Read this story and tell me if I'm crazy.

[Smarmie Doofus]

Obama and Duncan heap praise on Bloomberg and Klein and site the latter's efforts at school "reform" in NYC as a model for the country. By "reform" these four gentlemen seem invariably to mean privatization ( in the form of charter schools), and breaking the teachers' union. They don't call it that but they know and we know that that is what they mean.

But does it sound as though the school system described below is capable of even *recognizing* where "reform" might be needed? Much less carrying out said "reform"?

I found this buried on page 68 of today's hard copy of the Daily News ( next to the death notices). The News is published by a billionaire crony of Bloomberg named Morton Zuckerman ( You guessed it: another prominent and virulent anti-union "reformer".) Today's lead editorial( 14 paragraphs!) : ritual trashing of the teachers' union and warnings of dire consequences for the NYS legislature didn't change the education law in NYS to weaken the union and allow for double the # of privatized..... I mean *charter*... schools.


Department of Education backs $206M no-bid bus contract with bribe-linked Logan Bus Company

by Rachel Monahan
daily news staff writer

Friday, December 18th 2009, 4:00 AM

*

A City Department of Education panel gave the green light to a $206 million no-bid contract with Logan Bus Co., whose employees bribed city inspectors and a mobbed-up union.

A lawyer representing eight other bus companies - including Amboy Bus Co. and Pioneer Transportation Corp. - immediately said they would file suit to block the contract.

"What you are being asked to do is wrong," lawyer Steven Shore warned panel members before the vote. "In direct return for ... unlawful payments, Logan received awards of numerous bus routes."

After being given immunity from prosecution, Logan Bus Co. owner Michael Tonabe confessed to the FBI that his employees greased palms to secure more bus routes.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/12/18/2009-12-18_educrats_ok_bus_deal_with_bribelinked_firm.html#ixzz0a618DzIz

[Riley18]

1. It is very sad that Obama is doing the same thing to unions that Reagan did.

What Reagan did to the Air Traffic Control Union was typical of rich Republicans. I voted for change from their type of government, but it looks like it is worse somehow. It's like Obama and Duncan are somehow doing a "good" thing when in fact they are further destroying the American way of life. Once the rich have bled every dime out of privatization of education, we will be left with no free education for our children.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. If you call it "reform" it sounds better .

>>>>It's like Obama and Duncan are somehow doing a "good" thing when in fact they are further destroying the American way of life.>>>>

They are engaged.... not in reform ... but in the *opposite* of reform.

The Orwellian upside-downedness is certainly not a novelty for politicians but why aren't more people calling them out on it?

[ThomCat]

3. I am so sick of people thinking that Obama is a progressive

and thinking that he somehow MUST be pro-union just because they imagine it to be so.

His bullshit support for Bloomberg's trashing of teachers unions and unionized schools here in NYC is ample proof of how anti-union Obama is.

The way Obama required auto makers to jump through hoops to get help, including breaking union contracts and cutting union wages and benefits, while at the very same time shoveling money at wall street firms and insisting that wall street contracts were somehow sacrosacnt and absolutely could not be broken, is also ample proof of his low regard for unions.

Obama is not a progressive. Obama is not a liberal. Hell, if he moves any farther to the right he'll be farther to the right than most historical republican presidents, so he's barely a Democrat. :grr:

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. +1

[Smarmie Doofus]

5. Truly. Neither Nixon nor Reagan would have contemplated....

>>>>Obama is not a progressive. Obama is not a liberal. Hell, if he moves any farther to the right he'll be farther to the right than most historical republican presidents, so he's barely a Democrat. :grr:>>>>

.... such shenanigans. They wouldn't have DARED. DEMS in congress and elsewhere would have been all over them.

But since *Obama's* doing the dirty work.....