Laffey's Dilemma

Charles Bakst has a round-up of the thoughts of Republican big-wigs Lincoln Chafee, Donald Carcieri, and Ken Mehlman on the subject of Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey running for Chafee's Senate seat in 2006. The Republican establishment, not surprisingly, does not want Mayor Laffey to challenge Senator Chafee. Bakst’s column makes both Senator Chafee and Governor Carcieri sound somewhat condescending towards Mayor Laffey, with Chafee telling a potential opponent that he should be satisfied with “good opportunities…to run for state office”.

The problem is that there are not any good opportunities for Mayor Laffey to run for state office, not if he wants to make policies that make a difference.

In Rhode Island, there are 5 statewide level executive offices: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Attorney General. The office of Governor is a certainly a good statewide opportunity, but it is assumed that Governor Carcieri will run for re-election in 2006. Lieutenant Governor, on the other hand, is not much of an opportunity in Rhode Island. The problem is structural. In any system where the Gov and the Lieutenant Gov are elected separately, the Lieutenant Gov becomes reduced to a not-very-bully pulpit. The Gov can’t vest too much power in an office that might be held by the opposition.

The Treasurer and Secretary of State are elected bureaucrats. This does not mean that they are not important offices, but they are not policy making offices. They carry out policies made by the other branches of government. The Attorney General straddles the world of making policy and carrying out policy. This position, however, is largely closed to anyone who is not an attorney by profession, and no one is mentioning Laffey as a possibility for AG.

When Senator Chafee and Governor Carcieri talk of good opportunities for statewide office, they are not talking of good opportunities for Mayor Laffey to put himself in a position to make policy that has an impact. They mean that Laffey has a good opportunity to enter the class of professional politicians that have jobs-for-life guaranteed by the Republican establishment. Will that be enough for Mayor Laffey? It depends upon whether he got into politics in order to have a job-for-life, or to make a difference. In Cranston, he has been so successful at changing policies, both the city council and the state house are trying to reduce the power of the Mayor to change policy.

There is at least one other possibility that shouldn’t be completely discounted. If Laffey agrees to park himself in one of the elected bureaucratic positions or as Lt. Gov, he may be getting promises of support for a run against Jack Reed in 2008 or a run for governor in 2010. But 2010 is a long way away, and incumbent Democratic Senators are tough to beat in New England

Debating Rhode Island Public Education Issues

Here are two provocative pieces on public education issues, including teachers' compensation and public school performance:

First, Tom Coyne of RI Policy Analysis on RI Teachers Unions.

Second, a multi-part debate in the Narragannsett Times between Robert Walsh, Executive Director of the NEA-RI, and Tom Wigand, an attorney.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

In a nutshell, here is what I think the negotiating position of the East Greenwich School Committee should be on some of the key financial terms of the contract.

In addition to financial issues, management rights are the other big teachers' union contract issue. "Work-to-rule" or "contract compliance" only can become an issue because of how management rights are defined in union contracts. The best reading on this subject is the recent report by The Education Partnership. It is must reading.

East Greenwich NEA teachers' union contract negotiations
More Background Information on the East Greenwich NEA Labor Dispute
The NEA's Disinformation Campaign
East Greenwich Salary & Benefits Data
More Bad Faith Behavior by the NEA
The Debate About Retroactive Pay
Would You Hurt Our Children Just To Win Better Contract Terms?
The Question Remains Open & Unanswered: Are We/They Doing Right By Our Children?
Will The East Greenwich Teachers' Union Stop Their Attempts to Legally Extort Residents?
You Have To Read This Posting To Believe It! The Delusional World of the NEA Teachers' Union

Other Rhode Island public education/union issues
ProJo editorial: Derailing the R.I. gravy train
ProJo editorial: RI public unions work to reduce your family's quality of life
ProJo editorial: Breaking the taxpayer: How R.I. teachers get 12% pay hikes
Selfish Focus of Teachers Unions: Everything But What Is Good For Our Kids
Tom Coyne - RI Schools: Big Bucks Have Not Brought Good Results
The NEA: There They Go, Again!
A Response: Why Teachers' Unions (Not Teachers!) Are Bad For Education
"A Girl From The Projects" Gets an Opportunity to Live the American Dream
Doing Right By Our Children in Public Education Requires Thinking Outside The Box

Broader public education issues
The Deep Performance Problems with American Public Education
Freedom, Hard Work & Quality Education: Making The American Dream Possible For ALL Americans
Parents or Government/Unions: Who Should Control Our Children's Educational Decisions?

Reflections on Memorial Day

Several years ago, I was asked to deliver a Memorial Day address at Newport City Hall. Since that time, I have republished it several times. With only slight modifications, I am posting it on Anchor Rising. Never forget those who died in the service of our country.

Today, we mark the 137th anniversary of the first official observation of the holiday we now call Memorial Day, as established by General John A. Logan’s "General Order No. 11" of the Grand Army of the Republic dated 5 May, 1868. This order reads in part: "The 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers and otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land." Logan’s order in fact ratified a practice that was already widespread, both in the North and the South, in the years immediately following the Civil War.

As young Americans continue to make the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan, we at home should hold to the true meaning of this day. Alas, for too many Americans, Memorial Day has come to mean nothing more than another three-day weekend, albeit the one on which the beaches open, signifying the beginning of summer. Unfortunately, the tendency to see the holiday as merely an opportunity to attend a weekend cook-out obscures even the vestiges of what the day was meant to observe: a solemn time, serving both as catharsis for those who fought and survived, and to ensure that those who follow will not forget the sacrifice of those who died that the American Republic and the principles that sustain it, might live. Some examples might help us to understand what this really means.

On July 2nd, 1863, Major General Dan Sickles, commanding III Corps of the Army of the Potomac, held the Union left along Cemetery Ridge south of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Dissatisfied with his position, he made an unauthorized movement to higher ground along the Emmitsburg Pike to his front. In so doing, he created a gap between his corps and Major General Winfield Scott Hancock’s II Corps on his right. Before the mistake could be rectified, Sickles’ two under-strength divisions were struck by General James Longstreet’s veteran I Corps of Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in an attack that ultimately threatened the entire Union position on Cemetery Ridge.

At the height of the fighting, a fresh Alabama brigade of 1,500 men, pursuing the shattered remnants of Sickles corps, was on the verge of penetrating the Union defenses on Cemetery Ridge. Union commanders including Hancock rushed reinforcements forward to plug the gap, but at a critical juncture, the only available troops were eight companies—262 men— of the 1st Minnesota Volunteers. Pointing to the Alabamans’ battle flags, Hancock shouted to the regiment’s colonel, "Do you see those colors? Take them."

As the 1st Minnesota’s colonel later related, "Every man realized in an instant what that order meant—death or wounds to us all; the sacrifice of the regiment to gain a few minutes time and save the position, and probably the battlefield—and every man saw and accepted the necessity for the sacrifice."

The Minnesotans did not capture the colors of the Alabama brigade, but the shock of their attack broke the Confederates’ momentum and bought critical time—at the cost of 215 killed and wounded, including the colonel and all but three of his officers. The position was held, but in short order, the 1st Minnesota ceased to exist, suffering a casualty rate of 82 percent, the highest of the war for any Union regiment in a single engagement.

Memorial Day is also about the sacrifice of other units, for example, the 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of black soldiers whose exploits were portrayed in the movie Glory. The 54th’s assault, in the face of hopeless odds, against Battery Wagner, which dominated the approaches to Charleston Harbor, cost the regiment over half its number and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that black soldiers were the equal, in both bravery and determination, of white soldiers. In addition, the 54th Massachusetts is directly related to Memorial Day. It took part in the first celebration of its predecessor, Decoration Day, on 1 May, 1865, which as David Blight points out in his book, Race and Reunion, was primarily the creation of Black South Carolinians and their white abolitionist allies.

But Memorial Day is also about individuals we may have known. It is about a contemporary of my father, who himself fought and was wounded in the Pacific during World War II. Marine Sgt. John Basilone was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions on Guadalcanal. Though he was not obligated to do so, he insisted on returning to combat and was killed on the first day of the struggle for Iwo Jima.

Memorial Day is also about Corporal Larry Boyer, USMC, a member of the platoon that I led in Vietnam from September 1968 until May 1969. The men of that platoon would all have preferred to be somewhere other than the Republic of Vietnam’s northern Quang Tri Province, but they were doing their duty as it was understood at the time. In those days, men built their lives around their military obligation, and if a war happened on their watch, fighting was part of the obligation.

But Corporal Boyer went far beyond the call of duty. At a time when college enrollment was a sure way to avoid military service and a tour in Vietnam, Corporal Boyer, despite excellent grades, quit, enlisted in the Marines, and volunteered to go to Vietnam as an infantryman. Because of his high aptitude test scores, the Marine Corps sent him to communications-electronics school instead. But Corporal Boyer kept "requesting mast," insisting that he had joined the Marines to fight in Vietnam. He got his wish, and on 29 May, 1969, while serving as one of my squad leaders, he gave the "last full measure of devotion" to his country and comrades.

Today, young Americans, the best our country has to offer, willingly place themselves on the altar of the nation. What leads men to behave as the soldiers of the 1st Minnesota, the 54th Massachusetts, John Basilone, Larry Boyer, and the countless others who have shared their sacrifice?

Since the Vietnam War, too many of our countrymen have concluded that those who have died in battle are "victims." How else are we to understand the Vietnam War Memorial—"The Wall"—a structure that evokes not respect for the honored dead, but pity for those whose names appear on the wall and relief on the part of those who, for whatever reason, did not serve?

Most Americans in general and veterans in particular reject this characterization. But there is a tendency these days also to reject the polar opposite: that these men died for "a cause." Many cite the observation of Glen Gray in his book, The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle: "Numberless soldiers have died, more or less willingly, not for country or honor or religious faith or for any other abstract good, but because they realized that by fleeing their posts and rescuing themselves, they would expose their companions to greater danger. Such loyalty to the group is the essence of fighting morale."

It is my own experience that Gray is right about what men think about in the heat of combat: the impact of our actions on our comrades always looms large in our minds. As Oliver Wendell Holmes observed in his Memorial Day address of 1884, "In the great democracy of self-devotion private and general stand side by side." But the tendency of the individual soldier to focus on the particulars of combat makes Memorial Day all the more important, for this day permits us to enlarge the individual soldier’s view, to give meaning to the sacrifice that was accepted of some but offered by all, not only to acknowledge and remember the sacrifice, but to validate it.

In the history of the world, many good soldiers have died bravely and honorably for bad or unjust causes. Americans are fortunate in that we have been given a way of avoiding this situation by linking the sacrifice of our soldiers to the meaning of the nation. At the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg four months after the battle, President Abraham Lincoln fleshed out the understanding of what he called in his First Inaugural Address, the "mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land…"

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address gives universal meaning to the particular deaths that occurred on that hallowed ground, thus allowing us to understand Memorial Day in the light of the Fourth of July, to comprehend the honorable end of the soldiers in the light of the glorious beginning and purpose of the nation. The deaths of the soldiers at Gettysburg, of those who died during the Civil War as a whole and indeed, of those who have fallen in all the wars of America, are validated by reference to the nation and its founding principles as articulated in the Declaration of Independence. Though Lincoln was eulogizing the Union dead at Gettysburg, the Confederate fallen were no less worthy of praise, and the dialectic of the Civil War means that we include them in our national day of remembrance. As Holmes observed, "…we respected [those who stood against us] as every man with a heart must respect those who give all for their belief."

Some might claim that to emphasize the "mystic chords of memory" linking Memorial Day and Independence Day is to glorify war and especially to trivialize individual loss and the end of youth and joy. For instance, Larry Boyer was an only child. How can the loved ones of a fallen soldier ever recover from such a loss? I corresponded with Cpl. Boyer’s mother for some time after his death. Her inconsolable pain and grief put me in mind of Rudyard Kipling’s poem, Epitaphs of the War, verse IV, "An Only Son:" "I have slain none but my mother, She (Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me." Kipling too, lost his only son in World War I.

But as Holmes said in 1884, "…grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death—of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope and will."

Linking Memorial Day and Independence Day as Lincoln essentially did enables us to recognize that while some of those who died in America’s wars were not as brave as others and indeed, some were not brave at all, each and every one was far more a hero than a victim. And it also allows us forever to apply Lincoln’s encomium not only to the dead of the 1st Minnesota and the rest who died on the ground at Gettysburg that Lincoln came to consecrate, but also to John Basilone, Larry Boyer, and the countless soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who have died in all of America’s wars, that a nation dedicated to the liberal principles of liberty and equality might "not perish from the earth."

Rhode Island Politics & Taxation, Part XVII: Pension Problems

The Rhode Island public sector pension system is in deep financial trouble. A new ProJo article explains the problem in greater detail:

The issue has been floating around for a while, but with mounting costs squeezing local and state budgets, government leaders are buckling down to change the retirement system for teachers and state employees.

Governor Carcieri and General Treasurer Paul J. Tavares introduced plans earlier this year that would dramatically overhaul the system.

The question now is: To what degree will lawmakers actually change the system?

The House and Senate are expected to unveil plans in the next two to three weeks.

House Speaker William J. Murphy has pledged "meaningful pension reform" but has not been willing to sit down and discuss what that actually means.

"We have a system right now that needs help," said Murphy, D-West Warwick. "We're committed to doing pension reform and something will be done this year."

Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano said that the legislature plans to implement a minimum retirement age, probably increase the number of years of service needed to retire, change the percent of salary earned for each year of service, and eliminate the automatic 3-percent cost-of-living-adjustments retirees now get each year...

Montalbano said that workers not yet vested in the state system -- those with less than 10 years of service -- are going to be affected "in a very significant way."

Rhode Island's pension system is financed through contributions from employees, contributions from employers, and the return on plan investments.

Employee contributions are fixed at 8.75 percent of pre-tax salary for state workers, and 9.5 percent for local teachers. The rest of the cost is made up by the state and the communities.

The state put $118.9 million into the pension fund this year. That figure is expected to jump to $174.3 million next year, if there are no changes to the system. Within five years, it would climb to $255 million, if there are no changes, according to the governor's office.

The state's cities and towns face a similar problem. This year, they contributed $72.3 million for teachers' pensions. Next year, without any changes, that would climb to $103.4 million, and within five years, to $149 million.

"This problem is not going away, it's going to get worse," said Carcieri, who has been pushing for pension reform since he took office in 2003.

Without change, Carcieri has warned, the state will be forced to make "dramatic tax hikes or dramatic cuts in the programs that serve our most-vulnerable citizens."...

...the Republican governor said he believes the Democrat-controlled Assembly will act now.

"My expectation is that they will do something," Carcieri said. "My fear is that they will do much less than we need to do."

Treasurer Tavares says he also fears that the Assembly will just do something "cosmetic," and that next year, the state will face the same problem...

But even if changes do come, pension costs are still expected to rise.

The plans proposed by Carcieri and Tavares both cut into next year's anticipated contributions -- but would only cut the increase roughly in half. Under Carcieri's plan, the state would still have to put $27 million more into the pension fund next year than it is putting in this year.

There are several reasons for the state's current pension problem.

The first -- and most significant, according to Tavares -- is that people are living longer. When pension systems were first designed, workers only lived a few years after reaching retirement, he said. Today, people retire and live for 20 years or more, collecting a pension during each of those years...

The second reason involves the performance of the stock market and the state's investments. The actuaries use a five-year averaging period to calculate future contributions. Because of that, the state is still hurting from the market losses of 2000, 2001 and 2002, Tavares said.

The other main contributing factor, he acknowledged is the state's failure in past years to fully finance the pension system...

The most significant of these was in the mid-1980s, when the state offered early retirement to its workers, but failed to add money to the retirement system for all the people who were suddenly collecting pensions...

The state's labor unions place the blame squarely on the state.

Robert A. Walsh Jr., executive director of the National Education Association Rhode Island, acknowledges that "there are some demographic changes," but said the problem rests primarily with the state's not fully financing the system.

Year after year, Walsh said, teachers and state workers have contributed a large portion of their salaries to the system. They have held up their end of the bargain, he said.

If there are going to be reductions in retiree benefits, Walsh condends, the employee contributions should also be reduced.

"I'm not necessarily saying we need to leave the system as is," Walsh said. However, discussions need to be held "in a balanced way," instead of the "teacher and state-employee bashing" that he contends the governor is conducting.

Under the current system, state employees can retire at any age, with no reduction in benefits, as long as they have 28 years of service. Otherwise, they can retire at age 60, with at least 10 years of service. Pension benefits are based on years of service, so those who have served less than 28 years would get a smaller pension.

Carcieri and Tavares both propose instituting a minimum retirement age. Carcieri is seeking to make the minimum age 60, with 30 years of service, or otherwise, age 65. Tavares proposes age 58, with 30 years of service, or 62, with 5 years. (Tavares is also suggesting an option where workers at age 55, and 20 years of service, can retire with reduced benefits.)

Both the governor and the treasurer propose to reduce the amount of benefits retirees would receive. State employees now stop accumulating credit toward their pension after 35 years, maxing the system out at 80 percent of their salary. Carcieri and Tavares want to lower the maximum benefit to 75 percent, after 38 years of service.

The changes would apply only to new hires to state government, or to current employees who have less than 10 years of service and are not yet vested in the system.

The two officials, however, differ on what to do with the cost-of-living adjustments that retirees get. Currently, employees start getting the 3-percent COLA on the third January after they retire.

Carcieri wants to tie COLAs to the national Consumer Price Index, a measure of inflation. Benefits would increase annually according to the CPI, or at 3 percent, whichever is lower.

Tavares wants to take the changes one step further. While Carcieri would only change the COLA for new hires and those not vested, Tavares wants to implement the same changes for everybody -- all employees and all current retirees.

Will lawmakers go as far?

"I don't think we'll go further," Montalbano said. "I think we'll, hopefully, take some of the best parts of all of it, and come up with a plan that we hope the governor will sign on to."

The labor unions' position is not new. Here are excerpts from two August 2004 news articles referenced in this posting, which discuss the problems:

...the statewide pension problem surfaced [with this article] publicly, highlighting dire financial consequences:

State and local taxpayers should pay a whopping $121.6 million more next year toward the pensions of state employees and public school teachers…

That advice, from the state's pension-funding adviser, sent shock waves through the hearing room where top labor and government officials gathered…

In late June, the deadlocked panel voted 6-6, defeating a series of moves recommended either by Carcieri, a Republican, or state treasurer Paul Tavares, a Democrat, to rein in the escalating cost of public-employee pensions, such as the adoption of a mininum retirement age.

But yesterday's news seemed to surprise some of the union leaders who had resisted any changes in pension eligibility and benefit levels…

The warning was the result of a reexamination, by the state's actuarial advisers at Gabriel Roeder and Smith, of the assumptions that determine how much money must be set aside now to cover all the promises made to current and future retirees.

After looking back seven years, the firm concluded the state has been overestimating investment returns; underestimating the salary increases, averaging 4.5 percent annually, over the seven years that ended on June 30, 2003; and failing to account for the disproportionately large number of Rhode Island public employees who stay in their jobs long enough to qualify for pensions.

Another article reinforced the magnitude of the problem:

"We are not bleeding, we are hemorrhaging," said Daniel Beardsley, executive director of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns, which represents local governments in the state's 39 communities…

Local pension systems in some of the state's communities are also in trouble - especially those in Cranston and Providence, according to estimates by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council.

Rhode Island labor leaders have long resisted changes that would cut benefits for employees and teachers.

Then there are always recent stories in Rhode Island like this one.

Beginning on page 17, this RIPEC report provides a very valuable comparison with the public sector pension program of Massachusetts, allowing all of us to see how we have been giving away the store in Rhode Island. The comparision with our neighboring state also shows how none of the proposals on the table goes far enough in making crucial changes. And it begs the obvious question of: If Massachusetts pension benefits are good enough for the public sector unions in that state, why are similar Rhode Island unions whining so loudly and resisting change? Here are some highlights from that report:

Minimum age to receive pension benefits: RI-None; Mass-65.

Minimum years of service to receive pension benefits: RI-28 years or 10 years at age 60; Mass-10 years

Cost-of-living increase amount per year: RI-3% on total pension benefit beginning in third year; Mass-Set by legislature; most recently 3% on only first $12,000/year

Retiree contribution to healthcare insurance premiums with at least 28 years, <60 years of age: RI-10%; Mass-15%

Retiree contribution to health insurance premiums with at least 28 years, >60 years of age: RI=0%; Mass-15%

Most importantly, Massachusetts penalizes public sector employees who retire and take the pension before age 65, cutting their lifetime pension payments by 50%. The magnitude of our financial problem in Rhode Island becomes more clear when you contrast how Rhode Island immediately pays full benefits to a retiree who retires after 28 years of service, regardless of age (and which could begin as early as age 46 for employees who started immediately after high school graduation), and then increases it by 3% per year thereafter versus one of two alternatives in Massachusetts: (i) paying only 50% of the qualified pension payments if the employee takes any monies before age 65 or (ii) paying qualified pension payments only after age 65.

The broader national issue of bankrupt public sector pensions is discussed here. This posting shows how there are significant financial problems that are time bombs set to explode in the near future and which require more radical program changes - like stopping the offering of defined benefit plans and moving to defined contribution plans like 401(k)'s - not the kind of minor tweaks currently being proposed in Rhode Island. It also highlights how the misguided incentives of the public sector will make this an ongoing problem.

This EdWeek posting referenced by RI Policy Analysis highlights additional state/teacher pension problems around the country.

The effect of those misguided incentives, the effect of government intervention in the marketplace, and the additional time bomb of public sector employee health insurance costs are highlighted in this posting.

This posting continues a periodic series on Rhode Island politics and taxation, building on sixteen previous postings:
I - Guiding Principles for Sound Public Policy
II - The Outrageous Tax Burden in Rhode Island
III - 2004: The Year in Review
IV - The NEA's Disinformation Campaign
V - Governor Carcieri's State of the State Address
VI - "Citizens for Representative Government's" Deceitful Manipulation of the Constitutional Convention Vote
VII - The Extreme Tax Burden in the City of Providence
VIII - Rhode Island Gets a C+ on its Report Card
IX - How Speaker Murphy's Changing of the Rules of the House Reduces Your Freedom
X - East Greenwich Teachers' Salary and Benefits Data
XI - What Was Rep. Fox Doing in Portsmouth?
XII - Why Do RI Citizens Passively Consent to Governmental Control by Powerful Interests?
XIII - RI House Leaders Show No Respect for Rule of Law by Undermining Separations of Powers, Part I
XIV - More Bad Faith Behavior by the NEA
XV - RI House Leaders Show No Respect for Rule of Law by Undermining Separations of Powers, Part II
XVI - Tom Coyne - RI Schools: Big Bucks Have Not Brought Good Results

Leading a Dishonest Debate

JunkYardBlog writes this:

A rightwing Republican Congressman has introduced a bill in the House demanding respectful treatment of the Bible. Get yer torches and pitchforks, people, and make sure to ring up the press.

But...

Before you do all of that, I need to clarify a couple of details.

The Congressman isn't a rightwing Republican. He's a leftwing Democrat. And it's not the Bible's respectful treatment he is trying to be made law of the land. It's the Koran.

Where did all the pitchforks go? And where's the ACLU to decry this encroachment on the separation of church and state? Hmmm?

From the blog of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI):

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) condemns bigotry, acts of violence, and intolerance against any religious group, including our friends, neighbors, and citizens of the Islamic faith;

(2) declares that the civil rights and civil liberties of all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith, should be protected;

(3) recognizes that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, as any other holy book of any religion, should be treated with dignity and respect; and

(4) calls upon local, State, and Federal authorities to work to prevent bias-motivated crimes and acts against all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith.

This is idiocy on stilts. It goes against the letter and spirit of the First Amendment and is a true step in the direction of establishing a state religion. And it's pandering based on a fake and retracted Newsweek story that probably started when some terrorist made up a story to inflame the press and irritate the Muslim world!...

...the silence with which [Conyers] is being greeted by the MSM is more than telling.

RELATED:...If passed Conyers' proposed law might open the way for similar prosecutions right here in the US. You, blogger and blog reader, could find yourself prosecuted for mishandling or in any way disparaging the Koran or Islam. Islam would become more equal than other religions here--the bill's language refers to religious tolerance but singles out Islam and the Koran for special protection.

And that amounts to bringing in sharia, Islamic law, in baby steps. Right here in the US...

The fourth element of his bill, noted above, marries mistreatment of the Koran to hate-crimes legislation already on the books. That puts some teeth into it, and it's truly chilling.

Rocco at The Autonomist also comments:

It seems strange that Conyers, whose party goes absolutely ballistic when Republicans intimate that Judeo-Christian beliefs under-pin the U.S., suggest that Freedom of Speech be toyed with in order to accommodate religion. Perhaps not so strange, once one realizes that Conyers has been a close ally of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) since 9/11.

How much of this relationship is due to Conyer's representing Michigan, a state with a large Muslim-Arab population, and how much of it has to do with CAIR's contributions to Conyer's political efforts, is anyone's guess.

A quick refresher on CAIR: Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR's Texas Chapter, was indicted for financial dealings with Musa abu Marzook, a Hamas leader. In 1995, US attorney Mary Jo White named CAIR advisory board member Siraj Wahhaj as a possible co-conspirator in plans to destroy the World Trade Center and other NY City landmarks. In May of 2005 another CAIR leader, Ismail Randall Royer, was found guilty of funding terrorism and was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison for training in Virginia for holy war against the United States. CAIR's associations with Islamic terror groups and individual terrorists go on and on and on....

If you go to Rocco's posting, you can follow the many links to learn more.

Rocco continues:

A natural question arises in response to Conyer's resolution: Does America's Muslim leadership actively foster a sense of respect towards religions other than Islam?

The words of CAIR chairman Omar Ahmad provide a possible answer. Said Ahmad, in a 1998 Muslim rally in California:

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth."

U.S. Representative Conyers, are you listening?

Are these people dense or naive or just plain stupid?

What Are We Doing To Our Children?

Michelle Malkin writes here and here about a new teenage book called "Rainbow Party."

Here's a rich irony: I'm writing today about a new children's book, but I can't describe the plot in a family newspaper without warning you first that it is entirely inappropriate for children.

The book is "Rainbow Party" by juvenile fiction author Paul Ruditis. The publisher is Simon Pulse, a kiddie lit division of the esteemed Simon & Schuster. The cover of the book features the title spelled out in fun, Crayola-bright font. Beneath the title is an illustrated array of lipsticks in bold colors.

The main characters in the book are high school sophomores supposedly typical 14- and 15-year-olds with names such as "Gin" and "Sandy." The book opens with these two girls shopping for lipstick at the mall in advance of a special party. The girls banter as they hunt for lipsticks in every color of the rainbow...

What kind of party do you imagine they might be organizing? Perhaps a makeover party? With moms and daughters sharing their best beauty secrets and bonding in the process?

Alas, no. No parents are invited to this get-together. A "rainbow party," you see, is a gathering of boys and girls for the purpose of engaging in group oral sex. Each girl wears a different colored lipstick and leaves a mark on each boy. At night's end, the boys proudly sport their own cosmetically-sealed rainbow you-know-where bringing a whole new meaning to the concept of "party favors."...

...according to Publisher's Weekly, the bound galleys sent to booksellers carried the provocative tagline, "don't you want to know what really goes down?"

The author and publisher of the book seem to have persuaded themselves that they are doing families a favor...Bethany Buck, Ruditis' editor, told USA Today the intention was to "scare" young readers (uh-huh) and Ruditis told Publisher's Weekly:

"Part of me doesn't understand why people don't want to talk about [oral sex]," he said. "Kids are having sex and they are actively engaged in oral sex and think it's not really sex. I raised questions in my book and I hope that parents and children or teachers and students can open a topic of conversation through it. Rainbow parties are such an interesting topic. It's such a childlike way to look at such an adult subject with rainbow colors."

Teenage group orgies are "an interesting topic?" Is Ruditis out of his mind?...

In a small sign that decency and common sense still survive in the marketplace, a number of children's book sellers are refusing to stock "Rainbow Party." But as Ruditis's comments indicate, it's just a matter of time before the book ends up on public school library shelves in the name of "educating" children and helping them "deal with reality."...

Malkin continues:

...Those who raise even the least objection are cast as out-of-touch theocrats who need to "deal with reality."...

If "proper socialization" means teaching 14-year-olds about group oral sex, we can only pray that more parents choose to raise social misfits.

Why do we tolerate this? What are we doing to our children?

ADDENDUM I:

Reader Jeff Miller, in the Comments section to this posting, directs us to Mere Comments for additional and troubling information:

...I picked up a copy of Simon and Schuster’s new book for the teenage girl market, Rainbow Party by Paul Ruditis...

The book is even more insidious than I first imagined. The heroine of the book is not the party-planner, but a saintly high school sex education teacher. Ms. Barrett is described as “more of a friend than a teacher.” She is the only one to whom all the students can talk about their sexuality. Unfortunately, the heroic Ms. Barrett is silenced after the head of the high school Chastity Club rats on her to the school board, which instructs Ms. Barrett to teach abstinence only in the classroom.

Ms. Barrett is vindicated when a gonnhorea epidemic hits the high school, an epidemic that could have been stopped if only Ms. Barrett had been allowed to give the right information about “protection” to the students. In the end, Ms. Barrett “valiantly” resigns rather than leave her students unprotected. Here she stands. She can do no other.

The antagonists in this book are the parents. Now, this is nothing new...But there is something different here. It is not simply that the parents are “outdated” in their morality, or out of touch with teen culture. In this book, the parents’ lack of understanding actually leads to the sickness and potential death of their teenage children.

And who will stand up for them? Why the public school sex education teacher, of course.

This misguided line of thought is getting really old.

A Poignant Reflection on John Paul II

In the May edition of Crisis Magazine, editor Brian Saint-Paul, offers this poignant reflection on the life of the late Pope John Paul II:

In the end, it was a beautiful death. Surrounded by those who knew and loved him, within earshot of the cheering thousands who came to be near his broken body, John Paul the Great passed into eternal life.

With his prolonged suffering and dying, he offered a final homily - one that even the mainstream media could not ignore. It said this: Every human life has inherent dignity; every human life is precious; and even death should be embraced and experienced without shame.

How different that is from what our own culture tells us. We kill our young, starve our disabled, and hide away our elderly so we're not confronted with a forward glimpse of our own mortality. Our world fears death, as it distrusts those who do not. And so it's no wonder that the secular mind never really understood John Paul II.

We're told he was a great political warrior who overthrew Communism and urged peace in the world. That's true, as far as it goes. But he was no politician; he was no social worker or starry-eyed dreamer. Everything the pope did came out of his faith in Christ and his trust that love will always defeat death.

And this, for many, seems a contradiction. Indeed, much of John Paul II's life appears inconsistent to the secular West. He was a celibate priest who wrote much on the glories of marriage; he advocated religious freedom while "stifling debate" in his own Church; he was "progressive" on social issues and "conservative" on moral matters; a brilliant philosopher/writer/poet who tried to shut down intellectual inquiry.

Contradictions, the critics say. But therein lies the key to understanding this man, for the person of John Paul II is a kind of mirror for the rest of us. The way we see the Holy Father tells us far more about ourselves than it does about him. For this great and holy pope was remarkable not for his ability to balance opposing forces in his personality, but for his thoroughgoing consistency. He believed - as the Catholic Church has always taught - that all human life has dignity and that that dignity must be reflected in our relations with God, ourselves, and each other.

His writings, his theological positions, his political activism, all of it emerged from this fundamental belief. That so many of us find contradiction in him shows us how far we have fallen. Virtue looks like foolishness to the sinful man, and wisdom appears naive.

Not so with John Paul II. He recognized the cruelty of the human heart and the ravenous hunger of souls without God. But he knew the other side as well. In the wretchedness of the 20th century, he saw the beauty shining through, the remnants of a world created and deemed good. Humanity's fall has corrupted much, but despite our best efforts, we cannot erase God's fingerprints on us.

This is reality. This is what we would see if the glass were not so dark. John Paul II saw it, and that's why he traveled and spoke and wrote and prayed so very much. Through his eyes, he let us glimpse the world that exists just behind the veil. Many of us saw it too, if only for a moment. And what we beheld, what we beheld through him, was beautiful.

The May 2005 edition of Crisis contains many articles about the Pope.

For more reflections on Pope John Paul II, go here and here.

How Work-To-Rule Amplifies the Implied Bargaining Chips

To keep pounding the Education drum, a reader ("CL") commmented on one of my posts from November of last year on how East Greenwich students rallied at a school committee meeting to agitate for a contract and were cheered on by teachers and parents. Within the context of the piece, I mentioned the now-familiar "work-to-rule" problem, to which CL took exception:

I wish you would spend you time dealing with facts. Work to rule doesn't mean teachers are not doing their job. It simply means that teachers are not giving up their free time. For example: the teacher contract does not require chaperoning dances, writing letters of recommendation, sponsoring class trips, etc. Teachers have "donated" so much free time that people like you expect it. Tell me what other job besides teaching expects the employees to solve the problems of the world like: kids don't get a good breakfast so have the schools provide it, kids are drinking at home so let the schools teach them why drinking is bad, Kids need a place to go on Friday nights so the schools must have dances, etc. Why don't you list all the FREE jobs you did that had nothing to do with your job.

Herewith, my response:

CL:
Thanks for the comment. It brings up a couple different issues, though. First, to your points about breakfast, alcoholic parents, etc. I completely agree. These are larger social issues that I don't believe that our education system is really equipped to deal with and which our teachers are compelled to handle every school day. It is unfair, but schools are the mechanism by which we have collectively, if only half-thinkingly, concluded to be adequate to the task.

Second, when I complain about the work to rule attitude, I'm specifically speaking about no field trips, no comments on report cards, no parent teacher conferences. To me and many others, those are implied as being intrinsically part of being a "teacher." It was that way when I was in school some 15-20 years ago, and it still is, regardless of whether you view these as being "FREE jobs" or not.

There is a reason why parents and communities expect teachers to do more than the teacher contract technically stipulates: those very same unofficial acts are always used, whether implied or stated outright, as bargaining chips in contract negotiations. Part of the reason teachers engender public support when it comes to contract time is because they perform these "extras." Chaperoning dances, doing field trips, etc. may not be a part of the official job description, but teachers have always done them and communities, realizing this, factor this in when determining proper compensation levels.

What work-to-rule does is take a legalistic approach by adhering to the "letter of the contract" as a bargaining ploy designed to remind communities just how much extra teachers do. Are teachers legally correct? Yes. But legal and moral are not always the same thing.

To repeat, the fact is that the performance of these extracurricular jobs is implicit in the teachers'job description. Past contracts have been based on this assumption, whether they were outlined in the contract or not. This factor, consciously or sub-consciously, contributed to the willingness of the public and their elected officials to provide generous compensation. Knowing this, it is disingenuous to first use the goodwill engendered by performing these "additional" jobs to gain more compensation and then, when the next contract comes up, to claim these jobs are not required, stress the point by not performing them, and then turn around and expect a better compensation package than before.

Let me take a crack at your "challenge." I'm a salaried engineer, though I can earn bonus time for working extra hours, so long as they are "billable." In addition to my regular work, I have worked longer than 8 hour days regularly and gone uncompensated. That is because I am, like I said, on salary. Implicit in my compensation is that I will work longer than 8 hour days if need be. Additionally, my company owns its own building and rents out space to other businesses. When it snows, guess who has been known to shovel the stairs? And it's not even in my job description to be a snow shoveler. Who's brought people to the airport to go on business travel? And it's not in my job description to be a taxi service. Who's been asked to "swing a wrench" even though I'm ostensibly a "white collar" worker? I don't need to go on, do I?

The fact of the matter is that something like 90% of people are employed by small business. In small businesses, job descriptions don't encompass the true nature of the work an individual is asked to perform. And, much like the teachers, when salary renegotiations are brought up, the willingness of the individual to perform these "outside of the box" jobs factors into the equation. Teachers are not unique in this. Do you know what would happen if the average employee put in only a 8 hour day, didn't do anything extra, etc., like the teachers are now doing? They certainly wouldn't be looked upon favorably in their next job performance review. Do you think that they would get a raise and a better compensation package for doing less than before? They may not even keep their job!

The average worker is beholden to his employer to perform up to the latter's expectations and be compensated as "the boss" sees fit. Sometimes the demands are fair, sometimes not, but the employee always has the option of moving on. In the case of teachers, they must perform up to the public's expectations at a salary deemed appropriate, some would say tolerable, by the taxpaying citizens of a city or town. If teachers think the demands are unfair, they can move on. I'd challenge them to find a better deal, even with a 5-10% Health care co-pay, than they have here in Rhode Island.

The problem that we parents have is that we get the impression that teachers believe that they never have enough and are willing to go to the mat for more for themselves, even if it means less for the students (our children). Perhaps this is because teachers' unions are out front and leading the fight utilizing hyperbolic rhetoric that casts teachers as put-upon victims of a thankless society. If union leadership is not truly representative of what the rank and file believe, then I would encourage teachers, much like the administrators did in East Greenwhich, to buck their union leadership and negotiate with the school committee in good faith. Stop the rhetoric and the self-victimization and come up with reasonable contracts that reflect contemporary fiscal reality. Taxpayers aren't looking to screw you over, just to be reasonable!

You Have To Read This Posting To Believe It! The Delusional World of the NEA Teachers' Union

Nothing is sweeter in a debate than when your opponent makes outlandish statements and hands you an overwhelming rhetorical victory.

This just happened in the East Greenwich teachers' union contract dispute when NEA union officials made public comments that showed how they live in a delusional world, completely disconnected from any form of reality.

Recent events began about one week ago when I wrote an email to town and school officials as well as to the media, raising concerns about how certain actions by teachers under "work-to-rule" or "contract compliance" working practices were adversely affecting our children. That email included a link to this posting, which highlighted the specific concerns.

There was an initial response to one of my challenges in a ProJo article that is referenced in this subsequent posting, where I also further clarified the questions that remain unanswered.

But nothing prepared me for an article this week in a local newspaper, The East Greenwich Pendulum. The article contained an interview with two union officials, Roger Ferland and Jane Argentieri, who provided specific comments on the issues raised in my initial posting noted above.

You simply have to read the article to believe it! For starters, though, first consider these eight quotes excerpted from the article:

1. "The teachers had to do [contract compliance] to show parents how much extra teachers really do."

2. "[Work-to-rule] simply means we won't do anything extra."

3. [Tutoring (i.e., any form of academic assistance) before or after school] is not part of their job description."

4. "Teachers have been doing more than what's required for no money in the past."

5. "...a majority of East Greenwich residents can afford to hire tutors for their children but have been receiving these services free from public school teachers for years."

6. "More than 50% of East Greenwich residents have a very high income, $500,000 or over."

7. "In the private sector no one works overtime without getting paid. And if they're off the clock at 5 p.m., you can bet they're out the door at 5."

8. "...contract compliance is not hurting the children. Not going on a field trip isn't hurting a child."

Can you believe these comments? I am still shaking my head in amazement and I bet you are, too. But don't take my word alone for it; you can read the entire article here.

If you ever wanted to understand why American public education is failing with no prospects for a viable turnaround, consider how our educational system provides union leaders - with the mindset shown above and large amounts of money from coerced dues - the ability to essentially dictate financial and management rights terms to local communities all across the country. And consider how parents and communities have few-to-no options of exiting this government-induced monopoly system wallowing in mediocrity.

American public education will never regain competitive excellence on a global scale until we rid our system of this union mentality with its self-serving focus and active resistance to excellence, performance metrics, and competitive choice.

Sadly, this rhetorical victory - while important - brings no lasting satisfaction, at least for now. There is no gusto in this victory right now because the battle directly involves our children and the price the teachers are forcing them to pay in this contract dispute.

But, once again, the value of this interview is that it smoked out the true beliefs of the teachers' union and showed how little they know about the real world and how little they care about the well being of both our children and our town residents. May we never forget those lessons.

Union officials should be ashamed of themselves. East Greenwich residents should be furious.

I hope residents will rise up with a fierce response that tells off the NEA and demands compensation terms just like the rest of us, the working families and retirees of East Greenwich who pay their salaries and benefits.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

In a nutshell, here is what I think the negotiating position of the East Greenwich School Committee should be on some of the key financial terms of the contract.

In addition to financial issues, management rights are the other big teachers' union contract issue. "Work-to-rule" or "contract compliance" only can become an issue because of how management rights are defined in union contracts. The best reading on this subject is the recent report by The Education Partnership. It is must reading.

East Greenwich NEA teachers' union contract negotiations
More Background Information on the East Greenwich NEA Labor Dispute
The NEA's Disinformation Campaign
East Greenwich Salary & Benefits Data
More Bad Faith Behavior by the NEA
The Debate About Retroactive Pay
Would You Hurt Our Children Just To Win Better Contract Terms?
The Question Remains Open & Unanswered: Are We/They Doing Right By Our Children?
Will The East Greenwich Teachers' Union Stop Their Attempts to Legally Extort Residents?
So What Else is New? Teachers' Union Continues Non-Productive Behaviors in East Greenwich Labor Talks
"Bargaining Rights are Civil Rights"

Other Rhode Island public education/union issues
ProJo editorial: Derailing the R.I. gravy train
ProJo editorial: RI public unions work to reduce your family's quality of life
ProJo editorial: Breaking the taxpayer: How R.I. teachers get 12% pay hikes
Selfish Focus of Teachers Unions: Everything But What Is Good For Our Kids
Tom Coyne - RI Schools: Big Bucks Have Not Brought Good Results
The NEA: There They Go, Again!
A Response: Why Teachers' Unions (Not Teachers!) Are Bad For Education
"A Girl From The Projects" Gets an Opportunity to Live the American Dream
Doing Right By Our Children in Public Education Requires Thinking Outside The Box

Broader public education issues
The Deep Performance Problems with American Public Education
Freedom, Hard Work & Quality Education: Making The American Dream Possible For ALL Americans
Parents or Government/Unions: Who Should Control Our Children's Educational Decisions?

A Matter of Competing Values

Part of what makes a danger of modern approaches to addressing public policies that bear on "progress" is that we tend to view them on an individual basis, and when we do realize that they are tangential to each other, we hesitate to follow the implications but so deeply. (Sometimes the hesitance results from the complexity, sometimes from the sense that we'll be proven wrong in what we want to believe.)

My latest column for TheFactIs.org dwells on the intersection of embryonic stem cell research, "right to die" trends, socialist healthcare schemes, and radical life extension. Ultimately, I don't think any of these issues can be fully appreciated without consideration of the others. (And many others, but one can only do so much in fewer than 1,000 words.)

Will The East Greenwich Teachers' Union Stop Their Attempts to Legally Extort Residents?

One of our local newspapers, The North East Independent, weighed in this week with these editorial comments on the East Greenwich teachers' union contract dispute:

East Greenwich teachers union officials apparently won't budge on a request for a tiered system for health care co-pays, reasoning that teachers on low steps will not be able to afford co-pays as easily as top-step teachers. We say that's bunk.

The union has rejected an offer that included raises of 3.5, 3.6 and 3.7 percent and a sharing of the health care premiums of 6, 8 and 10 percent over the three years of the contract.

Asking a teacher - a first-step teacher with only a bachelor's degree in East Greenwich earns $32,137 - to pay between 6 and 10 percent of his or her co-pay over the next three years is far from unreasonable. Private sector employees who earn far less often pay a higher percentage of their health care costs - as much as 40 to 50 percent. It's time for educational professionals to ante up.

East Greenwich's principals, perhaps fed up with waiting for the teachers contract to which their raises and benefits are tied, agreed to terms the teachers themselves rejected...

Union officials countered by saying the principals make more money so they can afford to contribute to health insurance premium co-pays.

The union wants to link co-pays to a percentage of an employee's salary, but we all know that insurance rates are volatile and double-digit increases are not uncommon. That scenario is a losing proposition for the district...

We hope teachers realize that many in the state around them don't enjoy the same benefits they have for all of these years. The committee's offer is a fair one, and the teachers should follow the principals' example and accept the terms.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

If anything, that previous School Committee offer was too generous, as I have noted elsewhere. [Remember, for example, that 3.5-3.7% increases equate to 9-13% total annual salary increases for 9 of the 10 job steps]

But the offer was quite effective in one very important way: It smoked out the true intentions of the teachers' union and showed how greedy they are and how little they care about well being of our children and our town residents.

Let that be a lesson to all of us.

By the way, I have been told there are sixteen school districts in Rhode Island whose teachers' union contracts expire this summer (Bristol/Warren, Central Falls, Cranston, Foster, Glocester, Jamestown, Johnston, Lincoln, Middletown, Newport, North Providence, North Smithfield, Pawtucket, Scituate, Smithfield, Tiverton) or fall (East Providence). You can bet they are watching what is happening in East Greenwich (and Warwick). This fight with the NEA teachers' union in East Greenwich is a fight on behalf of people around the state. We have a moral obligation to lead firmly and strongly so we can make a meaningful difference here in Rhode Island.

Doing Right By Our Children in Public Education Requires Thinking Outside The Box

We live in a global economy. Our children are going to be competing with the best students not from Central Falls or even Barrington when they grow up. Rather, they will be competing with students from countries like China, Taiwan, Singapore, India, etc. Not to mention students from the best prep schools in America as well as Massachusetts towns such as Wellesley, certain Long Island communities, Palo Alto in California, and other truly superb public education schools across the country.

To be uncomfortably blunt, some East Greenwich residents spend too much time congratulating ourselves on how good our school system is. I said it publicly while serving on the East Greenwich School Committee and I will say it again now: Being the best school system in Rhode Island doesn't mean anything in a national and global context.

With the ability now to compare relative performance between school districts across the country on the new School Matters website, my comment is now an empirically valid one, not simply an opinion.

East Greenwich is a wonderful community full of many talented people. We have the people resources in our town to do unbelievable things in the future. Rather than polarizing and offending us, I would hope this empirical observation would make us even more willing to challenge the political mediocrity of the status quo. It also puts other battles into perspective. E.g., when we fight high taxes, it is a battle to keep successful people from leaving this state. It is also a battle to bring new, innovative businesses to this state with jobs and talented people. When we fight the power of the teachers' union, it is about fighting for the freedom to build a great school system free of a costly system that currently only rewards mediocrity. All of these efforts are about ensuring we have an economy and a school system that empowers our working residents and children to compete successfully on a global scale.

With that global competition in mind, this story about charter schools is an example of why I supported Sue Cienki and Merrill Friedemann so strongly in last year's East Greenwich School Committee elections. They are strong-minded, independent people who think outside the box and are not tied to the status quo like so many of the members of past School Committees. Kudos also to John McGurk on the EG Town Council for also supporting the exploration of similar ideas.

I haven't agreed with Sue and Merrill on everything since they were elected and I am sure we will tangle publicly when we disagree on issues in the future. That is perfectly all right in our democratic society. But, regardless of whether we see eye-to-eye on every issue, I have confidence that they are intelligent people who are genuinely committed to seeking the best answers, not just the politically advantageous answers. We need more public servants who are willing to test new ideas.

In the end, this charter school concept may not be practical. It may not be the right way to go for any number of reasons. I personally think charter schools still suffer from too much government regulation which makes them a half-baked attempt at true school choice and vulnerable to manipulation by the public education bureaucracy and teachers' unions.

But excellence never happens unless people are willing to think outside the box. And we all will be better off the more we challenge the status quo in our mediocre, monopolistic public education system.

Enough Already!

This report is simply over-the-top and contributes to the ongoing destruction of civil society in America:

Hollywood once again jumps into bitter DC politics when an episode of NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent suggests a judge killer would wear a 'Tom DeLay' T-Shirt!

The House Majority Leader plans a letter of protest later this afternoon...

TRANSCRIPT OF EPISODE 'FALSE-HEARTED JUDGES'

In the season finale, Detectives Goren and Eames suspect an imprisoned white supremacist is behind the shootings of a judge's family, but their investigation widens when an appellate judge is later murdered...

ADA RON CARVER (COURTNEY B. VANCE) : An african-american judge, an appellate court judge, no less.

MAN: Chief of DS is setting up a task force. People are talking about multiple assassination teams.

DET. ALEX EAMES (KATHRYN ERBE): Looks like the same shooters. CSU found the slug in a post, matched it to the one that killed Judge Barton. Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-Shirt.

This is simply and utterly unacceptable, polarizing behavior. Another example of Hollywood's total disconnection from reality and the Left's willingness to stoop to any low level to trash those who don't agree with its secular fundamentalist political agenda.

As a conservative who has publicly criticized Tom DeLay here and here, my loud exclaim is: Enough already! Our country is too great to deserve this kind of demeaning behavior.

I couldn't have said it better myself

Here's what Hugh Hewitt says about our RINO senator, Lincoln Chafee, in today's Daily Standard:

"Stephen Laffey, the mayor of Cranston, Rhode Island, is being urged to take on Senator Lincoln Chaffee in the 2006 primary so that GOP voters don't have to vote for a Democrat in November 2006. (Chaffee voted against the war, against the president's reelection, and now for the filibuster. Chaffee's presence was necessary with a Senate closely divided, but with a healthy majority, he should be booted before seniority puts him in a position to do real damage. Even big tent Republicans like me believe every tent needs an inside and an outside, and Chaffee's way outside.)"

A very well-known reporter whose poltics are conventionally liberal told me a couple of years ago that right after 9/11, he asked for Sen. Chafee's reaction to the attack. Chafee wouldn't answer him because he hadn't yet determined what OTHERS would say. Needless to say this honorable liberal was offended.

The vote against Owen was the last straw. Chafee needs to go.

Warwick School Budget Fight

The debate over the fiscal and philosophical aspects of education policy often intertwine, but the current goings-on in Warwick have much more to do with money than education philosophy. The Warwick School Committee and Mayor Scott Avedesian are on opposite sides with regards to the education portion of the FY 2006 Warwick City budget. In short, the School Committee wants more money than the Mayor says is available. In a sort of "stealthy strike", the school committee has raised the spectre of closing an elementary school to up the ante and get parents involved in the debate.

The School Committee told the City Council last night that it might have to shutter the Potowomut School, a threat that sent parents dashing to the microphone to defend the 76-year-old facility.

School board Chairman John F. Thompson, speaking at the council's first budget hearing, said the closing Potowomut would save $500,000 -- funds he called indispensable if the council approves Mayor Scott Avedisian's recommended spending plan for the year that begins July 1.

"It'll have a lot of negative impacts on education," Thompson said of the mayor's proposed budget. "Class sizes would increase dramatically; a school could be closed."

Avedisian has proposed giving the School Department $142 million, $7.3 million less than the school board requested. . .

Avedisian contended that the school board hatched the Potowomut closure plan to galvanize parents of the elementary school's 200 students. The issue came up at a School Committee meeting Tuesday night, but school officials never emphasized it in earlier budget presentations.

"I think it's ironic that 10 days ago it wasn't on the radar," Avedisian said. The only similar proposal school officials have recently discussed, he asserted, concerned closing the John Wickes Elementary School if T.F. Green Airport ever expanded.

The School Department, in public comments and letters, had beseeched parents to attend last night's hearing devoted to the education budget. And the proposal to close Potowomut filled the bleachers and balcony in the council chambers, with more than 100 people.

So, apparently, the tactic worked and many parents attended the meeting to save their school. This would seem to have been a disengenuous and cynical ploy by the embattled school committee. It almost seems as if, feeling the heat of teacher contract negotiations, they want to transfer some of the load over to the city politicians. For his part, Avedesian has made a counter-proposal (pdf source1, pgs. 4-6) to the School Committee that includes outlining places to cut and other methods for them to obtain cost savings. Setting those micro-issues aside, it is worth noting a few of the important larger numbers in his budget regarding education.

While the $142 million proposed by Avedesian is indeed "$7.3 million less than the school board requested" it is also approximately a 2.33% increase over last year (see pdf source1, pg. 12) and overall the schools will comprise 54.9% of the city budget (pg. 18 of same report). This is actually a decrease by percentage (down from 56.5% - pdf source2, pg. 17) of the share that education has in the overall budget, but is still an increase in funding. (Also, as an aside, last year 66% [pdf source2, pg. 12] of all city revenue was generated by property taxes while this year it will be 65.5% (pdf source1, pg. 13). As previously stated, Avedesian explained why he couldn't support the increase proposed by the school committee and suggested ways that they could cut their budget, but instead they took the fight to the city council.

Part of the problem is that the School Committee is putting estimated figures reflective of a 3.5% pay increase and retroactive pay and benefits for the teachers with whom the committee is engaged in a well-documented battle. Realizing this, many parents also turned their vitriol on the teachers.

The proposal to close Potowomut -- and likely disperse its students to the Cedar Hill and Harold J. Scott Elementary Schools -- also sparked criticism of the Warwick Teachers Union, which has been locked in a contract dispute with the school board for nearly two years.

Several parents called for giving the teachers lower raises and requiring them to contribute to the cost of their health coverage. The $2 million in this year's budget earmarked for teacher raises, speakers said, should be spent on equipment and books instead, as should $2.4 million that the school board allocated for prospective raises in its budget request for next year.

"Teacher salaries are out of line. Something needs to be done," said Bruce Gempp, to sustained applause. "Buy some buses, buy some books."

Well, that sounds nice, but that's $4.4 million that the Mayor says can't be found in the first place! In short, the entire teacher contract simply needs to be renegotiated so that more money goes to resources used by the students, not to the teachers. The 3.5% raises are frankly unnecessary when the job steps are taken into account, anyway. In fact, I would even be willing to propose a guaranteed COLA + 1% raise in exchange for getting rid of the hidden salary increases present in the step structure. However, to stay out of the weeds, the fundamental issue at the heart of this battle is that the school committee and the teacher's union need to hammer out a common-sense contract. Fighting over the city budget is a red herring.

One possibly beneficial outcome could be that the mayor becomes more involved in the negotiation process. As chief excecutive of the city, I would say that it definitely falls under his purview. At this point, two years and running, it is obvious that someone needs to take a leadership role and serve as a diplomat between the school committee and teacher's union. Who better than the mayor? Isn't this exactly the situation in which he can best serve the city and its future?

The Question Remains Open & Unanswered: Are We/They Doing Right By Our Children?

Last week, I emailed this posting to East Greenwich town and school officials, asking that they "ensure the referenced matters were properly investigated and publicly discussed."

East Greenwich School Superintendent Michael Jolin has responded to only one of the matters, making the following comments in this ProJo article:

While the town's teachers are "working to rule" because they lack a contract, some continue private tutoring, and that has drawn criticism from a former School Committee member.

On Friday, Donald Hawthorne, a critic of the teachers' union, sent an e-mail to town and school officials and to the news media directing them to a Web blog he maintains.

On the site, Hawthorne said that "some teachers who refuse to tutor our children before or after school are currently charging money from parents to tutor children outside of school."

"[T]hey are getting paid extra money this year to do what has been a part of their regular job description in past years," he said.

School Committee member Marilyn Friedemann said she asked Supt. Michael W. Jolin to see whether such outside tutoring is a violation of state law.

State law says no public school teacher shall accept payment for tutoring directly from parents of a student under his or her instruction.

In an interview yesterday, Jolin said he interpreted the law to mean that teachers are not allowed to privately tutor students who are in the classes that they teach.

Jolin said that, while he has confirmed that there are teachers who tutor children privately, he has found "no evidence of teachers receiving pay for tutoring students who they are instructing during the regular school day."...

During my time on the School Committee, Superintendent Jolin was masterful at not quite answering questions asked of him and not providing appropriate analyses before major votes - like the previous teachers' union contract extension. This ProJo editorial shares some of my past experiences with and observations of his leadership. So, from a distance, I do not know whether his finding "no evidence" means anything.

More importantly, what I do know is that he neither answered the entire question I asked of town and school officials about tutoring nor did he address other inconsistent actions, highlighted in the same email, all of which have hurt our children.

Remember that no one is disputing that teachers, working under contract compliance, are not helping our children with academic matters in ways like they have done in past years. Nor is anyone disputing that teachers are getting the same salary and benefits that they received last year when they did help our children at that higher level. Also, no one is disputing that gifted children in grade 6 got their field trip but 6th grade children not in the gifted program were denied their annual field trip. They are not disputing that teachers went to a prom which was outside their working hours under contract compliance but they will not help our children with academic needs or field trips outside the same working hours.

So the open question about tutoring remains: Is there MORE paid tutoring going on right now in East Greenwich than in past years due to "work-to-rule?"

In other words, are we/they doing right by our children and, in aggregate, are teachers benefiting economically under contract compliance?

Frankly, investigating that point in greater detail now is a waste of time because, given past performance by the Superintendent, there would be reasons to doubt the reliability of any new information.

Yet an even larger question also remains unanswered and worthy of further public debate: Is it ethical and professional behavior for teachers to selectively work outside formal contract hours by attending a prom but not providing after school help or doing a field trip? By participating in one field trip but not another?

We know this larger question does not bother the teachers' union: Jane Argentieri, the executive director of the union's parent organization, the National Education Association Rhode Island, is quoted in the ProJo article as saying "Contract compliance merely means that they are doing everything required by the contract." To translate that into layman's language, she is saying "Who cares about doing right by the children as long as we get ours and abide by the legal letter of the agreement?" Her highly persuasive comment only reinforces the points about the one-sided imbalance in management rights found in teachers' union contracts - a point made quite clearly in the recent Education Partnership report.

But the larger question does bother the rest of us as parents and as members of the East Greenwich community. We must do right by our children and ensure they get all the help they need to be successful while at the same time ensuring that teachers do not receive any economic reward for problems they created in the first place due to "work-to-rule."

Therefore, what is not a waste of time is ensuring that there are no structural incentives in place that would encourage or reward unfair and undesired outcomes - regardless of whether the issue is formal tutoring, informal after school help, proms, or field trips. And that leads directly back to the question of retroactive pay for teachers, the key focus of both my previous posting and the email to town/school officials.

Retroactive pay is also one of the larger outstanding financial issues in the current contract dispute which I have publicly addressed here:

The issues of retroactive pay and "work-to-rule" are at the heart of the dispute in the East Greenwich NEA teachers union contract dispute. The union expects salaries to be made whole via retroactive pay increases. But if the union believes they will get such pay, then they have no incentive to settle the contract for anything less than their one-sided outrageous demands. Yet, in the meantime, our children will not be made whole retroactively for all the times teachers have, due to "work-to-rule," refused to do the same things for our children that they did in past years. This is an inequitable situation that needs to be rectified.

Therefore, I would like to propose a straightforward settlement offer to the East Greenwich NEA teachers' union contract dispute:

• Retroactive pay: Tell the union that retroactive pay is off the table now and forever. Actions have consequences and teachers should not be made whole if our children cannot be made whole. Take away any incentive for the union to continue its refusal to negotiate in good faith and make time their enemy, not ours.

• Taking care of our children: Take some or all of the funds originally set aside in the budget for retroactive pay and dedicate those funds to paying for outside help, including tutors, for our children. In other words, let's take control of the situation and make our children whole from this day forward...

Let's focus on doing right by our children and giving them all the support they need.

The Alternative Minimum Tax

The Tax Foundation has just come out with a study on the alternative minimum tax. The report begins:

The AMT is a tax system that is parallel to the regular income tax. It was originally designed to capture a small number of wealthy taxpayers who were avoiding income taxes, but the AMT’s reach has ballooned in recent years.

Until recently, the AMT affected less than 1 percent of taxpayers. Since 2000 the AMT has steadily grown, hitting roughly 3 percent of taxpayers in 2005. If left unchanged, the AMT will penalize nearly 20 percent of taxpayers by 2010—some 30 million Americans in total...

I would encourage you to read the entire piece and learn more about the looming threat to middle Americans from the AMT.

"A Girl From The Projects" Gets an Opportunity to Live the American Dream

A previous posting reported the upcoming leadership change - and why - at the Textron Chamber of Commerce Academy, a charter school. Here is a related letter to the editor:

...Rick Landau has announced that he will step down as chief executive officer of Textron Chamber of Commerce Academy, in Providence. All because the teachers'-union leaders are furious at him for trying to protect the school's role as an engine of innovation...

Textron, and other schools like it, work best for inner-city youth. They give students special attention. They raise test scores, and the confidence of students. These kids can then go out and get good jobs, because they had a caring teacher who told them that they could do whatever they wanted to do. My friend went to Textron, and now she works at a well-known law firm. She is a girl from the projects who benefited from these teachers.

So I agree that we should work, through changing the law or contract negotiations, to do away with "bumping" and let educational leaders give precedence to the best, most dedicated teachers.

The right recommendation, for sure.

What can inspire pride more than hearing that "a girl from the projects" now has an opportunity to live the American Dream?

Now contemplate how many children from the projects will not have a similar opportunity to live the American Dream - all because the teachers' union insists that teacher seniority is more important than teacher merit.

Doesn't that make you sad? Angry?

It is our moral duty as Americans to ensure every child has a similar opportunity to live the American Dream. To be successful, we must rid our society of the ills which stand in the way of fulfilling that obligation.

It is a duty we must never shirk.

FBI Asks Congress For Power to Seize Documents

Let's be careful before we say yes too quickly to this request:

The FBI on Tuesday asked the U.S. Congress for sweeping new powers to seize business or private records, ranging from medical information to book purchases, to investigate terrorism without first securing approval from a judge.

Valerie Caproni, FBI general counsel, told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee her agency needed the power to issue what are known as administrative subpoenas to get information quickly about terrorist plots and the activities of foreign agents.

Civil liberties groups have complained the subpoenas, which would cover medical, tax, gun-purchase, book purchase, travel and other records and could be kept secret, would give the FBI too much power and could infringe on privacy and free speech...

The [USA Patriot] act was passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. However administrative subpoena power was not in the original law. The proposed new powers, long sought by the FBI, have been added by Republican lawmakers, acting on the wishes of the Bush administration, to the new draft of the USA Patriot Act.

Committee chairman, Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, noted that other government agencies already had subpoena power to investigate matters such as child pornography, drug investigations and medical malpractice. He said it made little sense to deny those same powers to the FBI to investigate terrorism or keep track of foreign intelligence agents.

But opponents said other investigations usually culminated in a public trial, whereas terrorism probes would likely remain secret and suspects could be arrested or deported or handed over to other countries without any public action...

Senator Mitch McConnell on the Judicial Filibuster - Before the Capitulation

Republican Senator Mitch McConnell gave this speech on the Senate floor prior to the capitulation by the 7 Republican senators. It offers a history lesson and is complementary to this posting by Mac Owens.

Drafting Laffey or Protesting Chafee?

Well, it's official. A group is attempting to draft Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey into a run for Sen. Lincoln Chafee's seat.

A group of Republicans statewide has organized a committee to encourage Cranston Mayor Stephen P. Laffey to challenge Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee in 2006.

There are 85 names on a letter given to Laffey yesterday, including 2000 gubernatorial candidate James Bennett, Cranston state Representatives Carol Mumford and James F. Davey, East Providence Mayor Joseph Larisa and members of city and town councils, party members and business people.

Former Cranston Republican City Committee Chairman Gary Vierra said that he and others -- mostly members of the Cranston GOP -- were behind the effort, which was launched two weeks ago. Vierra said the signers of the letter consider Chafee -- the most centrist of the Senate's Republicans -- does not represent their political views. Laffey is considered to be more conservative.

"I don't feel [Chafee] really represents the Republican ideals," Vierra said.

Yesterday, he presented the letter to the mayor, urging him to run.

"We believe that your qualifications, your record of achievement and your personal background make you the right person for the job at this critical time in our nation's history," the letter reads.

It also mentions Laffey's role in turning around Cranston's finances, and Laffey's background -- a public-school-educated son of a middle-class Cranston family who headed an investment banking firm -- as qualifications.

Laffey, who has been uncharacteristically tightlipped when his plans for future office are discussed, said only that he was honored when Vierra brought him the letter.

"I took it, I read it, and I just said, 'I'm honored, Gary,' " Laffey said. He said that knowing he has the support of prominent members of the party will be a big factor if he decides to run for the Senate.

"It does make me pause," he said. "I take it very, very seriously."

He said he would call many of the people on the list to thank them and to discuss his options. He said he was not aware there was an attempt to "draft" him before yesterday.

The draft Laffey movement was launched without the sanction of the statewide party. Vierra said that the party leadership is veering too near the political center.

"They are a small group of people who do not listen to the membership," he said.

The Republican State Central Committee was not informed of the draft Laffey campaign, which was intended to a be a low-profile effort, Vierra said. He added that he did not ask Governor Carcieri to sign on.

The state GOP's executive director, Jeffrey Deckman, said the draft movement did not signal a rift in the party.

"This party is more together and more open than it has been in 15 years," he said, and in any party, disagreements will happen, he said.

"I'm not into fighting amongst the party. But I also know not everyone's going to get along," he said.

In his perfect world, Deckman said, there would be no primary in the 2006 race for the Senate seat.

"We like to avoid primaries. We don't like our resources pointed at each other. We want them pointed at the enemy," he said.

The campaign has not registered with the state as a political action committee and no events are planned yet.

On today's Dan Yorke show, in an interview with Gary Vierra, Yorke expressed skepticism that Laffey had no prior knowledge of this movement to draft him. Vierra assured that this was the case. Yorke also asked if this was more of a "Laffey's great" or a "Chafee is awful" based movement. Vierra demured.

Yorke also spoke to Governor Carcieri, who has not committed as of yet, but was complimentary of Laffey's record and noted that he was also not endorsed by the state Republican party in his run for Governor.

For my part, I tend to believe that conservatives are more fed up with Chafee than they are necessarily enamored with Mayor Laffey's cult of personality. (There, I said it). By this, I mean that, while the mayor is obviously conservative in many of his stances, and he's a particularly sound fiscal conservative, he also seems to enjoy basking in the limelight for its own sake a bit too much for me. (The whole radio show imbroglio is a case in point). In short, I must confess I'm not sure how much of Steve Laffey the politician is based on promoting conservative principles and how much is being the establishment gadfly. Being the latter can be fun and entertaining, but, in the long run, it has no inherent worth in and of itself. Laffey's track record cannot be discounted, but I wonder if his personality won't end up superseding it, for good or ill.

You Can Always Count on that Great Deliberative Body, the U.S. Senate...

...to come up with a politically expedient and intellectually dishonest solution to a problem. That is what the "filibuster deal" is. The moderates, including our own Sen. Chafee, prized comity over Constitutional consistency. Senator John Cornyn explains it well.

Conservatives have good reason to be unhappy with the agreement announced last night concerning the Senate’s judicial-confirmation process. The agreement does not guarantee up-or-down votes on all of President Bush’s judicial nominees, nor does it restore the Senate’s unswerving 214-year tradition of majority vote for all judicial nominees. In addition, the agreement attempts to rewrite Article II of the Constitution, by giving the Senate an advise-and-consent role in the nomination, as well as the appointment, of judges. Those objectives are still within reach, however. As one of the signatories to the agreement made clear last night, the agreement does not foreclose the use of the Byrd option in the event that the filibuster continues to be abused. Moreover, conservatives should be proud of the principled manner in which they have conducted this debate.

The other side’s position, by contrast, is an intellectual shambles. The agreement guarantees up-or-down votes to Justice Priscilla Owen, Justice Janice Rogers Brown, and Judge William Pryor — three well-qualified nominees who were once deplored as extreme and dangerous (as late as yesterday afternoon). The agreement is thus an effective admission of guilt — an admission that these fine nominees should never have been filibustered in the first place. Moreover, by forbidding future filibusters of judicial nominations except under “extraordinary circumstances,” the agreement establishes a new benchmark for future conduct in the United States Senate — namely, that other qualified judges who are firmly committed to the law, like Owen, Brown, and Pryor, deserve an up-or-down vote, too.

Likewise, for months it was claimed that the filibuster is sacrosanct to the Founders, and that using the Byrd option to restore Senate tradition would be illegal. Yet Senator Robert Byrd reminded the world just last week that our Founders did not tolerate filibusters — that “the rules adopted by the United States Senate in April 1789 included a motion for the previous question,” which “allowed the Senate to terminate debate” by majority vote. And just yesterday, he conceded that “the so-called nuclear option has been around for a long time. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

Now, it must be said that some on the left aren't all that happy either, thus ideologues on both left and right are disappointed. To this, Pejman Yousefzadeh makes the point

I understand the desire of Republicans to get rid of the filibuster entirely when it comes to judicial nominees. I share in that desire. But remember that politics is a game of inches. Tip O'Neill once admiringly said of Ronald Reagan that the latter may not get 100% of what he wanted, but that Reagan would always get about 80%. When Reagan heard the compliment, he responded by saying "Yeah. And then next time, I go after the other 20%."

The other 20% is out there for Republicans to get. And if this deal falls apart thanks to bad faith on the other side, we can go out and get it.

Some of us may wonder if the Republican moderates will follow through, though. For those of us in Rhode Island, we have to ask if the 1/4 loaf of Lincoln Chafee is really worth it. Should we move to get rid of the false promise that Chafee most-often offers, knowing full well that a liberal Democrat could, and probably would, replace him? Perhaps. Because then we would be sure where that potential Chafee successor stood. Is it better to "know-thy-enemy" then to wonder what the heck the incumbent is going to do? Actually, as I look back at the previous couple sentences, I realize that we do know what Chafee will do. If there is a "compromise" offered, he will sign on. Sen. Chafee is most firm in his un-conservative ideals (abortion, "traditional" environmentalism, to name a couple) and it is only when he is asked to adhere to even tacitly conservative ideals that he compromises. It is no secret that Sen. Chafee isn't a conservative. He is most definitely the very definition of a RINO (Republican-in-name-only). We have to ask ourselves, is a RINO better than a liberal Democrat? Is there a difference?

NOTE: For good coverage and analysis, check out NRO's Bench Memos blog.

A Convert Speaks

These days the postmodern left demands that government and private institutions guarantee equality of outcomes. Any racial or gender "disparities" are to be considered evidence of culpable bias, regardless of factors such as personal motivation, training, and skill. This goal is neither liberal nor progressive; but it is what the left has chosen. In a very real sense it may be the last card held by a movement increasingly ensnared in resentful questing for group-specific rights and the subordination of citizenship to group identity. There's a word for this: pathetic.

So says Keith Thompson, who also offers more on his own "conversion."

I'll admit my politics have shifted in recent years, as have America's political landscape and cultural horizon. Who would have guessed that the U.S. senator with today's best voting record on human rights would be not Ted Kennedy or Barbara Boxer but Kansas Republican Sam Brownback?

He is also by most measures one of the most conservative senators. Brownback speaks openly about how his horror at the genocide in the Sudan is shaped by his Christian faith, as King did when he insisted on justice for "all of God's children."

My larger point is rather simple. Just as a body needs different medicines at different times for different reasons, this also holds for the body politic.

In the sixties, America correctly focused on bringing down walls that prevented equal access and due process. It was time to walk the Founders' talk -- and we did. With barriers to opportunity no longer written into law, today the body politic is crying for different remedies.

America must now focus on creating healthy, self-actualizing individuals committed to taking responsibility for their lives, developing their talents, honing their skills and intellects, fostering emotional and moral intelligence, all in all contributing to the advancement of the human condition.

At the heart of authentic liberalism lies the recognition, in the words of John Gardner, "that the ever renewing society will be a free society (whose] capacity for renewal depends on the individuals who make it up." A continuously renewing society, Gardner believed, is one that seeks to "foster innovative, versatile, and self-renewing men and women and give them room to breathe."

One aspect of my politics hasn't changed a bit. I became a liberal in the first place to break from the repressive group orthodoxies of my reactionary hometown.

This past January, my liberalism was in full throttle when I bid the cultural left goodbye to escape a new version of that oppressiveness. I departed with new clarity about the brilliance of liberal democracy and the value system it entails; the quest for freedom as an intrinsically human affair; and the dangers of demands for conformity and adherence to any point of view through silence, fear, or coercion.

True, it took a while to see what was right before my eyes. A certain misplaced loyalty kept me from grasping that a view of individuals as morally capable of and responsible for making the principle decisions that shape their lives is decisively at odds with the contemporary left's entrance-level view of people as passive and helpless victims of powerful external forces, hence political wards who require the continuous shepherding of caretaker elites.

Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals -- people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense -- is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.

Thompson finally could take no more. I think that many Rhode Islanders can't bring themselves to make the break that Thompson has. For so long, the working man and his heritage has been linked to the Democrat party, but the working men lost the reins of the Democrat party long ago. Those reins are now held by radical liberals who rely on the rhetoric of populism and class envy to obfuscate their real ideology. They think that conservatives and Republicans have "tricked" the American voters into supporting them because that is exactly what the liberals who lead the Democrat party are trying to do themselves.

I think too many in Rhode Island and New England don't want to change horses because they don't want to admit that the tired old nag their riding now is faltering and no longer has a chance of winning and will only show by default. No one likes to admit that they were wrong or have been had or have backed a loser, etc. So rather than admit their political error, they cling more tightly to reins of their trotting glueworks hoping that, maybe someday again, something will stick with the American voter and they will win the derby. Unfortunately for them, it is the Republican party that currently holds the triple crown. They are covered in dust.

An Open Letter to Sen. Lincoln Chafee

I sent this off to Sen. Chafee's office this morning

Dear Sen. Chafee:

With President Bush’s nomination of Pricilla Owen to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit now before the Senate, the long-expected showdown over the issue of permanent minority judicial filibusters seems imminent. You have indicated that you will not support a move to end judicial filibusters. That, of course, is your right. But perhaps you can take the time to explain to your constituents why you have chosen to join the Democrats in defending a practice that is at best obstructionist, and at worst, unconstitutional.

Opponents of changing the Senate rules regarding permanent minority judicial filibusters have launched what can only be called a campaign of misinformation, if not disinformation. You, of course, know that most of what the Democrats are saying on this issue is simply false. You know this because you have access to one of the finest research organizations in the world, the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

Here are some of the things you know to be true, but perhaps your constituents don’t. First, the Constitution is very clear in delineating when a supermajority is required. Two-thirds of both houses of Congress are required to amend the Constitution, which amendment must then be approved by the legislatures of thee-fourths of the states. Two-thirds of both houses are necessary to override a presidential veto. Two-thirds of the members of each house must vote to expel a member. A two-thirds vote of the Senate is necessary to convict an individual impeached by the House. And two-thirds of the Senate are required for consent to ratification of a treaty. No such supermajority is required to approve presidential nominees.

Indeed, Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution provides an illuminating juxtaposition of the Senate roles in both treaty-making and appointments:

"[The president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law…"

The clear sense of the language of this clause indicates that appointments require only a majority of Senators to provide the necessary advice and consent in the case of nominees, as opposed to approving treaties.

Second, you know that the Democrats’ claim that the proposed rule change undoes 200 years of precedent is nonsense. They get away with this by conflating the use of the filibuster to block legislation and its use to block judicial nominees. As you must know, the “200 years of precedent” refers to the former, not the latter.

From 1789 to 1806, a simple majority could end debate on a motion before the Senate. The rule change in 1806 permitted unlimited debate in the Senate that could be ended only by “unanimous consent” but the use of the legislative filibuster was rare until the end of the nineteenth century. In 1917, the Senate adopted the first cloture rule, Rule XXII, which provided for ending a debate by a vote of two-thirds of the senators present and voting. In 1975, the rule was amended to allow cloture by a vote of three-fifths of the Senate—which is why the current threshold for ending a filibuster is 60.

But again, this applied to legislation, not appointments. As former Minnesota Senator Rudy Boschwitz recently observed:

"For more than 200 years, just one judicial nominee was defeated by filibuster -- Abe Fortas in 1968 in extraordinary circumstances that are not comparable to the current situation. For more than 200 years, no minority leader ever organized a judicial filibuster. For more than 200 years, the Senate operated on the understanding that a majority of senators was entitled to carry out its constitutional obligation to advise and consent on federal judges. But now the Democratic leadership has cast aside Senate tradition to usurp the president's appointment