Thursday, September 22, 2011

Suit: Saudi Gov't Sponsored 9/11 - Investors.com

Suit: Saudi Gov't Sponsored 9/11 - Investors.com

Does Sen. Dianne Feinstein & Husband, Richard Blum Smell Money On U.C. Privitazation? THEY SMELL MONEY EVERYWHERE FEINSTEIN VOTES IN THE SENATE!

THE STENCH OF CORRUPTION: THE RICHARD BLUM, DIANNE FEINSTEIN SEWER
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TWO OF THE BIGGEST WHITE COLLAR CRIMINALS IN THE SENATE ARE RICHARD BLUM, AND DIANNE FEINSTEIN, GENEROUS DONORS TO OBAMA, AND THE DEMS. KEEPING THE DEMS GREASED WITH FEINSTEIN BLUM DIRTY MONEY KEEPS THEIR MOUTHS CLOSED ON FEINSTEIN’S STAGGERING CORRUPTION.

YOU SAW FEINSTEIN AT OBAMA’S INAUGURAL, WITH BLUM SITTING RIGHT BEHIND OBAMA PICKING POCKETS FOR DEALS!

RICHARD BLUM BOUGHT HIS POSITION ON THE REGENTS BY HANDING CORRUPT MUCKER, GRAY DAVIS A $75,000 BRIBE. THE ONLY EXPERIENCE WITH EDUCATION BLUM HAD WAS WHEN HE OPERATED A PHONY TAX-SUPPORTED COMPUTER SCHOOL THAT FEINSTEIN PUMPED HARD IN THE SENATE. WHILE IT WAS ONLY SMALL CHANGE FOR THIS CRIME DUAL, THE PHONY SCHOOLS BLED TAX PAYERS OF MILLIONS WHICH WENT RIGHT INTO FEINSTEIN’S POCKETS!

RICHARD BLUM AND FEINSTEIN WILL DO ANYTHING, SELL OUT ANYONE TO PUT LOOT IN THEIR POCKETS.

FEINSTEIN IS AN ADVOCATE FOR OPEN BORDERS, OBAMA NON-ENFORCEMENT OF LAWS PROHIBITING THE EMPLOYMENT OF ILLEGALS, NO I.D. REQUIRED OF ILLEGALS TO VOTE, NO ENGLISH ONLY, AND MILLIONS OF “CHEAP” LABOR ILLEGAL FARM WORKERS TO BENEFIT HER BIG AG BIZ DONORS!

FEINSTEIN HAS LONG HIRED ILLEGALS AT HER S.F. HOTEL, ONLY MILES FROM HER $16 MILLION DOLLAR WAR PROFITS MANSION!

GUESS BLUM SMELLS MONEY IN THE PRIVATIZATION OF THE U.S. SYSTEM. IT’S LONG BEEN BELIEVED THE ONLY REASON HE’S ON THE BOARD IS TO SNIFF OUT LUCRATIVE DEALS FEINSTEIN COULD PUSH IN THE SENATE… WHEN SHE AND BOXER ARE NOT SABOTAGING ANY ETHICS INVESTIGATION INTO FEINSTEIN’S CORRUPTION!

“Richard Blum, a UC regent and the multimillionaire spouse of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, has called for a turn toward outright privatization. “I’ve been watching this for 10 years, it has essentially been a waste of our time to beat on governors and legislators,” Blum told reporters on Friday. “Where is the money? It’s in the private sector, with corporations and with wealthy individuals.”



University of California prepares huge tuition hikes
By David Brown

22 September 2011

The Board of Regents for the University of California (UC) has proposed to raise tuition by up to 16 percent a year over the next four years. The increases would bring tuition to $22,000 for the 2015-2016 school year. Adding campus fees, room and board, and books and supplies brings the total cost of a four-year bachelor’s degree program to a staggering $160,000.
UC President Mark Yudof claims the extreme increases are needed to meet the projected $2.5 billion shortfall in the current UC budget. The alternatives, according to Yudof, are increasing the number of higher paying out-of-state students—decreasing the enrollment of California students—or eliminating classes. Although several regents loudly opposed raising tuition, they offered no serious counterproposals.
One regent, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, suggested a new tax dedicated to the state colleges and universities, but his regressive proposal is little more than demagoguery given the opposition of the financial oligarchy to any significant increase in social spending.
Since coming to office, Democratic Governor Jerry Brown has approved a budget that may cut almost $3 billion from education. An earlier plan to raise taxes primarily targeting the state’s poor was scrapped due to lack of support.
While Democrats control both houses of the state legislature, not a single politician has proposed raising taxes on the wealthy to preserve social funding. Currently only 11 percent of UC’s $22 billion budget is paid for by the state of California.
Richard Blum, a UC regent and the multimillionaire spouse of Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, has called for a turn toward outright privatization. “I’ve been watching this for 10 years, it has essentially been a waste of our time to beat on governors and legislators,” Blum told reporters on Friday. “Where is the money? It’s in the private sector, with corporations and with wealthy individuals.”
At the same time that programs are cut and tuition soars, the Board of Regents has approved several bonuses to already highly compensated administrators. The largest of these, $744,950, was given to UC chief investment officer Marie Berggren, bringing her total annual compensation to $1.2 million. The bonus was required by her contract due to a better than expected performance of the UC’s $70 billion endowment.
Similarly, on Thursday the board approved a $259,000 raise for UC Davis Medical Center CEO Ann Madden Rice, bringing her base pay to $960,000 a year. Using the same justification as the bailed-out banks to defend exorbitant CEO pay, the Board of Regents claims these huge paychecks are needed to stay competitive and retain “talent.”
Significantly, most of the highest paid UC employees head programs such as sports or medical centers, which generate large amounts of money. Blum’s push for corporate intervention would only accelerate the current trend of cutting programs that do not make money and concentrating wealth on the programs that do.
Financial aid programs like the Pell Grant are facing cuts of their own, deepening the crises for students from lower and middle-income families. Under these circumstances, young people will be forced to either quit college, or take out gargantuan loans.
These debts burden working class families for decades. Already by June of last year, student loans exceeded credit card debt in the US for the first time.
Unlike credit card debt, student loans cannot be discharged in bankruptcy and there is no statute of limitations for repayment. As tuition rises and the job market remains stagnant, far more students will find themselves in cycle of debt they cannot escape. In 2009 the percentage of people who defaulted on their student loans within two years of entering repayment rose from 7 percent to 8.8 percent.
There is no longer any significant section of the bourgeoisie that views public education as crucial to society. In bourgeois politics the only important question now is whether students will be employable.
Indicative of this is the Los Angeles Times’ coverage of State Senate Bill 547, which would loosen high school standards for producing college-ready graduates. A recent editorial, for example, states, “not all students are interested in attending college, and not all of them should.” Rather, what is needed is an education system that primarily trains students to “qualify for a satisfying and well-paid job.” Nowhere is it suggested that education is important to a person’s quality of life or the social fabric of society.
Students and their families must reject the position that they must either become indentured servants or beg from the rich—or perhaps do both—to get a basic education. Free, quality education from pre-school through university is a fundamental social right, which must be fought for on the basis of an independent socialist perspective.

RICK PERRY'S JOBS RECORD REALITY: the jobs all went to "cheap" labor illegals!

ISN’T RICK PERRY’S “GREAT” JOBS RECORD IN TEXAS A RESULT OF KEEPING HIS STATE FLOODED WITH “CHEAP” LABOR ILLEGALS???

HERE’S WHAT IT REALLY LOOKS LIKE:

THE REALITY FOR JOE LEGAL, v JOSE ILLEGAL:
(BUT JOE LEGAL STILL GETS THE TAX BILLS TO PAY FOR JOSE ILLEGAL’S LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN OUR BORDERS)
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http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/joe-american-legal-vs-la-raza-jose.html
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September 21, 2011
Opposing Views on Perry as Job-Creating Master
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
During Rick Perry’s first political campaign almost 30 years ago, a supporter at one stop suggested he take credit for the rain that had broken a dry spell the night before. But his father warned, “Son, you can take credit for the rain if you want, but they’ll blame you for the drought.”
Lately Mr. Perry, the Texas governor and early leader in Republican presidential polls, has been taking quite a bit of credit of a different sort: for a strong jobs and economic record in Texas.
But if the very latest economic data is any guide, he has left himself open to attack from opponents like Mitt Romney, as unemployment numbers for Texas have recently started heading upward.
Mr. Perry is basing his campaign to an extraordinary degree, if a recent swing through Iowa is any indication, on the contention that he is a job-creation sorcerer, conjuring new employment through smart stewardship of his executive duties in Texas, while avoiding discussing almost any other policy issue.
“Forty percent of all the jobs created in America since June of 2009 were in my home state,” he said Friday during a coffee shop rally in Newton, Iowa.
But there are two main ways to measure employment and jobs, and it is by only one measure — the one that Mr. Perry cites, which relies on surveys of company payrolls — that the trend of late in Texas has been positive.
By the other measure — total employment and the unemployment rate, which is based on surveys of families — the state’s numbers have unquestionably taken a recent turn for the worse, even as the national average has remained unchanged.
Texas, in fact, has about 80,000 fewer people employed now than in May, when total employment peaked, according to seasonally adjusted federal data through the end of last month. Some of that is explained by a decline of almost 30,000 in the labor force, but the main difference is simply that more people are unemployed.
The state’s unemployment rate spiked to 8.5 percent in August, a jump from 7.7 percent from June 2009, the date Mr. Perry himself has chosen as a starting point for the job-growth phenomenon he frequently describes on the campaign trail.
Over the same period, the national unemployment rate has actually fallen by four-tenths of one percentage point to 9.1 percent, a rate that nevertheless remains above that of Texas. So the gap between the nation’s high unemployment rate and Texas’s rate has been narrowing.
The Texas-as-job-machine message also hit a bump on Friday when the state’s work force commission reported that Texas actually lost 1,300 jobs during August, the first decline in nearly a year.
Over all, though, the number of jobs in Texas has been rising, but the number of people in the state who actually report that they are working has been declining since the spring. One possibility is that more people are working more than one job or that people who are self-employed — and not counted in payroll data — are not getting as much work. But economists say it is hard to figure what is going on.
“I have to admit we have looked at this, and we haven’t solved it yet,” said Mine K. Yucel, vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. She credits high oil prices, relative stability in the housing market and strong exports for recent growth in jobs, but cautioned that the state’s economic future was tied to the fortunes of shaky national and global economies.
One possible explanation for the contradictory data, Ms. Yucel added, is that it comes from two different federal surveys that “you would expect to be consistent, but they are not consistent all the time.”
Economists do pay more attention to the payroll numbers — the ones Mr. Perry cites — because that data is based on a larger sample.
Mr. Perry’s claims about job creation are a common refrain on the campaign trail that resonates with those who turn out to support him — so much so that it raises the question of whether he is putting too many eggs in one basket, especially with the nation potentially heading into a double-dip recession and the Republican nominating contests just months away.
On Wednesday Mr. Perry doubled down a day ahead of the Republican presidential debate, calling a rival, Mr. Romney, a “flailing” candidate who had the “near worst-in-the-nation jobs record” when he was Massachusetts governor, while promoting recent private sector jobs gains in Texas.
In a statement issued on Friday after Texas released its data showing the slight loss in jobs during August, the Perry campaign suggested that some blame lay with the “misguided policies” of the Obama administration because “like every other state, Texas is not immune to the effects of the national recession.”
A Perry spokesman, Ray Sullivan, added in a separate e-mail that there was no danger in the governor basing so much of his campaign pitch on jobs and the economy.
“Texas has led the nation in job creation by a wide margin in recent years, even in recession, and that will not change in a matter of months,” Mr. Sullivan said, adding that the state’s “low tax rates, fair and predictable regulatory climate, and high quality of life continue to attract employers and population at rapid rates.”
But on Wednesday, a Romney spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, sought to diminish Mr. Perry’s economic record, describing him as a “career politician whose own state’s unemployment rate has doubled on his watch and is the worst in the region.”

POSTAL JOBS - OBAMA'S NEWEST FRONTIER TO ASSAULT THE AMERICAN WORKER

HIS SEC. OF LABOR IS A LA RAZA SUPREMACIST, HILDA SOLIS. HIS ADMINISTRATION IS INFESTED WITH LA RAZA PARTY MEMBERS. HIS NOMINEE TO THE COURT, SONIA SOTOMAYER IS A LA RAZA PARTY MEMBER AND VOTED NO ON E-VERIFY PURSUANT TO OBAMA’S AGENDA OF PUTTING MORE “CHEAP” LABOR ILLEGALS INTO OUR JOBS.

HIS ENTIRE “JOBS” PROGRAM IS BASED ON AMNESTY, AND ASSAULTING THE AMERICAN WORKER ALL OVER THE NATION! THAT IS OBAMA!

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Obama backs slashing of postal jobs and benefits
By Hector Cordon
22 September 2011
President Obama on Monday outlined a plan to destroy tens of thousands of jobs at the United States Postal Service (USPS) and cut health and retirement benefits.
The proposals for “postal reform” were part of his $3 trillion deficit reduction plan, which includes devastating cuts in Medicare and Medicaid. Obama called for giving “the USPS authority, which it has said it will exercise, to reduce mail delivery from six days to five days.”
In addition, federal contributions into the Retiree Health Benefit will be restructured and, what is termed a $6.9 billion “surplus” in the retirement fund will be refunded to the government. Obama said this would save the Postal Service $20 billion over several years and reduce the federal deficit by $19 billion over 10 years.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, in an appearance earlier this month before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, requested legislation that would allow him to destroy 220,000 jobs, shred union contracts, close thousands of local post offices and end Saturday delivery.
Donahue said the USPS faced the prospect of insolvency by the end of September, when it was expected to default on a $5.5 billion payment to its retiree health care program, and a consequent shutdown of postal operations this winter. “Without legislative change this year,” Donahue threatened, “the Postal Service faces default, as available liquidity at the end of this month will be insufficient to meet our financial obligations.” In a subsequent interview with the New York Times, Donahoe said a possible closure was delayed to next summer.
Additional proposed cutbacks include the closure or consolidation of over 250 mail-processing facilities by 2013—over half of the total mail-processing plants, dramatically shrinking its transportation network—and a one-day delay in the processing of mail. Postal officials claim this will save $3 billion per year. It had previously announced an ongoing review of 3,700 post offices that could be closed.
The Postal Service reported a net loss of $8.5 billion for the 2010 fiscal year and projects a $9 billion deficit for this fiscal year, which ends September 30. A $15 billion line of credit from the Treasury will be tapped out by month’s end as well.
Since 2007 the Postal Service has been battered by the recession’s impact on mail volume and electronic communication and bill payment. Mail volume has fallen by 22 percent, or 43 billion pieces. The USPS career workforce has been slashed by 110,000 workers and its costs cut by $12 billion. Since 2006, 186 facilities have been closed. The USPS currently employs 574,000 career employees.
In introducing his proposals Obama presented the deficit reduction plan as a “jobs creation” program. The cynicism of this remark can be measured by the amount of jobs lost due to ending Saturday delivery alone, estimated by the postal service to be 40,000.
In a white paper released at the beginning of August the Postal Service recommended establishing its own health benefit program. It maintained that such a change “would allow the Postal Service to fully incorporate private sector best practices, saving money while also providing comparable benefits to employees.” In other words, higher premiums and deductibles paid to a smaller group of health care providers.
The paper goes on to advocate the abandonment of the federal retirement programs the USPS currently participates in. “[W]e believe the simplest and fairest method to the establishment of a Postal Service Retirement Plan is to withdraw our existing 480,000 annuitants and our 600,000 active employees from CSRS [Civil Service Retirement System] and FERS [Federal Employees Retirement System] and place them in a new Postal Service Retirement Program.”
The new program will terminate the defined benefits of the existing funds for new hires and replace them with a substandard defined contribution plan.
The white paper’s constant reference to “private sector best practices” begs the question: Are these proposals aimed at constructing a bridge to a privatized postal operation?
Countering Donahoe’s request for legislation to override the unions’ contractual restrictions on layoffs, the Obama administration instead is recommending that the postal service use some of the $6.9 billion from the proposed pension refund to offer employees retirement incentives and buyouts.
Far from being a kinder alternative to outright layoffs, this is simply a calculated move by Obama to garner the support of the four postal unions in imposing brutal cuts on its members.
For their part, the unions have focused their opposition to the elimination of Saturday delivery and the loss of dues paying members. The ability of the Postal Service to wipe out hundreds of thousands of jobs, however, has depended on the collaboration of the unions. Donahoe paid tribute to the unions in an interview with the Washington Post, saying, “We’ve reduced headcount by 225,000 since the year 2000. There are very few labor unions in the world that wouldn’t be jumping up and down ranting and raving about that.”
Opposed to any struggle against the Obama administration, unions lobbied congress and called isolated—and quickly forgotten—local demonstrations. A joint national demonstration called for next week will simply provide a platform to various Democratic politicians.
The response of the American Postal Workers Union, the largest of the four postal unions, was to ignore Obama’s provocative attack. In an announcement, entitled, “APWU Praises Obama Effort, But Long-Term Solution is Needed,” it stated “We also will continue to work with the White House and legislators in both houses of Congress to achieve financial stability for the Postal Service.”
A serious defense of jobs, working conditions and benefits must start with the construction of rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, to wage an industrial and political struggle against the Obama administration and the profit system he defends.

Obama backs slashing of postal jobs and benefits

Obama backs slashing of postal jobs and benefits

Poverty soars among young families in US

Poverty soars among young families in US

WHAT IMPACT HAS IMPORTING 40 MILLION OF MEXICO'S POOR, ILLITERATE, CRIMINAL AND PREGNANT HAD ON AMERICA'S POVERTY?

EVERY YEAR THERE ARE 1.5 MILLION ILLEGALS CLIMB OUR BORDERS AND JOBS AND 1.5 MILLION AMERIANS FALL INTO POVERTY!

CA ALONE PUTS OUT $20 BILLION A YEAR TO SUBSIDIZE ALL THIS "CHEAP" LABOR THE LA RAZA DEMS CONTINUE TO IMPORT WITH OPEN BORDERS, "DREAM ACTS FOR LA RAZA", OBAMA NON-ENFORCEMENT, AND SABOTAGE OF E-VERIFY!