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suaveNow Playing: LIBTARD EDUCATION ALERT
Topic: Lib Loser Stories
Coach disciplined for distributing flier at school
Instructor urged Latino students to attend rally on immigration
Rudy Rios was stripped of his duties as junior varsity baseball coach at Chavez High School last week after using a district copying machine to make a flier encouraging Latino students to attend a rally protesting restrictions on illegal immigration.
Rios, who still retains his duties as an English-as-a-second-language teacher, was copying and distributing a flier that read: "We gots 2 stay together and protest against the new law that wants 2 be passed against all immigrants. We gots 2 show the U.S. that they aint (expletive) with out us (sic)," according to district officials.
"Mr. Rios used taxpayer-funded school equipment to copy and distribute to children an offensive statement," said Houston Independent School District spokesman Terry Abbott. "The principal exercised his authority to remove Mr. Rios as junior varsity baseball coach, and it certainly was an appropriate decision."
Chavez Principal Dan Martinez made the decision, but referred questions on the issue to Abbott. Rios could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
According to district records, Rios has been with HISD since August 2002. He earned about $42,000 a year.
Last week, Reagan High School Principal Robert Pambello was disciplined for putting a Mexican flag below the U.S. and Texas flags that fly at his school.
Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said many educators are struggling to keep their opinions on the controversial changes to the immigration laws out of the classroom.
"It's a very tough one for a lot of the teachers because it's a highly emotional issue," she said. "A teacher's role is to be informative, but not persuasive. They need to talk to students. They need to make sure they know the issues, but like any other political issue, their role is not to express a specific opinion."
Teachers would be allowed to demonstrate on their own time, including during duty-free lunches, she said. "A teacher is a citizen. A teacher has every right to — on their own time — be as public as they want, no matter how popular or unpopular their views," she said.
Houston Chronicle ~ Jennifer Radcliffe ** Coach disciplined for distributing flier at school
Posted by yaahoo_2006iest
at 4:13 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, 6 April 2006 4:16 PM EDT
chatty
Arizona Poll: Make English Official State Language
More than four-in-five Arizona residents support making English the official language of the state according to a new poll conducted by Zogby International from March 30 to 31, 2006.
The poll of 510 likely voters in the Grand Canyon State found that 82 percent of Arizonans favor official English legislation, with more than two-thirds of respondents strongly favoring such a measure.
"Arizona residents have once again declared that they want the government to embrace our official language – English," said Mauro E. Mujica, chairman of U.S. English, Inc. "They understand that English remains the great unifier in a diverse state and that fluency in English is the key to economic self-sufficiency and personal growth."
Support for making English the official language of Arizona carried across nearly every demographic sub-group. The measure was favored by nearly six-in-10 Democrats and more than three-in-four Independents, along with 78 percent of Hispanics, 86 percent of senior citizens and 86 percent of those aged 18 to 29. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, with higher margins of error in sub-groups.
"As an immigrant and naturalized citizen, I understand that learning English is a critical component in becoming an American," continued Mujica. "Unfortunately, government today often undermines our common language by providing a lifetime translation entitlement. This law would strike a balance between assistance and assimilation."
Official English legislation in Arizona calls for government to conduct official business in English and ensures that the state does not have an obligation to provide foreign language services. The bill takes into account numerous common sense exceptions to ensure the constitutional rights of all Arizonans. Public health and safety information, law enforcement and courtroom translation are all exempted from the law.
Last month, the Arizona House passed HCR 2036, legislation that would allow the citizens of Arizona to vote on making English the official language of the state. The measure, approved on March 23 by a margin of 34 to 22 in the House, is now in the Senate for consideration. If passed, the citizens of Arizona would cast their vote in November.
Last year, the House and Senate both passed legislation that would make English the official language of Arizona, only to have it vetoed by the governor. A subsequent poll by KAET-TV/Channel 8 and Arizona State University found that the majority of Arizonans disagree with the governor's action.
d'oh
Congresswoman's husband gets 5 months
The husband of an Illinois congresswoman was sentenced to five months in federal prison Wednesday for writing rubber checks and failing to pay withholding taxes.
Robert Creamer, 58, husband of U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., also was ordered to serve house arrest for 11 months after he finishes his prison term.
Prosecutors had wanted a three-year sentence, but U.S. District Judge James B. Moran said five months was fairer because no one suffered "out of pocket losses" and Creamer acted not out of greed but in an effort to keep his community action group going without cutting programs.
Schakowsky sat stoically with her hands folded in her lap, often looking out the window, as Moran imposed the sentence.
Afterward she read a statement to reporters and left without answering questions.
"I am obviously disappointed that Bob's sentence included incarceration, but we accept the judge's decision and look forward to the day that we can finally put this nearly decade-long chapter behind us," Schakowsky said.
She said she was proud that her husband "has for his entire adult life devoted himself to fighting for a better future for others-- he has been a constant crusader for social and economic justice in this country and beyond."
The case, which has been dragging on for years, has had no discernible impact on Schakowsky's political career. She is an odds-on favorite to win reelection in November from an overwhelmingly Democratic city and suburban district.
Creamer is one of Chicago's best-known political consultants. He has worked for the campaigns of both Mayor Richard M. Daley and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Creamer told reporters he was disappointed that he must go to prison but accepted it.
He promised that "for the rest of my life I will continue to do whatever I can to work for social and economic justice."
"And I will never again allow my passion for that goal to overwhelm my good judgment or my respect for the law," Creamer added.
Creamer pleaded guilty to failing to pay withholding taxes and bank fraud involving check kiting-- writing checks on accounts without sufficient funds to cover them while moving money between accounts and playing the so-called float to prevent the checks from bouncing.
All of the money was repaid and Creamer had been hoping for no prison time.
Ferguson said Creamer's statements suggested that while he admitted his check kiting was "legally improper it was somehow morally acceptable."
"He shouldn't have taken money from banks, he shouldn't have taken tax money," he said.
Scores of Creamer friends and well-wishers had written to Moran describing what they called his lifetime of fighting for civil rights and justice for the poor.
All the same, Moran said some prison time was warranted. He did say Creamer had been "a champion of the little folks."
"But under our system ordinary folks if they get caught kiting checks or not paying their taxes, they end up going to jail," Moran said. He said the fact that Creamer had "caused a lot of well-connected people to think very highly of him does not seem to me to be a basis for treating him any differently from anybody else."
Under Moran's order, attorneys said, it might be possible for Creamer to travel to Washington to continue with his political consulting business while he is under house arrest. They also said he could be eligible for a halfway house toward the end of his five-month prison sentence.
Tom DeLay: Victim of GOP Timidity
The most stunning aspect of Tom DeLay's resignation from Congress isn't that he was forced out by a wave of bad publicity that began with his indictment last September for breaking a law that wasn't even on the books when DeLay allegedly violated it.
The real surprise of the DeLay debacle is that his fellow Republicans allowed him to be ripped apart by Democrat-friendly media piranha - without firing a shot in return.
Democrats would have surely backed off on their "Culture of Corruption" mantra had the GOP made even a minimal effort to fight fire with fire.
Instead, Hill Republicans looked the other way on one Democrat scandal after another - and will likely end up paying the price by losing control of Congress in November.
Here's a short list of investigations the GOP should have launched - not for reasons of partisan revenge - but because they warranted the full oversight of the party in control of Congress:
♣ Bergergate: The theft and destruction of top secret national security documents by former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger in a blatant attempt to obstruct the 9/11 Commission investigation.
Berger's crime was easily one of the most serious ever committed by a top government official. Yet the GOP Congress declined to probe further after the Bush Justice Department cut such an embarrassingly light plea bargain that even the Berger case judge was appalled.
♣ Rathergate: You'd never know it from the lethargic Republican reaction, but when a mysterious Texas source supplied forgeries of President Bush's military records to CBS News just weeks before the 2004 election, it was a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Compounding the political intrigue, CBS tipped a top staffer in the Kerry campaign on the coming Bush document assault.
But after Texas authorities declined to pursue a request for a criminal investigation from several GOP House members, the matter was promptly dropped. Republican congressional interest in getting to the bottom this scheme to steal the 2004 election after Texas authorities opted out: Zippo.
♣ Schumergate: The illegal purloining of Lt. Gov. Michael Steele's credit report by staffers on Sen. Chuck Schumer's Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee certainly seemed like a ripe topic for some congressional oversight. But like the Bergergate case, it appears that Bush Justice will let the guilty parties off with a slap on the wrist - without fingering any higher ups.
In fact, Schumer's committee is now insisting that it acted in an "exemplary manner" by not using the illegal info against Steele. GOP interest in further investigation? Bubkiss.
♣ Nukegate: We've already had several hearings into President Bush's so-called illegal NSA terrorist surveillance program, which was first revealed in James Risen's new book: "State of War."
But there's been little interest in the other bombshell development revealed by Risen: President Clinton's decision to give Iran doctored blueprints for key nuclear components that allowed the Iranians, in Risen's words, to "leapfrog one of the last remaining engineering hurdles blocking its path to a nuclear weapon."
With Sen. John McCain now predicting "Armageddon" as a result of the Iranian nuclear threat, one might think that a report like this might be ripe for congressional investigation.
But one would be wrong. Republican interest to date in a Clinton Nukegate probe: Zilch.
The list of Democrat scandals passed up by Republicans could probably fill a book. But others that deserve honorable mention are the surpression of the Barrett Report, media leaks by anti-Bush CIA insiders and a probe into Sen. Robert Byrd's activities while he was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan.
Compare those unexploited nuggets to the psuedo-scandals that supposedly drove DeLay from office - and it becomes abundantly clear why Republicans now stand an excellent chance of being forced to turn over the keys to Capitol Hill this November.
don't ask
In Massachusetts, Health Care for All?
A state bill would require universal health insurance. Implementing the initiative is likely to prove a lot harder than passing it
Efforts to extend health insurance to more Americans have been stalled in recent years between liberals' insistence on more government spending and conservatives' advocacy of private-sector approaches. Now Massachusetts may have broken the gridlock with an innovative bipartisan plan designed to achieve nearly universal coverage.
The bill, approved by the heavily Democratic Massachusetts legislature on Apr. 4, marries conservative and liberal ideas. For the first time ever in the U.S., all state residents would be required to have health insurance -- dubbed an individual mandate. Gov. Mitt Romney, a moderate Republican expected to run for the White House in 2008, champions this as a conservative victory that leads residents to take responsibility for their own health insurance. He says he plans to sign the bill soon, although he may first try to change some smaller provisions.
HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED. The legislation also includes such liberal measures as huge government subsidies to help low-income individuals buy insurance. What's more, all companies with 11 or more workers are required to help pay for health insurance -- a so-called employer mandate.
"This is an historic precedent that creates a partnership involving the public and private sector, as well as employers and individuals," says Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, which represents health care consumers.
Pollack and other experts predict the bill will have an impact on the health-care debate far beyond Boston. Romney says he has already encouraged a number of governors to study the bill, and he's expected to make the Massachusetts plan the cornerstone of his Presidential bid, much as President Bush touted his education achievements in Texas during his first run for the White House.
"The eyes of the nation are on us," adds Senate President Robert Travaglini, a liberal Democrat who normally opposes Romney. "We led the way with same-sex marriage, and now we are doing it with health care reform." (See BW, 11/28/05, 
families and individuals who don't qualify for Medicaid but are too poor to buy health insurance on their own. Nationally, this is the core of the uninsured, since more than 70% of the 45 million uninsured Americans have family incomes under $50,000, according to Families USA. Massachusetts plans to cover these people with big subsidies.
Those earning up to 100% of the federal poverty level would get what amounts to a free ride -- they wouldn't have to pay any premiums or any deductibles. Those making between 100% and 300% of the poverty level would pay part of their premiums, based on a sliding scale.
PENALTIES AS MOTIVATION. That leaves another 200,000 or so uninsured higher-income individuals who are the prime target of the individual mandate. Massachusetts is taking a carrot-and-stick approach. The carrot: a series of insurance-market reforms to make it easier and cheaper to buy insurance. For starters, the state will create a "health insurance connector," an innovation "that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy insurance as if they were a large company," says Dr. Marylou Buyse, president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans.
The stick: Beginning in 2008, individuals who don't have insurance will be subject to a penalty equal to half the cost of health insurance. Last year, coverage for an individual ran about $4,000 a year, and nearly $11,000 for a family, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. "That's a significant penalty," says John McDonough, executive director of Healthcare for All, a consumer advocacy group.
Advocates defend the approach, saying it's similar to requiring drivers to buy auto insurance. But it's still untested, and many Americans may resist being told to pay out for something at least some now choose to go without.
Another issue is how much Massachusetts would have to spend under the new law. Subsidies for low-income residents would total about $720 million a year, figures Massachusetts Secretary of Health Tim Murphy. But the law would tap into the large pot of dough his state has set aside to pay for the costs hospitals and other providers bear when the uninsured get free care at emergency rooms and elsewhere. Most other states don't have such available funds. The $720 million is also a lot less, proportionately, than the amount other states would have to cough up. About 25% of Texas residents are uninsured, for example, roughly twice the rate in Massachusetts.
STICKY POINTS. The employer mandate, while low, is another potentially controversial issue. The bill would require companies with 11 or more employees that don't provide health insurance to pay up to $295 a year per worker. Still, "there's strong support in the business community for this measure," says Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation. "This equalizes the burden between companies who don't provide health care and those who do."
How all this works in practice will also hinge on how affordable health insurance becomes. Murphy, who helped Romney design the individual mandate, predicts reforms authorized by the law -- including higher deductibles and cost-efficient provider networks -- could cut premiums in half, to $200 a month for individuals and $500 a month for families. But others are skeptical. "There's an awful lot that still has to be worked out, but I wouldn't hold my breath" that costs will fall that far," cautions Healthcare for All's McDonough.
Still, analysts believe this bill will vault Massachusetts ahead of all other states in providing health insurance to its citizens. And it will surely reinvigorate the ongoing national debate.
spacey
Non-Citizens Expected to Get Voting Rights in NYC 
Legislation granting non-citizens the right to vote is expected to pass in New York City this year, immigration rights advocates tell the Amsterdam News.
"We're very excited and very optimistic that this will pass," New York City Councilman Charles Barron said at a recent press briefing. "We see this as the historical launching of something that should have happened a long time ago," the outspoken Democrat added.
Dubbed the "Voting Rights Restoration Act," the measure would permit immigrants who have a green card to vote in municipal elections, including for mayor, comptroller and city council, after having lived in the city for six months.
The New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights
sees the measure being extended one day to state and even federal elections. "There is nothing in either the U.S. or the New York State Constitution that prevents us from expanding the franchise to include non-citizen residents," a spokesman for the group argued in January.
Advocates claim that 22 states and federal territories allowed non-citizen voting during the 18th and 19th centuries. In New York, non-citizen residents were denied the right to vote in 1804.
According to the Caribbean news service, Heartbeat News, the measure's impact on New York City elections would be substantial, adding up to 1.5 million voters to rolls. Most of the new voters, experts predict, would cast their ballots for Democrats.
While New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has voiced opposition to the proposal, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told the Amsterdam News that she's "open to talking about passage."
In a statement issued by her office, City Council Member Melissa Mark Viverito praised the measure, explaining:
"East Harlem, Mott Haven and the Upper West Side are home to at least 25 thousand non-citizens of voting age who contribute in countless ways to the economic, social and cultural vitality of District 8 and NYC as a whole. Unfortunately they are not allowed to directly participate in choosing the municipal representatives who make the policies that affect their daily lives."
silly
Democrats: Illegal Aliens Who Engage In Burglary, Assault, & Kidnapping?
Democrats said the amendment would "gut" the immigration bill under consideration in the Senate and refused to allow a vote on it.
"It hurts the bill," said Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "It hurts the very foundation and what I believe is the spirit" of the legislation."
Granted, this would not apply to rapists or murderers. But here are some of the crimes that Democrats believe people should be able to commit without disqualifying themselves from being considered for American citizenship;
"(B)urglary, assault and battery, possession of an unregistered, sawed-off shotgun,
kidnapping and alien smuggling."
Un. Be. Lievable.
(Excerpt from: 
U.S. and China to strike deal on illegals
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Homeland Security is near an agreement with China to return up to 39,000 Chinese illegally living in the U.S. to the communist country, which previously had refused to accept deportations.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff yesterday said the tentative agreement, which would let the U.S. deport Chinese illegals as they are arrested, will act as a deterrent to other foreign nationals contemplating illegal immigration.
"We can't be in the position any longer where we are paying the burden and bearing the burden for countries that won't cooperate with us and take their own citizens back," said Mr. Chertoff as he completed a weeklong tour of China, Japan and Singapore to discuss security and immigration issues.
Mr. Chertoff said nearly 700 Chinese nationals held in U.S. detention centers are clogging the system and that more than 38,000 have been released on bond after spending the maximum 180 days in lockup.
China has declined to accept the illegals, citing uncertainty about their identities.
"The Chinese government is resolutely opposed to ... illegal immigration," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. "First of all, we have to identify those illegal immigrants and based on that, China is willing to receive the repatriation of illegal immigrants."
Federal immigration judges have issued final orders of removal to Chinese citizens smuggled into the U.S., students and others overstaying their visas, and some awaiting legal immigration.
DHS officials said details of the agreement still are being worked out, as are specific deportation plans. The department uses electronic bracelets to track some illegals released on bond and uses other monitoring programs, such as regular check-ins.
Returning Chinese citizens is a major financial burden for China and a "low priority," Mr. Chertoff said.
"But they've got to understand it's a high priority for us," said Mr. Chertoff, who noted that it costs $95 per day to house each detainee.
China's state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported that a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) told Mr. Chertoff in one meeting that bilateral cooperation is essential to maintaining world peace, stability and development.
Bilateral cooperation on trade, terrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, avian flu and the nuclear buildup in Iran and North Korea also will be top priorities when Chinese President Hu Jintao visits Washington beginning April 20.
"China hopes to make substantial achievements in extradition, fighting terrorism, Olympic Games security and illegal migration," said Luo Gan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
William Knocke, Homeland Security spokesman, said a senior department official will remain in China for a few extra days to finish the agreement.
"We are encouraged by our discussions with the Chinese government," Mr. Knocke said. "There are details that we need to still work through, but now we have an agreement, in principle, on streamlining the process of repatriating Chinese nationals."
China is at the top of the list of foreign countries that refuse to cooperate with repatriation when their citizens are caught residing in the U.S. illegally.
When asked which other nations refuse to accept their citizens caught illegally in the U.S., Mr. Knocke said, "We're not above naming names if other governments continue to be uncooperative, but the meetings in China were very productive, and we are optimistic about other possible outcomes."
The resolution, according to the Thomas More Law Center, condemned the Catholic Church's moral teachings on homosexuality and urged Catholic leaders to defy Vatican directives telling Catholic agencies not to place children with same-sex couples.
The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and two San Francisco Catholic citizens, said the nonbinding resolution violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
San Francisco supervisors passed the resolution on March 21 after the Vatican's Cardinal-elect William Levada - the former San Francisco archbishop - said Catholic agencies "should not place children for adoption in homosexual households."
The resolution reads, "It is an insult to all San Franciscans when a foreign country, like the Vatican, meddles with and attempts to negatively influence this great city's existing and established customs and traditions, such as the right of same-sex couples to adopt and care for children in need."
The resolution called Vatican directives against homosexual adoptions "hateful and discriminatory rhetoric [that] is both insulting and callous, and shows a level of insensitivity and ignorance which has seldom been encountered by this Board of Supervisors."
The resolution also called Levada "a decidedly unqualified representative of his former home city and of the people of San Francisco and the values they hold dear."
Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said the resolution's "demagoguery and virulent words...are reminiscent of the anti-Catholic bigotry of the Ku Klux Klan and the Know Nothings, which marred our nation's earlier history. San Francisco may as well have put up signs at the city limits: 'Faithful Catholics Not Welcomed," he added.
A 2003 Vatican statement said that "allowing children to be adopted by [same-sex couples] would actually mean doing violence to these children." According to the Law Center, the Vatican was trying to say that homosexual adoptions are not conducive to a child's full human development.
The lawsuit claims that the March 21 resolution "sends a clear message" to faithful Catholics "that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community," and it sends a second message - "that those who oppose Catholic religious beliefs, particularly with regard to homosexual unions and adoptions by homosexual partners, are insiders, favored members of the political community."
Robert Muise, the Law Center attorney handling the case, noted that the U.S. Constitution forbids hostility toward any religion. He said in San Francisco, "homosexual activists... are abusing their authority as government officials and misusing the instruments of government to attack the Catholic Church.
"This egregious abuse of power is an outrage and a clear violation of the First Amendment," Muise said.
The Thomas More Law Center describes its mission as the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life.
This article by Susan Jones originally appeared at CNSNews.com.
I still want to teach
By 
Finally, the union picked a school: Beacon High. Unfortunately, it's not a typical public school -- it's "special." Beacon doesn't have the full incentives or flexibility of a private school: It can't go out of business, and it is burdened by bureaucratic rules and a union contract. But Beacon offers a limited form of what the union opposes: school choice. As with a private school, you don't have to go there, and they don't have to take you. Applicants must submit portfolios, and if too few chose Beacon, it wouldn't be able to remain special. To remain what it is, it must compete.
Recently classes of Beacon students took field trips to France, South Africa, and tellingly, Venezuela and Cuba. Beacon has rooms filled with computers, students learn to do PowerPoint demonstrations, and a class I watched had two teachers (one a student-teacher) for 24 students. Ninety percent of Beacon's students graduate, while the average graduation rate for New York City public schools is only 53 percent.
I guess they didn't want me to look at a normal public school.
But this is the school the UFT picked, and I was up for the challenge. Who knows what I might have learned by teaching?
My producers went to a meeting at the school to choose a class for me to teach. The union representative didn't come, so we were told no decisions could be made. Lots of people came to a second meeting at the school: four people from the union, one person from the city Department of Education, and administrators and teachers from Beacon. They decided I might teach history classes and "media studies," but they would have to talk to more people.
I prepped for my history classes. We had more meetings. The school principal had me sit in on a class with a "superstar" teacher. It was supposed to be a history class, but he seemed to teach "victimhood in racist America." On the class door he posted a New York Times column denouncing the president for spending too much money on war. Can we say "left-wing"?
Then there were more meetings. Finally, four days before what was supposed to be my first day of class, they canceled. Officially, "they" were the public school administrators who said it might be "disruptive" and that it might "set a precedent" that would open their doors to other reporters.
Too bad. Letting cameras into schools would be a good thing. Taxpayers might finally get to see how more than $200,000 per classroom of their money was being spent.
.