January 21, 2015

Rick Scott's FDLE scandal blows open, demands probe. Way to go, Scott Maxwell.

One of my favorite columnists.

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Rick Scott's FDLE scandal blows open, demands probe

If someone accused Rick Scott of being a liar who abused the power of his office, I wouldn't normally call that big news.

I might just call it Tuesday.

Scott, after all, is one of the least popular governors in Florida history. And he's been dogged by critics since the day he stepped in office.

But the latest accusations against Scott aren't coming from longtime critics. They're coming from one of Florida's top law-enforcement officials — a respected veteran who worked closely with the governor for the past four years.

And that, my friends, is a big deal ... and why Scott now has a full-fledged scandal on his hands.

What is Maxwell talking about? The FDLE chief who was fired by Rick Scott is blowing the whistle big time.

In a new series of allegations, Bailey says former Scott chief of staff Adam Hollingsworth pressured him to claim that the acting clerk of court in Orange County, Colleen Reilly, was the target of an FDLE criminal inquiry after two prison inmates used forged papers from the clerk's office to plot an escape from the Franklin Correctional Institution. The 2013 case embarrassed the prison system under Scott's control.

But there was one problem, Bailey said. It wasn't true, and he told Hollingsworth that.

"The most shocking thing was being ordered to target another individual without any justification," Bailey said. "I don't know why this woman was in the cross hairs."

I hope someone with guts takes this up and runs with it. This is a criminal act, and it must be pursued.

January 20, 2015

Rick Scott wants 100 million for charter school upkeep. No response about public schools.

Rick Scott continues his crusade to fund charter schools building and maintenance while again giving nothing to public schools.

Scott recommends $100 million for Florida charter schools

Gov. Rick Scott on Thursday released a key detail of his proposed education budget: $100 million for charter school construction and maintenance.

His recommendation was welcome news for charter school advocates. If approved by state lawmakers, it would represent a $25 million increase from the current year.

"This is a lifeline for us," said former state Rep. Ralph Arza, who represents the Florida Charter School Alliance. "It helps us provide classroom space and desks for students across the state."

Scott would not say if he planned to recommend construction and maintenance dollars for traditional public schools, too.

In 2011 through 2013 charter schools in Florida received 91 million for maintenance and building....
but traditional public schools got nothing.

2011

Traditional public schools in Florida will get no money from the state this year for additions or needed repairs to thousands of aging buildings, but charter schools will score big.

The charter school operated for children of employees of The Villages, the Republican stronghold in north Lake County frequented by Scott and former President George W. Bush, is expected to receive about $1 million.

School district officials across Florida are bemoaning the Legislature's decision to cut traditional public schools out of PECO — the Public Education Capital Outlay program. The state's 350 charter schools will share $55 million, while the approximately 3,000 traditional schools will go without.

2013

The state Department of Education last week gave a Florida Senate subcommittee a report on the state Board of Education’s requested budget for next year. The budget includes a request for about $64 million for capital improvements at charter schools. Last year charters received about $55 million for school construction.

If approved, that budget would mark the third straight year the state has given capital outlay money to charter schools but no capital funding to districts to build and maintain traditional public schools, said Vern Pickup-Crawford, the county school district’s state lobbyist.

January 18, 2015

FL law chief fired by Scott says he was asked to falsely accuse someone in criminal case.

From the Tampa Bay Times today. Shocking to hear this about Rick Scott, but not really surprising at all.

Ousted FDLE chief raises new allegations about meddling by Gov. Rick Scott, aides


TALLAHASSEE — Ousted Florida Department of Law Enforcement commissioner Gerald Bailey claims he resisted repeated efforts by Gov. Rick Scott and his top advisers to falsely name someone a target in a criminal case, hire political allies for state jobs and intercede in an outside investigation of a prospective Scott appointee.

In a new series of allegations, Bailey says former Scott chief of staff Adam Hollingsworth pressured him to claim that the acting clerk of court in Orange County, Colleen Reilly, was the target of an FDLE criminal inquiry after two prison inmates used forged papers from the clerk's office to plot an escape from the Franklin Correctional Institution. The 2013 case embarrassed the prison system under Scott's control.

But there was one problem, Bailey said. It wasn't true, and he told Hollingsworth that.

"The most shocking thing was being ordered to target another individual without any justification," Bailey said. "I don't know why this woman was in the cross hairs."

After a tense meeting in Hollingsworth's office, Bailey said, Scott press aide Frank Collins drove to Bailey's office at FDLE headquarters and asked Bailey if he was defying a direct order from the governor's office. When Bailey again refused, Collins "turned on his heel and left," Bailey said.

Of course Scott's office denied it.

The whole article is well worth reading. Bailey apparently "felt he was losing his grip on his job by refusing to bow to the demands of Scott's aides."

January 16, 2015

It all started over whose god was more peaceful, kind, and forgiving.

Thanks to Kal toons

January 15, 2015

Daily Kos protesters hold Democrats accountable for their Wall Street reform gutting votes

From longtime Kos blogger McJoan...Joan McCarter at Daily Kos today. I love this.

Daily Kos holds Democrats accountable for Wall Street reform gutting votes

In case you missed it, Paul Hogarth from our actions team wrote about the one encouraging data point in the defections of House Democrats who voted with Republicans to gut the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. When Republicans tried to pass the bill last week under a suspension of the rules (a move that limited debate and amendments, but required a two-thirds majority) 35 Democrats voted with them.

In response, the actions team set up a petition to those 35 members, blasting them for their votes. More than 118,000 people signed that petition, and thousands of you who lived in the districts of these 35 emailed them directly to register your disapproval of their votes. So when the bill came back up this week, 29 Democrats defected (you can see the list in Paul's story).

Four Democrats switched their votes from yes to no (Bobby Rush of Chicago, Hank Johnson from the Atlanta suburbs, Elizabeth Etsy of Connecticut and Suzan DelBene of Washington), three more did not vote, and one Democrat—Brian Higgins of New York—flipped the other way.

So our work clearly had an impact, but not enough. Every time a Democrat abandons the Party to shill for corporations at the expense of their constituents, we must let them know we are watching and won’t forget when it comes time for re-election.

The fact that a handful of these Democrats did the right thing doesn't mean we're letting any of the 29 who didn't off the hook. We want you to let them know that you'll be watching, as will the whole, large Daily Kos community.

January 14, 2015

Arne Duncan's inane confusing words about excessive testing....he caused it by his own policies.

What Duncan got wrong about testing.

"Testing is still the cornerstone of Duncan's vision of teacher evaluation."

I believe parents, and teachers, and students have both the right and the absolute need to know how much progress all students are making each year towards college- and career-readiness.

Of course they do. Tests and grades have always been...always.

I am absolutely convinced that we need to know how much progress students are making – but we also must do more to ensure that the tests – and time spent in preparation for them – don’t take excessive time away from actual classroom instruction. Great teaching, and not test prep, is always what best engages students, and what leads to higher achievement.

Right again, Arne. Now stop the policies that require all this testing. He is spouting stuff so obvious.

Of course "great teaching" is better than "test prep."

SO stop the requirements that lead to "test prep".

And this one is ridiculous.

Sometimes, educators are better at starting new things than we are at stopping things – several decades of testing ideas have sometimes been layered on top of each other in ways that are redundant and duplicative, and not helpful.

Read that again. He's saying that educators are causing the testing.

Peter Greene says it just right.

You know who didn't mandate test after test after test? You know who didn't decide that we'd better have practice tests, too, since everyone's career is riding on test results? Spoiler alert- not classroom teachers. Not even "educators." I believe the correct answer is "government bureaucrats."

Amen to this statement:

Irony overload

Later in the speech, Duncan suggests that "maybe our only hope is absolute honesty and transparency." It is a great line, and one that I absolutely agree with.

This is the man who is leading our country's education policy. He is allowing reformers to use unproven tactics which are doing great harm.

He has carte blanche, and there appear to be no repercussions for anything he does or says.

January 12, 2015

What's the difference between Bob Graham and the Clintons on the Iraq fiasco? Honest truth.

On the lead up to the Iraq war Senator Bob Graham was very critical of those who refused to read the entire NIE and not just the sanitized version. He did not mince words. These are strong words for Bob Graham who always thought and thought about things before speaking.

This is a partial repost, but it needs to be said again. I notice Graham is still after getting the redacted truth about 9/11 out to the public.

We need to remember things like this at this anniversary of the time that our country invaded another country based on lies.

I remember Bob Graham's rant on October 9, 2002, two days before the IWR vote.

The Palm Beach Post link is no longer available, but I saved the text and the article.

..."On Oct. 9, 2002, Graham — the guy everyone thought of as quiet, mild-mannered, deliberate, conflict-averse — let loose on his Senate colleagues for going along with President Bush's war against Iraq.

"We are locking down on the principle that we have one evil, Saddam Hussein. He is an enormous, gargantuan force, and that's who we're going to go after," Graham said on the floor. "That, frankly, is an erroneous reading of the world. There are many evils out there, a number of which are substantially more competent, particularly in their ability to attack Americans here at home, than Iraq is likely to be in the foreseeable future."

He told his fellow senators that if they didn't recognize that going to war with Iraq without first taking out the actual terrorists would endanger Americans, "then, frankly, my friends — to use a blunt term — the blood's going to be on your hands."

It was a watershed moment. Gone was the meticulous thinker who would talk completely around and through a problem before answering a question about it...

In contrast to those words were the ones spoken by other leaders.

Clinton defends successor's push for war

"I have repeatedly defended President Bush against the left on Iraq, even though I think he should have waited until the U.N. inspections were over," Clinton said in a Time magazine interview that will hit newsstands Monday, a day before the publication of his book "My Life."

Clinton, who was interviewed Thursday, said he did not believe that Bush went to war in Iraq over oil or for imperialist reasons but out of a genuine belief that large quantities of weapons of mass destruction remained unaccounted for.

Noting that Bush had to be "reeling" in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton said Bush's first priority was to keep al Qaeda and other terrorist networks from obtaining "chemical and biological weapons or small amounts of fissile material."

"That's why I supported the Iraq thing. There was a lot of stuff unaccounted for," Clinton said in reference to Iraq and the fact that U.N. weapons inspectors left the country in 1998.

Of course his views were the basis of many of the votes for the invasion by others in Congress.

And Hilary also spoke on the topic in 2008, when there had been plenty of hindsight.

Hillary and the Iraqi People

Sometimes one can agree with a great part of what one says, but then can be appalled by one statement. This was that kind of time for me.

As Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, prepares to give a major address on Iraq today, I’m reminded how much I was struck by this part of her Friday speech in Pittsburgh, when she sounded as if she were implying that the Iraqi people were entirely to blame for their current troubles.

Democrats, it seems to me, have blurred the line between the Iraqi government officials unable or unwilling to come together, and the Iraqi people — the millions of people who have been victimized by Saddam Hussein, then a poorly-planned war, and on and on.

Her words from that ABC article in 2008.

"And I believe that at the same time that we have to make clear to the Iraqis that they have been given the greatest gift that a human being can give another human being – the gift of freedom. And it is up to them to decide how they will use that precious gift that has been paid for with the blood and sacrifice and treasure of the United States of America.

Changing the reason for the invasion from protecting ourselves from weapons of mass destruction to giving Iraqis the gift of freedom. That is a terrible spin about such a tragic loss of our country's integrity.

January 10, 2015

Ethan's Story. Commentary on high stakes test obsession.

The story is from 2013. It was told so well by the Orlando Sentinel's Scott Maxwell.

Florida's test-obsessed style of education hits disabled families hard

Just teaching Ethan to say "yes" or "no" — or even keep his gaze focused — was an accomplishment.

So the idea of asking this 10-year-old to solve math equations on an FCAT test seemed ridiculous.

But this is Florida — where the standardized test is king.

So the state made Ethan take it anyway. He spent six hours over the course of two weeks being led through a test.

And then he was asked about eating a peach.

That was the question that set Andrea on fire.

Ethan, after all, can't eat peaches. Or any fruit. Or food at all.

He gets his food through a tube.

Ethan passed away in February 2014. I have not seen the video until now. I found it at the
blog of the NEA president.



Scott Maxwell heard of another child who was blind being shown pictures of animals and being asked which one was the monkey, the elephant, and so on. So he asked some questions about it. He went to the state with his questions. The response.

"These summative assessments used in Florida are one way to measure student mastery of these standards," came the email response from a spokeswoman.

Mastery of the standards?

January 10, 2015

26 Earthquakes Later, Fracking’s Smoking Gun Is in Texas

26 Earthquakes Later, Fracking’s Smoking Gun Is in Texas

After 11 quakes in the last two days – with one registering at a 3.6 – Irving, Texas’ sudden onset tremor problem might be the fracking industry’s nightmare.

There’s a monster lurking under Texas, beneath the sand and oil and cowboy bones, and it’s getting a little restless after a 15 million year nap. Shaking things up in the city of Irving, just slightly west of Dallas, where no less than ten earthquakes yesterday and today bring the total tremors to 26 since October in that town alone. Over 100 quakes have been registered in the North Texas region since 2008, a staggering uptick from just a single one prior that year.

The Balcones Fault Zone divides the Lone Star State in half, loosely following the route of Interstate 35 and passing under Fort Worth, Waco, Austin, and San Antonio. And it’s not just a huge amount of human populations that sit on top of it. There are also thousands of fracking wells boring down in to the earth’s crust, pumping millions of gallons of water down with the direct intent of breaking apart what lay beneath.

...And it’s not just Texas. Poland Township in Ohio had 77 earthquakes happen last March that researchers have definitively linked to fracking, in a paper published just days ago. And British Columbia has the oil addiction shakes, too.

And catch this important paragraph:

Worth noting: This cluster of quakes is taking place almost directly beneath the Exxon-Mobile world headquarters, which is located in Irving. The company’s CEO, Rex Tillerson, joined a lawsuit last year to prevent a water tower used in the fracking process from being built near his 83-acre horse ranch in a swanky suburban Dallas enclave. Whether these are considered ironic or karmic quakes – that’s up to you. But for the repeatedly shaken up people of North Texas, it’s not very funny anymore.

January 8, 2015

Danziger: Wait! Look! A man with a pencil.

From Huffington Post.