The Daily Change

As we reported earlier this month, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown (R) came out against a ballot initiative (Question 3) in his state that would legalize the use of medical marijuana in the state.

Yesterday, in a touching interview with Boston’s WTKK-FM, his bold progressive opponent Elizabeth Warren offered support for the measure. Here’s a transcript of her remarks:

WARREN:Ai??You know, I held my father’s hand while he died of cancer, and it’s really painful when you do something like that up close and personal. My mother was already gone, and I was very, very close to my father. And it puts me in a position of saying, if there’s something a physician can prescribe that can help someone who’s suffering, I’m in favor of that. Now, I want to make sure they’ve got the right restrictions. It should be like any other prescription drug — that there’s careful control over it. But I think it’s really hard to watch somebody suffer that you love.

Listen to the interview:

Polling about Question 3 finds that nearly 60 percent of the state’s voters support it. It’s clear who is on the side of the people here.

Click here to chip in a few dollars and help elect bold progressive Elizabeth Warren to the U.S. Senate.

A pensions protest in Britain.

One of the way the modern conservative movement has undermined progressive goals like reducing income inequality and universal health care is by limiting democracy itself. For example, conservatives were successful in getting California to require a 2/3 vote — not a simple majority — to raise taxes, essentially letting small minorities prevent tax increases and force major cuts to public services.

Now, Illinois conservatives are pushing a similar effort in Illinois to attack public employee pensions. Illinois’s November ballot will include Amendment 49, which would require a three-fifths vote in order to increase pensions or other public retirement benefits.

ai???For decades politicians skipped payments, running up the pension debt. Now that the bill is due, theyai??i??re trying to blame teachers, police officers, caregivers and other public employees and retirees. Instead of putting in place an ironclad guarantee that politicians will pay their share going forward, theyai??i??re clamoring to change the constitution in a way that wonai??i??t do a thing to fix the funding problem,ai??? said Anders Lindall, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, in an interview with The Southern Illinoisan.

It’s not surprising that anti-union forces are pushing for a California-style attack on public pensions in the state. Stable private pensions that allow workers to retire with dignity have been in decline (partly due to the collapse of unions in the private sector). Public pensions remain the last real backbone for retirement security for workers, and if the right succeeds in crushing them, society’s responsibility to reward workers for a lifetime of hard work will be greatly undermined.

Illinois’s voters should soundly reject Amendment 49 because it is both an attack on public workers and an attack on …

Is modern-day capitalism inconsistent with Christian values? (Photo credit: Flickr user @boetter)

De-regulated capitalism as it is practiced in the United States today — as opposed to the more democratic capitalism practiced in much of the twentieth century that saw the creation of a robust middle class — has resulted in a massive recession and stark inequalities.

A new poll finds that this modern capitalism is actually conflicting with another feature of today’s America: the Christian faith that most Americans practice. The Public Religion Research Institute finds that a plurality of Americans view capitalism as inconsistent with Christian values:

Americans are divided over the extent to which capitalism and the free market system and Christian values can coexist: a plurality (44%) believe that capitalism and the free market system are at odds with Christian values, while 41% agree that capitalism is consistent with Christian values. Fifteen percent say they do not know.

The poll also notes that white working-class Americans are much more likely to believe that capitalism contradicts Christian values (46 percent) than college-educated Americans (53 percent).

A Chicago Teachers Union action from earlier this year. (Photo credit: Flickr user JeanPaulHolmes)

The Chicago Teachers Union ended its strike last week in a resounding victory for students, teachers, and parents. (See a list of what they won here.)

But anti-union forces don’t want to see working people continue to win victory’s like last week’s. Chicago AldermanAi??Patrick Oai??i??Connor, who serves as the city council floor leader for Mayor Rahm Emanuel, is suggesting that the city move towards banning teacher strikes in the future:

Chicago’s first teachers strike in 25 years should trigger a debate about whether or not teachers should be allowed to strike, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s City Council floor leader said. […]Ai??”The anxiety leading up to the strike and the week they were off–the disruption it caused and the need for government and our constituents to scramble to find ways to keep their children safe–it’s worth discussing if you can avoid that,” said O’Connor, former longtime chairman of the City Council’s Education Committee.

37 states currently prohibit teacher strikes, and anti-labor forces are campaigning to expand these laws. Interestingly, post-Mubarak Egypt — a country which is still a long way away from becoming even an imperfect democracy — has faced momentous teacher strikes that the military government has been unable to put down. That, if anything, is a sad commentary on the lack of teacher rights in much of the United States.

The National Football League has been taking heat for its lockout of union referees, with theAi??NFL Players Association Executive Committee calling for the lockout to end.

Last night, the union referees got an unconventional ally: the communications director of the Republican National Convention. Check out his tweet about the scab referees brought in:

If they can even convince the RNC’s communications director that they’re right, one hopes that the NFL will soon end the lockout and address the union referees’ grievances.

Romney’s true view on who deserves health care?

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is in more hot water today after he told Ai??60 MinutesAi??that uninsured Americans can simply go to the emergency room:

ROMNEY: We do provide care for people who donai??i??t have insurance. If someone has a heart attack, they donai??i??t sit in their apartment and ai??i?? and die. We pick them up in an ambulance, and take them to the hospital, and give them care. And different states have different ways of providing for that care.Ai??Some provide that care through clinics, some provide that care through emergency rooms

But during the 2008 debates with his Republican colleagues, he thought differently. During the Reagan Library debate on January 30th, Romney sounded off on why he overhauled his state’s health care system to discourage people from going to the emergency room for care:

ROMNEY: And we said: You know what? If somebody could afford insurance, they should either buy the insurance or pay their own way. They don’t have to buy insurance if they don’t want to, but pay their own way. But they shouldn’t be allowed to just show up at the hospital and say, somebody else should pay for me.

And so we said: No more free riders. It was like bringing “workfare” to welfare. We said: If you can afford insurance, then either have the insurance or get a health savings account. Pay your own way, but no more free ride.

It seems like Romney can’t make up his mind. Should the uninsured go to the emergency rooms or not? Is it a huge problem that people in many states have no choice but to go to crowded hospitals at the last minute or not? Romney’s message on health …

The Chicago Teachers Union strike that ended last week was an important milestone for the labor movement. It resulted in a great victory for students and teachers, but it also showed other unions nationwide that they can fight and win, even against enormous odds.

So when theAi??Chicago Symphony Orchestra was told that their employees would see their health care contributions double in their next contract — from 5 percent to 12 percent — they decided they wouldn’t take it lying down.

CSO declared on Saturday that it would go on strike. Here’s one musician explaining why he’s on strike:

“We were negotiating all day today after having negotiated many times,” said bassist Stephen Lester, chairman of the Orchestra Members Committee. “They were trying to force us into a concessionary contract, reducing our benefits and making it difficult for the orchestra to pay for health care and keep our basic standard of life.”

The CSO strike is evidence that CTU’s strike is inspiring other unions to stand up for themselves and stop attacks on the wages, benefits, and working conditions of their employees.

This November, Colorado’s voters won’t just be voting on a second term for President Obama. They’ll have a chance to send a huge national message by passing Amendment 64, Ai??which would legalize adult possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The amendment has sparked heated debate in the state, and the Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, actually opposes it. But one group just announced that it will be mobilizing voters to support the amendment.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization composed of former police officers, will be pushing hard for the amendment this November:

Ai??Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, which is based in Medford, Mass., announced it would support get-out-the-vote efforts forAi??Amendment 64, a Colorado ballot initiative to essentially legalize marijuana.

Tony Ryan, who spent 36 years on Denver’s police force and now serves on LEAP’s board, is pushing for Amendment 64. “I’d been thinking about this much of my career,” Ryan tellsAi??Whispers. “I saw that marijuana wasn’t the cause of disturbances, crimes, or homicidesai??i??something like alcohol was.”

Former police officers aren’t the only unconventional advocates for Amendment 64. Last week, former far-right congressman Tom Tancredo announced that he, too, backs the measure. “I have decided that it presents a responsible, effective and much-needed solution to a misguided policy,” wrote Tancredo in a letter to state lawmakers.

Republicans love to say they are against big government and that they love the free market. The truth is that many of them are happy to use government to advance their own interests.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just broke a story about how Georgia Governor Nathan Deal (R) directed $4.5 millionAi??in state funds to a resort run by campaign donors:

With a golf course, a water park and an elegant lodge that promises visitors ai???the welcoming embrace of luxury,ai??? the Lake Lanier Islands Resort exudes abundance, not need.

So some were surprised when Gov. Nathan Deal agreed last month to spend $4.5 million to buy and rehabilitate a well to primarily serve the North Georgia resort, which is operated by a multimillionaire businessman.

The project was one of only two approved for a direct investment of state funds, rather than loans, in the first round of awards from the Governorai??i??s Water Supply Program. The people or firms pushing those two projects had donated upwards of $10,000 to Dealai??i??s campaign.

By the stateai??i??s own evaluation, the two projects arenai??i??t really needed. Documents reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show the Lake Lanier Islands well won just five points out of a possible 100 in the category of need. The southwest Georgia aquifer tallied zero.

$4.5 million for $10,000 is a 44,900 percent return on investment.

What makes this action by Deal particularly shocking is how far he’s gone to stigmatize poor Georgians who receive modest aid from the state. Last April, Deal signed into law legislation that requires drug testing for beneficiaries of theAi??Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. That’s a humiliation these campaign donors Deal rewarded will never have to deal with.

It was a plan the Koch Brothers probably thought would go off without a hitch. The Koch-funded group Americans For Prosperity (AFP)Ai??held a rally yesterday in New York City’s Rockefeller Plaza to “stand up to Occupy Wall Street extremists.”

But things didn’t turn out like AFP wanted them to. As the Guardian reports, Occupy protesters — armed to the teeth with satirical outfits and signs — showed up and ended up making up half of the crowd:

Almost half of the sparse crowd were Occupy Wall Street protesters, smartly dressed and bearing signs parodying Americans for Prosperity’s ultra-conservative message.

“My sign says: ‘I’m dreaming of a white president, just like the ones we used to have,’” said Stan Williams, a labour organiser and member of theAi??Occupy movement.

Watch a video interview with one Occupy protester who satirically identified himself as a member of “Americans For Inequality”:

With literally billions of dollars at their disposal, the Koch brothers are used to getting their way. But sometimes all the money in the world is not match for a little ingenuity.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which is perhaps Washington, D.C.’s most powerful corporate front group — is up with a new ad attacking Tammy Baldwin. Although the ad is riddled with misleading claims, perhaps the most bizarre one is that Baldwin supported the “wildly unpopular public option.”

Watch the ad:

It is true that Baldwin was a strong supporter of the public option (she also supports Medicare for All). The bizarre part of this statement is to claim that the public option was “wildly unpopular.” Here’s some polling that says the opposite:

The New York Times/CBS News Poll:Ai??This 2009 poll found that 72 percent of Americans backed a public option in health care. Additionally, the poll found that 50 percent of self-identified Republicans backed this health care option.
The Washington Post/ABC News Poll: This 2009 polling concluded that 57 percent of Americans back a public insurance option.
The SurveyUSA Poll: This 2009 polling found that 77 percent of Americans backed the “choice” of a public insurance option.

Keep in mind that all of this polling was taken during the national debate over the health care bill, when health reform efforts were most unpopular. There hasn’t been any prominent polling about the public option lately, but it is likely that it is even more popular now.

So then why is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce attacking Baldwin on this issue? Just follow the money.

The Chamber famously does not disclose its donors. But sometimes, it slips up. Bloomberg and National Journal both engaged in investigative reporting that concluded that health insurance companies gave more than $100 million to the Chamber between 2009 and 2010. With that kind of dough, the Chamber has an incentive to make misleading claims about a policy the …

A new report finds that American schools are slowly re-segregating

In the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s, the U.S. government pursued a program of integration designed on ending the racial separation that existing in school systems across the country. This intense period of de-segregation advanced race relations and is fondly remembered as an important part of the American civil rights struggle.

But as income inequality continues to pull Americans apart, it is also having a toll on racial integration in schools. A new report just put out byAi??Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles finds that schools are being quietly re-segregated. Here’s a summation of some of the data from The New York Times:

Across the country, 43 percent of Latinos and 38 percent of blacks attend schools where fewer than 10 percent of their classmates are white, according to the report, released on Wednesday by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

And more than one in seven black and Latino students attend schools where fewer than 1 percent of their classmates are white, according to the group’s analysis of enrollment data from 2009-2010, the latest year for which federal statistics are available.

One part of the report that the Times fails to mention is the role that ObamaAi??administrationAi??policies are playing in this re-segregation. The report faults the administration for not taking action promotion school integration while at the same time Ai??strongly pushing for charter schools that often segregate student communities:

The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration, has taken no significant action to increase school integration or to help stabilize diverse schools as racial change occurs in urban and suburban housing markets and schools. Small positive steps in civil rights enforcement have been …

Tonight, Senator Scott Brown faced off with bold progressive candidate Elizabeth Warren in a live television debate. At one point, he claimed he wasn’t a “friend of Big Oil” and talked about how he has taken a look at loopholes and deductions. Watch it:

If he’s not Big Oil’s friend, they’re at least really good acquaintances. This past March, Brown voted with all of his Senate Republican colleagues to give $24 billion to in special subsidies to the oil industry over ten years.

If someone gave you $24 billion, what would you consider them?

Tonight, Senator Scott Brown faced off with bold progressive candidate Elizabeth Warren in a live television debate. At one point, he claimed that he voted to keep student interest rates low, and then went on a tirade against Warren’s salary as a college professor.

But what he didn’t mention was his own role in trying to prevent student loan reform. Brown voted against the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, which for the first time ever took Big Bank middlemen out of the federal student lending process, which is expected to save taxpayers and students billions of dollars in the coming years. Banks just happen to be his biggest donors.

Brown was obviously trying to distract voters from his own anti-student voting record with his personal attacks on Warren.

Tonight, bold progressive candidate Elizabeth Warren is in a live television debate on Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA).

During a moment just now, Scott Brown defended voting against President Obama’s jobs bill that would’ve created up to 1.9 million jobs nationwide. Ai??Warren first challenged him for voting against these jobs bills, and then he quickly responded.

Looking at the camera, Brown said, “The [jobs bill] that she refers to with all due respect would have raised your taxes $450 billion.” Watch it:

Brown pretended that the Obama jobs bill raised taxes on the very audience and constituents who were watching the debate. But the bill only raised taxes in its original form on Americans whose household income topped $250,000. Senate Democrats later proposed raising taxes only on millionaires.Ai??These tax hikes on the rich were included to pay for the bill. In essence, the bill asked the richest Americans to pay a little bit more to hire thousands of teachers, firefighters, and other important workers and to rebuild America.

Maybe Brown thinks only the super-rich are watching the debate, or those are the only people he wants to speak to. It’s entirely possible he didn’t want to tax the rich a tiny amount to pay for jobs for millions of Americans. Any other explanation would be that he simply wanted to mislead the audience.

Photo credit: Flickr user Seattleclouds.com

Today theAi??Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, led by chairman Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), released a memo looking at some of the international tax maneuvers being used by corporations to avoid paying taxes in the United States.

The memo pays particular attention to tech giant Microsoft. Here’s Reuters reporting about the findings related to the company:

The committee memo, released in advance of a 2 p.m. hearing in Washington today, said Microsoft used transactions with subsidiaries in Puerto Rico, Ireland, Singapore and Bermuda to save at least $6.5 billion in taxes.

ai???These loopholes and abuses exact a tremendous cost,ai??? Levin told reporters during Ai??press briefing today. ai???What these gimmicks do is shift the burden of taxes onto citizens and business who donai??i??t use armies of lawyers and accountants.ai???

Unfortunately, Microsoft is far from alone in using international tax shelters to dodge itsAi??commitmentsAi??to American taxpayers. Some experts estimate that U.S. corporations are storing as much as $1 trillion in cash overseas to avoid paying taxes here.

(Photo credit: Flickr user DonkeyHotey)

It’s a common refrain among Washington policymakers that Social Security must be cut. Even though the program is solvent decades out into the future and could be completely protected by simply raising the payroll tax cap, calls for cutting the program persist.

But Duncan Black — the blogger who writes under the handle “Atrios” — nails the true issue with Social Security in a recent USA Today op-ed. The program is actually not generous enough:

As the system exists, large numbers of Americans nearing retirement will have little more than fairly meager Social Security benefits (the average benefit for retired workers is currently $1230) to survive on in their old age. We can doom them to a life of insecurity and relative poverty or we can take the obvious step to improve their lives: Increase Social Security benefits.

The goal of a retirement system should be to ensure that retired people have sufficient income to live out the remainder of their lives without a radical reduction in quality of life after they stop working. Our current system, a modest mandatory government retirement program combined with individual savings, is failing to do that. Strengthen Social Security now, not by cutting benefits, but by increasing them.

We pointed out recently that nearly a fifth of Americans 65 and older are still working past the official “retirement age.” And leading economists have pointed out that lowering the retirement age would also increase employment. If we truly want to live in a country that treats its seniors well in retirement, we should be talking about protecting and expanding this successful system, not cutting it.

Sign our letter to President Obama opposing any cuts to Social Security by …

The Republican Party has a history of telling its base one thing and then doing another while in office. Take, for example, the Christian right. Leading Republicans tell thisAi??sizableAi??voting bloc to vote for them because they share their social values, but when the party actually gets into power, it pursues the agenda it really cares about: empowering economic elites.

Here’s one example of extreme cynicism from a leading Republican. In the summer of 2011, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty spoke at a Faith and Freedom Coalition event to thousands of Christian activists. He told them that he “went to Wall Street and told them to get their snout out of the trough, because they’re some of the worst offenders when it comes to bail outs and carve outs and special deals.” Watch it:

It’s hard to disagree with anything Pawlenty said. But unfortunately, today there’s this bit of news:

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty will take over one of K Streetai??i??s most prestigious jobs as CEO of the Financial Services Roundtable.

The Financial Services Roundtable is one of the top lobbying outfits for Wall Street. Maybe Pawlenty just wanted Wall Street to get its snout of the trough long enough for him to stick his in it?

In Tennessee, Metro Nashville public schools board recently denied an application by a single charter school, a branch of Great Hearts Academies. The board was concerned that this charter school would mostly cater to wealthier families and would not serve a more racially diverse population.

The state of Tennessee reacted harshly to this show of independence by the local school board. Governor Bill Haslam and Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman decided to withhold $3.4 million in education funding to the city. Ai??”I canai??i??t believe they would punish our teachers and students because a political debate didnai??i??t go their way,” Senate Democratic leader Jim Kyle said. “We teach our kids not to be bullies, and our state leaders need to heed that lesson.”

What makes the state’s move against the local district even more outrageous is the mixed performance charter schools and other independently managed schools have had. For example, the massive for-profit chain K-12 Inc. that runs virtual education schools across the state, “is in the bottom 11 percent of schools.”

“We to need to slow down, take stock of the changes we’ve made to education in Tennessee over the past couple years, and stop pushing for charter just for the sake of charters,” said Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Lowe Finney. “At some point we need to support the public schools we have.”

It’s telling that Republicans who vocally espouse the benefits of local control and small government are willing to intimidate and step on a local governing body that refused to go along with the state’s plans of moving towards privatizing the education system.

The corporate-funded anti-union movement that has targeted locales from Madison to Chicago has a new target: the state of California. In November, voters will get a chance to vote on Proposition 32, which would disallow labor unions from using their funds to back political candidates.

Although the proposition’s backers say that it would restrict corporate money as well, the problem is that it is written in a way to still allow corporations to finance outside money groups to back candidates — meaning that it would weaken the political power of labor unions while doing little to stop corporations from continuing to have outsized influence.

The primary group advocating for Prop. 32 is the “California Future Fund for Free Markets,” which is running television ads in support of the measure. Last week, the California Secretary of State’s office released disclosures that show contributions to the organization. The one large piece of money going to the group is a $4,080,000 contribution from the “American Future Fund” (AFF).

AFF is actually based about 1,800 miles away from the state of California, in Des Moines, Iowa. Because of a loophole in the tax code that allows for highly political organizations to register as “social welfare organizations,” it’s impossible to know exactly who funds AFF because it is not required to disclose its donors.

However, we do know that Iowa businessman Bruce Rastetter, who runs of a major ethanol company, has admitted to donating to AFF in the past. And an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that Big Pharma gave $300,000 to the group in 2010. We also know that it is run by hard-right Republican state senator Sandra Greiner.

The battle over Prop 32 reveals the …

Honeywell CEO David Cote (Photo credit: Flickr user Policy Network)

News just broke that the “Campaign to Fix the Debt” — a group started by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson to push their deficit reduction plan that includes major cuts to Social Security — has raised $25 million for a media campaign. That’s a lot of dough, and because the group doesn’t disclose its donors, we have no idea where it’s coming from.

One thing we do know about the group is the people who are advising and advocating for it. One of these men is Honeywell CEO Dave Cote, who is a steering committee member for the organization. He has a statement up on the organization’s website about the need to address the “debt problem” in the United States.

But the shocking thing about Cote is that while he’s backing an organization based around promoting a plan to cut Social Security — which has virtually nothing to do with U.S. debt — he also wants corporations to pay even less in taxes.

Earlier this year, Cote told a CNBC host that he wants to see a corporate tax rate of “zero,” but that from a “fairness perspective, nobody would be able to stand it.” Watch the clip:

Here’s the wildest part. Cote’s corporation — Honeywell International — hasAi??actually already succeeded in paying less than zero percent in taxes. According to a report from the U.S. Public Interest Group, Honeywell paid an effective tax rate of negative 0.7 percent between 2008 and 2010.

When asked about paying so little in taxes that they were actually getting money back from the government, a Honeywell spokesman said, “Honeywell adheres to the tax laws of all jurisdictions in which it operates, is subject to …

A picture from a British demonstration against tax dodging. (Photo credit: Flickr user Dominic’s pics.)

Mitt Romney’s offensive comments at a recent fundraiser that demeaned Americans who are too old or too poor to be asked to pay federal income taxes have set off a debate about economic fairness.

Yesterday, we showed you how Republicans support using the government toAi??funnelAi??tax dollars to the very rich.

Here’s another outrage. There are many massive corporations that get away with paying zero percent tax rates — or less (meaning they got tax benefits). Here’s just five that have gotten away with doing this in recent years:

Boeing: The massive airline producer and weapons company is one of the worst freeloaders. From 2002 to 2011, it paid nothing in federal corporate income taxes. In fact, it even reported more than $2 billion in federal tax benefits over that period of time. This doesn’t even mention the billions of dollars Boeing gets from the Import-Export bank or the military budget.
Wells Fargo:Ai??From 2008 to 2010, this megabank actually got away with paying a net tax rate of negative 1.4 percent.
Verizon: This telecommunications corporation paid a negative 2.9 percent tax rate between 2008 and 2010. At the same time, it made nearly $32 billion in profits. It likely took some of that money to use for union-busting in the coming years.
Pepco: This corporation paid a -57.6 percent income tax rate from 2008 to 2010 while at the same time accumulating $882 million in profits. That’s news that’s sure to make their customers — who have suffered from subpar service for years — groan.
Bank of America: Bank of America didn’t pay a penny in federal income taxes in 2010, but it …

Today, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) voted to end its strike. After seven long days of boisterous rallies and protests, the CTU agreed to the offer made by the city of Chicago through the leadership of Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

NaysayersAi??condemned the strike from the onset as harmful for the district and harmful for kids, but a look at what teachers won shows that it actually did a lot for the schools. Here’s a list of just some of the highlights, drawn from a CTU draft of what its members agreed to:

A REASONABLE SCHOOL LENGTH: Chicago originally proposed a 7 hour, 40 minute school day that threatened to overwork students and teachers (especially without proper compensation). CTU won a 7 hour day for elementary school and 7 hour, 15 minute day for high school
FUNDING FOR A COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION IN ARTS AND MUSIC: CPS originally had proposed no funding for additional staff. CTU won funding for over 600 new positions, mostly for arts, music, and physical education — important outlets for a comprehensive education.
MAYORAL ACCOUNTABILITY: The original contract called for a length of five years, meaning that Mayor Rahm Emanuel would not be responsible for negotiating another one within his term. The new contract lasts for 3 years, meaning the next negotiation would be during the mayoral race and allow teachers and parents to hold the mayor accountable.
KEEPING HEALTH CARE COSTS DOWN: The original contract would’ve had a nearly 40 percent increase on families and couples. Now, there will be a freeze on health care premiums and co-pays for all CTU members.
FAIR EVALUATIONS: 70 percent of a teacher’s quality rating will be based on their practice rather than student test scores.
A MORE FAIR PAY RAISE: Originally, CPS …

The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) strike is entering its seventh day, and many observers expect Ai??the labor action to end this week and result in a victory for students and teachers.

But the forces of school privatization aren’t sitting out the fight. A group calling itself Education Reform Advocacy Now is airing a 30-second commercial in Chicago attacking the strike. Watch it:

To start with, the commercial itself is simply misleading. It implies that the CTU opposes a longer school day, whereas the union itself actually agreed to a longer school day as long as teachers are fairly compensated for it.

It’s also important to note who it is who is running the ad. Education Reform Now Advocacy is the 501(c)4 tax status organization run by the same folks who run Democrats For Education Reform (DFER), a group that has openly advocated for charter schools to use funds that are supposed to be used to educate students to instead lobby the government.

Democrats for Education Reform’s board consists almost entirely of individuals from the finance industry (mostly hedge funds). Education Reform Now Advocacy is based not in Chicago — like the teachers it is bashing — but in New York City.

Education Reform Now’s last disclosure filing with the state of New York was in December 2010. Interestingly, the disclosure shows a quarter million dollar loan from Charles Ledley, a hedge fund kingpin who made millions by betting against the subprime mortgage market.

While most of the money from DFER and associated groups comes from Big Finance based outside of Chicago, one group it certainly does not represent is teachers and parents, like those who are fighting for a fair deal from the city today.

We’re not …

Linda McMahon

Mitt Romney is getting excoriated for saying that he doesn’t care for 47 percent of Americans, who he claims don’t pay taxes and just want government favors.

But Romney isn’t the only candidate who voters should be enraged at for parroting the “47 Percent Lie.” Last year, Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahon parroted the same lie during a conversation with a local news station:

MCMAHON:Ai??I’d like to see everyone pay their fair share. Forty-seven percent of the people today don’t pay any taxes, so let’s have a fair tax code where everybody pays their taxes

Watch McMahon’s remarks (they start at about a minute in):

McMahon launches second Senate campaign

The line that 47 percent of the country doesn’t pay taxes is just the latest in a long line of deceptive right-wing talking points.

It is true thatAi??47 percentAi??of Americans did not pay net federal income taxes in 2009 ai??i?? the number is unusually high because of the depression in incomes following the recession, and a large chunk of it is also senior citizens who do not have an income to pay taxes on Ai??ai??i?? but it is completely false that only 53 percent of Americans pay taxes.

For example, in terms of state and local taxes, the working poor actually pay a higher percentage of their income in these taxesAi??in every stateAi??except for Vermont. In ai???Alabama, for example, low-income families (which make less than $13,000) pay 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, while those making more than $229,000Ai??pay just 4 percent.ai???

McMahon should be held accountable for touting this lie that Romney just recently used to bash poor and working-class Americans — and so should any other candidate who says the same …