can’t overemphasize how loudly the outcry is to do something now,” Duncan said.

Isn’t the real problem teachers unions, the NEA, protecting failing teachers who aren’t prepared to teach or qualified? Isn’t the problem having the federal government trying to dictate to 50 states what is necessary instead of having each state make their own rules and then be accountable on a state by state basis. Have a state scorecard, a voucher system, a charter school system and allow parents to decide who and where their children receive their education.

George W. Bush decided to climb in bed with the Leftist Ted Kennedy (D-MA) to create No Child Left Behind. So they put out legislation in that good old bi-partisan fashion demonstrating to the country how they can achieve more by working together.

We still have failing schools, uneducated children getting promoted and graduating while everyone makes excuses. If the union teachers are so dedicated across the board they will stop the whining, the administrators will start implementing change in their districts that work, require accountability, start requiring teachers and students to make the grade.

Quit gaming the system. Life isn’t easy, there are no guarantees. I understand many students have miserable home lives and teachers have tough jobs. However, if we have Phd’s running the school sytems and qualified teachers running the classrooms then this battle may not be won but it can be improved. Social promotion and gaming the system is not the answer.

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Adults can quit screaming “Are we there yet” because we have been “there” and may be headed to the next financial crisis destination unless Conservatives in Congress get their way, implement their plans and stop the massive hemorrhaging of the American economy.

But how did we actually get to $14 trillion and counting in national debt, and in a position to default on payments? Was it George W. Bush? Was it Barack Obama? Was it men from Mars?

FDR began the entitlement era with the New Deal and Social Security. However, spending fell dramatically after the end of World War II and the US debt burden fell rapidly from the 100% of GDP from World War II.

Everything changed in the mid-1960s as LBJ ushered in the “Great Society” and the rise of the American welfare state. In 1965 Medicare and Medicaid were launched with the false promise of low future costs. The adding machine surely was broken.

Initially, Medicaid was supposed to cost $12 billion by 1990 but somehow escalated to $110 billion. Sleazy politicians like California Democrat Henry Waxman expanded eligibility and coverage while measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, Medicaid cost $4 billion in 1966, $41 billion in 1986 and $243 billion in 2010. Instead of bending the cost curve down, the government, as a third-party payer, led to a medical price that led America over the financial cliff.

LBJ did stop with Medicaid and Medicare launching public housing, food stamps and many more entitlement programs that didn’t encourage freedom, independence, self-sufficiency but supported growing welfare roles and government subsistence programs for people to get on and stay on the dole. Welfare programs spent about $20,000 for every man, woman and child in poverty, according to Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation.

In 1972 Social Security reared its ugly head with bills that increased benefits immediately by 20%, added an annual cost of living adjustment, and created a benefit escalator requiring payments to rise with wages, not inflation. This and other tweaks by Democrat Wilbur Mills added trillions of dollars to the program’s unfunded liabilities. And get ready for this – these 1972 amendments were added to a debt-ceiling bill.

There was no annual review of these costly entitlements, they were simply place on automatic pilot to run amok silently to finally reach their day in infamy which is now.

With all inventive terms the government creates this was called “mandatory spending” because Congress is required by law to make payments to those who meet eligibility standards, regardless of other spending needs or tax revenues. This is what a true meaning of “entitlement” is – government must pay out regardless.

Let’s take a look at data of who is on what in government programs.

• 50.5 million Americans are on Medicaid;
• 46.5 million are on Medicare;
• 52 million on Social Security; five million on SSI;
• 7.5 million on unemployment insurance’
• 44.6 million on food stamps and other nutrition programs;
• 24 million get the earned-income tax credit, a cash income supplement.

******

By 2010 such payments to individuals were 66% of the federal budget, up from 28% in 1965. The US government now spends $2.1 trillion a year on these redistribution programs, and the 75 million baby boomers are only starting to retire while the so-called “trust fund” is filled with IOUs.

Mr. Obama continues to blame wars in Afghanistan and Iraq along with his personal favorite, George W. Bush. But what Obama doesn’t wish to display on a nice color chart are the real numbers.

1. National defense spending was 7.4% of GDP and 42.8% of outlays in 1965;
2. National defense spending was 4.8% of GDP and 20.1% of federal outlays in 2010.

Defense has not caused the debt crisis so maybe, according to Obama and his Democrat ilk, it was Ronald Reagan’s fault. Once again the numbers don’t support the claim coming out of the Left.

1. Debt increase in the 1980s financed a robust economic expansion and victory in the Cold War;
2. Debt held by the public at the end of the Reagan years was as a share of GDP was(41% in 1988 and still only 40.3% in 2008;
3. Estimates are 72% in fiscal 2011.
4. Ronald Reagan’s economic policy provided a peace dividend allowing Bill Clinton to balance the budget in the 1990s by cutting defense spending to 3% of GDP from nearly 6% in 1988.

To be fair we will blame George W. Bush and spendthrift Republicans too. You see, politicians of non-Conservative stripes worry more about their next election than the American bank account.

Republicans launched a Medicare drug benefit, record outlays on education, the most expensive transportation bill in history, and home ownership aid that contributed to the housing bubble. GOP’s blunder was refusing to cut domestic spending to finance the war on terrorism. I call this the Tom Delay/George W. Bush economics blunder. My graduate school economics adviser would call it a “guns and butter blowout.”

Enter Barack Obama and his Marxist elves Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and a Democrat Congressional majority.

Spending as a share of GDP in the last three years is higher than at any time since 1946. In three years the debt has increased by more than $4 trillion thanks to stimulus, cash for clunkers, mortgage modification programs, 99 weeks of jobless benefits, record expansions in Medicaid, and more. The forecast is for $8 trillion to $10 trillion more in red ink through 2021 and Obama has hinted that he’s like another “stimulus” but is being blocked by House Republicans.

OOPS! I failed to mention Obamacare, which will place 30 million more Americans on government health rolls and push the fiscal health of the nation into the abyss known as Greece.

Obama keeps demanding more taxes but it would require taxes to rise 60%, 70%, even 80% to raise the revenues to finance decades of government promises that can’t be kept. From an economics standpoint tax increases would only service and one more nail in the coffin holding the promise of American exceptionalism.

Are we there yet? Yes, and we’re about to drive over the cliff and become Greece on steroids.

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Rahm Emanuel's Dead Fish

We’ve all heard about Rahm Emanuels temper and mailing dead fish in newspaper to his “enemies.” Well the new Chicago Mayor fired up a reporter from NBC Chicago, Mary Ann Ahern. Here is what took place: (Emphasis LCs)

During a sit down, one-on-one interview, I asked where Emanuel’s three children will attend school upon their return to Chicago.

The interview was supposed to focus on a new Emanuel initiative – the creation of an Office for New Americans – but I crammed in questions on labor, Mayor Daley’s union negotiations, and more. But when his press secretary Tarrah Cooper said time was up just 10 minutes into what was scheduled as a 20 minute interview, I tossed him the school question.

Similar to his former boss, Emanuel said it’s a private decision.

While I appreciate the desire for privacy, I tried to explain that the Mayor’s family is now in the public eye as Chicago’s First Family, and that the public would want to know whether Emanuel is confident enough in the public school system to send his own children there. But Emanuel broke in.

“Mary Ann, let me break the news to you. My children are not in a public position,” he said, curtly. “I am. You’re asking me a value statement and not a policy. … No, no, you have to appreciate this. My children are not an instrument of me being mayor. My children are my children, and that may be news to you, and that may be new to you, Mary Ann, but you have to understand that I’m making this decision as a father.”

The mayor stood up to leave.

“I look forward to our future interview,” he said before unclipping his lanyard microphone and dropping it to the floor, and walking out of his office. I asked my camera man to stop rolling.

As I tried to explain further, Emanuel doubled back. He looked directly at my two college interns, and said, “You are my witnesses.”

Then, the Mayor of Chicago positioned himself inches from my face and pointed his finger directly at my head. He raised his voice and admonished me. How dare I ask where his children would go to school!

“You’ve done this before,” he said.

This was the Emanuel we had heard about, and it was one of the oddest moments in my 29 years of reporting.

My two interns followed out of City Hall and back to the station.

Several hours later I called the mayor directly since I happened on his cell number and saved it. I thought it might be best to clear the air. But no air was cleared.

“My children are private and you will not do this,” he said into the receiver.

He said other children of public figures – Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls – have been kept out of the public eye, despite media attention on the admission to the Sidwell Friends Academy in Washington D.C.

I tried to explain he had a point, but their parents too had to answer the question of what school they would attend. No one is trying to have lunch with the first children.

I also let him know that I felt wronged and bullied during his earlier tirade.

“You are wrong and a bully,” Emanuel fired back. “I care deeply for my family. I don’t care about you.”

With that, he hung up the phone.

I keep a Rahm Emanuel campaign bumper sticker in my office as a joke. Emanuel is a louse and thinks intimidation gets things done and we all see how well that worked out for America in the White House.

Mary Ann Ahern also explained how Barack Obama is more diplomatic. Apparently she skipped the Obama walk out last week when it got too hot in the kitchen with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA). Or maybe that was Cantor’s fault.

Dead Fish Rahm, Indeed!

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The Wire is an American television drama series set and produced in and around Baltimore, Maryland. Each season of The Wire focuses on a different facet of the city of Baltimore. They are, in chronological order: the illegal drug trade, the seaport system, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media.

In the years following the end of the series’ run, several colleges and universities such as Johns Hopkins, Brown University, Harvard Law School, Duke, UC Berkeley and Bowdoin have begun offering classes on The Wire in disciplines ranging from law to sociology to film studies. Phillips Academy, a boarding high school in Massachusetts, offers a similar course as well. In an article published in The Washington Post, Anmol Chaddha and William Julius Wilson explain why Harvard has chosen The Wire as curriculum material for their course on urban inequality:

“Though scholars know that deindustrialization, crime and prison, and the education system are deeply intertwined, they must often give focused attention to just one subject in relative isolation, at the expense of others. With the freedom of artistic expression, “The Wire” can be more creative. It can weave together the range of forces that shape the lives of the urban poor.” University of York’s Head of Sociology, Roger Burrows, said in the The Independent that the show “makes a fantastic contribution to their understanding of contemporary urbanism”, and is “a contrast to dry, dull, hugely expensive studies that people carry out on the same issues”.

It would be typical of me as a Conservative to say that people have choice, they can get out and better themselves. However, if you watch The Wire and realize it’s more than a made for TV drama but a deep look into social classes, drugs, and political corruption you begin to understand how trapped people become and realize they can’t just leave.

Watching The Wire you’ll begin to understand that very young children are indoctrinated and become products of their environment and even good politic work and crime prevention can’t solve the problem because it’s epidemic. When you add the corrupt political environment, the lies and deceit from elected officials and corruption in the law enforcement area it becomes all too real that a systemic problem encompasses all facets of life.

Which brings me to now former mayor of Chicago, Richard Daley, new Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama. Chicago is larger than Baltimore, the city in The Wire, but that only makes the problem of urban life much larger.

Yesterday Rahm Emanuel was sworn in as Chicago’s 46th mayor and he had a great deal to say, much of it was blatantly false. (Emphasis LC’s)

“Our city’s financial situation is difficult and profound. We cannot ignore these problems a day longer,” Emanuel told thousands of people gathered in the Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park — which Mayor Daley spent $475 million to build.

Chicago is facing an annual structural deficit of $1.2 billion including unfunded pension liabilities yet Daley used $475 million dollars to build a new park where one already existed. A park that creates the impression to visitors that Chicago is a gem on the lake with a beautiful skyline and wonder sites to see. It’s true, Chicago is a great place to visit. I worked and lived in and around Chicago for over 25 years.

“I fully understand there will be those who oppose our efforts to reform our schools, to cut costs and to make government more effective,” Emanuel said. “Some are sure to say, ‘This is the way we do things — we can’t try something new. Those are the rules — we can’t change them.’ … So when I ask for new policies, I guarantee, the one answer I will not tolerate is: ‘We’ve never done it that way before.’ Chicago is the city of ‘yes we can’ not ‘No we can’t.’ ”

Emanuel used the word “change” so many times I thought Obama was speaking. Chicago has had plenty of “change” especially in their school system with new superintendents arriving and promises of reform to make it all better. It’s only gotten worse and much of the inner city school problem begins at the core of the inner city family and the hopeless environments the youngest children develop their social outlook and behavior. If you don’t tackle the economics, create environments for good jobs without unions forcing their criteria on business, if you don’t tackle the drug trade and dealers as if their belong to al-Qaeda, the young minds that enter any school system are already polluted. Their finished in many cases before they get started because the cancer in their neighborhoods is the gangster supplying the drugs and running the drug trade.

Emanuel told city workers, city residents and business owners to expect to sacrifice.

“Today, I ask of each of you — those who live here, and those who work here; business and labor: Let us share the necessary sacrifices fairly and justly,” Emanuel said. “If everyone will give a little, no one will have to give too much.”

Sound familiar? Is it any wonder Rahm Emanuel was Obama’s right hand man in the White House? How’s all that sacrifice working for America? Get ready Chicago!

“We are a much greater city because of the lifetime of service that Mayor Daley and first lady Maggie Daley have given us,” Emanuel said. “Nobody ever loved Chicago more or served it better than Richard Daley. Now, Mr. Mayor, and forevermore, Chicago loves you back.”

Of course Emanuel wasn’t going to tear into Richard Daley personally, praising him and his work while discussing what a mess Chicago is in. How does one reconcile the hypocrisy?

“As some have noted, including Amy, I am not a patient man,” Emanuel said. “When it comes to improving our schools, I will not be a patient mayor.”

Emanuel praised Daley’s tenure:

“A generation ago, people were writing Chicago off as a dying city. They said our downtown was failing, our neighborhoods were unlivable, our schools were the worst in the nation, and our politics had become so divisive we were referred to as Beirut on the Lake.

“When Richard M. Daley took office as mayor 22 years ago, he challenged all of us to lower our voices and raise our sights. Chicago is a different city today than the one Mayor Daley inherited, thanks to all he did. This magnificent place where we gather today is a living symbol of that transformation,” Emanuel said.

So what’s the problem Mr. Emanuel? Why so much talk of change, the killing of children, the poor schools, the huge deficit, the crime, the drugs, the neighborhoods, the finances, on and on and on the need for change and “Yes we can” mantra. It’s your thinking and Obama’s lies that are dragging America down and further eroding the cities of this country. It’s the corruption, the politics, the lies with an attempt to sugar coat it with flowery speeches or tough talk.

Barack Obama’s strategy isn’t about empowering teachers and communities. It’s about increasing the federal government’s authority over schools. Large cities like Chicago want federal money so they can waste in on pet projects and in the next election they will tell us the problem was deeper than we originally thought and we need another term in office to fix things.

Richard Daley left Chicago in great turmoil, the crime rate is overwhelming, the drug trade and gangs have turned much of the city into a war zone. Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama will continue their programs of control while asking all of us to sacrifice so they can fix the problems.

If you don’t clean up the streets, attack the crime, clean up the neighborhoods of the human garbage no matter what you do in the schools will not help. When damage children enter the schools and then return to their environments the cycle is unending and the hope these children should have becomes hopeless.

Daley, Emanuel, Obama all believe government is the solution but they can’t even clean up the system problems that plague society. I encourage you to rent and watch The Wire. It’s stressful, it’s frightening, it’s enlightening and although it’s a TV drama ask yourself why schools are using it to examine the sociological problems in society.

No child left behind? The children of the big cities are left behind each day while we socially promote, and struggle in a losing battle to teach polluted minds and damaged souls. If the politicians wish to clean up the mess they need to clean up government and the streets before they start telling us to sacrifice while they waste millions on parks and perks while the inner city war is where the battle begins and ends.

It’s all about institutional dysfunction, Indeed!

Wisconsin, the birthplace of “Progressivism” has a new Conservative Governor, a new Conservative Senator and it’s Conservative House Representative Paul Ryan is now chairman of the House Budget Committee.

The battle is now on between Conservatives, Tea Parties and Unions. The fight is on over public sector compensation, bulging state deficits, union power, federalism, education, federal entitlement not just teacher retirement funds.

And now we have Barack Obama and the weight of the White House, the Democratic National Committee, Obama’s Organizing for America and portions of the federal government,  involving itself in Wisconsin and siding against the new Governor while backing the government unions, with the assistance of the SEIU and AFSCME, the largest financial backers of Obama and Democrat election campaigns.

The battle in Wisconsin is ground zero and may very well decide if America will witness real reform or if progressivism wins. At issue:

The Madison Metropolitan School District will not be educating any children today. For the third day in a row this week, the union members of Madison Teachers, Inc., will stage a “sick out” today to protest Governor Scott Walker’s (R) new budget, which would overcome a $137 million budget deficit this year and a projected $3.6 billion deficit over the next two years. Stacy Billings, a parent of two Madison students, told the Wisconsin State Journal that she supports unions and opposes Walker’s proposal but is against a teacher protest during school hours: “That’s not acceptable to me. My tax dollars pay for the teachers to teach and not to protest.”

At issue for the unions is not teaching children, that is not their concern, but it’s about money, taxpayer money that will feed the government union coffers. Governor Walker’s budget helps end Wisconsin’s budget deficit by requiring government workers to pay at least 12.6 percent of their health insurance premiums and contribute 5.8 percent to their pensions. However, the real issue is maintaining the direct government pipeline of taxpayer dollars that goes directly to the government unions.

Each union member pays between $500 and $750 annually, taken involuntarily directly from their paychecks, that means the government union industry in Wisconsin is worth at least $100 million a year.

Former American Federation of Teachers President Al Shanker put it bluntly:

“When school children start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”

Mr. Shanker isn’t the only arrogant coward representing the unions and not the children or their parents. Wisconsin Democrat lawmakers fled the state on buses to prevent a three-fifths quorum needed for debate on legislation to continue.

Obama thinks the government unions are being picked on:

“I haven’t followed exactly whats happening with the Wisconsin budget … some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally seems like more of an assault on unions.”

Assault on unions? Former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt would beg to differ with Mr. Obama when in 1937 he wrote:

“All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. … The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.”

Government employees have a constitutional right to voluntarily form associations and lobby the government for higher pay, better benefits, and working conditions. What government unions don’t have a right to do is force all employees to join their organizations and have their paychecks deducted for union dues each pay cycle.

Yes, Wisconsin has become ground zero for the fight between government unions and the American taxpayers as a whole. The private sector and public sector workers should be on the same playing field, not having one pay for the retirement for the other.

As Wisconsin goes in this battle, so goes the nation, indeed!

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Investing is now the new code word for Liberal spending. Barack Obama invoked “investing” into his State of the Union address over and over again. In the real world of American politics spending equals waste equals political investment with taxpayer money.

Mr. Obama would like to invest $2.5 trillion dollars of his budget money into solar panels, other “green” jobs, funding public school teachers retirement funds and those high-speed railways speeding off to nowhere. In building and repairing more infrastructure I suppose more of those costly billboards will go up advertising more stimulus and telling how your tax money is at work. If history suggest anything this is all more spin, more rhetoric, more and more Obama lies.
We’re still looking for those 3 million new jobs that never showed up for the last $814 billion in “stimulus” waste, er, investment.

We’ve already seen the movie Obama is encouraging, it’s his sequel into bankruptcy oblivion and we shouldn’t be buying the lie one more time. Of course, this author never bought the lie the first time(s) as Obama is not difficult to figure out if your paying attention so pay attention.

Here is a recap of Obama non-defense spending or investment:

1. Total non-defense spending rose 46% between 2008 and 2010, to $372 billion from $254 billion;
2. Education funding soared 116%;
3. Aid to states and localities rose one-third;
4. Funding for the National Science Foundation rose one-third.
5. Unemployment insurance quadrupled to $189 billion from $43 billion;
6. Transportation financing climbed just under 40% since 2008.
7. Another 60% increase in transit dollars were spent in 2010.
8. Department of Commerce’s budget has more than doubled since 2008;
9. An 81% budget hike for the Department of Energy;
10. An 84% increase went to housing programs.

Total private business investment has fallen by 10% since 2008 as governments record spending has increased debt, deficits, destroyed the economy and has put fear into businesses owners who would rather sit on capital instead of really invest it when they have no viable signal that government will quit growing with plans for huge tax programs.

An enormous problem with government “investment” is there is no return on that investment for investors known as the taxpayers. President Reagan asked in his debate with Jimmy Carter in 1980:

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago? Is America as respected throughout the world as it was? Do you feel that our security is as safe, that we’re as strong as we were four years ago?

Are our schools better of than they were decades ago? Is unemployment at an acceptable level as it was in the last administration? Is the huge government return on their huge investment on green energy returning a profit for taxpayers or creating sustainable jobs and new energy or did the number of wind project actually drop by 50%?

Your Educational Return on Investment

An entrepreneur would not keep placing money into failed projects, they may never have entered into them after careful study. The cost of education is higher and higher but the short video explains what the return on government investment is.

The best plan for government is to lower taxes on business, cut spending, reform or remove entitlement projects, streamline and privatize Fannie May, Freddie Mac, Medicare and Social Security while repealing Obamacare and starting over.

The fact is American exceptionalism has always been about freedom, liberty, free markets and the individual. The private sector business, the entrepreneur of America has always created jobs and economy. Big government has always stolen private treasure, redistributed wealth, destroyed jobs and never created a growing economy.

When government grows the American economy suffers and Americans suffer. Real investment comes from the private sector not big government. Indeed!

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