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Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Joan Swirsky On The D.C. Freak Show and The Kavanaugh Hearings

Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination to
the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 27, 2018.Erin Schaff / EPA
P.T. Barnum Had Nothing on the Democrat’s Freak Show

The Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus that I attended in my youth showcased acts like the freak show in which people with all sorts of bizarre physical features would attract millions of morbidly curious wide-eyed visitors.
But even Tom Thumb and the Siamese twins, the bearded lady and the dog-faced boy, and the head of Medusa that “turned men into stone” had nothing on the oddities of the 2018 circus that billed itself as the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee’s Hearing to determine if Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s selection for the Supreme Court, is fit for that august position.
Those oddities, however, were not physical, but rather deformities of character, integrity, honor.
After an exhaustive interview process, a marathon of visiting members of Congress for personal interviews, and being investigated six times by the FBI for his position as U.S. Circuit Judge on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (and other lofty positions), the married father of two adorable young daughters seemed headed straight to take his place beside the president’s former pick, conservative jurist Neil Gorsuch.
But wait! What is this slithering worm in the ointment?
It was the prospect of a majority of conservative justices on the highest court in the land eventually overturning their most cherished law––the “right” to kill in-utero embryos, fetuses, and babies…right up to the ninth month of pregnancy! And we all know how proud State Legislator Obama was about his legislation in Chicago that allowed doctors to snuff the lives out of living, breathing infants who survived the gruesome abortion procedure.
As far as the left is concerned, you can take military strength, low taxes, high employment (for blacks, Hispanics, women and youth), the genuine protection of our borders, equitable treaties between the U.S. and other countries, huge inroads in foreign policy, on and on and on, and throw them all in the garbage in comparison to the absolute Holy Grail of leftism: abortion.

THE PLAN
The Democrats’ initial plan to quash the Kavanaugh nomination was to grill him so relentlessly and to examine his judicial decisions so microscopically that personal and professional flaws would be found to disqualify him for the job. It turned out, to their everlasting anguish, that he passed all the tests with flying colors and the only remaining procedure was a vote in the Senate which promised to be narrow but successful.
Then quite suddenly––literally out of the blue, it seemed––came a challenge to Judge Kavanaugh’s heretofore sterling reputation: an accusation from a female professor in California that when teenager Kavanaugh and his friend were 17 and drunk, he groped her 15-year-old self and her bathing-suit-clad body and put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. Her report was a little sketchy––not sure of the date or venue––but quite sure of the perpetrator.
Where did this challenge come from? Why none other than the Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Senator Dianne Feinstein from California, who said that almost two months earlier she had received a letter from the aggrieved professor, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, but was asked to keep it secret.
Obviously Sen. Feinstein or a member of her staff leaked the confidential letter to a member of the always-accommodating leftist media…and the race was on for all the Progressives to express their terminal outrage and demand––DEMAND!––to question the judge about this 36-year-old accusation.
Don’t ask these evolved politicians the color of their neckties two days ago or what they ate for dinner three nights ago, but trust them when they say that a memory from drunk teenagers almost 40 years ago is credible. Can’t make this up!
Better than the dog-faced boy!
THE STARS OF THE D.C. FREAK SHOW
RING ONE: Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, to the greatest show on earth. Watch the magic taking place in the center ring as the craven leftwing media elevate innuendo over truth, lies over objective reality, fantasy over rationality.
Yes, they have tried and utterly failed to destroy the Trump presidency since the day citizen Trump and his gorgeous wife Melania came down the escalator to announce his intentions to run for president. In fact, nothing the media have done, said, invented, distorted, fabricated and twisted has diminished the president’s blazing effectiveness and successes. The media bosses––aka media whores––are leftists and globalists at heart and have aided and abetted every effort to undermine the president and have paid their shills (anchors, reporters, commentators, et al) to do the same.
But watch as they continue to contort themselves into knots never before seen in the human species!
RING TWO: In the second of our three rings is the left’s newest darling, the 51-year-old woman, wife, mother, widely traveled jet-setter (who’s afraid to fly, she says), and aggrieved party. Observe the professor, Christine Blasey Ford, as she speaks in a widdie biddie liddle three-year-old voice, implying, at least to me, that the accused predators of her teens must have been attracted to what was then goo goo gurgles that sounded like an 18-month-old widdle baby!
But wait! In all the media blather, why has no mention been made of what famed radio host Michael Savage has alleged, that Dr. Ford is deeply tied to the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency)?
“She just so happens to head up the CIA undergraduate internship program at Stanford University,” Savage reveals. And her brother Ralph, “used to work for the International Law Firm of Baker, Hostetler…the firm that created Fusion GPS,” the company that wrote the [phony] Russian “dossier” that was fraudulently used to try to destroy the Trump presidency.
Savage continues: “Baker Hostetler is located in the same building where the CIA operates three companies…all operated by Ralph Blasey II, the father of Christine. Also that Christine’s Grandfather was Nicholas Deak––former CIA Director William Casey acknowledged Deak’s decades of service to the CIA.”
For that matter, why have the media not investigated or brought to public awareness Professor Ford’s extensive writings on––ta da––abortion? According to Mary L. Davenport, M.D., Dr. Ford “has 21 articles listed in PubMed…six of them are on mifepristone, the abortion pill.”
Mmmm….CIA connections, a fetish with abortions. Nothing to see here. After all, she was “credible.” Really? Does that mean she was able to read her answers without drooling? Refer to her hippocampus without laughing out loud?
But the question remains: what don’t we know about her background? What notes did her therapist take that have not been publicly revealed? Does she have borderline personality disorder? Is she a sociopath, the type who can look directly in your eyes and lie through her teeth or pass any number of lie detector tests without blinking an eye?
Will the FBI investigation this week include those therapist’s notes and more in-depth information about the professor who can’t seem to remember where or when the groping incident took place and cannot explain why the people she claims were present during the incident all deny being there and, in one case, knowing her!
RING THREE: In the third ring of our three-ring circus is ranking Judiciary Committee member Senator Dianne Feinstein, the arch manipulator of the hearings. After the judge presented an airtight explanation of his whereabouts on the evening in question, even providing a decades-old calendar proving he was nowhere near the teenage get-together, Sen. Feinstein, writer Roger Simon reports, “was up to her old tricks…reading a litany of recent accusations against Kavanaugh so ludicrous even the New York Times wouldn’t print them.
As Monica Showalter spells out, about Sen. Feinstein’s decision to sit on Dr. Ford’s letter for 60 days: “Sen. Dianne Feinstein dropped herself to the bottom of the barrel as a political hack.  Her performance, from start to finish, was a disgrace. It was so bad, so loathsome, even to the left, that it’s hard to think it won’t cost her Senate seat, where she is in a tight race this November… being challenged by a crazed far leftist of the worst Sacramento-swamp stripe. Couple it with her employment of that Chinese spy for 20 years and her defense of the Steele dossier, and an ugly Jurassic partisan hack picture emerges.”
And the inimitable Senator John Kennedy (R-LA), clearly directing his remarks to Sen. Feinstein, had this to say: “To the person who leaked Dr. Ford’s letter, to the person who breached Dr. Ford’s anonymity, and to the person who did not tell her she could have avoided this by testifying privately in her home in California, you know who you are. You should bow your head in shame, in my opinion, and you should hide your head in a bag every day for the rest of your natural life.”
Oh… and Sen. Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, has served the university of Palo Alto as a member of the University of California Board of Regents since 2002. Kinda ironic that this is where Christine Blasey Ford works!
JOINING THE CAST
Hard to know if D.C. is a magnet for political freaks or if the very business of politics itself produces them. Whatever…in 2018, there seem to be 20 circuses worth of these Democrat miscreants, pathological liars, career victims, and raving hypocrites.
They were all on display during the hearings, still saturated in Trump Derangement Syndrome, still entertaining the unicorn fantasy of a Blue Wave in November, still displaying all the character defects that led their role model Hillary to go down in ignominious defeat in November of 2016.
First is Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), whose obsessive, nearly psychotic hatred of President Trump––much like that of his fellow Arizonan, the late John McCain––compels him to try to sabotage every facet of the president’s agenda. Also like McCain, he is an easy touch for the attention and kudos of the left, who he collaborates with at every turn.
As JudyBeth Wagoner explains: “Soon-to-be United States ex-Senator Jeff Flake just can’t overcome his bitterness as a swamp creature being drained from the Washington swamp. He continues to inject his worthless progressive sentiment into the national conversation, even though his representation was rejected by his own constituents…[he] went to Washington by presenting himself as a conservative Tea Party candidate. Once there he betrayed the people who put him in office and became a flaming progressive establishment hack.”
So there was the hack, “trapped” in an elevator––cameras and microphones at the ready to capture the entire phony scene––with an aggrieved woman pleading with him to take women’s grievances seriously.  The clearly orchestrated scenario impelled the senator––Roger Simon calls Sen. Flake “the captain in the #NeverTrump resistance movement from within the Republican Party”––to ask for another week so the FBI could investigate further.
Well whaddaya know? That shrieking harpy was none other than Ana Maria Archila, the co-executive director for the Center for Popular Democracy and the Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund, the latter heavily funded by Trump-loather George Soros.   
And did I fail to mention this little factoid that makes every Flake move and word stink to high heaven? Specifically, as reported by Joe Hoft for Gateway Pundit, the last person Sen. Flake called before asking for another week of Supreme Insanity was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein––which “sends a clear message that the Deep State is now involved in the Supreme Court nomination process.” The anti-Trump Deep State, I might add.
“The fact that Flake contacted Rosenstein (Redactenstein) should worry the entire country,” Hoft continues. “Who in Rosenstein’s corrupt DOJ or FBI should be investigating anything related to the President? God help this country…”
Perhaps Karin McQuillan explains the Flake phenomenon best. “Jeff Flake is an ambitious man. His ambition is to sabotage President Trump, the Republican Party, and Trump voters by any means possible. Flake sides with the Left on cultural issues, on immigration, on the war on coal. [He] was a reliable ally for Obama on those causes and more…his only major accomplishment was joining the ‘Gang of 8’ open borders initiative.”
“Flake plotted a mini-coup on Friday morning to snatch away Kavanaugh’s moral victory over the Democrats’ smear campaign. [He] is doing “the most despicable thing” any of us have seen in politics in our lifetimes—using uncorroborated and implausible allegations from 36 years ago to launch scummy attacks against a decent man,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “No amount of rhetoric about ‘healing the country’ can cover Flake’s perfidious deed.”
Then there is Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) who repeatedly lied and lied and lied about serving in the military in Vietnam. Think about that. Is that not the definition of unbalanced, irresponsible, pathological? Yet, when confronted with the truth, he repeated the lie! As writer Daniel John Sobieski has pointed out: “Sen. Blumenthal asked Kavanaugh to explain the judicial concept of ‘falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus,’ a phrase that means ‘false in one thing, false in everything’ and allows jurors to discount the entire testimony of someone caught lying on a particular point. This pearl of wisdom came from a man who himself lied that he served in Vietnam, something Sen. Tom Cotton has rightly noted and condemned. In fact, Blumenthal…sought at least five military deferments and eventually landed a spot in the Marine Reserve, where he was essentially guaranteed not to serve in the conflict itself, The New York Times reported.”
Then there is Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the man who is famous for comparing brave American soldiers to Nazis.
And who can forget Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), whose recent notoriety, as detailed byDebra Heine, describes the senator’s own written words, not 36 years ago, but in the student-run Stanford Daily newspaper in 1992 in which Booker admitted to taking advantage of an intoxicated classmate: “New Year’s Eve 1984 I will never forget. I was 15. As the ball dropped, I leaned over to hug a friend and she met me instead with an overwhelming kiss. As we fumbled upon the bed, I remember debating my next ‘move’ as if it were a chess game. With the ‘Top Gun’ slogan ringing in my head, I slowly reached for her breast. After having my hand pushed away once, I reached my ‘mark,’” he continued, without explaining what he meant by “mark.”
Booker returned to the subject of “date rape” a few months later: “But by my second column, as I raised my noble pen to address the issue of date rape, I realized that the person holding it wasn’t so noble after all,” he  wrote. “With this issue as with so many others, a dash of sincere introspection has revealed to me a dangerous gap — a gap between my beliefs and my actions.”
What? No trial for this self-admitted groper for what Heine calls his own lurid sexual misconduct allegations? And this man is judging Judge Kavanaugh!
There are so many other guilty-until-proven-innocent Democrats, the most egregious of whom is Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY), a lawyer who uttered perhaps the most blazingly idiotic statement of this entire travesty of a hearing: “I believe Dr. Blasey Ford because she’s telling the truth.”
According to writer Michael Anton, The Gillibrand Standard is now that “accusation suffices to destroy. Not only is no corroborating evidence necessary, to ask for such evidence makes one just as guilty as the accused. Especially monstrous is to ask questions of the accuser; that is to repeat or compound the alleged crime. The accusation, once stated, immediately takes on metaphysical certainty. To doubt is to blaspheme.”
There is “but one limiting principle to the Gillibrand Standard,” Anton continues: “It shalt be used only against the Right and Republicans. Credible accusations—with evidence, witnesses, contemporaneous police reports—against Democrats and liberals are not merely to be ignored but also stonewalled and attacked, alleged victims and witnesses alike smeared.”
Incidentally, as reported by Seth Barron in The City Journal, “in 11 years of serving in Congress, Gillibrand has sponsored just one bill that became law—the naming of a post office in Washington Heights after deceased councilman Stanley Michels.”
Astoundingly, both she and the above-mentioned species actually win elections!
THE BRIGHT LIGHT AHEAD
Personally, I’m confident of Judge Kavanaugh’s ascension to the Supreme Court of the United States. And there is more good news ahead.
Writer Larry Schweikart believes that when Sen. Feinstein hatched her malevolent plot in July, “when Christine Ford’s letter first arrived on her desk, it was at that time almost certain that she believed—based on polling—that the Democrats stood a chance of taking the Senate in November.” The strategy she devised was to delay, delay, delay the Kavanaugh nomination.
Today, he continues, “not only will the Democrats stand no realistic chance of winning the Senate, but it increasingly looks as though they will lose another five to seven seats, and if [Sen. Feinstein’s] trick has incensed enough Republicans to turn out, they could face a 60-seat majority next January.”
Schweikart concludes by saying that “California Senator Dianne Feinstein has done something even President Donald Trump could not do: Awaken the sleeping giant of the Republican electorate to defeat the Democrats in the 2018 midterms––she has mobilized a somnambulant Republican base and filled it with a terrible resolve!”

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Kavanaugh v Ford: Ford Could Be Lying For Political Reasons

Photo by: Jacquelyn Martin
Alumni of Holton-Arms School, Karen Bralove, class of 1963, left, Sarah Burgess, class of 2005, and Alexis Goldstein, class of 1999, speak to members of the media about a letter they delivered to the office of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who is also an alumni of the school, Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington. The letter, which the group wants Capito to sign, calls for an independent investigation of accusations by Christine Blasey Ford, a 1984 alumni of the school, against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Christine Blasey Ford could indeed be lying

ANALYSIS/OPINION:
I knew two girls growing up who lied about being raped. Or, more to truth, I knew two girls growing up who said they were raped and then a couple days later, recanted. What actually occurred is really anybody’s guess; only they and God, and the guys they accused, of course, truly know the truth.
But the fact is, somewhere along the line, lies were told.
And while America does not need to go back to the time when females accusing sexual assault or rape or abuse are asked such stupid questions as, “What were you wearing?” and “How many sexual partners have you had in the past?” — fact is, too, there are indeed cases where women, for whatever reasons, do make up these stories.
Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh
Word was, the two girls in my growing-up years were angry at their boyfriends and wanted to inflict some revenge. It happens. It’s a terrible injustice to the guys who find themselves in the terribly unjust spot of having to prove their innocence for a crime they did not commit. But it happens, just the same.
What happens more, of course — and only the completely unaware or outright misogynists of the world would refute — is that real female victims of sexual harassment, sexual abuse and sexual attack often dismiss, ignore, deny, downplay, disregard and yes, in cases of high trauma, in cases that bring post-traumatic stress disorder horrors, even forget, in whole or part, details of the instances of harassments, abuses, and attacks.
Case in point: While I’ve known two in my own circle to falsely claim a sexual attack that never happened, I’ve known easily 100 or more who’ve actually suffered sexual harassment, abuse, even rape, and who’ve bit their tongues on telling.
Women in the military, for instance, often go along to get along with their harassers because they fear they have no voice.
Women in the civilian workplace frequently turn blind eyes to the leers or deaf ears to the suggestive comments because they don’t want to stir the pot, damage their careers, stunt their chances for advancement.
That all happens, too.
No matter how you slice it, it’s ungodly. All of it.
But now we’ve got an accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who’s coming forward after decades of silence to say, in essence, as a paraphrase, “Hey, you know that guy who’s about to be nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court? Well, at a high school party, he drunkenly pushed me on a bed and tried to have sex with me. He didn’t, and I fled, but I lived with the trembling secret all these years — all those years he climbed his very public career ladder, from clerking for Justice Anthony Kennedy to writing the Ken Starr report. And I kept silent. Until now.”
Until now?
Apparently, Ford’s finally reached the boiling point of her alleged ordeal and called for an FBI investigation of Kavanaugh’s high school behavior, along with umpteen conditions in exchange for offering senators now what should have been offered at the get-go: facts and evidence to support the allegations.
Seems a bit hog-washy.
This whole confirmation process, in fact, has grown, in the words of Alice, curiouser and curiouser. The more we learn of Democratic funding to stop the Kavanaugh process, the more we learn of George Soros’ ties to groups like Demand Justice — a non-profit entity aimed at halting President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court picks that, coincidence-of-all-coincidences, just hired the same general counsel who worked for Sen. Dianne Feinstein — the more Wonderland this all becomes.
What’s more, it’s gone around the bend of un-American.
It’s just not constitutional to throw out unfounded, unsupported accusations against an individual and then sit back and watch the chaos that unfolds, all the while claiming some untouchable high ground of victimhood.
If Ford has proof, it should’ve come at the same time as the accusation.
If Ford has a compelling reason why that proof couldn’t come at the same time as the accusation, she should’ve made known that reason.
If Ford has anything, anything at all that could show her claims against Kavanaugh are rooted in fact and truth, she needs to cough it up and cough it up quick. It’s not incumbent on Kavanaugh to prove his innocence.
It is, however, incumbent on Ford to prove his guilt — to prove she’s not lying and using a shameful, despicable tactic to disrupt the Supreme Court proceedings and kill Kavanaugh’s nomination. After all, it may not happen often, but women can indeed lie about such matters. And when they do, they don’t just hurt the accused.
They hurt the real victims, the ones who’ve already come forward in truth and courage to tell their stories of abuse and injustice and, more egregiously perhaps, the ones who are yet to come, and need to be believed.
Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.

Friday, August 3, 2018

Rosenstein Defends Zero-Tolerance Immigration Policy and Rule of Law in ABA Speech

Rod Rosenstein
ABA Journal,
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein may not be a very popular person within certain circles in Washington, D.C., but he received a rock-star welcome during the opening forum of the ABA Annual Meeting.
Speaking Thursday to a standing room-only crowd, Rosenstein received multiple standing ovations as he talked about the importance of preserving and promoting the rule of law while defending U.S. Department of Justice policies regarding efforts to combat foreign meddling in U.S. elections and the recent zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration.
“The rule of law is indispensable to a thriving and vibrant society,” he stated. “It shields citizens from government overreach. It allows businesses to invest with confidence. It gives innovators protection for their discoveries. It keeps people safe from dangerous criminals. And it allows us to resolve differences peacefully through reason and logic.”
In a short question-and-answer session with ABA President Hilarie Bass, Rosenstein affirmed that zero tolerance was consistent with the rule of law, and that the DOJ was simply doing its job in enforcing the laws and treating everyone equally.
“It would be wrong to say we’re prosecuting everyone without regard to the law,” said Rosenstein, who also stated that there were large numbers of people “blatantly violating the immigration laws of this country.” He added that “if the facts of the law justify prosecution, then we’re committing the resources to ensure everyone is treated equally rather than picking and choosing who will be prosecuted.”
Rosenstein also assured those in attendance that federal agencies are doing a lot to combat foreign meddling in elections and propagation of fake news. “Because a lot of the information we learn is from classified intelligence, there’s a lot we don’t talk about publicly,” said Rosenstein, who noted that federal agencies including the FBI, Justice Department and U.S. Department of Homeland Security are constantly briefing state and local election officials about cyberthreats and attacks. He also pointed out that federal agencies are taking steps to combat hacking of political campaigns and candidates and pointed to the July indictment of 12 Russian nationals by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as evidence of this commitment.
When asked about the opioid crisis and safe injection sites as a means of combating the ongoing issue, Rosenstein was dismissive. “It’s illegal; it’s a crime,” he said. “I think you can anticipate that if someone would try that in the U.S., they would face litigation by the Department of Justice and they wouldn’t have much of a defense.” Rosenstein added that while he was “100 percent committed” to prevention and treatment, he believed that these sites sent the wrong message, giving illegal and dangerous drugs the imprimatur of government approval.
The embattled deputy attorney general has become a central figure in the ongoing probe into Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. He was confirmed as the second-highest-ranking official at the DOJ by a 94-6 vote in the U.S. Senate in April 2017 after a 12-year tenure as U.S. attorney for the District of Maryland. Rosenstein soon found himself a fixture in the news. A couple of weeks after his confirmation, he authored a memo recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. Less than 10 days later, he appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself.
Since then, Rosenstein has been under near-constant pressure to fire Mueller, amid reports that he could also be fired, and has become a target of House Republicans. Last week, 11 representatives filed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein accusing him of not turning over requested documents. One day later, one of the co-sponsors of the impeachment resolution, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), announced he would table the effort and focus on pursuing a contempt citation if the documents were not produced.
Rosenstein basked in his warm reception while making light of some of his recent battles. Noting that Robert H. Jackson—attorney general from 1940 to 1941 before being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court—once remarked about the unpleasantness of dealing with congressional inquiries, Rosenstein drew laughs from the audience when he stated that he could relate.
Ultimately, Rosenstein defended his boss Sessions, echoing the ex-Alabama senator’s statements that the DOJ must be a nonpartisan entity dedicated to representing all Americans and not just a small subset.
“The Department of Justice must never be a partisan actor,” Rosenstein said. “In all cases, agents and prosecutors are obligated to make neutral decisions, preserve personal privacy, protect national security, and insulate investigations from political interference.”

Saturday, July 14, 2018

AFT President Randi Weingarten on The US Supreme Court Janus Decision

Weingarten rallying in New York City to protest the Supreme Court’s Janus decision, June 27. Photo: Professional Staff Congress


07/01/2018

#Union

by Randi Weingarten
Stamping out unions has long been the aim of many wealthy conservatives, because it’s easier for them to win elections, maintain economic dominance, and disempower workers when individuals can’t collectively improve their lives through the strength and solidarity of a union.
Janus’ supporters argued that the “fair share” fees(link is external)nonmembers pay for union representation violate their First Amendment rights, even though workers have the right not to join a union or pay for any of the union’s political work. Justice Elena Kagan dismissed the majority’s opinion as “weaponizing the First Amendment,” noting that the same argument was raised—and unanimously rejected—41 years ago in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, a precedent the Supreme Court has upheld six times. With this reversal, public employees who benefit from a collective bargaining agreement but choose not to join the union can opt to be “free riders” and not contribute anything for the benefits they receive, while the union must still represent them.
While right-wing groups are mobilizing and spending many millions of dollars to “defund and defang”(link is external) unions by attempting to pick off our members, people are sticking with the union. The misleadingly named Freedom Foundation contacted the 34,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles, urging them to drop their memberships. Exactly one person did. Union leaders across the country have told me that they got calls after the Janus decision—not from people who wanted to drop, but from those who wanted to join or recommit.
Workers are sticking with their unions because unions are still the best vehicle working people have to make a difference in their lives and their workplaces. Unions negotiate everything from manageable class sizes to safety equipment for emergency personnel. Workers covered by a union(link is external) contract earn 13.2 percent more on average than nonunion workers, and they are more likely to have health insurance, paid leave and retirement benefits. As the recent teacher walkouts showed, the states where union density is the lowest have sharply cut back spending(link is external) and investment in public education. Teachers, firefighters, nurses and other public employees nationwide are signing recommitments to their unions, because they know that unions make possible what is impossible for individuals to accomplish on their own.
The public gets it, too. Even in our hugely polarized country, polling shows that people support teachers unions and agree that teachers aren’t paid enough(link is external).
Linda Greenhouse, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, longtime Supreme Court observer, recently wrote that the court’s “attack on public employee unions has little to do with the Constitution and a whole lot to do with politics(link is external).” Indeed, the right wing of the Supreme Court is going well beyond its charge to interpret the Constitution. With the reliably conservative vote(link is external) of the newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court is transforming from an impartial protector of constitutional liberties and minority rights to an activist, partisan champion of the powerful and the political right—which is exactly how a web of right-wing, dark-money groups planned it.
Gorsuch ascended to the high court after Senate Republicans stonewalled President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, for 293 days, riding out the clock until Donald Trump took office. The conservative Judicial Crisis Network alone spent millions to pressure the Senate to oppose Garland’s(link is external)confirmation and then to support Gorsuch. JCN’s primary funder is the Wellspring Committee(link is external), a right-wing group based in Virginia that also supported Illinois Policy Action, a conservative organization that represented the plaintiff in Janus v. AFSCME—in which Gorsuch just cast the decisive vote.
The court this term has ruled to allow states to purge eligible voters(link is external) from their rolls, uphold Trump’s immigration ban(link is external)and protect employers(link is external) from class-action lawsuits by workers with grievances. Sounds more like a legislative agenda than a judicial docket of the highest court of the land. And that is why we’re already seeing a firestorm of protest in the wake of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s announced retirement.
Janus poses a challenge for public sector unions, one we have been preparing for. But it presents great opportunities as well, as unions have re-engaged with our members. The day of the Janus decision, AFT nurses in Ohio won a contract that created safe staffing levels, and 2,400 faculty in Oregon voted to join the AFT. Union members will continue to care, fight, show up and vote—to achieve together what individuals cannot do alone. Don’t count us out.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Federal Court Judge in Michigan Rules That Kids Have No Right To An Education of Any Quality

  • Photo by Doug Coombe
  • Jamarria Hall, plaintiff in the literacy rights lawsuit dismissed on Friday.

U.S. Court: Detroit students have no right to access to literacy

https://m.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2018/07/02/us-court-detroit-students-have-no-right-to-access-to-literacy

 
On Friday, dumped out with the least desirable news of the week came word that a lawsuit arguing that Detroit students were being denied an education had been dismissed. 

Perhaps you remember the case. MT presented a cover story about it last year. With the help of a public interest law firm, a handful of Detroit students charged in federal court that educational officials in Michigan — including Gov. Rick Snyder — denied them access to an education of any quality.

The lawsuit took pains to illustrate how Detroit's schools — run under a state-appointed emergency manager — were a welter of dysfunction: overcrowded classrooms, lack of textbooks and basic materials, unqualified staff, leaking roofs, broken windows, black mold, contaminated drinking water, rodents, no pens, no paper, no toilet paper, and unsafe temperatures that had classes canceled due to 90-degree heat or classrooms so cold students could see their breath.

At times, without teachers or instructional materials, students were simply herded into rooms and asked to watch videos. One student claimed to have learned all the words to the film Frozen in high school. The lawsuit even mentions one eighth grade student who "taught" a seventh and eighth grade math class for a month because no teacher could be found. 

We had described such teaching methods as a sort of "throw a book at them and hope they learn something" method of education — only without the book to throw. Student cannot be expected to learn when they are simply "warehoused for seven hours a day" in "an unsafe, degrading, and chaotic environment" that is a school "in name only." It is hardly surprising that, at the plaintiff's schools, which serve almost exclusively low-income children of color, almost 99 percent of the students are unable to achieve proficiency in state-mandated subjects.

Last year, the state moved for dismissal, arguing that the 14th Amendment contains no reference to literacy. 

Then, last week, U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy III agreed with the state.

Literacy is important, the judge noted. But students enjoy no right to access to being taught literacy. All the state has to do is make sure schools run. If they are unable to educate their students, that's a shame, but court rulings have not established that "access to literacy" is "a fundamental right."

At the close of last year's story, one of the plaintiffs in the case, Jamarria Hall, had reflected on his experiences at Detroit's Osborn High School and described the institution as a "crab barrel" — where you can't escape because you keep getting pulled, or pushed, back in.

He had said the state was one of those forces pushing any crabs who'd escape back in. "'Cause, starting out, they're the ones at the top of the barrel."

Apparently, we may add the U.S. government to those pushing crabs back in their barrel.
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Honestly,

Deidre Hammon
Senior Advocate
CSD Children's Advocacy Project
Reno NV 89502
775.826.4441
775.544.9338