Chris Christie’s teacher-tenure coup

From: NYPOST.com

Here’s a sign that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is fundamentally reshaping the Garden State: He’s got teacher-union leaders sounding like, well . . . Chris Christie.

The gov is just days away from enacting a sweeping reform of teacher-tenure laws, which currently guarantee lifelong jobs to even the worst educators.

And Christie has managed to twist the union into quite a pretzel: Its leaders now say they support making it easier to lay off the lemons among them.

“This legislation moves us in the right direction by making it harder to earn tenure, and less expensive and time-consuming to remove teachers who are not performing well,” said union boss Barbara Keshishian.

 

Yes, that’s the sound of Hell freezing over.

More precisely, it’s a labor leader explaining why she’s backing a bill that zaps the system that grants 98 percent of Newark’s new teachers near-automatic tenure — and jobs for life — every year without fail.

It’s a real testament to Christie’s skill. He called out the unions last year for running a system “where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure.”

And the Senate answered, passing a bill this week that requires four years of high ratings to win tenure, and lets schools revoke tenure and possibly fire teachers who get back-to-back negative reviews.

A watered-down version awaits passage in the Assembly, and a compromise bill should reach Christie’s desk soon.

This legislation is far from perfect: It fails to fix the “last in, first out” seniority rules that require the state to fire the newest teachers first whenever there are layoffs.

And, truth is, we’d rather see tenure abolished wholesale in Jersey and New York.

But the reform is a major achievement that should help dig public-school kids out of a failing school system.
Again, kudos to Christie.

Andrew Cuomo, please take note.
 

Moody's downgrades 15 banks, Morgan Stanley down two notches

From: Chicago Tribune

Ratings agency Moody's downgraded 15 of the world's biggest banks on Thursday, lowering credit ratings by one to three notches to reflect the risk of losses they face from volatile capital markets activities, but banks criticized the move as backward looking.

Morgan Stanley, one of the most closely watched firms in the much anticipated review, had its long-term debt rating lowered by just two notches, one level less than had been expected, sending its stock up sharply in after-hours trading.

The downgrade left Morgan Stanley more highly rated than Bank of America Corp and Citigroup, but a step below Goldman Sachs Group.

Credit Suisse, which last week was warned about weak capital levels by Switzerland's central bank, was the only bank in the group to suffer a three-notch downgrade. But its new A1 deposit and senior debt ratings still rank higher than many of its peers.

"All of the banks affected by today's actions have significant exposure to the volatility and risk of outsized losses inherent to capital markets activities," Moody's Global Banking Managing Director Greg Bauer said in the announcement.

Financial markets have been bracing for the downgrades since February, when Moody's Investors Service said it had launched a review of 17 banks with global capital markets operations. These companies faced diminished profitability and growth prospects due to difficult operating conditions, increased regulation and other factors, Moody's said.

The long-term debt ratings cuts could increase funding costs for Morgan Stanley and other banks, and trading partners may ask for more collateral. But the impact could be muted since the changes were in-line with indications given by Moody's on how much the ratings were likely to be cut.

"The biggest surprise is the three-notch downgrade of Credit Suisse, which no one was looking for," said Mark Grant, managing director at Southwest Securities Inc. "In fact, it was Morgan Stanley that was supposed to be downgraded by that amount and Morgan received only two notches of cuts."

David Mathers, Credit Suisse's chief financial officer, said the firm was pleased that Moody's continued to recognize it as one of the most highly rated banks in its peer group.

Besides Morgan Stanley, two other banks fared better than they could have. UBS could have been downgraded by three notches but was only bumped down two spots. HSBC could have fallen by two, but dropped only one notch.

BANKS CHALLENGE RATINGS

Other banks downgraded by two notches were: Barclays, BNP Paribas, Royal Bank of Canada, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase, Credit Agricole, and Deutsche Bank.

Along with HSBC, ratings for Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland and Societe Generale were also cut by one notch.

We Are Catholics

Emotional goodbye for young Italian mother who died for unborn child

From: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Hundreds of Italians gathered at the Church of St. Francisca Romana in Rome on June 16 for the funeral Mass of Chiara Corbella, a young Catholic woman who died after postponing her cancer treatments in order to protect her unborn child.

At 28 years of age, Chiara was happily married to Enrico Petrillo. They had already suffered the loss of two children in recent years who died from birth defects. The couple became popular speakers at pro-life events, in which they shared their testimony about the few minutes they were able to spend with their children, David and Maria, before they died.

In 2010, Chiara became pregnant for the third time, and according to doctors the child was developing normally. However, Chiara was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and was advised to begin receiving treatment that would have posed a risk to her pregnancy.

Chiara decided to protect the baby – named Francisco –  and opted to forgo treatment until after his birth, which took place on May 30, 2011.

Her cancer quickly progressed and eventually she lost sight in one eye. After a year-long battle Chiara died on June 13, surrounded by her loved ones and convinced that she would be reunited with her two children in heaven.

“I am going to heaven to take care of Maria and David, you stay here with Dad. I will pray for you,” Chiara said in a letter for Francisco that she wrote one week before her death.

The funeral Mass was celebrated by the Vicar General of Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, who recalled Chiara as “the second Gianna Beretta,” the 20th century saint who sacrificed her life in similar circumstances to save her unborn baby.

Chiara’s spiritual director, Father Vito, delivered the homily and remembered Chiara as a young woman who chose to risk her own life in order to be an example to other pregnant women, “a testimony that could save so many people,” he said.

Chiara’s husband, Enrico, said he experienced “a story of love on the cross.” Speaking to Vatican Radio, he said that they learned from their three children that there is no difference in a life that lasts 30 minutes or 100 years.

“It was wonderful to discover this love that grew more and more in the face of so many problems,” he said.

“We grew more and more in love with each other and Jesus. We were never disappointed by this love, and for this reason, we never lost time, even though those around us said, 'Wait, don’t be in a hurry to have another child,'” Enrico said.

The world today encourages people to make wrong choices about the unborn, the sick and the elderly, he noted, “but the Lord responds with stories like ours.”

“We are the ones who like to philosophize about life, about who created it, and therefore, in the end, we confuse ourselves in wanting to become the owners of life and to escape from the cross the Lord gives us,” he continued.

“The truth is that this cross – if you embrace it with Christ – ceases to be as ugly as it looks. If you trust in him, you discover that this fire, this cross, does not burn, and that peace can be found in suffering and joy in death,” Enrico explained.

“I spent a lot of time this year reflecting on this phrase from the Gospel that says the Lord gives a cross that is sweet and a burden that is light. When I would look at Chiara when she was about to die, I obviously became very upset. But I mustered the courage and a few hours before – it was about eight in the morning, Chiara died at noon – I asked her.

I said: 'But Chiara, my love, is this cross really sweet, like the Lord says? She looked at me and she smiled, and in a soft voice she said, 'Yes, Enrico, it is very sweet.' In this sense, the entire family didn’t see Chiara die peacefully, but happily, which is totally different,” Ernico said.

When his son grows up, he added, he will tell him “how beautiful it is to let oneself be loved by God, because if you feel loved you can do anything,” and this is “the most important thing in life: to let yourself be loved in order to love and die happy.”

“I will tell him that this is what his mother, Chiara, did. She allowed herself to be loved, and in a certain sense, I think she loved everyone in this way. I feel her more alive than ever. To be able to see her die happy was to me a challenge to death.”

CBS REPORTS!!!: ATF used "Fast and Furious" to make the case for gun regulations

FROM: CBS NEWS

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales.

In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder scene of a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

ATF officials didn't intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called "Demand Letter 3". That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or "long guns." Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

On July 14, 2010 after ATF headquarters in Washington D.C. received an update on Fast and Furious, ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait emailed Bill Newell, ATF's Phoenix Special Agent in Charge of Fast and Furious:

"Bill - can you see if these guns were all purchased from the same (licensed gun dealer) and at one time. We are looking at anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales. Thanks."
 
On Jan. 4, 2011, as ATF prepared a press conference to announce arrests in Fast and Furious, Newell saw it as "(A)nother time to address Multiple Sale on Long Guns issue." And a day after the press conference, Chait emailed Newell: "Bill--well done yesterday... (I)n light of our request for Demand letter 3, this case could be a strong supporting factor if we can determine how many multiple sales of long guns occurred during the course of this case."

This revelation angers gun rights advocates. Larry Keane, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group, calls the discussion of Fast and Furious to argue for Demand Letter 3 "disappointing and ironic." Keane says it's "deeply troubling" if sales made by gun dealers "voluntarily cooperating with ATF's flawed 'Operation Fast & Furious' were going to be used by some individuals within ATF to justify imposing a multiple sales reporting requirement for rifles."


The Gun Dealers' Quandary
Several gun dealers who cooperated with ATF told CBS News and Congressional investigators they only went through with suspicious sales because ATF asked them to.
Sometimes it was against the gun dealer's own best judgment.

Read the email

In April, 2010 a licensed gun dealer cooperating with ATF was increasingly concerned about selling so many guns. "We just want to make sure we are cooperating with ATF and that we are not viewed as selling to the bad guys," writes the gun dealer to ATF Phoenix officials, "(W)e were hoping to put together something like a letter of understanding to alleviate concerns of some type of recourse against us down the road for selling these items."

Read the email
ATF's group supervisor on Fast and Furious David Voth assures the gun dealer there's nothing to worry about. "We (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into detail."

Two months later, the same gun dealer grew more agitated.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys. I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that the guns are not getting south or in the wrong hands...I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents (sic) safety because I have some very close friends that are US Border Patrol agents in southern AZ as well as my concern for all the agents (sic) safety that protect our country."

"It's like ATF created or added to the problem so they could be the solution to it and pat themselves on the back," says one law enforcement source familiar with the facts. "It's a circular way of thinking."

The Justice Department and ATF declined to comment. ATF officials mentioned in this report did not respond to requests from CBS News to speak with them.

The "Demand Letter 3" Debate
The two sides in the gun debate have long clashed over whether gun dealers should have to report multiple rifle sales. On one side, ATF officials argue that a large number of semi-automatic, high-caliber rifles from the U.S. are being used by violent cartels in Mexico. They believe more reporting requirements would help ATF crack down. On the other side, gun rights advocates say that's unconstitutional, and would not make a difference in Mexican cartel crimes.

Two earlier Demand Letters were initiated in 2000 and affected a relatively small number of gun shops. Demand Letter 3 was to be much more sweeping, affecting 8,500 firearms dealers in four southwest border states: Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. ATF chose those states because they "have a significant number of crime guns traced back to them from Mexico." The reporting requirements were to apply if a gun dealer sells two or more long guns to a single person within five business days, and only if the guns are semi-automatic, greater than .22 caliber and can be fitted with a detachable magazine.

On April 25, 2011, ATF announced plans to implement Demand Letter 3. The National Shooting Sports Foundation is suing the ATF to stop the new rules. It calls the regulation an illegal attempt to enforce a law Congress never passed. ATF counters that it has reasonably targeted guns used most often to "commit violent crimes in Mexico, especially by drug gangs."

Reaction
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is investigating Fast and Furious, as well as the alleged use of the case to advance gun regulations. "There's plenty of evidence showing that this administration planned to use the tragedies of Fast and Furious as rationale to further their goals of a long gun reporting requirement. But, we've learned from our investigation that reporting multiple long gun sales would do nothing to stop the flow of firearms to known straw purchasers because many Federal Firearms Dealers are already voluntarily reporting suspicious transactions. It's pretty clear that the problem isn't lack of burdensome reporting requirements."

On July 12, 2011, Sen. Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., wrote Attorney General Eric Holder, whose Justice Department oversees ATF. They asked Holder whether officials in his agency discussed how "Fast and Furious could be used to justify additional regulatory authorities." So far, they have not received a response. CBS News asked the Justice Department for comment and context on ATF emails about Fast and Furious and Demand Letter 3, but officials declined to speak with us.

"In light of the evidence, the Justice Department's refusal to answer questions about the role Operation Fast and Furious was supposed to play in advancing new firearms regulations is simply unacceptable," Rep. Issa told CBS News.

Senate kills effort to block EPA regulations on coal-powered plants

From: Human Events

Legislation to defeat an EPA emissions rule that critics say would kill thousands of jobs and raise electricity rates for consumers was killed in the Senate Wednesday.

A handful of Republicans sided with Democrats to block the measure on a procedural vote of 46 yeas to 53 nays, including Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snow of Maine.

Democrats who crossed over to vote with Republicans included Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Warner and Jim Webb of Virginia.

Republicans say the mercury emission rules for coal-fired plants are the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s war on coal.

“This effectively kills coal in America,” said Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), author of the measure.
Republicans said the regulations are the most expensive rules ever created by the EPA, and will cost consumers $10 billion a year in addition to killing 50,000 jobs.

“This is just one battle in the administration’s war on jobs, but it has devastating consequences for real people and real families in my state and in many others,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

“The administration’s nonchalant attitude about these people is appalling, but this is precisely the danger of having unelected bureaucrats in Washington playing with the livelihoods of Americans as if they’re nothing more than pieces on a chessboard,” McConnell said.

Democrats say job creation doesn’t have to come at the expense of clean air and higher environmental standards.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) criticized the coal industry for fighting the new regulations and said the business needs to face the real threats of aging plants, finite reserves, and the rise of natural gas as an alternative.

“The EPA alone is not going to make or break coal. There are many forces exerting pressure and that agency is just one of them,” Rockefeller said.

Republicans said regulations are an economic disaster shrouded in false claims about public health, but Rockefeller said the health benefits are “enormous.”

“I oppose this resolution because I care so much about West Virginians,” said Rockefeller, whose coal rich state will be affected by the EPA regulations. “Without good health it’s difficult to hold down a job or live the American dream. Chronic illness is debilitating and impacts a family’s income, prosperity and ultimately its happiness. EPA has relied on thousands of studies that established the serious and long term impact of these pollutants on premature deaths, heart attacks, hospitalizations, pregnant women, babies and children.”

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said critics of the coal industry have “cast it in apocalyptic terms that have no bearing on reality.”

“It is a job killing, ideologically driven attempt to cripple the coal industry in the U.S. -- an industry that employees a lot of people and feeds a lot of families, and this administration is unfortunately using the EPA to destroy a reliable … source of electricity,” Cornyn said.

“This is another example of executive overreach. So stringent that no new coal-fired plant will be built in the U.S. no matter how modern or how clean the technology will allow it to operate,” Cornyn said. “This is the cheapest and most abundant source of energy in this country and we are simply killing it.”

Added Sen. Jim Risch (R-Wyo.): “Why would anyone vote for this? This is absolute foolishness.

Catholic Bishops Issue Prayer for Liberty

From: CNSNews.com

The Catholic bishops of the United States have called for the nation’s Catholics to observe the two week period starting today and running through the Fourth of July as a “Fortnight of Freedom” in which they hope Americans will pray for the preservation of freedom in this country and speak out clearly against the unprecedented attacks on religious liberty that have issued from the federal government.

The bishops have issued a new “Prayer for the Protection of Religious Liberty” that they hope Catholics will use frequently in the coming days. The prayer asks God to keep America “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” for “the sake of our children, our grandchildren, and all who come after us.”

It describes the current time as a “decisive hour in the history of our nation.”

The “Fortnight of Freedom” pointedly begins on the vigil of the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. Fisher and More are both Catholic martyrs beheaded by King Henry VIII in 1535 for refusing to take an oath recognizing Henry as the supreme authority over the church in England. Fisher, a cardinal, was bishop of Rochester. More, a lawyer, had served Henry as Lord Chancellor. Both gave their lives rather than bow to the king’s demand that they act against their consciences.

The most imminent threat to religious liberty—but not the only one—that the Catholic bishops have been protesting and seeking to draw public attention to is a regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued under President Barack Obama’s health care law. The regulation will require virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover, without any fees or co-pay, sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs.

The Catholic Church teaches that sterilization, artificial contraceptives and abortion are morally wrong. Thus, the regulation would force Catholic workers, business owners and institutions to buy and/or provide for things that violate the teachings of their faith.

After the Obama administration finalized the regulation earlier this year, most Catholic bishops around the country published a letter, read from the pulpits in local churches, that said: “We cannot—we will not—comply with this unjust law.”

This month, the Catholic bishops are distributing an insert in church bulletins around the country pointing to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the Civil Rights Movement, and his defense of civil disobedience, noting that King, a Baptist minister, used the arguments of the Catholic Saints Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to justify peaceful resistance to unjust laws. In the bulletin insert, the bishops made clear that civil disobedience may be necessary when freedom of conscience is attacked.

“Some unjust laws impose such injustices on individuals and organizations that disobeying the laws may be justified,” says the bulletin insert. “Every effort must be made to repeal them. When fundamental human goods, such as the right of conscience, are at stake, we may need to witness to the truth by resisting the law and incurring its penalties.”

In a longer statement on religious liberty published in April, the Catholic bishops plainly restated the Catholic teaching: “An unjust law cannot be obeyed.”

“It is a sobering thing to contemplate our government enacting an unjust law,” said the bishops. “An unjust law cannot be obeyed. In the face of an unjust law, an accommodation is not to be sought, especially by resorting to equivocal words and deceptive practices. If we face today the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in America, in solidarity with our fellow citizens, must have the courage not to obey them. No American desires this. No Catholic welcomes it. But if it should fall upon us, we must discharge it as a duty of citizenship and an obligation of faith.”

At their biannual meeting in Atlanta last week, the U.S. Catholic bishops unanimously endorsed a statement titled, “United For Religious Freedom.” This statement pointed out that it is not just Catholic institutions or employers whose religious freedom is attacked by the administration’s sterilization-contraception-abortifacient mandate, but also individual Americans, who in their consciences, object to these things.

Victor Sharpe: “Never Again” is now “Again and Again”

From: Canada Free Press

When, after the end of World War Two, the extent of Nazi Germany’s systematic extermination of the 6 million Jews of Europe became horribly apparent, including the slaughter of 1.5 million babies and children, there arose the cry: “Never Again.”

It was assumed that a unique horror of such magnitude must never again occur in the world. The Holocaust resulted in one third of the world’s Jewish population being systematically murdered - perpetrated as it was by millions of Adolf Hitler’s obedient and willing executioners using all the tools of the central state and of perverted science. But the cataclysmic lesson of that genocide has been shamefully ignored.

After the war the United Nations was founded – a body designed to create world peace and primarily at first consisting of democracies along with a few autocratic regimes, which nevertheless acted in rational ways. And as delegates entered the UN building they passed by the wall on which they could read the biblical words of the Jewish prophet, Isaiah:

“They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they learn war anymore.” - Isaiah 2:4.

But now the UN has become a cesspool of competing blocs of nations that are not always concerned about justice and peace between nations but more interested in pushing narrow and hostile agendas. And few, if any, delegates ever bother to read that inscription on the wall of the United Nations. Instead the world body has become a veritable Temple of Hypocrisy filled with a cynical priesthood.

And so much of humanity becomes more and more inured to the present day horrors that increasingly proliferate around the globe and whose ghastly images are daily flashed on our television screens.

Civilians are routinely butchered, and genocide in South Sudan continues as it does in Somalia and, in particular, throughout the ever violent Middle East. As I write, butchery on a grand scale is taking place throughout Syria, governed as it is by Bashar Assad; a scion of the minority Alawite tribe.

According to Ammar Abdulhamid, a member of the Free Syrian Army, which is one of the rebel groups battling the regime, Bashar Assad’s strategy is to create a de facto partition of Syria. This is, he says, taking place with the ethnic cleansing of factions and populations deemed hostile to the regime.

Syria may degenerate into dozens of fiefdoms, each one at its neighbor’s throat, or an Alawite state will emerge along Syria’s coastline, incorporating other areas of the country. This state, if it emerged, would include the strategic city of Homs, which straddles all the main Syrian highways and communication routes.

Of immense concern should be Assad’s warehouses in which are stored Syria’s weapons of mass destruction consisting of thousands of missiles tipped with Sarin and Mustard gas and God knows what other hellish ingredients.

In the present internecine conflict that is tearing Syria apart, these missiles – some already in silos – may well fall into the hands of a host of Islamic terrorist groups - including Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood - fighting inside the country. If they do, a Pandora’s Box will open and the entire world will lurch further into a nightmare scenario almost unbearable to contemplate.

And behind the ethnic cleansing, the massacres, and the butchery of thousands of civilians, lies the dread hand of Iran, with its fanatical Mullahocracy and its evil clown president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, ever spinning their web of terror and fear.

Since 1979, when Americans during the failed Carter presidency were taken hostage at our embassy in Teheran, Iran has been involved in anti-American activities and crimes against humanity including complicity in the 9/11 atrocities. Iran, through its Hezbollah proxy, was also directly responsible for the deaths and maiming of hundreds of our marines in Beirut. And Iran’s bloody fingerprints were all over the killings of scores of Jewish children in the bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Argentina.

Iran produced the infamous IEDs provided to Iraqi insurgents that have killed hundreds of U.S. troops and the Iranian regime has directly supported terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond. The United States has ample cause to target the mullahs. As Lee Smith from the Weekly Standard recently opined. “Iran is the problem.”

The Conservative Lady: Is Agenda 21 in Your Community?.

From: The Conservative Lady:   A reason to keep us uneducated?...Hmmm...more about this in the first video below, Agenda 21 For Dummies . On June 20-22, 2012, t...

Green Energy Jobs? 9 Billion Dollars Gets 910 Jobs

Van Jones Must Be So Proud

From: CNSNews.com

The Obama administration distributed $9 billion in economic “stimulus” funds to solar and wind projects in 2009-11 that created, as the end result, 910 “direct” jobs -- annual operation and maintenance positions -- meaning that it cost about $9.8 million to establish each of those long-term jobs.

At the same time, those green energy projects also created, in the end, about 4,600 “indirect” jobs – positions indirectly supported by the annual operation and maintenance jobs -- which means they cost about $1.9 million each ($9 billion divided by 4,600).

Combined (910 + 4,600 = 5,510), the direct and indirect jobs cost, on average, about $1.63 million each to produce.

As explained in a report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“economic stimulus”) of 2009 included Section 1603, a grant program run through the Treasury Department.

The 1603 program offered “renewable energy project developers a one-time cash payment” to reduce the need for green energy companies “to secure tax equity partners” and also help them to achieve  “ ‘the near term goal of creating and retaining jobs’ in the renewable energy sector.”

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (EREL) tracked the grant program from its inception in 2009 through Nov. 10, 2011. Its report is entitled, Preliminary Analysis of the Jobs and Economic Impacts of Renewable Energy Projects Supported by the 1603 Treasury Grant Program.

The report explains that the program provided “approximately $9.0 billion in funds to over 23,000 PV and large wind projects.”  PV stands for photovoltaic, which is the method by which solar power is turned into electricity, usually with solar panels or solar cells.  There were specifically 197 large wind projects and 23,692 PV projects that received funds, according to the EREL report.

For calculating the number of green jobs created, the EREL did not actually count the people working at the facilities but instead relied upon Jobs and Economic Development Impact, or JEDI, computer models.

In its summary, the EREL report states that for the 2009-11 timeframe there were an average 52,000-75,000 “direct and indirect jobs per year” created for the construction, installation, and related work on the wind and solar projects.

These were temporary jobs, construction and installation work at the facilities, not long-term positions at the green energy sites.

The number of  these “indirect,” temporary construction jobs averaged between 43,000 and 66,000, according to the EREL, and the “direct” jobs “supporting the design, development, and construction/installation of systems” averaged out to about 9,400 per year.


For the operation and maintenance (O&M) of the photovoltaic and large wind systems, however, the report states there are “between 5,100 and 5,500 direct and indirect jobs per year on an ongoing basis over the 20- to 30-year estimated life of the systems.”

The report further clarifies that from that number there are 910 direct jobs and 4,200-4,600 indirect jobs per year.

The 910 jobs are “directly supporting the O&M of the systems” and  that number “is significantly less than the number of [indirect] jobs supporting manufacturing and associated supply chains.”

Through the grant program, $9 billion was spent to, in the end, establish 910 jobs that will last upwards of 30 years. That means those jobs cost, in the end, about $9.8 million to create.

Add in the indirect jobs -- high estimate of 4,600 -- and there are 5,510 total jobs (direct and indirect). Starting with the $9 billion in grants, the end result to establish 5,510 jobs averages out to $1.63 million per job.

Obama knew about Gun Walking in March, 2009

School Union Asks For Members Bank Account, Credit Card Numbers to Guarantee Dues Payments

From: Michigan Capitol Confidential

A union president's letter shows one school employee union planned to handle automatic dues collection of its members by demanding full payment at the start of the year or requiring its members to give a checking or savings account number or credit card for automatic monthly withdrawals.

Debbie Bence, president of the Plymouth-Canton Cafeteria Association, sent a letter to her union members on June 4 stating that the dues had to be paid as a condition of employment.

Bence said the financial information would be kept confidential and kept at the Michigan Education Association headquarters. News reports state that uinon dues to the MEA are capped at $778 a year.

Bence and MEA Spokesman Doug Pratt haven’t returned messages seeking comment.

Public Act 53 became effective March 16 and prohibited union dues from being automatically deducted from payroll. However, one day after Bence’s letter was dated, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the law until the legal process plays out.

John Ellsworth, a teacher in the Grand Ledge Public Schools and former union president, said his union hasn’t required a checking or savings account number or credit card to pay dues. Ellsworth said he thinks that is just how one union planned to handle dues collection if PA 53 went into effect and was not initiated by the MEA.

“Teachers are much like the population at large — significantly uninvolved in politics,” Ellsworth said in an email. “Most teachers focus on students and teaching. Paying union dues for a minority is annoying, but for most it is just part of the package of being a teacher. I think if the MEA asks for access to accounts that a sizable number of teachers will refuse.”

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled that a payroll-deduction program for a union’s political action committee violated campaign finance laws. Then the Michigan Senate passed HB 4929 (later became PA 53) on a 20-18 vote that stopped payroll-deduction by a school district for union dues.

U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood issued a preliminary injunction June 5 stopping the bill from taking effect. The Michigan Employment Relations Committee appealed the preliminary injunction and it will be reviewed for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“It is very much a live controversy,” said Patrick Wright, senior legal counsel for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

Karl Rove Mocks Leader Pelosi's Jail Fantasies

Gay married couple sues Catholic hospital for denying spousal benefits

From: NYPOST.com

A lesbian couple from Westchester yesterday filed the first suit against a Catholic institution for refusing to recognize New York’s gay-marriage law.

The Manhattan federal court filing says the women — identified only as “Jane Roe” and “Jane Doe” — were wed Oct. 15, and that “Roe,” who’s worked at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Yonkers since 2007, later applied to add “Doe” to her medical-benefits coverage.

But the request was denied by both St. Joseph’s and its insurance administrator, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, because hospital policy excludes same-sex spouses.

The class-action suit seeks an order declaring that both women are entitled to insurance coverage under federal law. It also says “thousands of legally married, same-sex couples” have been, or will be, denied benefits under similar policies administered by Empire, which is also named as a defendant.

The women are seeking an injunction ordering Blue Cross Blue Shield not to acquiesce to a company that wants to deny same-sex benefits because of religious beliefs, said Jeffrey Norton, their lawyer.
Empire declined to comment. St. Joseph’s didn’t return messages.

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CAIR Official Blames Israel for Brotherhood Setback

FROM: IPT

The civil rights manager for New York's Council on American Islamic Relations' (CAIR) chapter advocated for the Muslim Brotherhood political ascension and blamed Israel for the recent events in Egypt in sequential twitter posts Saturday.

Last week, Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved the newly-elected Parliament, one dominated by the Brotherhood and other religious conservatives, saying a third of them "were chosen on an unconstitutional basis."

CAIR-NY's Cyrus McGoldrick characterized the move as a coup d'etat by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), which seized power immediately after Hosni Mubarak's ouster last year, and is comprised of several Mubarak apologists.

"My heart is with Egypt after yesterday's military coup," McGoldrick wrote in a Twitter post. "May Allah protect the revolution & people from the military doing Israel's bidding.

McGoldrick also advocated for the Muslim Brotherhood political dominance, denouncing "the powers" for prohibiting their takeover.

"We should have known the powers would never let the Ikhwan [Brotherhood] in through the front door," he wrote.

On Monday, the Brotherhood claimed its presidential candidate Mohamed Mursi, won elections held during the weekend. Those results have not been confirmed.

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