Weird battle lines are being drawn in the payday loan wars these days. You expect the Ds and Rs to be on opposite sides here, with the Ds for ending payday loans and the Rs trying to figure out a way to keep payday loans without actually coming [...]
I've been gone for about a week, busy as well as in and out of web contact. Over the next few days, I'll try to catch up on some stray postings I didn't have time for.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I have made the case that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner should resign or be replaced with all deliberate speed in early January. I nominate Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP fund. She "gets it."
Elizabeth Warrem wrote this piece for Huffington Post Elizabeth [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Representatives Maurice Hinchey of New York, John Conyers of Michigan, Peter DeFazio of Oregon, Jay Inslee of Washington, and John Tierney of Massachusetts, want to restore the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which prohibited commercial banks from underwriting stocks and bonds. The act was repealed in 1999 at the [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The senator from Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, Ben Nelson (D-NE), after consulting over the weekend with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops USCCB - (Office of Media Relations) U.S. Bishops Urge Senators to Support Nelson-Hatch-Casey Amendment on Health Care Reform, introduced his anti-abortion amendment on Monday which [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Party of No continues to engage in rank obstructionism on health care reform. Two more attempts at GOP gimmicks backfired and blew up in their face.
Senate Republicans on Saturday continued their misleading fear mongering of seniors begun by Sen. John McCain reported here Sen. John [...]
Idiot's Guides have been big over the past few years. Goldwater Institute has created one for Republican legislators, a list it calls 100 Ideas for 100 Days: Budget Solutions and Ideas for State Elected Officials.
To be fair, nowhere does G.I. say Dems can't use it as well, [...]
I'm not always encouraged by the ed reform ideas I'm hearing, and that includes what's coming from Duncan's Dept of Ed. But here's where I see promise. The idea seems to be to encourage lots of approaches to improving education. If that's true, we have a decent chance [...]
Assistant Attorney General Vince Rabago filed suit against payday lender Quik Cash Friday. The company is one of the largest publicly traded payday lenders in the country. If anyone harbors illusions about payday lenders acting in a consumer-friendly way, this suit should put those fantasies to rest.
When Quik [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
As I've said before, nobody does bumper sticker slogan gimmicks better than the Republican Party. They have excelled at this "simple solutions to complex problems" that you can reduce to a bumper sticker for years.
Last week the GOP's "Gimmicks-R-Us" shop came up with "voluntary taxes" for Arizona [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
This is what happens when you lie to seniors about Medicare, Johnny. They get riled up and call their Senators. Senate votes to keep Medicare cuts in plan:
Senators voted 58-42 to reject an amendment by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would have stripped [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Seniors advocacy groups have caught on to Senator John McCain's poison pill motion to kill the health care reform bill in the Senate.
The Hill reports AARP, seniors groups oppose McCain amendment:
The nonpartisan AARP and two left-leaning seniors' groups on Wednesday separately urged Senate lawmakers to reject an amendment [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
To begin with, I was impressed by the sober tone and frank assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan by President Obama. There was none of the jingoistic American cowboy crap for which the Bush-Cheney regime is infamous. He spoke to his audience of cadets and to [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
President Barack Obama has been consistent with his campaign promises and his plan for Afghanistan touched upon in this op/ed from July 2008 Barack Obama - Op-Ed - My Plan for Iraq - NYTimes.com:
Ending the war [in Iraq] is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Congressional Republicans love to cite reports from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) - except, of course, when the CBO report undermines the line of bullshit Republicans ae selling the American public, aided and abetted by a lazy stenographer news media who never fact check what Republicans are [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Senate began debate of the health care reform bill on Moday and John McCain wasted no time in making a complete fool of himself. As Keith Olbermann noted in his intro to McCain's "remarkable performance" that "you'll have to see to believe" 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann' [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Nobody does bumper sticker slogan gimmicks better than the Republican Party. They have excelled at this "simple solutions to complex problems" that you can reduce to a bumper sticker for years.
The latest gimmick from the GOP's "Gimmicks-R-Us" shop comes from Arizona Rep. Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley. Burges' [...]
I've been wrestling with this one lately. A suit has been filed to give charter schools more money to make their allocations "equal" with district schools. That raises the question: do charters get less than district schools, and if so, should the state give them more?
The main issue' [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Associated Press writer Gene Johnson has this update at East Valley Tribune:
SEATTLE (AP) -- The man suspected of gunning down four police officers in a suburban coffee shop was shot and killed by a lone patrolman investigating a stolen car early Tuesday. Four people were arrested for [...]
This is a public service announcement.
The Goldwater Institute's Daily Email has announced what they think we must do to protect what we gained when the Bill of Rights was ratified.
Spread the word about the Arizona Health Care Freedom Act, which could stop the federal government from dictating your' [...]
Here's the answer to the question, "How did the legislature come up with the $144 million figure for cutting soft capital to schools?" It comes from an email sent by LEAN Parents for Education.
In order to receive federal stimulus money, all US states had to agree not' [...]
Where does Brewer stand on payday loans, or repealing the law that would get rid of payday loans in Arizona? She's not sure. Remember the ballot measure that would have kept payday loans here? The one that lost big time?
Brewer said she couldn’t remember how she voted' [...]
The good news: good charter schools can be very good. For certain parts of the student population, they can be better than public schools.
The bad news: bad charter schools can be just awful. They're run either by incompetents or profiteers -- sometimes by incompetent profiteers -- and the' [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Remember how Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater used this fearmongering ad to destroy the Michael Dukakis presidential campaign in 1988? (This was one version of the ad)
George H. W. Bush's campaign manager, Lee Atwater, predicted that "by the time this election is over, Willie Horton will be a'" [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Sarah Palin had some nice things to say about America's "Fearmonger-In-Chief", Glenn Beck of Faux News. In an interview with right-wing Newsmax.com, Palin was asked, "Is a "dream ticket" of Palin-Beck ticket completely out of the question? " Palin-Beck Ticket? Sarah Doesn't Rule it Out:
Palin [...]
How do newspapers transition away from paper and still make enough money to survive? Here's one scenario I think might work. Create three levels of reading ease: Clunky with lots of ads (free), reasonably efficient and with fewer ads (moderate subscription cost) and smooth as silk (higher subscription' [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
After eight years of war, Afghanistan remains a failed state.
Bush puppet Hamid Karzai is barely the mayor of Kabul; he has no control over the Afghan countryside. Voice of America Newsreported that the Taliban have a "permanent presence" in 80 percent of Afghanistan. "Permanent presence" in a [...]
This may seem like blasphemy: the House Bill on energy known as The American Clean Energy Act is the most detrimental bill the House has passed since the Patriot Act. Like the Patriot Act, it is not what it says it is. It should never become law.
It is not [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Allen Barra at The Daily Beast has posted a book review of two new biographies about the life of Ayn Rand: Ayn Rand and the World She Made by Anne C. Heller, and Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American [...]
Here's another comment from the teacher in Tempe whose comment I moved to the front a few days ago. He spotlights one of the ironies good teachers understand. They complain, rightly, about budget cuts and unnecessary restrictions. But when the students walk in the classroom, all that goes' [...]
Commenters have been doing my work for me lately -- and better than I do it in many instances. Here's a terrific comment by davewave64 on the subject of rating teachers based on student test scores. As you'll see, he's in the ed research profession. My favorite idea:' [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Ti's the season for Billo the Clown and Faux News to light up its annual "War on Christmas" nonsense. And this year Arizona's Accidental Governor kicks off the festivities. Arizona Capitol Times » Brewer brings Christmas, Hanukkah back to Capitol displays
“I believe in calling something what [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
My apologies to Lesley Gore for the caption.
The Republican National Committee will hold its winter meeting in January in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Honolulu? Isn't Hawaii dismissed by conservatives as being "some sort of foreign, exotic place" not quite part of the United States, despite being' [...]
As much as I've read about linking teacher salaries and retention to student testing, I've never found a satisfactory answer to this question: what about teachers in subjects that aren't tested?
The trend toward tying everything to tests is accelerating.
[New York's] Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Wednesday [...]
I received this comment on a post I wrote about some of the changes affecting teachers that were thrown in with the latest round of budget cuts.
I'm a teacher in the Tempe Union school district, and I now have my eye on the exit signs because of' [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
It just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without the traditional playing of Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant (The Massacree Revisited). Enjoy.
' [...]Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I briefly touched upon the comments of Rep. Ray Barnes during the recent special session in an earlier post, i.e., he said that the state could file for bankruptcy (as I explained, no, it cannot).
I had not seen Rep. Barnes' extended comments at the time. It turns out' [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Arizona has gone from Governor Janet Napolitano and the Republican legislature enacting a ten percent income tax cut in 2006-07 to give back a tax surplus because "it's your money," to a state in economic free fall and financial collapse in 2008-09.
As anyone who attended school in' [...]
I received an email this morning from a teacher at an Arizona independent school who is planning to ask his students if they were surveyed for the civics test Goldwater Institute used to create 3 separate studies comparing high school students attending public and private schools.
The question [...]
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
While I was trying to enjoy a rare night of television on Monday night, I was constantly barraged by television ads from major retailers for their "Black Friday" sales: Open at 5 a.m.! Open at 4 a.m.! Open Thanksgiving Day!
After the tragic trampling death of Jdimytai Damour, a [...]
More on the survey results used for the G.I. civics study (No, I'm not obsessed, just very interested). Here's a way to get closer to finding out whether Strategic Vision LLC actually completed the survey for G.I. and didn't just make up the results.
It can be worth a' [...]
I don't know if Matthew Ladner is working from his end to discover whether or not the public school/private school survey he commissioned from Strategic Vision LLC was legit or fraudulent. But I have to say, he's been very forthcoming with documentation. I asked him if he would [...]
David Safier, AZ BlueMeanie, Russell Lowes
