What’s interesting in the news today?
Open thread, as always.
Here’s a few to start off.
____________________________________________________
Ready or not, here comes amnesty, and with the borders left open.
From TheHill
“Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the bipartisan “Gang of Eight” senators working on an immigration-reform bill, said Sunday the group had agreed on a deal to be unveiled soon and that he was confident the bill would eventually be signed into law by President Obama.
“We’ve got a deal,” said Graham on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “2013 I hope will be the year we pass bipartisan immigration reform, signed into law.””
“Sen. Charles Schumer, another member of the immigration group gave a similar timeline. He said the final draft will be done this week, Senate Judiciary Committee hearings would be in April, and the bill could hit the floor for a vote as early as May.”
____________________________________________________
What is it with this guy and Pastors who make radical statements?
From TheBlaze
“The pastor at the Washington, D.C. church where the Obama family celebrated Easter on Sunday said members of the religious right want blacks “in the back of the bus,” women “back in the kitchen” and immigrants “back on their side of the border.”
“It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back…for blacks to be back in the back of the bus…for women to be back in the kitchen…for immigrants to be back on their side of the border,” Rev. Dr. Luis Leon said in his sermon, according to the White House press pool report.”
More on the Pastor’s comments here, from TheWeeklyStandard
And a Hat Tip to Donna J 🙂
____________________________________________________
We have an interesting read here from FreedomWorks
“As a 15 year old, I never imagined my activism in politics would translate into controversy for me at school.
My name is Benji Backer and I attend a public high school in Appleton, Wisconsin. I have always supported the public school system and plan to do so for the rest of my life. Many Americans who stand up for the public school system and the unions believe there is no attempt to sway opinion or that students with opposing beliefs are singled out. Unfortunately, experiences I have had with harassment and bullying prove that wrong. This is a timeline of the most extreme cases of harassment and indoctrination I have had in the three different public schools I have attended over the last three years.
I am currently in my freshman year of high school and the incidents are happening more frequently and I believe are more severe. As you can imagine, the ongoing pressure and bullying has been disturbing to me, my friends and my family.”
____________________________________________________
And as long as we’re on the subject of public schools….
From TheWashingtonPost
“The former superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools and nearly three dozen other administrators, teachers, principals and other educators were indicted Friday in one of the nation’s largest cheating scandals.
Former Superintendent Beverly Hall faces charges including racketeering, false statements and theft. She retired just days before a state probe was released in 2011 and has previously denied the allegations. The indictment represents the first criminal charges in the investigation.
The previous state investigation in 2011 found cheating by nearly 180 educators in 44 Atlanta schools. Educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after they were turned in, investigators said. Teachers who tried to report it faced retaliation, creating a culture of “fear and intimidation” in the district.”
____________________________________________________
And we’ll end with this story on the fiscal nightmare years of Democrat rule will get you. Detroit has nothin’ on Cali.
From TheSacrementoBee
“Were California’s state government a business, it would be a candidate for insolvency with a negative net worth of $127.2 billion, according to an annual financial report issued by State Auditor Elaine Howle and the Bureau of State Audits.
The report, which covers the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012, says that the state’s negative status — all of its assets minus all of its liabilities — increased that year, largely because it spent more than it received in revenue.”
____________________________________________________
Wandering Views 
“because it spent more than it received in revenue” – duh
LikeLike
Linda,
🙂
My thought exactly.
LikeLike
California’s in a mess, and part of the solution of course is continuing higher taxes. More people now are leaving California than are coming in, which I think is a trending first for the golden state.
And, yeah, that Easter sermon the First Family heard must have been something. Not sure what, but “something.” Blacks at the back of the bus? How bizarre is that statement??
At least there may have been the gospel message contained in part of the liturgy. That’s about all we can hope for, I guess. 😦 😦
LikeLike
My wife and I are retired educators who receive our retirement pay from CalSTRS (California State Teachers’ Retirement System). I occasionally wonder how long we have before our retirement pay is cut.
But then the Obama/Democrat planned and implemented inflation should handle that problem, eh? (Grandpa Somerville might have been born in Nova Scotia.)
LikeLike
At least there may have been the gospel message contained in part of the liturgy. That’s about all we can hope for, I guess.
That’s a great point, Donna J. I know the President has heard the gospel explained very clearly. I don’t recall exactly where, but I’ve seen some quotes and transcripts of meetings where he’s been (maybe National Day of Prayer meetings or such things–wish I could remember) and the gospel was definitely in there. He isn’t beyond God’s reach, as we all know.
LikeLike
The Obama goes to Easter Sunday Services and the Minister instead of preaching about hope, mercy, and Jesus Christ, instead this minister preached hate.
“The captains of the religious right are always calling us back, back, back. For blacks to be back in the back of the bus, for women to be back in the kitchen, for gays to be in the closet and for immigrants to be on their side of the border.” Sermon by Rev. Luis Leon, pastor of St. John’s Episcopal Church, in his Easter sermon to congregants, including President Obama and his family, according to the press pool report of the first family’s visit.
Presidential Preacher Reflects Triumphal Tone of the Left
By Chris Stirewalt
Power Play
Published April 01, 2013
FoxNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/01/presidential-preacher-reflects-triumphal-tone-left/?test=latestnews
LikeLike
Illegal migration is correlated with unemployment and employer incentive. The former should contribute to lowering migration rates and it remains with the government to combat the latter. Its far easier and probably cheaper to enforce employment law and generate revenue by heavily fining employer violations as opposed to erecting fences, employing military-like solutions, and deporting illegals. However, it appears to be politically advantageous to ignore employer violations and employ putative measures against migrants.
LikeLike
HRW, Another approach would be to greatly reduce welfare and unemployment benefits and crackdown on Social Security Disability abuse. Employers would be happy to hire Americans, but a signifigant number of Americans are bums.
LikeLike
Yes, it would be better to have employer sanctions in place. Would it not also be a good thing to have a controlled border? Drug transportation, immigration scofflaws and terrorist infiltration all need a border that is not porous, under control.
LikeLike
I read the freedomworks column. Appeared aggrieved or offended by opposing views appears to be the fall back reaction by people on both sides of the political divide. In the students letter, there appears to be some legitimate grievances but other times I could help but wonder if the student was assuming the worst.
The most legitimate incidents seem to stem from supply or substitute teachers. I couldn’t help but wonder if these teachers weren’t just attempting to kill time with a political discussion. If no valid lessons were left by the regular teacher, many substitute teachers will simply kill time with a video and/or discussion.
Deciding what is a legitimate challenge to a student and what is badgering a student is a difficult judgment and is often perceived differently by differing sides. To be asked follow up questions after a class presentation should be acceptable and not to be perceived as bullying. So if a student is asked why he/she would participate in the Tea Party … its not bullying. And even from the letter, it appears the organization was called weird not the student.
Internal alarm bells go off when students complain its only their behaviour, views, school work, etc which receive criticism. Students frequently make these claims because as most teens they are self-centered and won’t realize or perceive similar questions and reprimands being made of others. I frequently have students claim that I pick on them but in fact they only pay attention when they are reprimanded and won’t notice reprimands that occur at other times. Its this lack of perception that frequently results in charges of favoritism or discrimination due to race, religion, political views, gender, etc. Because of this rather human tendency to notice things only when a person is directly involved, I’ve been accused of favoring Arabs, whites, Asians, Muslims, non-Muslims, non-religious, etc.
In the end I’m not sure if this letter is nothing more than aggrieved teen victim hood justified and supported by organizations with an agenda.
LikeLike
I was also surprised the student managed to know the teacher’s salary. I couldn’t believe privacy and information codes wouldn’t prevent this yet within five minutes I knew every salary for Appleton high school teachers by name. And not one had a higher salary than $75,000. Now if she added the value of benefits one teacher made approx $100K. I understand the public has a right to know and hence my contract is also available but only the pay grid in which one can determine the salary on the basis of qualifications plus seniority. Allowing public knowledge of an individual’s salary should be against privacy laws.
LikeLike
rickyweaver — your proposal would only propel a race to the bottom in terms of wages. Raise minimum wage so that they exceed the attraction of welfare and the problem would be solved. Unemployment benefits are generally the result of premiums paid into a publicly funded insurance scheme and thus have no relation to welfare.
Bob — border security is important but its not the solution to illegal immigration. Illegal migration is a response to supply and demand, if employers demand the supply will arrive. Its easier to alleviate the demand than the supply in this instance.
LikeLike
hwesseli,
I agree with what you have said.
What does your experience say about teachers’ political views. Have you ever seen teachers who talk in a favoring way with their students about things politic? Are both points of view treated equally? Is there anywhere near parity for the presentation of both points of view on political questions?
Would a car with a political bumper sticker get keyed? By students, community members or staff?
LikeLike
HRW, what does seniority have to do with quality teaching performace other than being in the addled and delusive minds of teacher’s union flacks. Once a teacher gains tenure what incentive would one have to put in the necessary effort for first-rate performance?
States should provide vouchers to all students, so that schools might become private and families. could have serious choice including religious schools with rigorous educational standards as well as a moral code.
Public schools for the most part have become a vast bureaucratic cancer on society
LikeLike
SolarPancake, and that’s the saving grace in some of those mainline churches that have, in fact, embraced heresy and yet continue to follow the old liturgies. Of course, once they figure that out, they’ll perhaps rewrite the “liturgy” as well …
Meanwhile, .this is definitely worth a read regarding the same sex marriage battle.
But God. …..
http://www.worldmag.com/2013/04/it_s_better_outside_the_gay_marriage_camp
LikeLike
Most elementary teachers are small c conservative. They intensely dislike welfare abuse, public housing, lifestyle “errors and abuses”, etc. Despite their constant complaints, most elementary teachers vote for the centrist Liberals or the leftist NDP based on their own interest.
Most teachers wish contract discussions remains as apolitical as possible. We pay the union to negotiate the best possible contract (its their legal responsibility) and we understand the gov’t wishes to minimize expenses. Its when salaries become a political football that teachers get frustrated and may demonstrate an opinion one way or another. However, even when frustrated, teachers are circumspect when there’s any discussion of politics and contracts.
Internally the teacher’s union is by far the most cohesive union and thus there’s very little need for “dirty pool”. At the most, social isolation may occur when one chooses to dissent from the union’s course of action but even then its rare. I can’t think of anyone who has a political bumper sticker. Last year when my daughter and I went to Virginia Beach, we were both surprised how many electoral stickers and signs we saw for an election that was months away. We’re far quieter politically here
Most of the time there’s no reason to discuss politics in the classroom. The only time its explicitly taught in Ontario is grade 5 and 10 civics. I’ve taught the grade five unit during an election and I thought I was fairly even handed but when I asked the students who they thought I voted for, the majority said the Conservatives. Students bring their own bias to the classroom and it affects their perception since it will be an extremely cold day when I vote Conservative. I do think what is considered political in the US is a larger domain than in Canada and hence the chances of a political discussion occurring in an American classroom is far higher.
LikeLike
Sails — experience does provide more effective teaching. In Ontario, seniority is a part of the pay grid for the first twelve years. After twelve years, there’s no pay increment. I would argue that experience is an important factor especially in the first five-ten years. I was a far better teacher in my 10th year than my first year. However, after 10 years seniority probably doesn’t increase effectiveness. Tenure is given after two years but any teacher continues to improve simply through experience and its nearly impossible to live with the stress level of the first two years of teaching and thus you need to improve, adapt, etc or quit.
Voucher schemes have produced mixed results. There have been reports of academic excellence along with reports of criminal fraud. In most cases, these schemes depend on the same thing a regular public school depends on — good leadership. Thus, vouchers do nothing to improve education rather it may provide a way to reward involved parents.
As vouchers only reward children with involved parents its not in the interest of the nation in general. Its in the nation’s best interest to have a well educated populace and hence all children should be well educated not just those with involved parents. Instead of voucher and the usual teaching bashing, those sincerely interested in improving public education need to invest more in leadership. Schools improve only when the person on the top, the principal, leads and improves.
LikeLike
Looks like the city of Stockton California has filed for bankruptcy. I wonder how long it will take for the city to seize the bank accounts of its citizens to pay off its debt?
LikeLike
HRW, Our federal government has been providing extended unemployment benefits, thereby discouraging people from taking jobs. Employers will pay people what they are worth. People with low skills may not be worth the minimum wage initially. Hence, they don’t get hired. If you raise the minimum wage you increase unemployment because there will be a larger group of people whose work is not worth the minimum wage.
LikeLike
ricky — its a myth that raising the minimum wage will increase unemployment. According to neo-classical economical theory this will happen but its never occurred in reality. When the Ontario min. wage was raised to over $10 there was the usual doom and gloom from the right yet unemployment did not increase. Employers do not pay what people are worth but rather what the market forces them to pay. If the market rate has a mandatory minimum then that’s the starting point. Many economist err when they tie wages to productivity. Productivity (ie the value of en employer’s production) has been increasing far more rapidly than wages. Wages are tied to the supply of labour not the labourers production. And when the gov’t sets a minimum wage and enforces employment standards (ie prevents illegal hires), employers will adjust to the new market forces.
Unemployment insurance and its duration should be tied to the local unemployment rate. In Canada, unemployment insurance depends on previous employment length and location. Thus, if unemployment increases (as it did in 2008-9) then benefits are automatically adjusted. I know in the US its been continually extended in stop gap form — its micromanaged by politicians and thus benefits are politicized. It should be administered at an arm’s length to minimize its use as an electoral tool.
LikeLike
HRW, I agree with you about the way unemployment insurance should work. Unfortunately, in the US, longer term benefits are just one more goodie for the Aden’s to pass out.
If what you said about the minimum wage is true, then why not raise the minimum wage to $50 per hour or $150 per hour?
LikeLike
HRW, Here’s where that theory happened in practice. Why is youth unemployment so high in the US? Why has black youth unemployment been sky-high forever? Many of those low-skilled youth are not worth the minimum wage to employers.
LikeLike
Brad Schiller, a University of Reno economist did a major study and came up with the following conclusion.
We do have serious poverty in our economy, even more so in this lingering recession. And everyone favors the rising real wages and living standards that come with productivity advance and economic growth. But advocates of a higher minimum wage put the cart before the horse. A growing economy generates good jobs; higher wages don’t grow the economy. And the overwhelming evidence is that higher minimum wages reduce the availability of jobs at the lowest end of the job market.
The truth is that the minimum wage is a factor in the unemployment rate of unskilled young people, especially minorities, and that most workers earning low wages move up in wages over time.
LikeLike
Sails, Thanks for the link.
Did you see the report below? We are handing the baton to Russia in Afghanistan.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/russian-troops-to-afghanistan-russia-may-set-up-maintenance-bases-372047.html
LikeLike
Elizabeth Warren stated that if productivity gains and minimum wage were correlated then min. wage should be $22/hr. I believe she was exposing the fallacy that productivity and wages were linked rather than seriously suggesting min. wage should be that high. Once we eliminate the link between productivity and wages we are left with wages being set only by what supply and regulation allow.
Other than supply which is easily manipulated only gov’t intervention then sets wages. Hence we could quite literally set the wage at 50 or 100/hr without regard to productivity. This may have a short term effect on unemployment only so far as prices would have to adjust. Its inflation which presents the major obstacle to such a sudden jump.
The Australians have a minimum wage in the $15/hr range. Their unemployment is about 4-5%. Cost of living makes this about $8/hr in terms of purchasing power when compared to the US. However, benefits including mandatory paid vacations probably reset the value at $10/hr or roughly the Cdn rate.
Youth unemployment and underemployment is traditionally higher. But min wage doesn’t seem to have an effect. Comparing the US,Australia, and Canada — the highest min wage (Australia) has the lowest unemployment rate whereas the US with the lowest min wage has the highest unemployment rate. One could claim the correlation goes the other way (but I won’t).
So why the US rate? it could be that wages in the official economy are so low its not worth particularizing, it could be a supply and demand don’t have matching skills supply and demand, it could be illegal migrants and other “black” or “grey” employment markets exclude American youth, or any other host of reasons but I’m quite sure its not the min wage nor the productivity of the American worker.
LikeLike
Sails — the study you link does nothing other than indicate minimum wage workers are usually not sole-income supporters of a nuclear family. I could’ve have made that conclusion without a study. However, that does not detract from the need to raise wages as a higher min wage create pressure to increase wages in general. It also forces a redistribution of money allocated for wages from the top to the bottom. And will spur a economic recovery as money currently frozen in excessive corporate compensation will be freed to workers with pent up consumer demand.
And nowhere in that short letter is there an indication that raising the min wage results in higher unemployment — not even a link. The Ontario experience has been to the contrary.
LikeLike
Finally, Epoch Times is published by vehement anti-communist Chinese expats some of whom have links to Falun Gong. Any comment they make in terms of Chinese and Russian foreign policy needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
LikeLike
I’ve been kicking around the idea of (as a replacement for the minimum wage) just paying employers to hire people. Probably in the form of a tax credit they could apply to the employer portion of the payroll tax and/or the corporate income tax. Depending on the size of the subsidy this would create a sort of “de facto” minimum wage and would, in general, incentivize hiring people at the “low skill” end of the spectrum.
Currently when an employer hires someone at $10/hr they pay $10.70 and the employee gets $9.30. One way to look at this is that the employer is paying $10.70 for $9.30 “worth” of labor. Imagine if we could jigger those numbers so that an employer paid $8.30 (net) for $9.30 worth of labor. Suddenly it would be more affordable (from a labor cost perspective) to hire more of those $9.30/hr employees.
Of course that money has to come from somewhere. We might consider raising the payroll tax rate and/or dropping the income threshold past which it is no longer levied.
As a bonus, if you wanted to create a built-in advantage for citizens relative to non-citizens you could hand out the tax credits only for employed citizens.
LikeLike
hwesseli,
What does a higher minimum wage do to the savings of senior citizens? Doesn’t a higher minimum wage guarantee inflation? Doesn’t inflation steal from savings?
Doesn’t inflation move people up on the tax scale?
Doesn’t inflation favor the borrower over the lender?
LikeLike
HRW, the fundamental cause of higher wages in the private economy is a robust economy with competition by firms for skilled labor. Government forced higher or lower wages and salaries distorts this fundamental relation.
Your view of this matter stems from the unreal world of public education that pays equally according to seniority and yearly pay increases. You would make a sterling economist for the economically clueless Obama administration.
LikeLike
HRW, Russia Today (the BBC of Russia) ran essentially the same story.
LikeLike