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Scott Maxwell: The Most Disgusting, Inhumane Law Passed by the Florida Legislature

By dianeravitch
June 28, 2024 //
4

Scott Maxwell is a regular columnist for Tthe Orlando Sentinel. In this article, he discusses the meanest, most heartless, most inhumane law passed by the legislature. How about letting workers have a water and heat break in Florida’s hot, humid climate? Employers don’t want workers to take time off. They prefer to let them struggle under a fiery sun, even if they collapse.

Maxwell writes:

I’ve written a lot of pieces about a lot of cruddy bills in Florida.

But I can’t recall one that generated more universal disgust among readers than the one lawmakers passed a few months ago banning cities and counties from making sure outdoor workers get shade and water on blistering hot days.

Miami-Dade was discussing local regulations that would guarantee roofers, farmworkers and others who toil in Florida’s blistering sun basic things like water breaks, shade and first-aid treatment for heat stroke — the kind of precautions most people with a conscience would provide for their dog.

Yet Florida’s big business lobby didn’t want to be forced to provide any of that. So they got their puppets in the Legislature to pass a law making it illegal for any local government to pass heat-safety regulations. Yes, their target was water and shade.

I described it as “The most shameful law Florida passed this year.” And readers overwhelmingly agreed. The disgust came from Republicans, Democrats and independents all around the state.

“This is so wrong in so many ways,” said reader Ingrid, who noted that, as a homeowner, she offers shade, water, seating and bathrooms to workers painting the outside of her house. “It is the American and right thing to do…”

And multiple conservative and independent readers said this was the kind of bill that made them think the pendulum of one-party power has swung too far. “So often, I no longer support Democratic legislators because I feel they are too far left,” Bruce said. “After reading this, I must vote for them anyway because others are too far to the right.”

But a question I also received over and over was: Why?

Why would lawmakers — most of whom have families and many of whom claim to be people of faith — support a bill that denies guaranteed access to things so fundamental as water and shade?

Well, here’s the remarkable reality: They normally wouldn’t. In fact, they didn’t.

Just two years ago, Republican legislators joined Democrats to unanimously pass a bill out of committee that would’ve guaranteed similar heat-safety protections to workers across the entire state.

At the time, GOP legislators described the heat protections as simply humane. One said it was “heartwarming” to see everyone agree on such a basic concept. The bill’s sponsor, Miami Republican Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez said: “It’s really about health and wellness and making sure people are protected.”

But then, as the Seeking Rents website that tracks the way money influences public policy in Florida recently revealed, the state’s homebuilding and business lobby got involved. And the bill died.

Then this year, the business lobby put the push on steroids. The Florida Chamber of Commerce not only wanted to make sure that no state laws guaranteed workers heat-safety protections; they wanted lawmakers to pass a law that banned counties from doing the same.

The chamber even warned lawmakers that if they didn’t do as instructed, the politicians’ scores would be docked in the business group’s annual “How They Voted” report card. The chamber told lawmakers that their votes on this one issue would be counted twice.

That is how badly the chamber — which is funded by companies like Disney, Publix, U.S. Sugar and Florida Power & Light — wanted to make sure no companies in this state would be subject to local heat-safety regulations.

We’ve all watched ugly politics transpire in Tallahassee. But this was uglier than usual. Veteran Tallahassee journalist Bill Cotterell — who has covered Florida politics for more than half a century — wrote that this was an example of how “the pay-to-play system goes beyond regular back-scratching and turns into cruelty.”

Mark Wilson, the president of the chamber, disagrees. He says readers who are outraged and observers like me and Cotterell don’t understand the issue.

He says the reaction is union-generated “hysteria,” that the chamber is “working to make Florida the safest state in the nation,” that the U.S. division of Occupational Health and Safety Measures already requires companies to protect their workers and that most companies want to do so anyway.

You probably don’t need me to tell you how silly that last argument sounds. If all companies were already doing all these things, they wouldn’t have been so frantically lobbying against them. House Bill 433 bans counties from requiring employers to provide things like “water consumption,” “cooling measures” and “appropriate first-aid measures.”

OSHA does not regulate these things the same way.  Instead, it has something called a “general duty clause” that broadly says employers shall provide a work environment “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.” Its website explicitly says: “OSHA does not have a specific regulation regarding heat stress.”

And while Wilson said OSHA is working on more specific heat-safety provisions, the simple fact is they don’t exist now.

The reality is that businesses in Florida have gotten so used to having their way, they don’t want anyone telling them what to do — even when it has to do with worker safety. And this state has a political majority willing do whatever they’re told, so that they can continue getting endorsements and campaign donations. Even it means opposing basic safety measures they previously supported.

That’s something for you to remember the next time you see a campaign mailer telling you that some politician has an “A-plus” business rating. This is the kind of thing they had to support to earn it.

smaxwell@orlandosentinel.com

Categories Cruelty, DeSantis, Ethics, Evil, Florida, Health, Injustice, Shame

Washington Post Covers the Scandals Associated with Its New Leadership

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2024 //
4

Four reporters collaborated on a long article about the unethical practices of some of the newspaper’s new leaders, chosen by Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post. The Post is known for its fearless and principled journalism. British newspapersce identlybget scoops any way they can, ethics be damned.

They wrote on June 16:

LONDON — The alleged offense was trying to steal a soon-to-be-released copy of former prime minister Tony Blair’s memoir.

The suspect arrested by London police in 2010 was John Ford, a once-aspiring actor who has since admitted to an extensive career using deception and illegal means to obtain confidential information for Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper. Facing potential prosecution, Ford called a journalist he said he had collaborated with repeatedly — and trusted to come to his rescue.

That journalist, according to draft book chapters Ford later wrote recounting his ordeal, was Robert Winnett, a Sunday Times veteran who is set to become editor of The Washington Post later this year.

Winnett moved quickly to connect Ford with a lawyer, discussed obtaining an untraceable phone for future communications and reassured Ford that the “remarkable omerta” of British journalism would ensure his clandestine efforts would never come to light, according to draft chapters Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018 that were shared with The Post.

Winnett moved quickly to connect Ford with a lawyer, discussed obtaining an untraceable phone for future communications and reassured Ford that the “remarkable omerta” of British journalism would ensure his clandestine efforts would never come to light, according to draft chapters Ford wrote in 2017 and 2018 that were shared with The Post.

Winnett, currently a deputy editor of the Telegraph, did not respond to a detailed list of questions. Ford, who previously declined to be interviewed, did not respond to questions about the draft book chapters.
Winnett is now poised to take over the top editorial position in The Post’s core newsroom, scheduled to start after the November U.S. presidential election. He was appointed by Post CEO and Publisher William Lewis, who has mentored Winnett and worked with him at two British papers. Lewis is also mentioned in Ford’s draft chapters.
The drafts are part of a collection of previously unreported materials representing Ford’s recollections of his activities and associations with Winnett, some of which The Post was able to match with published stories and other public documents. The prospective book project never came to fruition.
The claims raise questions about Winnett’s journalistic record months before he is to assume a top position at The Post. His appointment has increased focus on the different ways journalism is practiced in the United States and Britain.

In one passage, Ford describes working with Winnett on an array of stories about consumer and business affairs. The collaboration, in his account, was part of a broader arrangement with the Sunday Times in which Ford delivered confidential details about Britain’s rich and powerful by using dishonest means, including changing their bank passwords and adopting false personas in calls to government agencies. A Sunday Times editor later acknowledged some of these practices but said they were deployed to serve the public interest.
Winnett, who went on to become a respected business reporter and editor with a record of scoops, has not publicly spoken about relying on or interacting with Ford, a trained actor with a talent for accents.
But a review by The Post of Winnett’s reporting at the Sunday Times, as well as Ford’s unpublished book chapters and other documents that have since been made public, reveals apparent overlap between Winnett’s stories and individuals or entities that Ford said he was commissioned to target. They include pieces on the fate of the Leeds United Football Club, the finances of former prime minister Blair and the efforts by some of Britain’s wealthiest elites to buy a new vehicle from Mercedes-Benz that cost 250,000 pounds.
At The Post and other major American news organizations, the use of deceptive tactics in pursuit of news stories violates core ethics policies. In Britain, “blagging” — using misrepresentation to dupe others into revealing confidential information — has been a known feature of a certain brand of tabloid journalism, especially before a public reckoning over press ethics began in 2011. Blagging has been less frequently documented in the broadsheet titles where Winnett and Lewis built their careers.

Blagging is illegal under the United Kingdom’s 1998 Data Protection Act, but a defense is available if the acts can be shown to serve the public interest, legal experts said.

Winnett was tapped to lead The Post’s newsroom as part of a Lewis shake-up that led to the abrupt departure this month of Sally Buzbee, the first woman to serve as The Post’s executive editor.
Addressing the Post newsroom this month, Lewis touted Winnett as a “world class” journalist. “He’s a brilliant investigative journalist,” Lewis said. “And he will restore an even greater degree of investigative rigor to our organization.”
Lewis’s own journalistic record also has come under scrutiny.
The New York Times on Saturday reported that Lewis, as an editor at the Sunday Times in 2004, had assigned a reporter to write a story about a prominent businessman that the reporter believed was based on hacked phone records. The Post has reviewed unpublished writing by Ford in which he claims to have changed the password on the bank account of that businessman, Stuart Rose, so as to gain unauthorized access to Rose’s records…

In recent weeks, Lewis has faced accusations of seeking to suppress stories about a long-running civil court battle in London concerning his time as a top executive in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
In January 2011, London police asked Murdoch’s company to turn over evidence of phone hacking by one of its papers, and last month, a judge cleared the way for plaintiffs to air claims that Lewis and others were involved in plans to subsequently delete millions of emails allegedly related to the hacking. Lewis has denied wrongdoing and is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit. He has also denied trying to quash stories on the topic.

Ford’s draft chapters from 2017 and 2018, shared at the time with a cohort of journalists and others, reflect his efforts to blow the whistle on hacking and other illicit newsgathering methods.
Those efforts prompted a 2018 Guardian profile, in which Ford said, “I was nothing more than a common thief.” He counted private investigators among his clients and said he performed most of his work for the Sunday Times, never taking on a formal role or even entering its office, but estimating that he was paid 40,000 pounds a year for his exploits. He said in that profile that he pursued leading politicians, including Blair and another former prime minister, Gordon Brown; celebrities such as Paul McCartney; and a former head of MI6, the secretive foreign intelligence service.

Ford wrote in his draft chapters that he came to know Winnett as a young reporter at the Sunday Times, where Winnett began writing as a student in 1995.
Lewis became business editor of the Sunday Times in 2002. He remained there until 2005, when he became city editor of the Telegraph, a center-right paper identified with Britain’s Conservative Party. He quickly climbed the ranks of that outlet.

Winnett joined Lewis at the Telegraph in 2007, and two years later they worked closely together on an investigation into phony expenses by members of Parliament that rocked the political establishment and forced a wave of resignations.
The stories that the Telegraph published in 2009 arose from data that the paper had acquired as part of a transaction in which they paid about 150,000 pounds to a private investigator seeking to sell the material on behalf of another source, according to an account Lewis later provided as part of a public inquiry into media practices. Lewis has described the Telegraph’s work as a high-water mark for the British press, “one of the most important bits of journalism, if not the most important bit of journalism, in the postwar period.”
Within a year, the British industry’s practices were engulfed in an expanding scandal, fueled by revelations that News of the World, a best-selling tabloid in Murdoch’s media empire, had engaged in widespread hacking of the phones of politicians, celebrities and even victims of violent crimes in the pursuit of salacious stories.
Lewis left the Telegraph in 2010 to join the Murdoch-controlled News International as a senior executive. Within months, he would be charged with helping to manage the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal, a position that involved overseeing the provision of evidence to a Metropolitan Police investigation that swelled to include hundreds of officers.

Categories Accountability, Character, Education Reform, Ethics, Media, Scandals

North Carolina: GOP Plans to Approve Politically Connected Charter School Without Usual State Review

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2024 //
8

The Republicans in North Carolina have submitted legislation in the General Assembly to authorize a charter school with powerful political connections.

Ann Doss Helms of WFAE reported:

Buried deep in the 271-page House budget bill introduced Monday night, there’s a provision that would allow an unnamed charter school to bypass state review and open in August.

The description is very specific: The “expedited opening” would apply only to applications filed in 2024, for schools in the state’s largest statistical metropolitan area, in a fast-growing county and a school district serving fewer than 25,000 students.

Also, “the proposed charter school will be located in a fully furnished school facility purchased from a local board of education.”

That description applies to Trinitas Academy, which bought the old Mt. Mourne School in Mooresville from Iredell-Statesville Schools in 2022.

Trinitas hasn’t even begun the state review process that ensures its board is ready to educate students and responsibly handle millions of dollars of public money.

But it does have a website describing it as a K-8 classical academy. It lists a board that includes:

  • Susan Tillis, wife of Republican U.S. Senator Thom Tillis and founder of the Susan M. Tillis Foundation. She’s described as having  “an extensive background in state and national politics.” (Her name was removed from the site Wednesday, after this story aired.)
  • Will Bowen, communications director for Republican Rep. Patrick McHenry.
  • Marcus Long of Mooresville, described as a retired chief circuit judge from Virginia.
  • Board Chair Mark Lockman, described as having been “part of the district leadership at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and Iredell-Statesville Schools. Additionally, Mark was instrumental in building the State of North Carolina’s first data-based instructional growth model for public K-12.”

They couldn’t immediately be reached. Trinitas board member Mikail O. Clark, a Charlotte lawyer, confirmed that Trinitas plans to open in August, but said he didn’t know enough about the House Bill to discuss it. “We’ve obviously engaged counsel to assist us with this matter,” he said, and hung up before answering a question about the status of the Trinitas application…

State Charter Schools Director Ashley Baquero said Tuesday that she knew nothing about the plan to bypass the approval process.

Open the link to finish the story of cronyism.

Categories Charter Schools, Disruption, Education Industry, Ethics, North Carolina

“Democracy”: Where’s the “Conflict” in the Georgia Case Against Trump

By dianeravitch
June 21, 2024 //
39

I’m curious. Regarding the Georgia election case, where – exactly – is the Fanni Willis “conflict” that may have impaired, impinged or otherwise impacted the rights of those accused in that case?

The Associated Press reported this:

“A Fulton County grand jury in August indicted Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally try to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors, but Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty…Trump and eight other defendants had tried to get Willis and her office removed from the case, arguing that a romantic relationship she had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created a conflict of interest. McAfee in March found that no conflict of interest existed that should force Willis off the case, but he granted a request from Trump and the other defendants to seek an appeal of his ruling from the state Court of Appeals.”

So, again, what EXACTLY is the “conflict” that infringes on the rights of the accused in the Georgia, some of whom have already – in fact pleaded guilty.

CNN reported this:

“In March, after what amounted to a mini-trial where attorneys for Trump and his co-defendants sought to prove their case against Willis and Wade, McAfee found there was not enough evidence to firmly prove Willis financially benefited from the relationship.”

So, the prosecutors were put on trial and the judge found that there wasn’t evidence to say that Willis got some kind of financial favor from Wade. But even if she HAD, where is the “conflict” that harms the right of the accused?

The Washington Post put it like this:

“McAfee ruled that Trump and the others had ‘failed to meet their burden’ of proving Willis’s romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade and allegations that she was financially enriched by trips the two took together were enough of a ‘conflict of interest’ to disqualify her from the case..

To put it differently, the “conflict” in this case was that Willis and Wade slept together and sometimes took trips together– they were “bad” — and thus that should disqualify them from the case. But, What. About. The. Case? What about the facts of the case? What about the specific charges and the charges to which others have pled guilty?

Sydney Powell – yes, her – pled guilty to “conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties.” She also agreed to help prosecutors in other cases.

Guess who was involved in the conspiracy and the other cases?

Kenneth Chesebro, charged with seven felony counts, pled guilty to “one felony count of conspiracy to commit filing false documents. ” False documents to be used to overturn the election results. Guess on whose behalf Chesebro filed those false documents? Chesebro agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in other cases too.

Trump attorney Jenna Ellis pleased guilty in Georgia “to a charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony. She has already written an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia, and she agreed to cooperate fully with prosecutors as the case progresses.”

So, there’s a pattern here. 

But where – exactly – is the “conflict” in the other cases? The cases of the ringleader Trump, and dirty trickster Mike Roman? The cases of Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman? Of Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark and the rest?

Meanwhile, the findings of fact in the Colorado court decision by Sarah Wallace that declared Trump an insurrectionist, which relied heavily on the January 6 Committee Report and included testimony by officers attacked in the January 6 riot, have gone unchallenged by any credible evidence, including that put forth by Trump or his attorneys. As noted in the decision,

“while Trump spent much time contesting potential biases of the Committee members and their staff, he spent almost no time attacking the credibility of the Committee’s findings themselves. The Hearing provided Trump with an opportunity to subject these findings to the adversarial process, and he chose not to do so, despite frequent complaints that the Committee investigation was not subject to such a process. Because Trump was unable to provide the Court with any credible evidence which would discredit the factual findings of the January 6th Report, the Court has difficulty understanding the argument that it should not consider its findings which are admissible under C.R.E. 803(8).”

The Colorado Supreme Court found that because Trump was – in fact – an insurrectionist, he could not be on the Colorado ballot because the United States Constitution explicitly prohibited it under Article 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Seems pretty clear: “no person shall…hold any office, civil or military, under the Constitution who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States…to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same…”

The United States Supreme Court ignored the findings of fact in the Colorado trial court and overturned the Colorado Supreme Court decision to take Trump off the ballot. The Court said “We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.”

According former federal appellate judge Michael Lutting and constitutional scholar Lawrence Tribe, this was “a grave disservice to both the Constitution and the nation…Our highest court dramatically and dangerously betrayed its obligation to enforce what once was the Constitution’s safety net for America’s democracy.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/supreme-court-trump-v-anderson-fourteenth-amendment/677755/

Three members of the Supreme Court were – in fact – appointed by a seditionist, an insurrectionist, who took lots of help from Russian intelligence agencies to win* the 2016 election, and tried to violently overturn the 2020 results. One other justice flies seditionist flags over his houses, and another has a wife who is an open seditionist.

It appears to me that the “conflicts” some people, mostly Republicans, are worried about are the absolutely entirely wrong conflicts.

Categories Accountability, Atlanta, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Georgia, Justice, Trump

Jennifer Rubin: Which Candidate is “Fit” to be President?

By dianeravitch
June 20, 2024 //
35

Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin responded to a biased article in the Wall Street Journal that derided Biden’s fitness for the Presidency. Its primary sources: House Speaker Mike Johnson and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, both Trump lackeys.

Rubin wrote:

A president’s gait, verbal tics and minor recall errors have virtually nothing to do with the job of being president. The White House occupant is not a “Jeopardy!” contestant, a stand-up comic, a talk-show host or guest; the president is the head of the executive branch and commander in chief.

The job of being president is executive management, something with which political reporters (as opposed to business reporters) have virtually no expertise. We should be asking whether a candidate can absorb necessary details, make good personnel decisions, reach sound conclusions, evaluate risk and consider the consequences of actions. Can the president separate personal interests from the interests of the nation, of allies or even the planet? That is what the president does, day after day.

And we do not need to be armchair psychiatrists to evaluate that sort of presidential fitness. As I have written, Trump’s closest colleagues tell us that he is willfully ignorant, cannot grasp basic concepts, cannot absorb written material. As for his hiring decisions, by his own admission, he has hired a slew of dumb or incompetent people. He gloms on to ridiculous quack theories, and he channels the ideas and rhetoric of America’s enemies and of historical villains.

Trump cannot keep national secrets — or understand they are not “his.” He is incapable of grasping the values and ethos of military service. Because he is so susceptible to flattery and so thin-skinned, he cannot tell friend from foe. And as his former national security adviser John Bolton put it, “Trump really cares only about retribution for himself, and it will consume much of a second term.”

Part and parcel of good decision-making is impulse control. If one cannot refrain from lashing out in anger at allies, spilling secrets to U.S. enemies, or launching personal attacks and threats against fellow Americans (in defiance of court orders, no less), one cannot be entrusted with the immense responsibilities of the presidency. (There might also be something seriously wrong with you, but that is beside the point.)

Moreover, we know how Trump’s decision-making turned out. He downplayed the coronavirus, and hundreds of thousands of Americans died unnecessarily. He concocted the “big lie” about the 2020 election and, unable to admit losing, incited a riot at the U.S. Capitol. He didn’t want to reveal embarrassing sexual impropriety, so he broke the law in New York — 34 times.

You don’t need to make a specific medical diagnosis to see that the essential aspects of the presidency — judgment, reading comprehension, discretion, unselfish decision-making, appreciation for military sacrifice — are utterly beyond Trump.

At the most basic level, Biden, while three years older, can discern friend from foe, reveres the military, understands the value of alliances, generally hires capable advisers, puts together complex legislative deals and exhibits inexhaustible empathy for others’ suffering. He complies with the legal process (e.g., sitting down with special counsel Robert K. Hur), follows Supreme Court decisions (and then explores alternatives, as he did on student debt) and engages in successful international diplomacy. He talks in depth about policy.

It’s reasonable to conclude that, with age, Biden has gained immense experience, formed relationships and absorbed data that helps guide his current decision-making. Should we care that he walks more stiffly than he did 10 years ago? (FDR served 12 years in a wheelchair.)

In sum, the measure of a president — regardless of that officeholder’s level of spryness or eloquence — is the capacity to perform a singularly important job: making good decisions on behalf of others in keeping with our laws and national values. No reasonable person would conclude, based on all available evidence, that Trump can do so; no fair person would conclude that Biden’s age impedes him from doing so.

This article contains numerous links, none of which transferred to my blog. Please open the link to Rubin to see her extensive documentation.

Categories Bias, Biden, Character, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Trump

NYC: Why Retirees Turned Against Their Own Union Leadership

By dianeravitch
June 19, 2024 //
61

The United Federation of Teachers in New York City is the largest chapter in the American Federation of Teachers. The UFT was created in 1960. It represents nearly 200,000 city employees, including about 60,000 retirees.

Since 1960, the UFT has been run by the Unity Caucus, which controls the officers, the executive committee and the delegate assembly. The president of the UFT is a powerful figure in New York City, New York State, and national politics. Its best known leaders were and are Albert Shanker and Randi Weingarten (Sandra Feldman served between their tenures, first as UFT president, then AFT president; she died of cancer at age 65). Shanker was president of the UFT from 1964 to 1985, then president of the AFT from 1974 until his death in 1997. Randi Weingarten was president of the UFT from 1998-2008 and became president of the AFT in 2008. The NEA has term limits, the AFT does not.

Weingarten was succeeded as president of the UFT by Michael Mulgrew. Since the union’s founding, the Unity Caucus has won every internal union election by large margins. Splinter groups came and went. Some persisted, but none ever won an election.

Until last week. Until June 15.

The UFT retirees rebelled. At the union’s annual internal elections, a dissident faction called Retiree Advocate upset the Unity slate. The retirees are angry because Michael Mulgrew made a deal with former Mayor DeBlasio to switch the city’s 250,000 retirees from Medicare to the for-profit Medicare Advantage. This switch was supposed to save the city $600 million a year.

The city government and the UFT told the retirees that the MA plan was better than Medicare.

The retirees were skeptical. How does a for-profit deliver make a profit while delivering better care than Medicare, many wondered. The answer, they soon discovered, were these two tactics: One, the person cannot use a doctor who is out of network; but even more important, the healthcare company may deny services. MA is very profitable for its executives.

Medicare accepts all licensed doctors and does not require the patient to get prior approval before they can get the treatment or surgery recommended by their doctor.

The retirees found a leader in a retired Emergency Medical Technician in the Fire Department named Marianne Pizzitola. She began posting videos on YouTube against the switch and collected a large number of retirees who agreed with her. She founded the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, Inc. She posted more videos, explaining that the city had broken its promise to retirees. Their contract promised Medicare, not MA. She argued that the city and some (but not all) unions were collaborating to deceive retirees. The city’s two largest unions—UFT and DC 37, which represents the city’s lowest paid workers—agreed with the city.

Marianne and her allies met with elected officials, organized rallies, and most consequentially, filed lawsuits to block the switch from Medicare to MA. All this activity was funded by retirees’ donations. Despite the huge disparity in resources, the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees won every lawsuit. Judges agreed with them that the city had broken its promises to provide Medicare and a low-cost secondary plan.

The Retiree Advocate slate won 63% of the vote at the June 15 meeting. A majority of the retirees voted against the Unity Caucus slate because of the Medicare/MA issue. They poked a hole in the ironclad dominance of the Unity Caucus (which still has all the officers, 94 of the 100 members of the executive committee, and the vast majority of the delegates. But the retirees now control the retiree caucus.

I have a personal connection to this battle. I wrote an affidavit for the court case. In 2021, I was told by my cardiologist that I had to have open heart surgery to repair a damaged valve. People with this condition are walking time-bombs. I arranged to have my surgery done at New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell by an excellent surgeon. I got a second and third opinion. I did not need prior approval because I was covered by Medicare and my wife’s secondary (she is a retired NYC teacher, principal, and administrator). If I had been on Medicare Advantage, I would have been denied coverage because I was asymptomatic. I had no pain, no shortness of breath, none of the symptoms associated with a serious heart problem. But without surgery, I would have died. (P.S.: Al Shanker was a close personal friend. Randi Weingarten is a close personal friend.)

I wrote about the retirees’ most important victory in court here. Just a month ago, the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees won a unanimous decision in the New York Appellate Division. The city will likely appeal to the State Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. I wrote “The NYC retirees’ group sued the City, on the grounds that the City was withdrawing benefits that were promised to its members when they were hired. Many had accepted lower pay because of the excellent benefits, especially the healthcare.”

The NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees summarized their victory:

NEW YORK, May 21, 2024 — Today, the New York Appellate Division issued a unanimous decision holding that the City of New York cannot force its roughly 250,000 elderly and disabled retired municipal workers off of their
longstanding Medicare insurance and onto an inferior type of insurance called
“Medicare Advantage.” Unlike Medicare—a public program that has protected City retirees for the past 57 years—the City’s proposed new Medicare Advantage plan was a private, for-profit endeavor that would have limited
retirees’ access to medical providers, prevented retirees from receiving care prescribed by their doctors, and exposed retirees to increased healthcarecosts.


The Court confirmed what retirees have been arguing for months: that they are entitled to the healthcare they were promised for over 50 years. The Court wrote: “The City has made clear, consistent, unambiguous representations – oral and written – over the course of more than 50 years, that New York City municipal worker-retirees would have the option of receiving health care in the form of traditional Medicare with a City-paid supplemental plan. Consequently, the City cannot now mandate the proposed change eliminating that choice.”

The Court permanently enjoined the city from forcing the retirees to leave traditional Medicare and to transfer to a MA plan.

Here is a brief explanation of why the retirees fought against privatization of their healthcare.

Arthur Goldstein, who worked as a high school teacher for 39 years, celebrated the victory in a post called A New Dawn. He followed up with a description of the meeting where Randi spoke and the Retiree Advocate group won control of their caucus. He is a long-time critic of Unity; he’s now vice-president of the UFT Retiree Caucus.

The members and leaders of the Retiree Advocate group are passionately pro-union. They wanted their voices to be heard. The UFT’s acquiescence in the Medicare-to-MA was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. They could not believe that the Union would join with the city government to save money by puttting them into a for-profit plan.

Here is Marianne Pizzitola rejoicing on the day of the Retiree Advocate in the UFT meeting.

Here is Marianne Pizzitola talking about the ramifications of this victory on “Medicare for All.” About half of the nation’s retirees are in Medicare Advantage plans. MA represents the privatization of Medicare and will block Medicare for All.

It’s a shame that the retirees had to fight their own union to preserve their health care. It’s rumored that the city (and the unions?) might go to Albany to try to change the law. The unions should pay attention to their retirees. They may be old, but they are smart and relentless. They will not give up. And I will be with them every step of the way.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Equity, Ethics, For-Profit, Health, New York City, Teachers, Unions

Texas: Yes, There Are Huge Differences Between Democrats and the GOP!

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2024 //
28

Michelle Davis writes a blog called Lone Star Left, where she opines on the struggle to reverse the hold of fascists on the state of Texas. She previously reported on the state convention of the Texas GOP, which cherishes the “right to life” for fetuses but wants to impose the death penalty on women who seek or obtain an abortion. Women who want an abortion apparently have NO right to life.

In this post, Davis reports on the Texas Democratic Party platform, which is the polar opposite of the GOP. She loves it!

She writes:

Okay, we’re finally to it. The Texas Democratic Party Platform and the proposed changes went through the Platform Committee. The Texas Democratic Party (TDP) platform is a critical document that outlines the party’s values, principles, and policy goals. It serves as a roadmap for Democratic candidates and elected officials, providing a clear vision for the future of Texas. The platform reflects the collective voice of party members and sets the agenda for the party’s legislative priorities.

The platform also plays a significant role in mobilizing voters. It provides a comprehensive guide to what the Democratic Party stands for, making it easier for voters to understand its positions on critical issues. (Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.)

If you missed the previous articles about the TDP’s updated rules and resolutions: 

Personally, I love the Texas Democratic Party Platform and have kept up with its evolution over the years. The previous platform is online, which you can see here: 

Loving a party platform? That’s weird. 

Earlier this week, I was mindlessly scrolling on TikTok, and I came across some dipshit from Los Angeles who has several hundred thousand followers; her video was all about how “both parties are the same,” and she was discouraging people from voting. The privileged position of living in a blue state, right?

People like this piss me off because NO Democrats and Republicans are not the same. 

While the Republican Party of Texas debated giving women who have abortions the death penalty, this week, the Texas Democratic Party added a platform plank that says, “Restore the right of all Texans to make personal and responsible decisions about reproductive health.”

Republicans want unfettered end-stage capitalism with no healthcare, no public education, no Social Security, no Medicaid, and vast wealth inequality. Democrats want universal healthcare, well-funded public education, robust social safety nets, and economic equality.

The Texas Democratic Party platform is a testament to our commitment to creating a fairer, more just society for all Texans. Seeing such misinformation spread online is frustrating, especially when it can lead to voter apathy. However, our platform represents a clear and progressive vision for the future.

It’s a comprehensive document outlining our priorities for a better Texas. We must continue to show these differences between the blue and the red to counteract the cynicism and misinformation that is prevalent today.

What are some of the positive highlights? 

Education:

The platform changes maintained the emphasis on protecting and improving Texas public education. They also retained strong language prohibiting school choice scams, such as using vouchers, including special education vouchers, and opposed these programs. The platform kept the requirement that every class have a teacher certified to teach that subject. It clarified that teachers should not be expected to provide financial support through classroom supplies and other essentials at their own expense.

Some of the planks I thought were good: 

  • Oppose discriminatory policies affecting special education funding. (It’s an ongoing problem in the Republican-led legislature.)
  • Offer dual credit and early college programs that draw at-risk students into vocational, technical, and collegiate careers.
  • Ensure all public school children are provided free school meals.

Higher education:

The TDP platform includes several favorable planks in higher education to make college more accessible and affordable. These include advocating for student loan debt relief, providing free college tuition for low-income qualified students, and offering paid internships and debt-free apprenticeship programs. Additionally, the platform supports eliminating standardized testing requirements like the SAT and ACT for college admissions.

Voting and elections:

The platform supports electronic voting systems that utilize paper backups and an auditable paper trail, ensuring election integrity. This particular plank led to some debate. While some supported it for ensuring election integrity, others were wary of potential vulnerabilities and preferred more traditional voting methods. Ultimately, it passed. 

Another fundamental plank supported the establishment of a limit on campaign donations in Texas elections to ensure fairness and transparency. We badly need campaign finance reform in Texas. Democrats see this need and are taking it seriously. 

They also supported establishing a code of judicial ethics for the Supreme Court of the United States and efforts to recalibrate the court by tying the number of justices to the number of federal circuit courts (13).

The Case For Expanding The Supreme Court

The Case For Expanding The Supreme Court

MICHELLE H. DAVIS

·FEB 14 Read full story

Healthcare:

If you missed my previous article, the Texas Democratic Party Resolution supports universal healthcare. This has also been part of their platform for several years. Unfortunately, we’re still fighting for basic healthcare access in Texas, so it’s a part of the Texas Democratic Party platform that doesn’t get enough attention. 

Here are some (not all) other interesting planks added this year: 

  • Protect doctors and hospitals from politically motivated attacks that hinder them from providing the best care possible.
  • Legalize and expand access to harm reduction supports such as fentanyl testing strips, Narcan, and safe syringe programs.
  • Support policies that reduce pollution and protect clean air and water.
  • Ensure that veterans have access to high-quality mental health services and support for substance use disorders.

Reproductive healthcare:

We all know what the GOP is doing. Besides restoring the right of Texans to make personal and responsible decisions about reproductive health, other new TDP platform planks include: 

  • Protect the right to access in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment.
  • Uphold the right to travel to another state for legal medical services.
  • Offer comprehensive, age-appropriate sex education.
  • Hold medical providers accountable for withholding information about a pregnancy based on their presumption that the pregnancy would be terminated.
  • Safeguard reproductive health and gender-based care patient privacy, including protection from law enforcement.

The environment and climate. 

Sometimes, I wonder if we spend enough time talking about this issue. It’s terrible right now, and the next several months could bring devastating weather.

Issues regarding the environment and climate change are life-threatening, and with Texas being the number one producer of greenhouse emissions in America, it’s an issue that Texans should take very seriously. 

The new planks, which add to the TDP’s previous commitments to clean energy, address many of these concerns. Including supporting policies that develop clean energy resources, promoting alternative fuel vehicles, promoting more energy-efficient buildings and appliances, streamlining the permitting process for building new electric transmission lines, and adding charging stations for electric cars at all state highway rest stops.

Dawn Buckingham, the Texas Land Commissioner, and oil and gas shill has promised to fight the federal administration from connecting offshore windmills to Texas. However, the TDP platform supports federal legislation to share offshore wind lease and production revenues with Texas and other states, incentivizing state and local governments to facilitate successful siting processes and funding coastal infrastructure and flood resiliency projects.

They also emphasized creating and enforcing stringent state and federal regulations on oil and gas operations, including methane release monitoring and enforcement without exceptions.

All of these planks are fantastic, and maybe by the time the 2026 Convention rolls around, we’ll be ready to add support for legislation that holds fossil fuel companies responsible for climate change. 

Criminal justice reform.

The TDP platform includes significant changes in the criminal justice reform plank, stressing a more humane approach to law enforcement. The platform proposes raising the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 13 years, ending the prosecution of juveniles in adult courts, and closing the remaining youth prison facilities while investing in community infrastructure to support children. Additionally, it aims to enforce the constitutional mandate against imprisoning individuals for debt, promote alternatives to incarceration for non-threatening offenses, and eliminate mandatory minimum sentences to allow for judicial discretion—notably, the platform advocates for abolishing the death penalty and instituting a moratorium on executions.

There is more. Open the link to finish her post.

What happens in Texas doesn’t stay in Texas. It spreads to other GOP extremists. Stay informed.

Categories Civil Rights, Democracy, Democrats, Education Reform, Elections, Environment, Ethics, Funding, Gender, Health, Justice, Supporting public schools, Texas

Harold Meyerson: Elon Musk Demands a Payout of $50 Billion or He Will Leave Tesla

By dianeravitch
June 14, 2024 //
4

Harold Meyerson is an editor at The American Prospect. He ranks out Elon Musk in this article for his maniacal greed. At a moment like this, I think of the book The Spirit Level, which argues that the happiest societies are those with the most equality. Tesla stockholders apparently approved the $50 billion payday.

Meyerson writes:

It’s election season near and far. Voting begins today, and continues through Sunday, for the European Parliament, in which parties of the far right are expected to pick up seats. India’s just-completed election demonstrated the limits of Hindu nationalism, with lower-class (and -caste) Hindus joining Muslims to put the brakes on Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu-über-alles policies. Mexico’s incoming president is a female progressive climate scientist—a trifecta breakthrough for our southern neighbor. And on July 4, U.K. voters will go to the polls, likely to reject the continued misrule of the Etonian twits and LizTrussian libertarians who lead the Tory party.

But the most ridiculous and outrageous of this month’s elections will take place one week from today in our very own United States. On June 13, Tesla shareholders will vote on whether to grant founder and CEO Elon Musk a bonus worth roughly $50 billion (estimates range from $45 billion to $56 billion).

This is the first time in recorded history that the proposed pay level of a single person has been so large that it’s actually a macroeconomic issue.

Over the past several months, we’ve seen shareholder fights over various CEO compensation packages, including the reward of $30 million to the outgoing head of Boeing. The proposed Musk bonus, however, is more than 1,000 times the amount proposed for Boeing’s ex. No remotely comparable paycheck appears ever to have existed. The Musk bonus is more in line with the amount of money that Congress appropriated for Ukraine—$61 billion—earlier this year after months of legislative and political maneuvering. Moving this amount of money is customarily a question before nations, not shareholders or banks, and only very wealthy nations at that.

The tale begins in 2023, when Musk purchased Twitter through some bank loans secured by his Tesla holdings, as well as $20 billion that Musk put up himself through the sale of some of his Tesla stock. His moves caused Tesla’s share value to plummet, costing him roughly another $20 billion or thereabouts. In consequence, Musk fell from his perch as the planet’s wealthiest person all the way down to the planet’s third-wealthiest person. By granting Musk $50 billion in stock, Tesla shareholders could push him back up to where Musk believes he belongs: not just Earth’s wealthiest human, but also a guy worth more than the GDP of numerous small countries.

This isn’t the first time Musk’s cronies on Tesla’s board of directors have asked shareholders to reward him with a bonus of this size, but the reward that those shareholders approved was struck down by a chancery judge in Delaware, where Tesla, like most major U.S. corporations, is incorporated. On June 13, shareholders will not only have the opportunity to rectify that judge’s mistake, but also to move the company’s incorporation from Delaware to Texas, where law and the Texas Rangers have always favored the rich. 

Several of the leading companies that advise shareholders on how to vote, including ISS and Glass Lewis, have recommended that shareholders reject granting the bonus, noting that the value of Tesla’s stock ain’t what it used to be, and that other companies have now entered the market that Tesla effectively had to itself for the past decade. Musk himself has lobbied for the bonus on X (the new name for Twitter) and issued dark hints that he might redirect his energies to some of the other companies he owns, such as SpaceX, if he’s not suitably rewarded. (His redirected energies to X, I’m compelled to report, have not necessarily helped that company.) Indeed, just this week, Musk ordered Nvidia to redirect AI chips that Tesla had ordered to two of his other companies, X and xAI.

In both speech and action, Musk has made clear that he abhors unions, telling one New York Times DealBook forum that he’s opposed to the very idea, and refusing to bargain with the Tesla mechanics in Sweden—where 90 percent of the workforce is unionized and employer acceptance of unions is the norm—who’ve joined a union. But by withholding those AI chips from Tesla and redirecting them to his other concerns, and by threatening to all but abandon Tesla unless he gets his greater-by-orders-of-magnitude-than-anything-in-human-history bonus, Musk has become the one-man equivalent of a protesting union: Give me a raise or I’ll walk off the job.

Let it not be said, then, that Elon Musk is against all unions. When it comes to the Union of Elon Musk, he’s a total fanboy.

~ HAROLD MEYERSON

Follow Harold Meyerson on Twitter

Categories Billionaires, Character, Ethics, Unions

Mary Trump: Uncle Sam or the Crazy Convicted Felon Uncle?

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2024 //
30

Mary Trump, the niece of Donald Trump, has repeatedly warned about the dangerous character of her uncle. She wrote the national bestseller Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man.

She wrote on her blog today:

In the wake of the 80th anniversary of D-Day, I’m reminded just how stark the choice before us is—on the one hand, a man who understands sacrifice and honors service, on the other one who, after strenuously avoiding his own service calls those who died fighting for democracy “suckers” and “losers” and then turns around, as he did last Saturday, and says, telling the truth for once, “unless you are a psycho or a crazy person or a very stupid person, who would say that, anyway?”

Well, Donald, according to your former Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, you would—and you did.

Last Saturday also marked 150 days until Election Day, which means we now have 145 days to save this country. Just as in 2020, we are on a knife’s edge in the choice between democracy and what we can now clearly say is fascism. (Back in the more innocent days of the fall of 2020, we were still calling it autocracy.) The difference now, of course, is that the edge of the knife is even thinner, the stakes higher, and the electorate by turns more misinformed, more checked out, and more demoralized than we were almost four years ago. And all of us continue to be traumatized to one degree or another, a fact that is barely acknowledged. 

So, what do we do? I think the first thing we must do, is to make clear to Americans exactly what they’re choosing between — Uncle Sam or the crazy uncle who wants to burn it all down.

Uncle Sam, representative of the best of what America aspires to, was well-represented last weekend in Normandy, France, where President Biden traveled to pay his, and our, respects to the original Antifa activists — the brave allied soldiers who stormed the beaches to liberate a continent and save the world from the dark forces of fascism which the other uncle is currently stoking. 

While in France, President Joe Biden visited the Aisne-Marne, the American cemetery in France where many of our heroes are buried. Five years ago, my convicted felon uncle refused to go to Aisne-Marne because it was raining. He didn’t want to mess up his hair. Seriously. But, much worse, he didn’t see the point in wasting his time going to see the aforementioned “suckers” and “losers”—those whose bravery helped turn the tide against the Third Reich.

Joe Biden reminded the world what American leadership and courage look like. He reminded the world of the power of alliances. He reminded the world what is best about America. Every day, my convicted felon uncle holds up a mirror to the worst of us, and it’s long past time people start looking—really looking—at what is reflected there.

While President Biden stood with our allies and argued that the United States should continue to lead the fight against fascism, my convicted felon uncle was being interviewed by “Dr.” Phil McGraw and Sean Hannity, altogether three of the greatest examples of white men failing up in American, and he made it clear that one of the driving forces behind his wanting to be president again is “revenge.” He wants to be free and clear to go after his political enemies. Although the two sycophants tried mightily to steer Donald away from the subject, he could not be dissuaded—and he couldn’t have been more clear:

“Sometimes revenge can be justified,” he told McGraw

“I would have every right to go after them,” he told Hannity.

We are reminded every day that convicted felon Donald Trump hates America — he hates its people, its ideals, its democracy, its judicial system, its leaders, its rule of law. He even hates his own followers. At Saturday’s rally, he came right out and admitted it: “I don’t care about you. I just want your vote.” That he openly courts and aligns himself with the same forces we defeated in Europe 80 years ago makes it all so much worse.

Joe Biden has pulled us out of the hole we were in thanks to the Trump administration’s horrific and willful mishandling of the pandemic and the economic collapse that ensued; he has restored our standing in the world; he honors the memories of those who sacrificed everything so that our democracy might endure. My uncle, the convicted felon, honors nothing and he will continue to rally the darkest forces—that he himself has lifted from their hiding places—to erase those memories and render those sacrifices meaningless. 

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a normal election. In 146 days, Americans are going to choose what kind of country we want to be going forward. Will it be the same country that fought on those beaches against the evil of tyranny and fascism? Or will we choose to align the most powerful country in history with the malicious designs of the enemies we risked so much to vanquish?

There is a palpable sense of fear among the good guys these days. In Europe, our allies wonder who we are. At home, we wonder the same. Are we the good guys or the bad guys? Are we aligned with Uncle Sam or the uncle who can’t seem to speak without lying or act without committing crimes against our country and our Constitution? In just a few months, we will know. 

I believe in the America Joe Biden and his party represents. I believe our best chance forward is to make sure the administration stays in Democratic hands, we increase the Democrat’s Senate majority, and make sure we take over the House. Overall, we are a good people, striving to do better. I believe we are better than my convicted felon uncle and the hatred he espouses and inspires.

America has won this fight before. In 146 days, we can win it again.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Cruelty, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Trump

Disgusting! Pennsylvania GOP Legislators Jeer 2 Capitol Police Officers Who Defended Capitol on Jan. 6

By dianeravitch
June 6, 2024 //
21

There is something about the MAGA movement that is corroding the moral and ethical standards of our country. Evidence occurred when two members of the Capitol Police who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, appeared before the Pennsylvania legislature recently. Some members of the GOP booed; some walked out.

What kind of lawmakers are they? Don’t they take an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution? Did they want the mob to seize the Capitol and take hostages? Did they want the mob to hang Mike Pence? Does the oath allow disgruntled people to try to overthrow the government?

No, this is what the Pennsylvania Constiturion says: 

 "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support, obey
     and defend the Constitution of the United States and the
     Constitution of this Commonwealth and that I will discharge the
     duties of my office with fidelity."

The Washington Post reported:

Two former law enforcement officers who defended the U.S. Capitol from rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection were jeered by state GOP lawmakers as they visited Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives on Wednesday, according to several Democratic lawmakers present.


Former U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn and former sergeant Aquilino Gonell were introduced on the floor Wednesday as “heroes” by House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) for having “bravely defended democracy in the United States Capitol against rioters and insurrection on January 6.”
As the two men — both of whom were injured by rioters on Jan. 6 — were introduced, the House floor descended into chaos. According to Democratic lawmakers, several GOP lawmakers hissed and booed, with a number of Republicans walking out of the chamber in protest.


“I heard some hissing and I saw about eight to 10 of my Republican colleagues walk out angrily as they were announced as police officers from the U.S. Capitol on January 6,” state Rep. Arvind Venkat (D) said in a phone interview Thursday. “I was shocked and appalled,” he added. According to Venkat, the commotion lasted about five minutes. Fewer than 100 lawmakers, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, were present in the chamber before the chaotic scene unfolded, he said.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Justice, Trump
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