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Stumbled across this and thought it deserves being passed on because ultimately YOU are the solution (and not each candidate in who it appears must lie because that is the only way they can possibly be taken seriously enough to win… )
Knowledge is power and when you know how YOU think, you can sometimes second guess yourself out of making those wrong decisions which your first instinct is to jump into with both feet…
So why do they lie? Those of us who have made the Internet their home must wonder over the audacity or ignorance of these upstarts who think their lies simply will go unchecked forever… So why then would they lie and why would anyone follow someone who lies so much?
According to one human scientist, Jim Taylor (Phd), there are many reasons and here briefly are the top six.
Many politicians are narcissists. … Most would agree. “Narcissists are arrogant, self-important, see themselves as special, require excessive admiration, have a sense of entitlement, and are exploitative, ” which, like it or not, causes them to believe that they are right and, even if they are not, they think they’re too smart to be ensnared inside any consequences.
Politicians know their followers will believe them, even in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Here, Facebook, blogs, and journalistic comment sections have certainly confirmed this to be true. One reading through their comment streams can readily see how supporters flat out refuse to look at any evidence remotely throwing shade upon their candidate.
People don’t want to hear the truth… “no one wants to hear things that threaten their existence, their beliefs, or that will make them uncomfortable. It is decidedly better for politicians to tell people what makes them feel comfortable. Why should politicians be the purveyors of bad news (and decrease the likelihood of getting people’s votes) when they can tell fairy tales with happy endings (which, of course, everyone wants) and come out the victor.” When ones entire livelihood depends solely on people liking you more than they do someone else, deliberately putting salt in someone’s wound is not a good technique for self survival..
The Internet never forgets. We tell this to our children to keep them from posting images they later regret. But that adage cuts both ways… Whereas the truth is always out there when you do wrong, so are those lies always following you close each time you do right. Unlike human reasoning, nothing ever gets settled on the Internet…Someone can stumble across and false flag without seeing all the evidence pointing it out as such, and BAM! That controversy starts all over again; it’s become the 21st Century equivalent of a “sucker being born every minute…”
Cognitive biases. “The human mind engages in many cognitive tricks to help people be more efficient, reduce confusion and anxiety, and keep life simple and coherent”. Across our evolutionary survival we developed the overall tendency to reinforce what we perceived as having always worked for us, instead of rushing down every new alternative path opening up our way. The very valid fact that we are still here as a species, is pretty damning evidence to its effectiveness…
If a lie is told enough times, people will assume it is true. “People expect that lies will be disproved and fade away. So if the lies continue to be heard (over and over and over) people assume they must be true.” “If there is smoke, there must be fire” Prior to the technical age, there were physical limits on a lie’s speed and reach. One could only talk to a limited number of impressionable people per day… and often many would retort back with contrary evidence dispelling the lie immediately upon its hearing. Now, lies reach millions in a second, drowning out those individual replies dispelling them. Checking out each statement’s validity has become tediously time consuming, during which multiple repetitions of the same lie continue, making its effectiveness all the more believable…
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With knowledge now stored as 1’s and 0’s we enter a new age in which our age old defenses against mis-information are no longer valid. Hence charts like that at the top of this post become very important… All it means is that “someone” out there checked and rated each of these candidates on issues ranging from “truth” to “pants on fire”…. and made this determination… something we are no longer capable of doing ourselves.
As always, your best bet is to go with those who won’t steer you wrong… That is lesson true in life, as it is in politics….
- One: This is Gate’s retirement: it needs to be big.
- Two: if this was a praise Obama book, it would sell very few copies.
- Three: Releasing the name-callings did it’s job: this book is now hyped.
- Four: We are only seeing the parts released by the book’s propagandists.
- Five: Most of the statements are not news.
- Six: The Afghanistan Story was already told by Bernstein. Gates replays the same conversations.
- Seven: It’s a book. It’s about money. And we know that Gates did work well with Obama as he did with Bush W.
- Eight: We now know that Biden-Obama get along far better than did Bush-Cheney….
What is amazing is how quickly the extremists in the media raced to hype the slurs, as if they were given bonuses to make Obama look bad… As for the rest of us… Yawn. Based on what I’ve heard, I don’t think I’m buying the book. Are you?
Just heard that discussion was flying around Moody’s after the Fitch announcement today, over whether their rating should be in the “B” range or “C” range if the default occurs.
One train of thought was that with the alternative universe Republicans currently live in, where thinking that we can weather the default of the debt ceiling as well as the government shutdown indefinitely or until at least Obama puts in his resignation papers, dropping the USA’s rating only a point or two, would not be an accurate portrayal of the risk.
These rating organizations have a reputation to keep. Were they to make the bonds drop only from A+++ to an A++, or down to an A+, it would give credence to the viewpoints of the alternative universe’s thinking that “gee, that wasn’t so bad” and prolong the crises.
If the US Government can’t decide to open itself up, and can’t decide to pay the obligations to which it has already committed, then it is no better than Somalia, or Chad, or the Central African Republic They can’t open due to war and insurrection; we can’t open because of immature legislators. The result is the same; they aren’t governing, and that is a bad risk. Except we have a lot more money than Somalia, Chad, and the Central African Republic, which will depreciate faster than the Titanic hit bottom once it finally slipped under.
And that is the other side of the argument. That considering the outcome of default, and effect of the lowering of the rating, that perhaps modifying the amount of the drop might be prudent. Drop the bond ratings to the level of Portugal or Bulgaria, keep it in the “B” range, instead of the Somalian range where it belongs.
Then the other side counters back… But if we do that, the Tea Party will say, “see, they were lying, default is not as bad as they said…”
Most likely they will err on the side of caution. Drop it into the “B” range…. Save the “C” range for another day….
That at least, was the rumor told to me as being the current mood at Moody’s… As everyone knows, the “official” word could be a whole different level entirely.
There is no way there was an altercation. There is no way Trayvon was on top of Zimmerman.
Dr. Shiping Bao, the Volusia County medical examiner who was in charge of handling slain-teenager Trayvon Martin’s body in February 2012, has come out and claimed that, despite Zimmerman’s statements regarding their altercation, there was no feasible way for Martin to have been on top of Zimmerman when the gun was fired because the bullet entered Martin’s back. ….
One must be initially skeptical because this new revelation, is being made by one subsequently fired from his position who is now threatening to sue the state of Florida for $100 million dollars.
But, if anyone knows white supremacists, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence going in this direction.
One, the assistant medical examiner is not white. He is Asian. A minority himself. It reminds one of those films where a black child witnesses a lynching and then is told, “boy, you tell no one about this, you hear?” and out of fear, willingly obliges….
The claim this medical examiner is making is that when he questioned why the “official version” was not related to the placement of the gunshot wound, he was told to ” zip his lips. ‘Shut up. Don’t say those things.”
Since this message was released by Mr. Bao’s attorney, and specifically to a sympathetic ear with a well read reading base, one may have reasonable doubts as to their validity.
Two, recent activities by Zimmerman himself, now that his handlers have all packed their bags and departed, has given far more credibility to him having a persona who would have lovingly shot Trayvon simply to paraphrase Johnny Cash, “watch him die.” His ex-spouse has been quoted (and retracted) as having Zimmerman state as he waved his gun in front of her and her dad, that “he’d take care of both of them just like he did Trayvon”... Unfortunately the proof is in a busted up phone in police protection and may never be recovered. The original police chief who knew Zimmerman, has been quoted saying “Zimmerman was a nut case”.
Three. What was on trial for Floridians and their sponsors ALEC, was the unconstitutional gun law. The trial needed Zimmerman to be innocent, in order to keep constitutional challenges of that law at bay. They are at bay, now, as you read this.
Bao claims that the prosecution never actually asked him the questions that were crucial to the success in the case, and that he changed his opinion after repeatedly being warned… from the time he initially examined Martin and the time he was on the stand. Bao and his attorney say they believe he was fired for questioning the way the case was handled, and possibly for not going long with the desired narrative.
Bao was “supposed” to follow the prosecution’s line that Trayvon was “doped up like a Jamacian” on marijuana, but instead told the truth that the minimal amount in Trayvon’s body, would in no way impair his judgment.
Before one dismisses this accusation out of hand, one must wonder. Why has it not been disproven already? A exhumation would easily prove Bao to be a liar, or instead a whistle blower. Surely there are the police photos from the coroner’s office, or crime scene, showing a shot into the front cavity of Mr. Martin, or his back, completely unscathed..
This accusation, if it was not true, would have already been completely shot down days ago. But it hasn’t… Why not? Are there no pictures of Trayvon Martin dispelling this notion?
If not, then why of all cases where routine pictures are always taken, is this case, which since it’s beginning has been under suspicion of miscarrying of justice, had its pictures been lost, … or stolen?
And that, is where we are.
All evidence now, after the trial, certainly point to Zimmerman executing Trayvon Martin while he was on his knees, back towards him, most likely begging for his life, and a) because blacks in hoodies cannot be right in that Southern Community, and b) because legitimacy of the Stand Your Ground Law was under attack, … bigger interests than either of these two people, had to insure that all stereotypes played out as they are supposed to in storybook little Florida towns….
Jeff Christopher followers stage a show of force to give Sussex County an idea what will happen once a sheriff gets full power to make arrests base on his arbitrary judgment.
All three of his followers think this is what America needs more of.
Eli Broad — the CPA-trained-billionaire-businessman-turned-public-education-reformer — informed Diane Ravitch, a distinguished education expert, about what needs to be done to education in America. . According to Ravitch, “We talked about school reform for an hour or more, and he told me that what was needed to fix the schools was not all that complicated: A tough manager surrounded by smart graduates of business schools and law schools.”
According to Slate quoting Vanity Fair, Eli Broad boasted back in 2006 that he “plans to virtually take over the Delaware school system in 2007, pending approval from that state’s legislature.” He backed the winning slate of candidates for the local board of education in 1999 and helped hire the superintendent.
Eli Broad trains Superintendents. Christina School District has been the unfortunate beneficiary of his largess. Joe Wise, followed by Lillian Lowery, followed by Marcia Lyles, all are from Eli’s School of Superintendencies….Dr. Joe Wise was selected as a Broad Fellow by Eli Broad Institute for School Boards (2005), was appointed to the Eli Broad Urban Superintendents Academy as a Fellow (2003), and serves on the Broad Academy’s adjunct faculty and advisory committee. Although Broad Superintendents come in highly qualified, they often leave disgracefully. Joe Wise, may have been one of the first. Recently, across this nation many Broad Superintendents have been let go. All trained by the Broad Superintendents Academy: Maria Goodloe-Johnson (class of 2003) of the Seattle school district, LaVonne Sheffield (class of 2002) of the Rockford, Illinois school district, and Jean-Claude Brizard (class of 2008) of the Rochester New York school district. Brizard resigned to take the job as CEO of Chicago schools, but his superintendency in Rochester had been mired in controversy. Another Broad-trained Superintendent recently announced his resignation: Tom Brady (class of 2004) of Providence, Rhode Island, as well as these others from before: Arnold “Woody” Carter (class or 2002), formerly of the Capistrano Unified School District; Thandiwee Peebles,( class of 2002), formerly of the Minneapolis Public School District; and John Q. Porter (class of 2006), formerly of the Oklahoma City Public School District.
Ms. Lillian Lowery (class of 2004), Wise's replacement after supposedly cleaning up Joe Wise's disaster, was put in charge of all Delaware's schools, and now, is in charge of Maryland's. Broad's influence has touched every Delaware Student… and is about to touch all those of Maryland.
Our current head of the Department of Education, Mark Murphy, hails from a group NLNS funded by Eli Broad
If this was a good thing, it would be good.
So, what is the Broad influence?
Here is one take. It is one of the three influencers of education. Along with the Gates Foundation and the Walton's, it exerts a powerful influence, good or bad. It calls itself a venture philanthropy, as in venture capitalist. Meaning it invests in philanthropy expecting to yield a return on its investment. As an example, it can fund a study that says computers will help inner city kids learn, then sell those recommended computers to that school district.
Here is how it infiltrates a school district. Christina School District to be exact…
The Broad Foundation plants one of its elements in a school district, it is then highly likely they will plant another one along with it, so their influence is maximized.
For instance, an element might be:
– The presence of a Broad-trained superintendent
– The placement of Broad Residents into important central office positions
– An "invitation" to participate in a program spawned by the Foundation (such as CRSS's Reform Governance in Action program)
– Offering to provide the district with a free "Performance Management Diagnostic and Planning" experience
The Broad Foundation has spent nearly $400 million on its mission of “transforming urban K-12 public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition.”
That sounds nice. So let us look closer….
The signature effort of the Broad Foundation is its investment in its training programs…The Broad Superintendents Academy runs a training program held during six weekends over ten months, after which graduates are placed in large districts as superintendents. Those accepted into the program (“Broad Fellows”) are not required to have a background in-education; many come instead from careers in the military, business, or government. Tuition and travel expenses for participants are paid for by the Broad Center, which also sometimes covers a share of the graduates’ salaries when they are appointed into district leadership positions. The foundation’s website boasts that 43 percent of all large urban superintendent openings were filled by Broad Academy graduates in 2009.
The Broad Superintendents Academy’s weekend training course provides an “alternative” certification process which has come to supplant or override the typical regulations in many states that require that individuals have years of experience as a teacher and principal before being installed as a school district superintendents….
The Broad Residency in Urban Education is a two-year program, during which individuals with MBAs, JDs, etc. in the early stages of their careers are placed in high-level managerial positions in school districts, charter management organizations, or state and federal departments of education. The Broad Center subsidizes approximately 33 percent of each Resident’s salary.
The Broad Foundation founded the New York City Leadership Academy, which trains individuals to serve as principals in the city public schools, several of whose graduates have been accused of financial misconduct, as well as arbitrary and dictatorial treatment of teachers, students and parents. This was recently featured by Delaware’s WDDE reporting on Reshid Walker who is training in Cape Henelopen under the Delaware Leadership Project. DLP is an alternate certification program that this year is preparing six candidates to work as principals or assistant principals at public schools serving high-risk students in Delaware. Alternate Certification means it sidesteps requirements that a principal has to have stepped foot inside a school before. Through four days a week of on-the-job training, and no certification from an accredited college or university, he will soon be in command of your child’s education.
The Broad Institute for School Boards provides three training programs for elected school board members and non-Broad-trained superintendents conducted in partnership with the Center for Reform of School Systems (CRSS). The Institute trains new board members at a one-week summer residential setting…The Broad Foundation underwrites 80 percent of all program costs through a grant to CRSS.
The Broad Foundation also supports a broad range of pro-charter school advocacy groups, as well as alternative training programs for non-educators who want to work as teachers and principals (Teach for America, New Leaders for New Schools). In addition, the foundation offers free diagnostic “audits” to school districts, along with recommendations aligned with its policy preferences. It produces a number of guides and toolkits for school districts, including a “School Closure Guide,” based on the experiences of Broad-trained administrators involved in closing schools in Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Miami-Dade County, Oakland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Seattle…..
Closing public schools to open opportunities for charters seems to be it’s prime directive. Although not officially enshrined as such, it does seem to be the consistent pattern of each of its graduates.
The foundation provided start-up funding for Parent Revolution (formerly the Los Angeles Parent Union), the group which developed the “Parent Trigger” legislation, designed to encourage the conversion of public schools to charter schools. Broad has also has given large amounts of money to Education Reform Now, a pro-charter school advocacy organization…
Eli Broad has said he “expects to be a major contributor” to Students First, former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s organization that advocates for the expansion of charters, vouchers, and an end to seniority protections for teachers. The pro-Rhee biography, The Bee Eater, was subsidized by the Broad Foundation as is mentioned on the book jacket.
Of course, there are campaign contributions (you will need to type in Broad, Eli) to facilitate the corporatizing of education… A quick look certifies that his coverage is a who’s who across party lines in Congress. Obviously there will be support for Charters streaming down from the top lines of government.
Ok, so how does all of this affect Delaware’s public school’s families?….
One of the tenets of his philosophy taught to his graduates, is to produce system change by “investing in a disruptive force.” Continual reorganizations, firings of staff, and experimentation to create chaos or “churn” is believed to be productive and beneficial, as it weakens the ability of communities to resist change.
A hallmark of the Broad-style leadership is closing existing schools rather than attempting to improve them, increasing class size, opening charter schools, imposing high-stakes test-based accountability systems on teachers and students, and implementing of pay for performance schemes. The brusque and often punitive management style of Broad-trained leaders has frequently alienated parents and teachers and sparked protests. A long laundry list of Broad Supertendants run out of town can be found here, near the bottom. But you can get an idea of what to expect, from just this one: Robert Bobb (class of 2005), the Emergency Financial Manager of the Detroit Public Schools, recently sent layoff notices to every one of the district’s 5,466 salaried employees, including all its teachers, and said that nearly a third of the district’s schools would be closed or turned over to private charter operators. At a recent town hall which Bobb had called so he could go over his plan, angry students, parents, and teachers drove him from the meeting. He was escorted out by his six bodyguards….
Disruption and chaos indeed…..
Delaware is fortunate to have a large parenting network of watch dogs who communicate well with legislators. Whereas the Christina District has had a rough go with Broad graduates, the rest of the state has so far been unscathed…..
Without the oversight being provided by parents and teachers watchdog organizations, the fate of Delaware’s students might be that of Philadelphia, Chicago, or Detroit.
if you are a parent or know one, you probably feel this way as well. Parents Across America considers Broad’s influence to be inherently undemocratic, as it disenfranchises parents and other stakeholders in an effort to privatize our public schools and imposes corporate-style policies without our consent. We strongly oppose allowing our nation’s education policy to be driven by billionaires who have no education expertise, who do not send their own children to public schools, and whose particular biases and policy preferences are damaging our children’s ability to receive a quality education.
In fact, this entire philosophy of forcing change upon children, strikes every parent as coming from those types of people we all run across, … who hate children…. “Someone smack that kid who’s crying.”
Amen And Amen.
They had centralized education. We had local school boards, unionized teachers, and PTA’s.
So who won?
Today in order to capitalize upon the fact that the fourth quarter economy sank (even though it was because of the downward pressure due to the threat of sequestration forced upon Congress by the Tea Party), they wheeled out Arthur Laughter Laffer to make a dire predictions….
He is on their short list of who-to-call-when-we(FOX News)-NEED-a-dire-prediction…..
Because….. He is well known for making “dire predictions”..
“Economist Arthur Laffer told his clients on July 26, 1982, that (Ronald Reagan’s) Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which raised taxes by about one percent of GDP, “will stifle economic recovery,” “retard economic growth,” and undercut “the economy’s ability to enter into a period of expansion.” On August 20, 1982, he told his clients that TEFRA, Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, “will tend to lengthen and deepen the recession.”
Instead, ….. No one could have been more wrong…
On August 20, 1993, Laffer told his clients, “Clinton’s tax bill will do about as much damage to the U.S. economy as could feasibly be done in the current political environment.” He said that interest rates would rise and the stock market would fall.
Once again, it would be hard to find a forecast that was more completely wrong….
And now! Today,… well, there he goes again….
“You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,” (lol, see by how little, below)… Laffer told Fox News’ Eric Bolling…
“That’s catastrophic,” the former adviser to President Ronald Reagan added. (Did anyone else catch the stupendous irony of that? Oh, Wow. You can’t make stuff like that up).
“You can explain some of that by sequestration, and defense spending was down lot and all that. But you still have a rotten economy. And it’s still too bad. We know how to fix it, by the way, a low rate flat tax, spending restraint, sound money, free trade.” (See George Bush’s Economic Record.) Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012…
Yes. Laffer was responding to reports Wednesday that the U.S. economy contracted 0.1 percent in the last quarter of 2012. Quote: “You have the whole output of the economy shrinking. Not just expanding more slowly, it`s absolutely shrinking,”
Recalling his years as one of Reagan’s top economic advisers, Laffer said Reagan actually cut the highest tax rates (From 70%-50%; they are 35% now) He said “we made a mistake” by phasing in the cuts, which he said caused the 1981-82 recession. But he said the economy took off in 1983* when the cuts (and 1%GDP tax increase) went into full effect. *
“This place just went like a rocket ship,” he said. “I think we had 7.5 percent growth in 1983 and 5.5 growth in 1984, just this boom that lasted for years and years.”* (*lol)
(Conversational excerpts provided by Newsmax)
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