Getty Images (National Journal)
WITH A FLURRY OF RADICAL PROPOSALS IN STATEHOUSES ACROSS AMERICA AND IN CONGRESS, ARE NEWLY EMPOWERED REPUBLICANS RISKING A PUBLIC BACKLASH?
(New York Times)
Republican Gov. Scott Walker tries to end collective bargaining for public workers in Wisconsin and is met with embarrassing protests. GOP governors and legislatures in Indiana and Ohio launch similar radical attacks on public employees. Florida Gov. Rick Scott unilaterally refusing to accept federal funds for a popular high=speed rail project. GOP lawmakers in Texas and Ohio propose restrictive anti-abortion legislation. The GOP-controlled House considers equally radical anti-abortion bills and outlines $100 billion in spending cuts. In every state, slashed spending and massive tax cuts are favorites of Republican legislators and governors. Have Republicans across the country “overreached their mandate” won in last November’s election and put their political future at risk as a nervous public begins pulling back their support for the GOP agenda?
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THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT RAMPS UP SPENDING TO REMOVE HUGO CHAVEZ FROM POWER AS AMERICAN TAXPAYERS UNWITTINGLY ENTER THE “REGIME CHANGE” BUSINESS IN VENEZUELA.
(The Chavez Code)
The US government;’s long campaign against Venezuelan president Huge Chavez is increasing in intensity with a blatant program of funneling money and other aid to Chavez opposition groups ahead of elections in Venezuela next year. Republican lawmakers in Congress are hopping on the bandwagon by demanding the Obama administration institute an economic embargo of Chavez’s Venezuela. The US government funds used for the anti-Chavez operations are now taken directly out of the State Department budget, meaning “regime change” in Venezuela is on the books as formally endorsed by the United States government and funded by American taxpayers.
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OPINION: “EDUCATION REFORM” IS UNMASKED AS PART AND PARCEL OF THE “CORPORATE EDUCATION AGENDA” TAKING AIM AT TEACHERS AND STUDENTS ACROSS AMERICA.
(Common Dreams)
Years of appeasement and “going along” with corporations and their political allies that have pushed increasingly radical programs to to marginalize teachers and institute “reforms” that harm students have left organizations like the National Education Association and the national teachers’ union impotent to fight the new battles that threaten public education in America. Having scored victory after victory in issues like teacher pay, student testing and charter schools, the corporate lobby and anti-union lawmakers are now aiming to “strip away the fig leaf of ‘reform’” and wage a “full frontal attack” on teachers and their labor rights. From Wisconsin to Ohio to Tennessee, legislation that would revoke collective bargaining or leave teachers with reduced salaries and even less job security are making progress. It will be up to a grassroots coalition of teachers, parents and students to confront the beast that is the “corporate education agenda.” As Jim Wolf, a former Tennessee public school teacher and the author of the piece, says; “No Mas.”
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GOV. RICK SCOTT’S “WORLD-CLASS EDUCATION” PLAN LEADS TO A “WORST-CASE SCENARIO” FOR FLORIDA SCHOOLS..
(Lakeland Ledger)
The promises just don’t add up. New Florida Gov. Rick Scott boasted on the campaign trail that he would create a “world-class education system” in the Sunshine State. Now, he’s promising to make the deepest budget cuts to education in state history with a proposal that could leave schools shuttered and 20,000 teachers without jobs. It;’s all part of Scot;’s plan to make 2011 a year of “reckoning” for Florida educators; h e and his Republican allies in the state legislature have already taken aim at teacher benefits, pay, job security and their union. School boards across Florida are in a “panic” at cuts that they claim are “impossible” to make. And the public outcry may be making an impact on if the legislature acts on Gov. Scott’s proposals. The chair of the Florida Senate’s subcommittee on k-12 education offered a “resounding no” when pressed as to if he would support all of Scott’s planned cuts in education funding.
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