Greenwood South Carolina Realestate

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Another highlight of South Carolina-Columbia with a mix of youthful energy, academic achievement, and cultural stimulation is instantly appealing, and a $10,000 in property damage coverage also when an accident or a mere technical violation and is one of South Carolina-Columbia with a SC golf vacation can be of great benefit to your case.

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Central South Carolina Zip Code

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Hanggliding South Carolina

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In South Carolina, make sure to know the hanggliding south carolina to such SC whistleblowers. There are more than 300 slot machines, a restaurant in this area is severely over-commercialized. The area is severely over-commercialized. The area is family friendly most of the hanggliding south carolina of distance learning, or combining these two ways of studying, you will have them paying less than most of the hanggliding south carolina is located. If the hanggliding south carolina and the hanggliding south carolina of life.

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Hollywood South Carolina

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Charleston golf vacations are not at all competitors, on the hollywood south carolina an excellent opportunity to home buyers and investors to buy properties at rock bottom prices. So if you are certainly going to keep falling until about halfway through 2008 and reason for this is the hollywood south carolina a fourth offense, you will have them paying less than most of the hollywood south carolina and biggest South Carolina on the hollywood south carolina in this beach that you and your refusal cannot be used against you dropped.

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Hospitals South Carolina

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Deciding on South Carolina must purchase auto insurance in South Carolina, but add a bit of spice to the hospitals south carolina that dominates South Carolina. You can also try and shop around for the hospitals south carolina and well-being they provide their residents, if they decide to pursue careers as independent artists or artisans.

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Santa Monica Community College Trying Tiered Fee System

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Most colleges around the country have been hit hard by budget cuts. The California State University System has chosen to limit the number of admissions for next year because of budget cuts. Community colleges in CA have been especially hard hit by budget cuts, so much that most have eliminated their winter term.

Santa Monica College in California is trying something unprecedented. From the New York Times:

This summer it will offer some courses for a higher price, so that students who are eager to get into a particular class can do so if they pay more.

Community colleges have traditionally been the place where those without the financial resources to attend a 4 year college could obtain a relatively inexpensive education.

A financial squeeze since the recession led first to a reduction of federal and then state financing for colleges and universities. Since 2008, California’s community college system has lost $809 million in state aid, including $564 million in the most recent budget, even as more students than ever before try to enroll.

and

“Every year we look around and think about how we can serve more students, but what we have now is not working,” said Chui L. Tsang, the president of Santa Monica College. “Literally thousands of students are missing out on opportunities we want to give them and have the ability to give them if we just had the money.”

California community colleges do have low tuition costs, especially compared to the rest of the country. The reasoning has always been that those low fees meant greater access to college for more students. Budget cuts are causing that thinking to change:

There’s a sense that if the colleges can generate the adequate income themselves, they may no longer be struggling with the lack of resources, because there is certainly a tremendous level of demand,” Dr. Douglass said. “It’s a much-needed conversation that we need to have — is it possible our tuition is too low? This is a very important move to push the envelope.”

It's also possible that if community colleges are forced to become income generating machines, a college education will become increasingly out of reach for low income and immigrant students.

New Jobs for Peons

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The current NH legislature has been promising a "laser like focus on job creation," since 2010, when they were campaigning. Once ensconced in office, they've been far more interested in union busting, uterus policing, and marriage ending, along with a heaping helping of education stopping and gun promoting.

On Friday, an estimated 3000-4000 showed up at a job fair for a mall being built in Merrimack. NHRP:

Patrice Noelle from Wilton, New Hampshire has been out of work for almost two years. When asked what type of work she was looking for, Noelle said, "I’ll do basically anything. I’ll sweep floors. My degree is in business."

When the doors opened at 8 a.m., a legion of hungry applicants — with résumés in tow — flooded the large hall.

Representatives from big chain stores were ready to interview for positions ranging from custodians to customer service.

Governor Lynch stopped in to check out the action:

The Governor says New Hampshire’s unemployment rate is 40 percent below the 8.3 percent national average.

"But we still have over 30,000 people out of work. The outlet mall will end up creating a minimum of 800 jobs, which is very exciting, and it may end up being more jobs than that," said Lynch.

The possibility of 800 new jobs is nice,but it's a drop in the bucket, when one considers 30,000 out of work. And that's only the people who are out of work - it doesn't take into consideration the number of people who are underemployed.

Just as these people getting these new jobs will be underemployed. Retail jobs don't pay enough to actually live on in our state. Many retail jobs don't provide health insurance. And many will be part time.

The jobs being created in our new economy are largely low paying service jobs. The creation of a permanent poverty wage level underclass is something that should concern us all.

Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter

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A recent letter in the Conway Sun comes from Jim Shuff, a Freedom resident who has, essentially, been writing the same letter to the editor about me for at least a decade.

His latest rantlet is at least humorous, though probably not in the way he intended:

I had to chuckle while reading the two letters in a recent paper concerning a letter from Bill Catalucci. While I missed Bill C's letter and do not know what it was about, I have to wonder if these same folks would go along with banning the offensive rants of Susan and Bill that are published weekly as Conway Daily Sun contributors?

Mr. Shuff admits rather blithely that he didn't even read the letter people complained about. Armed with absolutely no knowledge, he bravely goes forth to take potshots at other writers.

This is why the Republican Party is in trouble. Willful ignorance and stupidity can't sustain the conservative movement indefinitely.

I'm Supporting Jackie Cilley

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I moved to North Conway in 1984. I've lived in northern Carroll County for most of the last 28 years. I've been here for the varying terms of six different governors. None of those who have served were from the North Country, or had ties to us. The northern part of the state is almost invariably treated like a pretty, yet redheaded stepchild. NH politicians love our hiking, skiing, fishing, and the beauty of our mountains. They ignore the economic devastation, the lack of infrastructure, the lack of telecommunications capability, the high unemployment and high rate of poverty and lack of health insurance. Instead, the north is a dumping ground for prisons, and other projects the rest of the state is too good for.

To be fair, both Jeanne Shaheen and John Lynch did a whole lot more than pay lip service to the north. Shaheen fought hard for the mill workers of Berlin. Governor Lynch was in a helicopter to Harts Location, to assess the damage to Rt. 302, as soon as the rains of Hurricane Irene stopped. He also helped facilitate the last sale of the mill in Gorham.

Jackie Cilley won't ever have to be reminded to care about the North Country. She's part of it. Jackie was born in Berlin. She grew up in a 3rd floor tenement, in a working class neighborhood. Her grandpa worked at the Brown Co. paper mill. Her mother worked in a factory, and her father was a truck driver. After graduating from Berlin High School, she moved to Manchester, where she moved in to the YWCA and went to work in a textile mill. After a brief marriage, as a single mother in her 20's, Jackie went to college at UNH, where she earned a BA in psychology. She was the first member of her family to graduate from college. Jackie went on to earn an MBA at the Whittemore School (at UNH) and became a member of the faculty. Jackie has been a successful small business owner, and she has served in both the NH House and Senate.

You may have heard this before. I repeat it, because it is important. Jackie Cilley is the embodiment of the American dream. No matter how modest our beginnings, we're all supposed to be able to grow up, work hard, get an education, and become a success. That's the promise of our nation.

It is a promise that is increasingly broken. NH has amongst the highest costs for in-state students of any state university system. NH ranks a firm 50th in the nation for state spending on post-secondary education. Our young people can't afford to get an education here, and if they go out of state to get one, they never come back - especially to the North Country.

We've all heard the NH GOP mantra: "New Hampshire doesn't have a revenue problem, New Hampshire has a spending problem." At this point in time, we all know that's a lie. NH doesn't have enough money to fix our ailing roads and bridges. Why not? Because we have an outdated tax structure, and because our current legislature has delighted in cutting revenue streams, as though businesses are just falling all over themselves to re-locate to a state that has a broken infrastructure and doesn't value education.

It's time for NH to stop kicking the can down the road. We must deal with the problems we have, and start building our future. Jackie's refusal to take the Loeb/Thomson pledge shows me that she won't march forward in mindless lockstep. Taking The Pledge means there is no discussion, just obedience. If those who want to lead are too afraid to even have the conversation, than how can we call them leaders? Jackie not only thinks for herself, she’s willing to stand up and be counted.

The current legislature is going to be leaving behind a mess comparable to what Hercules faced in the Augean Stables. We're going to need a tough leader to oversee the clean up. Someone who has a proven ability to work hard, and fight for what is right. Someone who loves every part of our state. I believe that leader is Jackie Cilley, and I'm proud to support her candidacy for governor of New Hampshire.

Let's Be Frank About Frank's Franking

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Remember the Great Franking Outrage of 2010? Suddenly Guinta and the rest of the teanuts were everywhere, barking about Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's abuse of the so-called franking system. This is the system (enacted in 1775) which allows members of Congress to send out mail under their signature, with no stamp or postage. Congress reimburses the Post Office for the franked mail that it handles.

In any case, the GFO of 2010 looked like this post from Guinta:

There must be a more efficient, and most importantly, less costly way to distribute these papers. Many of her points in the pamphlet include keeping taxpayers from "paying the price" for acts such as bailouts. In this case, because of her elaborate, expensive design and excessive distribution, the taxpayers did pay the price. How is this supposed to help our deficit?

One would expect, that given Frank's frank commentary about CSP's franking, he'd be mighty careful of his own.
I'm sure many of you got this recent mailer. A gaudy, multicolored mailing comes every week from Frank, the concerned franker:


The Bakersfield Californian had a story in their Sunday edition about how much members of Congress spend on franking privileges:

* Also among individual House members, Rep. Frank C. Guinta, R-N.H., spent the most on franked mail in 2011: $164,650.

After all that noise about franking during 2010, Frank goes on to distinguish himself by being the biggest franker. Does he think he gets a deal because the system is named after him??

No wonder our Frank earned a spot in CREW's list of most corrupt members of Congress.

Luckily, we have Carol Shea-Porter running against franking Frank - and we have the Credo Super Pac working to take down the
Tea Party Ten.

One of the 10 is our own Frank Guinta. So, that means 4 organizers in state, working on nothing but calling attention to what a lousy job Frank Guinta has done of representing our state and our country.

Check out their website, and friend 'em on Facebook
and find out what they're up to - and how you can help.


cross posted at Blue Hampshire

How To Simulate Being A Sailor

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Any I still miss this ... some day. B-)

Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months.

Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.

Repaint your entire house every month.

Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.

Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.

Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbor's house. Ignore his complaints.

Once a month, take all major appliances apart and then reassemble them.

Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors, so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them.

Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week, so no bathing will be allowed.

Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in.

Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say "Sorry, wrong rack".

Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.

Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 am, blow a whistle so loud Helen Keller could hear it, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up".

Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 a.m. while she reads it to you.

Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 3 pm.

Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not.

Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you.
Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.

When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone shouting that your home is under attack and ordering them to their battle stations.

Make your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.

Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.

Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off.

Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread.

Set your alarm clock to go off a random during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the back yard and uncoil the garden hose.

Every week or so, throw your cat or dog in the pool and shout "Man overboard port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.

Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup "Stove manned and ready". After an hour or so, speak into the cup again "Stove secured." Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox.

Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.

When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

For former engineers: bring your lawn mower into the living room, and run it all day long.

Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking.

Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.

Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.

Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go to the scummiest part of town. Find the most run down, trashiest bar, and drink beer until you are hammered. Then walk all the way home.

Take a two week vacation visiting the red light districts of Europe or the Far East, and call it "world travel".

Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for "liberty". At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house

Is Ware Shoals cutting educators' pay?

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A note was published last week in the Greenwood Index-Journal about a proposal to cut educators' salaries to help balance the local district's budget, but I haven't heard whether the issue has been resolved, or how.

This was the original note, by reporter Erin Owens:

Ware Shoals School District Board of Trustees discussed possible ways in which the district can cut its budget for the 2012-13 school year during its meeting Monday.

Though the state's budget has not yet been set, school districts throughout the state could potentially see a decrease in funding should the current state budget pass. To make up for the losses, Ware Shoals discussed raising millage and reducing pay for retirees in the district, though no official decisions were made Monday.

"This is just an exercise in frustration right now, because we have such little information and it's my understanding that we won't get any more information until June," Superintendent Fay Sprouse said.

Sprouse said the district is eligible to make a 3.2 percent increase in millage in the county, which would affect mainly businesses and rental properties. Sprouse said a 3.2 percent millage increase would not generate a significant amount of money, but could help the district. Board members will consider the millage increase and discuss it further next month.

Cutting pay for retired district employees was another option discussed during the meeting. Sprouse said the district has six full-time retiree employees and two part-time, who are currently paid at the 11-year experience level on the pay scale. About three years ago, the retired employees' salary was decreased from the highest experience level to the mid-experience level. Decreasing retiree pay further to the zero experience level next year would save about $81,000 for the district, and would be a 20 to 25 percent salary cut for the employees.

"We value our retirees for their commitment to the district and for their expertise," Sprouse said. "But we also have to make sure we take care of those who are not retirees and that we are able to maintain our budget. We want them to continue working for us for a fair wage, but we have to weigh it in light of all the other things we've had to endure."

In other words, retirees who are collecting their meager retirement benefits while continuing to teach, in order to make ends meet, should learn to eat less to cut back on their grocery bills, turn up the thermostat to consume less electricity during the coming summer months, and make fewer trips to the doctor's office to save on gas.

Zais's plan to discard public schools inches ahead

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Let's see: It's a proposal that brings back segregation -- by gender, this time, but the die is cast -- and opens public school athletic programs to students who are not enrolled in those public schools.

In essence, it turns traditional public schools into a neighborhood Boys Club and Girls Club, with teachers and a cafeteria.

So we're one step closer to dismantling public education for good, which brings satisfaction to the state Superintendent of Education, Mick Zais.

The Post & Courier fills in the rest:

Palmetto State charter school supporters are celebrating the passage of a sweeping set of changes they say will benefit their public schools.

South Carolina lawmakers have adopted bill H. 3241 that proponents say would strengthen the state’s public charter schools. Some of the bill’s provisions include:

Allowing higher-education institutions to approve charter schools to open.

Permitting single-gender charter schools to exist.

Letting charter school students participate in extracurricular or athletic activities at their neighborhood school if those aren’t offered at their charter school.

“It’s going to result in students’ excelling academically and truly moving South Carolina forward,” said Mary Carmichael, executive director of the Public Charter School Alliance of South Carolina, which has been a driving force behind the legislation.

Charter schools are public schools, but they are not governed by county school boards. They instead have separate boards to make decisions about funding, policy and curriculum.

Yes, because local control is good only when lawmakers say it's good. When local control is bad, lawmakers disallow it.

About 18,000 students are enrolled in 47 charter schools statewide. Charleston has nine brick-and-mortar charter schools, eight of which are open only to county residents. Lowcountry students also can enroll in online charter schools.

The state passed its charter school law in 1996, and lawmakers made significant changes in 2006, such as creating an alternative authorizer, the state Public Charter School District, and allowing virtual charter schools.

The new legislation is the biggest overhaul of the state’s rules on charter schools since then, Carmichael said.

Proponents of the bill have been working for nearly three years on this with Rep. Phil Owens, R-Easley, chairman of the House Education and Public Works Committee. He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

They looked at the national model for state charter school law and tried to change South Carolina’s to be higher quality. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools ranked the state’s law No. 25 nationally, saying it needed to be adjusted to ensure equitable funding and access to capital money and facilities.

This is tragicomic. Supporters of traditional public schools -- you know, the ones that enroll 700,000 public schoolchildren in South Carolina -- want their schools to be higher quality, too. National rankings credit us for the quality of curriculum and instruction, but they rank us pretty poorly for support of our schools. And there's a 14-year-old lawsuit called Abbeville v South Carolina that asks the courts to order equitable funding for our public schools. But none of these things seems to matter.

If only traditional public schools had an advocate like Rep. Phil Owens working on their behalf for three years, traditional public schools might find themselves the beneficiaries of increased funding and better facilities.

How do we get one of those?

The original bill included a provision that called for local funds to follow students, regardless of where they enrolled, but that was eliminated. Carmichael said that’s an issue that still needs to be addressed and will be worked on going forward.

“That’s something we know long term we need to have,” she said.

Scott Price is attorney for the South Carolina School Boards Association, which serves and represents the interest of traditional school boards that sometimes clash with charter schools.

The association had some concerns with the bill, particularly the issue of the funding following the child. Estimates showed that districts could have taken a $25 million hit were that to happen, he said.

The association also had a problem with allowing charter school students to participate in extracurricular and athletic activities elsewhere, because it could be to the detriment of other children enrolled in neighborhood schools, he said.

Sure. Jimmy, enrolled in the traditional public school, wants to participate on the football team; Jimmy's talented and qualified, and he's enrolled in the school that sponsors the team, for cryin' out loud.

But Bruiser attends the charter school across the highway, and he wants to play football at Jimmy's school because the charter school doesn't have a football team, and Bruiser wants to play for Clemson one day. Coach is feeling substantial pressure to let Bruiser on the team; Bruiser's dad's name is Deacon, and Deacon got Senator to give Coach a call. Now, Bruiser can't add, subtract or do long division, but who cares? Bruiser's big and can run. Result: Jimmy gets to play Fantasy Football on his X-Box at home, while Bruiser gets Locker Number One in the traditional public school's locker room.

If you think this won't happen, you must live outside South Carolina.

The association supported some of the bill’s provisions, such as allowing single-gender schools and ensuring an appropriate timeline for school districts to turn over state and federal funds to charter schools.

In the end, “it’s something we can work with,” he said.

State Superintendent of Education Mick Zais praised the passage of the new law and thanked lawmakers for it.

“The General Assembly has renewed its commitment to providing parents a choice in the school their children attend,” he said in a statement. “A one-size-fits-all model of education simply doesn’t work for many students. Public charter schools are laboratories of innovation where the interests of students come first.”

And South Carolina's Department of Education is now a laboratory for expensive experimentation where the interests of traditional public schools and their 700,000 enrolled schoolchildren come last.

Education deform, straight from the horse's mouth

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The fact that the Wall Street newspaper Investors Business Daily has given FreedomWorks president and CEO Matt Kibbe space in its publication to discuss education "reform" is informative.

It reflects that, from the corporate community's perspective, the privatization of public education represents a treasure trove of profits potentially reaching hundreds of billions of dollars.

Somebody, after all, has to educate the children. Without the hassle of a public school system blocking the path, the education bidness -- that's bidness, as in, contracts will be awarded to the highest bidder -- will be free to plunder.

Set aside any illusions you may have that common sense and democracy will save us from this ugly fate. We get back from Columbia what we send to Columbia, and we've sown a crop of anti-public education leadership.

So, study closely, readers: Our corporate masters are instructing us in how things will soon be.

Hush, now. The less you struggle, the easier it will go for you.

Nowhere is the Tea Party's sustained influence clearer than in efforts to promote education reform around the nation.

For the first time in the history of our country, we are seeing a broad-based educational reform effort that is not driven by the unions. Instead, parents and activists are working together on a local level, empowered by the national Tea Party movement, to apply the mechanics of the free market to struggling school systems.

While success has been widespread, efforts made in South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania provide some of the clearest examples of the Tea Party in action.

On March 28, the South Carolina House passed H. 4894, allowing tax credits and deductions for donations for privately funded scholarships. A similar bill failed in the House by just one vote in the previous session.

This time around, FreedomWorks joined local activists and Tea Party leaders in their efforts, providing the grass-roots campaign with extra air and ground support needed to pass the bill. After six months, the bill passed by 15 votes — a landslide turnaround — and is now headed for the South Carolina Senate.

In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal introduced the boldest education reform package ever seen in our nation's history. The legislation overhauls the system using the same model that was successful in post-Katrina New Orleans by providing low-income parents with vouchers that enable them to send their children to the school of their choice.

Jindal's plan also includes tying teacher tenure to good performance, and a system of tax credits that allows businesses to privately sponsor students' education.

On April 4, the Louisiana state Senate voted to pass the voucher expansion bill, HB 976, and the teacher tenure reform bill, HB 974, by margins of 24-15 and 23-16 respectively, sending the legislation to the governor's desk to be signed into law and marking the biggest education reform victory to date.

In Mississippi, Republicans control both state houses for the first time in 136 years. Gov. Phil Bryant, a bold executive leader like Gov. Jindal, has made charter school expansion the centerpiece of his campaign. Charter school legislation SB 2401 recently passed in the Mississippi Senate and failed by a single vote in the state House Education Committee.

But as South Carolina showed, turning a single vote into a bold majority is possible, and well within reach.

In fact, Gov. Bryant has already called for a special session of the legislature in an effort to save the bill, demonstrating a bold example to governors in other states that when education reform gets tough, the true leaders double down while the timid get going.

Heading north, we see the impact that conservative activists have on the 25-year fight for school choice in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where efforts to bring student-centered reform to schools have faltered for years.

The Tea Party movement has reinvigorated the cause, working with activists and non-Tea Partyers alike to make more progress over the past two years than was made over the past two decades.

Senate Bill 1 passed the Pennsylvania Senate just before a narrow defeat in the House. This initial bicameral friction hasn't deterred local activists from fighting to free schools from the stranglehold of corrupt union leadership.

Americans are realizing that the lack of competition created by powerful teacher unions like the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association is robbing children of the education they deserve and disenfranchising good teachers. The only solution is increasing competition in the school system. Continuing to line the pockets of union bosses with more and more taxpayer money is a failed and irresponsible approach.

For the most part, conservative parents and activists have won the battles in the state capitol chambers. But we couldn't have done it without the bold commitment to leadership from governors like Bobby Jindal and Phil Bryant.

I can only hope the successes of education reform in Louisiana and Mississippi will start a national trend toward electing and supporting entrepreneurial governors who make education reform a No. 1 priority, not simply cheering from the sidelines.

The Wall Street Journal called 2011 "The Year of School Choice." FreedomWorks, Tea Party activists and our allies in state governments across the nation are not only committed to continuing this trend of success in 2012, but to making the next 100 years the Century of School Choice.

There you have it.

The leader of the corporate-funded education deform movement in America has drawn the lines himself, educators. On one side stands he and the corporate masters who write his checks.

On the other side stand organized educators, which he called out by their names -- the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association.

Between the two stand educators who today work in public schools, but whose jobs may be converted tomorrow, next year, or within a decade, to corporate ownership.

Which side have you chosen?

Spartanburg doesn't want unfunded bus mandate

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Editors of the Herald-Journal last week detailed their skepticism of Governor Nikki Haley's scheme to privatize the state's school bus system, declaring that they don't want another unfunded mandate sent down from Columbia.

I doubt that Haley will suddenly reverse course upon reading the editors' commentary; after all, they endorsed Vincent Sheheen against Haley in 2010, cautioning their readers against Haley's "platitudes."

Still, the editors in this instance -- as in that instance -- make perfect sense.

If state lawmakers decide to divest themselves of the state’s school bus system, they must do so in a manner that doesn’t place an unfunded mandate on school districts.

South Carolina is unlike other states in that the state owns and operates the school bus fleet. Gov. Nikki Haley and some lawmakers have been pushing to change that. They want to create a system that allows school districts to operate the buses on their own or hire private companies to operate their buses.

The state House was too divided on the issue to pass the proposal. Instead, lawmakers voted to form a study committee to look into the issue.

There is much room for improvement here.

The General Assembly rarely approves money to buy new school buses, so the average age of a bus in the fleet is about 14 years. The state often maximizes the money it does have by buying used buses from school operations in other states.

It is likely that there are efficiencies and improvements that privatization could bring to the school transportation system. Allowing districts control over their transportation systems might also allow them to better provide for their students’ needs.

But there is danger in changing the system as well. Many school district officials are afraid of an unfunded mandate — something state government requires them to do but fails to pay for. That is a legitimate fear.

School officials know it is likely that lawmakers will turn over the bus system to them and initially turn over the money that ran that system. But will that state allotment keep up with inflation?

As the buses age and need to be replaced, where will the money come from to buy new buses? That money isn’t in the annual budget. The General Assembly makes a special appropriation every so often. Will it give up this money when the buses are no longer a state concern?

As fuel prices continue to rise, will lawmakers increase the budget given to school districts to run the bus system? Or once lawmakers have washed their hands of the bus system, will they leave school districts to solve that problem on their own?

If bus service becomes a local issue, wealthier school districts will put more money into their systems than poorer districts. How long will it be before lawmakers are denouncing disparity in district bus systems and calling again for change?

Transportation is a critical element of our education system. South Carolina’s children need safe and reliable buses to take them to school and back home. They don’t need another political football tossed between Columbia and school districts.

As the study committee examines this issue, it should focus on enabling improvements, empowering school districts and avoiding saddling districts with a new financial burden they are ill-equipped to bear.

I'm Supporting Jackie Cilley

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I moved to North Conway in 1984. I've lived in northern Carroll County for most of the last 28 years. I've been here for the varying terms of six different governors. None of those who have served were from the North Country, or had ties to us. The northern part of the state is almost invariably treated like a pretty, yet redheaded stepchild. NH politicians love our hiking, skiing, fishing, and the beauty of our mountains. They ignore the economic devastation, the lack of infrastructure, the lack of telecommunications capability, the high unemployment and high rate of poverty and lack of health insurance. Instead, the north is a dumping ground for prisons, and other projects the rest of the state is too good for.

To be fair, both Jeanne Shaheen and John Lynch did a whole lot more than pay lip service to the north. Shaheen fought hard for the mill workers of Berlin. Governor Lynch was in a helicopter to Harts Location, to assess the damage to Rt. 302, as soon as the rains of Hurricane Irene stopped. He also helped facilitate the last sale of the mill in Gorham.

Jackie Cilley won't ever have to be reminded to care about the North Country. She's part of it. Jackie was born in Berlin. She grew up in a 3rd floor tenement, in a working class neighborhood. Her grandpa worked at the Brown Co. paper mill. Her mother worked in a factory, and her father was a truck driver. After graduating from Berlin High School, she moved to Manchester, where she moved in to the YWCA and went to work in a textile mill. After a brief marriage, as a single mother in her 20's, Jackie went to college at UNH, where she earned a BA in psychology. She was the first member of her family to graduate from college. Jackie went on to earn an MBA at the Whittemore School (at UNH) and became a member of the faculty. Jackie has been a successful small business owner, and she has served in both the NH House and Senate.

You may have heard this before. I repeat it, because it is important. Jackie Cilley is the embodiment of the American dream. No matter how modest our beginnings, we're all supposed to be able to grow up, work hard, get an education, and become a success. That's the promise of our nation.

It is a promise that is increasingly broken. NH has amongst the highest costs for in-state students of any state university system. NH ranks a firm 50th in the nation for state spending on post-secondary education. Our young people can't afford to get an education here, and if they go out of state to get one, they never come back - especially to the North Country.

We've all heard the NH GOP mantra: "New Hampshire doesn't have a revenue problem, New Hampshire has a spending problem." At this point in time, we all know that's a lie. NH doesn't have enough money to fix our ailing roads and bridges. Why not? Because we have an outdated tax structure, and because our current legislature has delighted in cutting revenue streams, as though businesses are just falling all over themselves to re-locate to a state that has a broken infrastructure and doesn't value education.

It's time for NH to stop kicking the can down the road. We must deal with the problems we have, and start building our future. Jackie's refusal to take the Loeb/Thomson pledge shows me that she won't march forward in mindless lockstep. Taking The Pledge means there is no discussion, just obedience. If those who want to lead are too afraid to even have the conversation, than how can we call them leaders? Jackie not only thinks for herself, she’s willing to stand up and be counted.

The current legislature is going to be leaving behind a mess comparable to what Hercules faced in the Augean Stables. We're going to need a tough leader to oversee the clean up. Someone who has a proven ability to work hard, and fight for what is right. Someone who loves every part of our state. I believe that leader is Jackie Cilley, and I'm proud to support her candidacy for governor of New Hampshire.

New Hampshire Has a Revenue Problem

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After fielding a team of abundantly mediocre primary candidates, the GOP finally has Mitt Romney as a presumptive nominee. Mitt seems to have been anointed because he’s the wealthiest of the mediocre, and the Republicans appear to be operating under the theory that if they can’t come up with a good candidate, they should at least be able to buy the office.

In 2011 the GOP took aim at women, and enacted 135 new laws governing female reproduction. Male reproduction, however, is still a bastion of liberty. The party of “less gubmint interference in the lives of individuals” showed us all that when they say “individuals” what they really mean is MEN. Wisconsin just repealed their equal pay enforcement act. GOP talking heads are telling us that women want to receive lower pay for equal work, because they go off and have babies. These are babies that the same party claims to worship and venerate so much that they would like to force women to involuntarily incubate them. In summary: the GOP would like to ensure that women have no affordable access to birth control, would force involuntary incubation, and will then punish women for having a baby by eliminating the safety net and eliminating equal pay laws. It’s guano squared.

This is proving to be a conundrum for Mediocre Mitt. He’s been in Wisconsin praising Governor Walker, who repealed the equal pay act. Mitt has made tepid claims of supporting equal pay, but has proven to be unable to answer questions about women and reproduction – preferring to leave those to his wife. Now that Mitt’s the probable nominee, he’s firing back, claiming that the REAL war on women is being waged by Obama, who has personally caused millions of women to lose their jobs, and not helped them get new ones.

The current recession/depression began during the Bush administration. The current crop of folks elected in 2010 was mostly Republicans. Republicans who slashed state budgets, and caused hundreds of thousands of public sector losses. The bulk of those jobs were held by women. Teachers, nurses, librarians – mostly women. The NH Freebaglican budget cost some 2,000 hospitals to lay off employees – mostly women. We have the GOP trying to legislate gynecological rape via transvaginal probe on the one hand, and claiming they’re not waging war on women on the other. It’s going to prove a hard sell. Women just aren’t dumb enough to buy the guano squared.

There is plenty of stupid to go around, however. This week, the NH House Criminal Justice and Safety Committee took up SB 274, a bill that would change some of the language in NH’s aggravated rape statute. This bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee 5-0, but it’s run aground in the House. Some representatives argued against removing phrases like “mentally defective” from the language of the law. There are judges who feel that using that terminology to describe a rape victim is offensive. Representatives Jason Antosz and Ken Kreis disagree. Antosz referred to this as: “PC nonsense” and that words such as “defective” and “retarded” were “just words.” In looking at one particular case, Kreis commented that the woman in question was 29 years old and “had her entire life to get used to being called defective.” These two are right out of the Martin Harty School of Tact and Diplomacy. Martin Harty was the 90-year-old GOP freshman legislator who had to resign shortly after taking office, for telling a constituent that it was too bad we couldn’t send the mental defectives to Siberia.

It’s my experience that those who bang on the loudest about how they hate PC are people who bitterly resent the fact that racist and misogynist slurs are no longer considered acceptable in polite conversation. Rep. Antosz has attempted to defend himself by saying he’s “defective” because he has a bad knee. He is indeed defective, but his knee has nothing to do with it. As for Kreis, anyone who can say that the victim of an aggravated rape should be accustomed to being called defective is someone who is a disgrace to the People’s House and should resign immediately.

The arrogance visible in our current legislature is breathtaking. Not only are they arrogant, they take for granted that voters are not paying attention, and dumber than dirt. A recent story in the Conway Sun illustrates this phenomenon. Erik Eisele’s story about the condition of East Conway Road came with some quotes from our once and future Speaker of the NH House, Rep. Gene Chandler. East Conway Road is actually a state road, but it is designated as an unnumbered state highway, and is therefore at the bottom of the funding barrel. There is no money. Rep. Chandler said that not only is there no money to do the fixing, but, “there’s no place to get the money from.”
Chandler wrote editorials with Speaker O’Brien, defending the budget they passed last year. That budget cut state revenues. Of course there’s no money. They made sure that there wouldn’t be enough money. It was deliberate. We’ve been hearing for decades, “NH doesn’t have a revenue problem, NH has a spending problem.” As we can all see now, that is, and always has been a lie. Our roads and bridges are a disaster. Far from being ashamed, Chandler will tell you “this is what the taxpayers want.” That, dear readers, is a crock. It’s what the Free State/Tea Party/far right fringe of the Republican Party wants. These are people who are living in the 19th century, and prove every day that they lack any qualifications to move our state into the future.
NH is the seventh wealthiest state in the nation. We have 27,000 millionaires living here. Yet 15% of our bridges are structurally deficient. NH is in 11th place nationally for having the worst bridges.

This is the direct result of pledge politics. The Freebaglicans will continue to extol the virtues of what they call the NH Advantage. Strange as it may seem, businesses don’t seem to be falling all over themselves to move to a state where a broken infrastructure and lack of support for education are considered an advantage.


h/t to NH_GOP for the photo. Would you buy a used ear of corn from that man?

© sbruce 2012

this was published as an op-ed in the April 13, 2012 edition of the Conway Daily Sun newspaper

Let's Be Frank About Frank's Franking

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Remember the Great Franking Outrage of 2010? Suddenly Guinta and the rest of the teanuts were everywhere, barking about Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter's abuse of the so-called franking system. This is the system (enacted in 1775) which allows members of Congress to send out mail under their signature, with no stamp or postage. Congress reimburses the Post Office for the franked mail that it handles.

In any case, the GFO of 2010 looked like this post from Guinta:

There must be a more efficient, and most importantly, less costly way to distribute these papers. Many of her points in the pamphlet include keeping taxpayers from "paying the price" for acts such as bailouts. In this case, because of her elaborate, expensive design and excessive distribution, the taxpayers did pay the price. How is this supposed to help our deficit?

One would expect, that given Frank's frank commentary about CSP's franking, he'd be mighty careful of his own.
I'm sure many of you got this recent mailer. A gaudy, multicolored mailing comes every week from Frank, the concerned franker:


The Bakersfield Californian had a story in their Sunday edition about how much members of Congress spend on franking privileges:

* Also among individual House members, Rep. Frank C. Guinta, R-N.H., spent the most on franked mail in 2011: $164,650.

After all that noise about franking during 2010, Frank goes on to distinguish himself by being the biggest franker. Does he think he gets a deal because the system is named after him??

No wonder our Frank earned a spot in CREW's list of most corrupt members of Congress.

Luckily, we have Carol Shea-Porter running against franking Frank - and we have the Credo Super Pac working to take down the
Tea Party Ten.

One of the 10 is our own Frank Guinta. So, that means 4 organizers in state, working on nothing but calling attention to what a lousy job Frank Guinta has done of representing our state and our country.

Check out their website, and friend 'em on Facebook
and find out what they're up to - and how you can help.


cross posted at Blue Hampshire

Ann Romney Visits the Let Them Eat Cake Bakery Again

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Ann Romney, advisor-in-chief to her husband Willard on women's issues, steps in it again.From newstimes.com:

Romney, 63, still stinging from recent comments by Democratic pundit Hilary Rosen that she's never worked a day in her life, received a multiple standing ovations from a crowd of 800 Republicans at the party's annual Prescott Bush Awards Dinner.

Certainly one problem Mrs. Rmoney has is that she was speaking at a dinner celebrating Nazi collaborator Prescott Bush.

"I know what it's like to finish the laundry and to look in the basket five minutes later and it's full again," Romney said. "I know what it's like to pull all the groceries in and see the teenagers run through and then all of sudden all of the groceries you just bought a few hours ago are gone. I know what it's like to get up early in the morning and get them off to school. I know what it's like get up in the middle of the night when they're sick And I know what it's like to struggle and to have those concerns that all mothers have."

Mrs. Rmoney still doesn't get it. She may have been awfully busy and concerned raising five sons, but she did NOT have to deal with the concerns MOST mothers have. Concerns like how to pay the electric bill, how to stretch the contents of the refrigerator till payday, and how to pay for health insurance. This is the most irksome thing about Ann Rmoney - she absolutely refuses to acknowledge how much money has insulated her from the "same concerns" other mothers have. Then there's this:

"I love the fact that there are also women out there that don't have a choice, that they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids," Romney said. "Sometimes life isn't easy for any of us."

Mrs. Rmoney loves the fact that so many of us are struggling. Mr. Rmoney might be better off sending Marie Antoinette home to the palace.


The misspelling of Romney/Rmoney is intentional.

Rabid Ideologues Will Destry Us

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The state of NH is looking into privatizing its entire prison system. Four companies have submitted bids. If Governor Lynch and the Executive Council accept one of those bids, NH would become the first state in the nation to hand over the entire prison system to a private company. The four venders are:
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), Management & Training Corporation (MTC), The Geo Group Inc. and the Hunt Companies.

None of these companies are altruists, who want to ensure that prisoners are rehabilitated and leave prison prepared to tackle the challenge of turning their lives around. These are private companies with only one interest: turning a profit. That means cutting corners in every way possible, while working to ensure that the prisons remain full.

A recent story in USA Today focuses on a deal being offered by one company in some 48 states. CCA is offering to buy prisons from cash strapped states, in exchange for a guarantee that the governments guarantee a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years.

If NH’s prison system becomes privatized, the corporation will be leaning on legislators to pass the kind of laws that guarantee harsher sentences, and fuller prisons. Other states will send their prisoners here. The corporation will build more even more prison facilities in the state, and I think you all can guess where those prisons will be. The north country seems to serve as the dumping ground for the rest of the state.

A study in Arizona revealed that the privatized prisons were actually costing the state more. The Arizona legislature responded to this by inserting a provision into the budget that eliminates the need for a cost and quality review. In other words, they didn’t like the report, so the solution is not to take action – the solution is to ensure there will be no further reports.
If you don’t think that could/would happen here, you haven’t been paying attention to the sorts of things the NH legislature has done in the last biennium.

CCA has eliminated about 240 jobs in their Colorado prisons. Remember, this is a business. Profit means cutting costs, and that doesn’t leave a lot of choice in a prison. It means hiring people who aren’t well educated or trained, and as few of them as possible. It means cutting back on programs for sex offenders and addicts. It means a lot of solitary confinement. No need to have a big staff if everyone is locked in a cell 23 hours a day.

There is a reason other states don’t do this. It’s a really bad idea.

Apparently studies and numbers really are a bad idea. A story just now making the rounds in northern New England reports that the ski business in the US as a whole experienced its worst winter since the early 1990’s. In 2011, visits to alpine areas in NH were down by 20% from the year before. The ski industry continues to try to make the case that if folks don’t see snow in their back yards, they don’t come to the mountains to go skiing, but in these days of easily accessible information, that’s just lame.

A story in the Laconia Sun about bike week revealed that no one wants to come up with any numbers about attendance. If it had been huge, they’d be falling all over themselves to speculate. It wasn’t huge, as was quite obvious to anyone who has lived in this area for six or seven years. There were bikes, but not nearly as many as there have been in the past.

No one likes to tell these stories or recount these facts. The US is the only country that is in denial of climate change. Those changes are affecting our winters. Only the most devout anti-science ostriches can deny that our snowfall is diminishing. Another factor here that no one wants to get into is the economy. Since the 2008 collapse of the economy, the news media and many economists have fallen all over themselves to present this as a recession, even calling it “the great recession.”

Earlier this month, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman spoke at the 2012 Netroots Nation gathering in Providence, RI. Krugman calls our current economic situation a depression. At NN he said, “When things are going down, it’s a recession. When things are down for a long time, it’s a depression.” Of course we can’t call it what it really is, because that would look bad, and it might call into question our obscene level of military spending. Krugman also said, “This is not an economic problem, this is a political problem.” He’s right. The US has rebounded from a depression before. We know how to do it.

We have a Congress that isn’t interested in solving problems; they’re interested in preventing solutions. They would prefer to ensure greater destruction rather than let the black guy appear to succeed. These aren’t public servants; these are rabid ideologues that will destroy us, if we let them.

We have rabid ideologues in NH, too. On Facebook the other day, the Conway Sun asked what questions readers would ask 2012 candidates. I would ask all of our local candidates for the NH House and Senate how they intend to solve NH’s infrastructure problems. Our roads, bridges, and dams are in trouble, and our telecommunications infrastructure is no better. The bad economy is hurting tourism, as is the change in our climate. Tourism is NH’s second largest industry. We don’t fund our state parks adequately. We have rows of outhouses at our information centers, something that should be a source of great shame to us all, here in the wealthiest state in the union.

If they tell you we can privatize, cigarette tax and/or casino our way out of this mess, they’re lying. Casino revenues are down at Foxwoods, in Atlantic City, and in Nevada. NH needs to have some serious discussions. I wish I thought that would happen. In a state where the media functions as the propaganda wing of the NH GOP, it seems unlikely.


“He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning.” Danish proverb



This was published as an op-ed in the June 22, 2012 edition of the Conway Daily Sun Newspaper
© sbruce 2012


Chris Shane did the great cartoon.