As James Madison, Federalist No. 48, Feb. 1, 1788, wrote “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” See 2010 Presentation to Members of General Assembly of Virginia on investigation of judicial branch rule making power

This event is neither open to the media or to public scrutiny, but more importantly permit the promulgation of court rules that have violated the substantive rights of citizens, i.e., denial of the right to civil jury trials by abuse of dismissal under FRCP Rule 12, the discriminatory treatment of pro se litigants, the giving to the judicial branch absolute immunity from accountability for criminal acts or tort.

Evidence confirms that by the abuse and misuse of the Judiciary Act of 1925, the U.S. Judicial Conference Act, and the Rules Enabling Act, the Judicial Branch has conspired with government attorneys to undercut and disregard the limitations and prohibitions on government employees violation of the rights of citizens under the U.S. Constitution.  The extensive record confirms that there is an ongoing conspiracy by government attorneys and judges to deny nonresident U.S. citizens protection.http://www.liamsdad.org/others…. Thus, the evidence of cronyism between Beltway Lobbyist/Attorney, government attorneys and judges has revealed the usurpations of power by judges to obstruct justice in violation 18 U.S.C. § 4, § 241, § 242, and § 1204.(Jan 9, 2010 NOVA Presentation).Presentation to members of General Assembly of Virginia

Well, the plan came to fruition and the big sponsors, along with Chris Cristie, who you would expect to pass the begging bowl to corporations is Mayor of Newark, NJ, Corey Booker.  Booker, like Rubio has become the darling of the reactionaries for they can sue them for their ethnicity and ability to PT Barnum their consituencies.  In the post-racial society Booker knows the cost of skin color and corporate ties has gone up.

What does Booker really stand for and who does he really represent?

According to Thom Hartmann’s show of May 22, 2012, Booker has taken millions from privater equity firms including the Romney’s Bain Capital that he blasted Obama for going after and the company that made Romney all his vulture cash.  He is a paid courtesan with a sharp tongue, a penchant for taking favors and giving them.  He is corruption personified.

At the February 10, 2012 ribbon cutting for the teachers village, basically a corporate mall the Youtube heading noted that:

“Mayor Cory Booker joins Governor Chris Christie, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Lloyd Blankfein, RBH Group Managing Member Ron Beit, Chairman and, Berggruen Holdings President Nicolas Berggruen; CEO of BCDC Lyneir Richardson, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Adam Zipkin; Sr. Vice President of Prudential Sharon Taylor; and Newark-born and nationally renowned architect Richard Meier at a groundbreaking for Teachers Village, a mixed-use development in downtown Newark.  Other attending guests included former Governor James Florio, Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Assemblyman Albert Coutinho and Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzbcNc08bWU).

The whole gaggle of the one percent who, if they can get their arms around the man, embrace Christie and his surrogate Booker with open arms and padded wallets.  Just take a look at Booker bending over forwards to thank his Wall Street friends, many of them candidates for the perp walk, for the ‘teacher village.

Praised as an up and coming political heavyweight, Mayor Corey Booker is a very dangerous stew of both corporate loyalty to the corporate state that is emerging while mouthing his love of ‘common folk’ and of course his ‘race’.

Facts show that Booker is a conniving liar who is looking for a slot in the new oligarchy that is now firmly entrenched in America.  You can put him up with the likes of Geoffrey Canada, the corporate begger who claims miracles for kids in Harlem.  Or, better yet, historically it would be best to compare him with Booker T. Washington.

Clearly Booker’s recent back stabbing of Obama and his express love for equity firms and Wall Street should not come as a surprise.  Booker is both undermining Obama in the interest of corporate America who needs him both as a perfidious propagandist, but they also need him to help forge the new corporate democratic party that will emerge if and when Romney wins.  Sure, it is corporate now, but just wait.  Dividing up the ortz will be its new mission if and when Obama is thrown in the dumpster and collaboration will be even more insidious.

Obama was good for the road of neo-liberalism.  He did what he was told by his Goldman Sachs silk back thugs and when it came to regualtions, he did what the capitalist regulators told him to do — deregulate or reregulate in the interest of capital.

Corey Booker is different. Young, black, mendacious and energetic Booker is trying to cast himself as a ‘new corporate democrat’, one that understands that neo-liberalism is no longer the captitalist game.  Now, with the state merging with corporations, the new game is Mussolini type fascism or at least its precursor, totalitarianism.  Booker is down for this.

Booker is a very dangerous, charismatic bit player in a much larger corproate game for education and urban development.  The fact he has charmed the corporate press is no surprise: his rhetorical skills are good enough to undercut working people and those people of color.  Corporations need clever mouthpieces like this.

The New Teacher’s or Charter Corporate Village

The $150 million, eight-building project I wrote about in 2010 was largely publically financed, with support from federal, state and city governments.   This means, we paid for the costs while the profits of course get privatized by the developers, banks and other sundry thieves and politicians.  It’s Booker and Christie’s continuing cooperation, across party lines, on a school reform agenda focused on the expansion of the charter school sector that should be of interest, for Booker is really a republican or better said, a corporatist where parties are just convenient propaganda plates.

Meanwhile, while the slimy Booker undermines Obama, pledges the Oath of Omerta to the corproate class, New Jersey civil rights organizations and teachers’ unions have criticized the state’s charter schools for serving a lower proportion of special-needs and English-language learner students than traditional public schools.  Not surprising: I wrote about this in my book on charters in 2009.   the group also argued that the new urban gentrification and corproate village risk turning neighborhood schools turning into warehouses for the least-advantaged children.  But that is all part of the Booker-Christie Plan.  Turn education into vast swaths of desert and then point to them and argue for the neecd for charter schools.

Placing school reform in the broader context of urban revitalization supported by education advocates from across the ideological spectrum is what Booker and Christie want and this is their first foray which could be seen replicating itself all over the nation.  by tying land zoning to schools, further class divisions can be concretized into urban planning and thus cordon off the city to Booker and Christie’s constituents — the corporations.  We saw this in Chicago under Duncan and we see it all over now as schools close and zoning is re-zoned.

The project’s lead developer, RBH Group president Ron Beit, recently said clustering housing for teachers from charter, public and private schools would encourage “socializing and the exchange of ideas.… It’s like an artists’ enclave or a technology cluster for businesses, but here it’s for teachers.”

Sure, one big corporate discussion cumbaya of how corproations can help kids, provide them jobs, give them health insurance, a decent wage, releave them from debt and all the rest of the good things corproations do for American citizens, like pay them a non-living wage, tear up the social contract with labor and capital, fail tto provide health care and of course — pledge allegiance to the inequality embraced within the capitalist system(http://www.thenation.com/blog/166199/cory-booker-and-chris-christie-teachers-should-live-downtown-newark).

Teacher Village rents have been said to have been calculated to fit teachers’ budgets, according to the Nation blog; the cost at about $700 for a studio apartment, $1,100 for a one-bedroom, and $1,400 for a two-bedroom.  Sorry, but this is hardly within the budget of a school teacher.  More than half of New Jersey teachers make between $40,000 and $60,000 which after the cost of rent, food and transporatation and utilities, leave them table scraps.

Then there is Christie’s plan to undermine teacher salaries:

“More than two decades after Christie’s mentor, Gov. Tom Kean, pushed through mandatory raises for teachers, the issue of teacher pay and benefits took the center stage in Trenton.

In his call for “shared sacrifice” during the state budget crisis of 2010, Christie says public school teachers can afford to take a one-year wage freeze and pay at least 1.5 percent of their salary toward the cost of their health benefits — which, he says, can cost up to $22,000 a year for family coverage. He says most teachers, “when you put salaries and benefits together, are making a significant amount of money,” and he notes that pay freezes are common in the private sector” (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/05/nj_teachers_pay_freeze_salarie.html).

But what about the Teacher’s Village and the affordable rent? Booker and Christie love teachers and kids for without them they would have nobody to corral for investment purposes and then why would the rich need them as hand tools?  The things we do for love, of money that is.

Newark not the first to develop corporate housing for teachers

Newark is not the first city to experiment with workforce housing for teachers.  the ‘company store’ has been around for a long time and the fact it is now applied to teachers shos the Walmartization of education.

Baltimore’s Miller Court, another corporate village, includes forty teacher apartments, 70 percent of which are rented by Teach for America recruits. In Los Angeles, the Glassell Park complex combines a district pre-school with affordable housing for teachers and other community members.  Affordable meaning what? (ibid).

The other corporate model that is being proposed  is designed as an attempt to increase parents’ involvement with their children’s education by co-locating schools with housing reserved for low-income families with the schools.

Using a mix of public and philanthropic dollars, the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society runs four full-service children’s centers within public housing projects in the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy and Brownsville.  The philanthropists are of course corporate or corporate tied.  They use the Robin Hood Fund to spill cash onto the corporate funded school for they are hedge fund operators (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/business/03hedge.html?pagewanted=all).

This provides the analogy with Geoffrey Canada and his Harlem Education project and charter school.  He is all corporate suited as well and is vaulted on the shoulders of the ruling class who give philantropy as both a psycholical means of cleansing their filth, but they also use it as a way to make money.

The Robin Hood Foundation donation and other similar tax scams are not entirely altruistic. The benefits for the one percent who ‘give’ include tax deductions, the chance to hobnob with rich competitors, colleagues and even stars, and a shot at becoming part of the fabric of New York society by supportint such laudable institutions as schools.  Alongside the Who’s Who of hedge funds at the Robin Hood ball were media moguls, corporate titans and Gwyneth Paltrow (ibid).

The centers include pre-schools and family support services, and the Society partners with city social service agencies (and corporations for funding) to identify which children living in public housing are most in-need of early academic enrichment.  All of this reeks of seperate but equal and the resegregation of American society.  The New Corporate Deal where inequality is adapted to by provisions of charity by the one percent or the philanthro-pirates who redistributed income upwards for the last four decades.

Profit before people means the whole thing stinks of shennanigans

One thing for sure that will serve to eventually break the fable and seperate it from the lies Christie, Booker and their paymasters are peddling is the fact that  this type of project lacks the potential profit-making upsides of market-rate housing for middle-class teachers.  Oh well, they at least get to sleep under the corporate tent with their students.  Meanwhile Booker and Christie continue to team up to assure teachers are reduced to independant contractors and 1099 forms where they lsoe their status as employees and work under contract at will.  It has not happened yet, but look for it in the future.

Here is the article written in 2010 on Teacher’s Villages for those interested.

For more on Corey Booker google: Bill Gates, the Newark Charter School Fund and venture capitalists.  You’ll see him: he’s the guy with the thousand dollar suit and with his hand perpetually out, either to beg donations or to meet the elite who see him as a good floor manager for the casino economy.

Charter School Teacher Villages being constructed in New Jersey

Larry Miller’s Blog: Educate All Students!

May 21, 2012

Milwaukee’s Education Privatization Explained: What’s the Difference Between Public Schools, Voucher Schools and Charter Schools?

What’s the Difference? Voucher schools, Charter schools, Milwaukee Public Schools

Published in May 2012 by the non-partisan Democracy and Education Research Group. Email: democracy.education.milwaukee@gmail.com

Overview

In recent decades, there has been an expansion of the types of schools in Milwaukee receiving public tax dollars. In some areas, differences may seem slight. In other areas, there are significant differences. This is especially true in terms of students’ rights, public accountability, and democratic oversight.

There are three main types of schools in Milwaukee that receive public tax dollars:

• Private voucher schools, charging tuition but also open to students who receive publicly funded vouchers.
• Charter schools approved by the City of Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
• Schools overseen by the Milwaukee Public Schools district.

The voucher schools, by definition, are private schools and do not have to follow the same rules as public schools. Most provide religious-based education and may charge tuition to private-paying stu­dents and, in some cases, to high school students receiving vouchers.

The charter schools approved by the City of Milwaukee and UWM are considered public schools, but do not have to follow the same state rules, regulations and public oversight as traditional public schools. They are beholden to a “contract” (or charter), granted significant autonomy, and operate as independent entities. The schools are expected to provide greater academic results and innovation, although this has not necessarily happened in practice. Like all charter schools, they are non-religious and may not charge tuition. They are governed by privately appointed boards of directors.

The MPS district primarily oversees traditional public schools, including both neighborhood schools and a range of specialty schools and citywide schools, from language immersion to Montessori. The Milwaukee School Board also oversees charter schools that are part of the MPS but that have a specific “contract” or charter, often to provide a particular curricular focus. Finally, MPS oversees alternative and partnership schools. All MPS schools are non-religious and may not charge tuition. They are gov­erned by the democratically elected Milwaukee School Board. Most MPS schools also have school-based councils of parents, teachers and community members.

Details

Voucher schools

The biggest difference between voucher schools and charter and traditional schools is that, by defini­tion, voucher schools are private schools and can provide religious-based instruction. There are approxi­mately 22,300 students in Milwaukee receiving vouch­ers in the 2011-12 school year, mostly at religious schools. In 2011, for the first time Milwaukee students could attend a voucher school located outside the city.

While the voucher program initially began as an ex­periment promoting “choice” for poor people, a family of four with an income of $67,050 may now receive vouchers. The median family income in Milwaukee is $35,921.

Because they are private schools, voucher schools have limited public accountability and operate un­der different rules than public schools. For instance, voucher schools do not have to follow the state’s open meetings and records law. They do not have to provide information on staff qualifications, student suspen­sions and expulsions, graduation rates, and so forth to the public. Their meetings are not open to the public.

Voucher schools must accept students who require special education services, but they are not required to meet the students’ needs beyond what can be provided with minor adjustments. As a result, many students requiring special services leave voucher schools and attend a Milwaukee public schools. (Less than 2 per- cent of students in voucher schools are identified as receiving special education services, compared to about almost 20 percent in the Milwaukee Public Schools.)

As private schools, voucher schools do not have to honor constitutional rights of due process when students are suspended or expelled. Nor do private voucher schools have to follow Wisconsin law that

prohibits discrimination against students in a range of areas including, sex, pregnancy, marital or parental status, or sexual orientation. Voucher schools, howev­er, must follow federal laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.

Charter schools overseen by the City of Milwaukee and UWM

There are seven schools chartered by the City of Milwaukee and 11 schools chartered by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The schools enrolled a total of approximately 6,500 students in 2011-12.

Information on the UWM charter schools can be found on the webpage of the Office of Charter Schools at UWM (http://www4.uwm.edu/soe/centers/char­ter_schools/). Links on the website provide data such as the name of a particular charter school, its address, when it was chartered, and its email and school web-site. Detailed data on special education students, racial makeup, curricular offerings and so forth is not easily accessible via the website. A 62-page annual report from 2009-10 is available through the website. The report does not indicate who appoints the staff and leadership overseeing the Office of Charter Schools, nor when and if the office holds meetings open to the public.

The only data available on the City of Milwaukee website specifically regarding charter schools is a phone number where one can get an application to become a charter school (http://city.milwaukee.gov/ CharterSchoolApplication.htm). The charter schools are overseen by a “Charter School Review Commit­tee” appointed by city officials. Meetings and deci­sions by the committee are not available on the City of Milwaukee website, nor is it clear where one can attain such information.

Limited data on individual charter schools, both for UWM and the City of Milwaukee, is available through the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, but not for the schools as a group.

Milwaukee Public Schools

There are 175 schools within MPS in 2011-12, with 80,098 students. Schools include traditional schools, charter schools, and partnership schools. Charter schools include both district-run charters (instrumen­tality) and independent charters (non-instrumentality).

Information on schools, programs, enrollment and demographics can be found at the MPS website (http:// mpsportal.milwaukee.k12.wi.us). MPS is governed

by a nine-member School Board, which each member elected to a four-year term in public elections. The board holds monthly public meetings, in addition to committee meetings, open to the public.

The Milwaukee Public Schools is the city’s largest educational institution, and the only one with the com­mitment, capacity, and legal obligation to serve the needs of all the city’s children.

Overall, almost 20 percent of MPS students require special education services, and 10 percent are English Language Learners. The district offers Spanish/Eng­lish bilingual programs at 24 schools, and Southeast Asian/English Bilingual Programs at two schools. English-as-a-Second Language programs are available at the bilingual schools and an additional 14 schools.

MPS issues an annual Report Card for the district as a whole, and for individual schools. The reports cards are available publicly via the MPS website. Con­tact information for the Milwaukee Board of School Directors, agendas, meeting calendars and audio records of board proceedings are available at the MPS board governance website.

It became apparent at the May 12, 2012 SF meeting of students, faculty, citizens, and workers from the 112 Community Colleges in California in attendance that the need for a state-wide Student Union was a necessity now that the material conditions of capitalism have gone beyond neo-liberalism to actual the merger of corporate and state.  This now translates into the one percent mantra of ‘austerity’ and is embraced by all branches of the corporate political elite, democrat or republican.   As students know, this has meant and will continue to mean a full spectrum privatization assault on public education at all levels, even if it requires brute force which it more than often does.

 According to the Santa Monica Patch:

“Harrison Wills said an independent union representing the more than 2 million community college students across the state, would be set up like collective bargaining organizations for laborers, and would give students the opportunity to make demands of administrators and college contractors, such as text book publishers and food vendors. He also envisions localized chapters making endorsements during elections for college district’s governing boards” (http://santamonica.patch.com/articles/santa-monica-college-students-prepare-to-unionize).

What Wills is really saying is that student workers should be making decisions at Santa Monica College and other community college campuses.  Asit is now, administrators or college oligarchs make the deccisions that put corporate profits before student workers and the highly paid, publicly funded coordinating class that cobbles the whole privatization and corporatization plan together for the one percent. 

Students and their supporters are well aware that to make these decisions will require challenging and changing the governing structure and power structure of these community colleges that favor the corporatization and financialization of college life.

Mikhail Pronilover, a Santa Monica College student who led spirited demonstrations against the two-tiered funding plan, said last weekend at the May 12^th meeting during a gathering of community college students in Northern California:

“Our student governments are mostly administrating us instead of fighting for us in our districts” (ibid).

This is a good point and one many other students at the May 12^th meeting, including but not limited to Alfonso Pizzaro who gave a workshop on privatization battles in his home country, Chile and how students are mobilizing Student Unions throughout the country, claimed as well.

CA Student Union Website now up!

The good news is that the new CA Student Union website is now up and is not only committed to organizing students state-wide, but is international in focus, analysis and sophistication featuring interviews, articles and news about the privatization, the corporatization and financialization of higher education throughout the globe.  The CA Student Union website also reports on the resistance, organization and mobilization by many students around the globe to the financialization of education in an effort to develop solidarity amongst themselves and their constituencies.  In this way they can struggle for an education as a human right and prevent the private neo-enclosure movement from fencing off more of the public commons. 

This is also an exciting opportunity for those educators and public workers who are fighting for public education at the K-12 level to join the millions of students enrolled in higher education in their fight against privatization, corporatization and financialization of education; the whole effort to enclose what is left of the public commons is a “package deal”.

The following is just a sample from the website:

“About

Over the years, we students have struggled on our individual campuses in the fight against the deterioration of our education and our futures. It is time for us to start organizing collectively and begin the formation of a Student Union.  From Chile, to Quebec, to Brazil, Student Unions have proven time and time again that students en masse have the power to win against those who govern undemocratically.

Students are a a heterogeneous population. Our identities, concerns, and beliefs vary by campus. But as students, we have common interests and overarching issues that would be best addressed as a collective whole. We are proposing that students from campuses across California come together to collectively and democratically discuss, decide on, and develop the movement toward student unionization and begin forming models of alternative democracy on our campuses.

Our struggles are one. Our victories are one” (http://castudentunion.wordpress.com/about/).

What follows is a proposal for a California Student Union written by student Ernesto Moreno which can be found at the website for the California Student Union above.  This proposal was discussed at the May 12, 2012 meeting by Santa Monica students and others in attendance.  You can find out more about the proposal and its current state at the website.

The fact that an internationally sophisticated working-student class is emerging and beginning to organize in new, dramatic and internationally sophisticated ways in the state of California is the most heartening development that has crossed my desk in a long time. 

Please visit the website and support students in any way you can.

PROPOSAL FOR STUDENT UNION

By Ernesto Moreno

[SMC student and member of SOC]

Membership Qualifications:

- You must be a student of a school.
- You must have paid your membership fee (not to exceed $10) at the beginning of your first term at your institution.
- You must agree to respect the decisions of the Union (which would be made in a democratic fashion—more on that later).
- The fee will come with a membership card which will be used during voting.

Principles:

- The Student Union must remain a democratic space (perhaps run in a General Assembly style).
- It must be free of all sponsorship (independence from the institution—including established student governments and school boards— corporations, religious institutions, political parties or any other outside influence).
- Openness is extremely important. There can be NO back door dealings. Any decisions made at Secret Meetings will not be honored by the Union.
- It should remain community conscious (take up issues affecting the community, this is where many students live and even if not, it is where many of them study).
- The Union itself should not be affiliated with any political parties. Students can independently be part of whatever party they so please Left, Right or Center, but the Union should strive to represent as many students as possible.
- A lack of hierarchy will probably be best to avoid the hindrances that plagues bureaucratic systems like many current Student Governments have.

Organization:

- This will be different at each school system (K-12, UC,CalStates, CCs, etc) so this part mostly applies for CCs, but can maybe be used elsewhere—if not in entirely, partially.
- The campus can unite around Majors as at CCs there are no Departments.
- So each Major will form a Union (History Union, Accounting Union, etc.) and that Union will solve issues that deal with that particular Major’s students via General Assemblies in which there will be no hierarchy.
- Issues that plague the entire campus will be looked at by the Campus Union which will be made up by Delegates sent by the various Major Unions. (Delegates will have no power other than presenting the proposals, issues, etcetera of the their respective Major Unions.)
- At the state level, the Student Union Congress should be made up of Delegates chosen at the Campus Union.
- Congresses/General Assemblies should be called into session every one or two months and also whenever they are needed.
- Voting at the General Assemblies (the only place in which decisions can be made) will be done by card carrying Students.
- Students can only vote at one campus that they are members at. This is to avoid one student voting multiple times. (For example is Student A is attending both Z Community College and J State University, then said Student A can only vote at ZCC or JSU.)
- For purposes of this proposal, Undecided will be counted as an official Major.

“AIM was there because of our ownership of company stock, enabling us to grill top brass about the condition of the newspaper and the company in general. The value of the company’s stock has fallen by 50 percent over the last five years” (http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-decline-of-the-washington-post/).

Kaplan the big crime story

Kincaid also reported that there was discussion of the financial and political ruination caused by Kaplan Higher Education, an oxymoron in and of itself.  This is all good news for many students, whistleblowers, teachers and concerned citizens who have come forward with testimonials as to the carnage caused by criminal Kaplan University.  I will not reiterate the litany of allegations of crime and fraud that have been leveled against the Washington Post for its blood bank Kaplan.  You can use the search engine at www.dailycensored.com or “Yahoo” to search for articles detailing the drive-by college’s carnage.  Google has “disappeared” all articles on Kaplan and the Post since October of last year  from www.dailycensored.com that I have written.  The Daily Censored site has been hacked and over two dozen articles on Kaplan and Graham run WaPo have mysteriously been exiled to Google Siberia.  But that’s another story.

As I and many others have written for years, Kaplan is the blood bank of the Washington Post and as a syndicate it has bled the paper of revenue.  It is little more than a drive-by college but one of the worst offenders.  The fact that no one at the wretched paper which gives nothing but favorable coverage to for-profit education has had the intellectual courage to stand up and say something is distressing.  Not one whistleblower from the Post has come forward, though countless have from Kaplan.

Go to Lexus/Nexus or Google any of the alleged high crimes and misdemeanors of the Washington Post and criminal Kaplan and see how many articles you can find in the Washington Post regarding alleged fraud and abuse, predation and parasitic business plans.  The paper hires ombudsman to field ‘complaints’ for they refuse to publish allegations of their own paper’s crimes.

Can you believe it?  A newspaper that is supposed to report on ‘news’ hires ombudsman to run interference when they fail to cover stories to close to their economic interests?  Taxpayers no doubt pay for this too with the ‘student loan’ monies the Post vacuums up.

Back to the failing Washington Post.  The WaPo stock dropped 5% on May 4^th, 2012!  Imagine if shareholders learned there might be insider trading at the decrepit paper at the same time earnings plummeted?  I wrote about all of this on May 7, 2012 for www.dailycensored.com but the articles magically disappeared from Google not many hours after posting.

Remember, the Post trades on the NY Stock Exchange and I have been told that many reporters who have covered this along with whistleblowers and students, have found they have been targeted in some way by the Post or its predator Kaplan.  For readers interested in seeing what I wrote about possible insider trading at the Washington Post and the Apollo Group please go to http://www.dailycensored.com/2012/05/04/insider-trading-probe-at-university-of-phoenix-washington-post-company-stock-sales-also-seen-as-suspect-2/).  Also, feel free to Google my name and Truthout for dozens more articles.

Through its Kaplan subsidiary the Post is bleeding all over its papers and delivering a financial self-inflicted wound to its own dwindling empire.  Kincaid reported that The Calvert Recorder in Calvert County, Maryland (a paper owned by the Post) is suffering circulation and revenue declines because of its national newspaper product. The Calvert Recorder is part of the Southern Maryland Newspapers group, which is owned by the Post (http://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-decline-of-the-washington-post/).  Graham’s mismanagement along with his hubris has destroyed his father and mother’s legacy.

The Washington Post looks to fascist China for revenues

Evidently, in addition to growing concern over the Kaplan outfit, the stockholder meeting featured questions about the paper’s controversial financial relationship with newspapers owned and controlled by the Russian and Chinese governments.  With Kaplan unable to pony up the revenues needed to run the paper, money must be found somewhere.  The devil-fish paper now looks to any corner of the earth to keep its executives well fed.

The new revenue controversy was spelled out by reporter Ben Johnson on March 28^th, 2012, prior to the stockholder meeting:

“The controversy swirls around the publication of China Watch, a news supplement inserted into the newspaper. The Washington Post logo appears alongside its own, and China Watch‘s website is hosted on WaPo‘s server. However, most of its stories are produced by China Daily, an English-language “newspaper” with offices in Beijing. It is heavily censored by the Communist Chinese regime, with stories carefully chosen to advance the party line and the nation’s geostrategic interests.

Both the real and virtual editions of the publication contain the words, “A Paid Supplement to The Washington Post” – in much smaller print. Online, the words are just above a story on a program to teach LGBT activists to make documentary films and an ad for China Daily, inviting readers to “Click to open a window to the world.”

The owners and editors of The Washington Post “are lending their logo to this foreign propaganda,” Cliff Kincaid, director of Accuracy In Media‘s Center for Investigative Journalism, told LifeSiteNews.com. “If you didn’t know where this comes from, it looks like a regular newspaper (Washington Post Publishes Chinese and Russian Government Propaganda Disguised as News http://www.usasurvival.org/ck03.31.12.html#ixzz1vFOtIi7m).

Kincaid said the Chinese government is “using the logo of The Washington Post to create the impression this is like any other section of The Washington Post.  If you do your digging you can find out this is paid propaganda, and they’re use using the Post,” (ibid).

Another fact noted in the Kincaid article:

“Another China Watch article discusses a panel on women’s issues, which raised the possibility that surviving children, spoiled by their grandparents, had developed a “Little Emperor” complex. “These kids might be spoiled, but they are also the repository of all their parents’ dreams,” said Amy Chua, a contributor to The Daily Beast and author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother “.These ‘spoiled brats’ work extremely hard” (ibid).

Kincaid told LifeSiteNews.com there was one simple reason the paper is partnering with governments that curtail freedom of the press: “The Washington Post wants the money. It’s simply a matter of bucks.”  He’s right and the fact that they can no longer black bag students with impunity has hurt Kaplan’s main business plan; the drive-by university is also partnering with human rights abusers in China because as Graham knows, “One must follow the money.”

Donald Graham a very dangerous member of the one tenth of one percent

Donald Graham, who is the principal owner of the most powerful segments of the stock for the Washington Post (WaPo), has no compunction about who he deals with when it comes to making money.  He uses his paper the way that Ruppert Murdock uses Fox News, as an organ for propaganda against public education, regulations on for-profit schools or any mention of the nefarious for-profit college industry of which he remains a main player.

Human rights are for those who are not privileged and Donald comes from a long line of privilege.  A member of the elite and secret Federal City Council and the Bilderberg Group, Donnie’s ties to the elite of the elite go way back to when his father Philip started the Washington Post in the 1950’s.  The Post, though known for its Watergate fame, was in reality a conduit for the CIA for much of its existence and no doubt still is.  Many reporters on the CIA payroll used the Post as a launch site for anti-Soviet or anti-Communist propaganda, both domestically and abroad.  This is all common knowledge.  “Operation Mockingbird” is what you would Google to find out more.  Donnie himself is a former ‘cop’ and had (maybe continues to have) close ties to the military during the Vietnam era.

According to a report on the CIA and Mockingbird:

“You could get a journalist  cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred  dollars a month.”

— CIA operative discussing with  Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the  availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories (“Katherine The Great,” by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square        Press, 1991 (“http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.php

That is why when I saw the report that “Post Company chairman Donald E. Graham didn’t have any second thoughts over the paper being used, through paid advertisements, to promote Russian and Chinese propaganda to an American audience”, I could only shake my head in affirmation and ‘belief’ (ibid).  This is the Donald Graham that he must be exposed and the good news, now he is.

Where did the one million dollars the Post spent on fighting Department of Education regulations come from?

At the meeting Graham tried to explain why he spent one million dollars fighting regulations of for-profit schools.  Graham did not dispute the claim that the company had spent $1 million lobbying but did anyone ask him where the million came from?  After all, if 90% or more of the blood bank, Kaplan’s revenue comes from taxpayers in the form of Title IV loans that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, aren’t we to assume that at least some percentage of the cost of his lawyers and the cost of lobbying come from indentured students now in debt purgatory?  Isn’t CEO Graham spending US tax dollars to pay hig priced lobbyists to work against US DOE regulations?  The whole thing is a crime and the fact it isn’t on the books as illegal is a crime in and of itself.

As I wrote at Truthout, even the stench of the Obama administration throughout the whole Washington Post story emits like well-cured manure.  Graham hired a lobbying firm that included former Obama aide Anita Dunn to fight for-profit regualtions.  In fact, an entire bipartisan elite is now employed to lobby for the criminal enterprises they all for-profit schools (http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8589-bipartisan-political-elite-implicated-in-for-profit-education-fraud).

Lobbying those in attendance using philanthro-pirate, Bill Gates

Finally, and perhaps more absurdly, Kincaid also reported that those who attended the annual meeting were lobbied themselves.  Yes, they were given a free copy of the book, Change.edu: Rebooting for the New Talent Economy, written by Kaplan chairman and CEO Andrew S. Rosen and published by Kaplan itself.  The philanthro-pirate Bill Gates has given a favorable review of the book, of course.  He too is a member of the elite with ties to the same fraternities and more importantly, global economic interests.

Graham must have felt the stockholders needed to be lobbied with propaganda for even they can see the writing on the wall for the newspaper.  The question is when will the invertebrates who know where the bodies are buried  grow a spine and come forward and tell us the real details of how Kaplan University really operates.

Crown Prosecution Services charged Brooks, her husband, and four others with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice on Tuesday May 15. The alleged conspiracy took place between July 6 and July 19, 2011.

Brooks and the co-conspirators concealed and removed materials sought by police in their investigation of phone hacking by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation subsidiary, News International, according to prosecutors. Brooks resigned as chief executive officer of the subsidiary on July 15, 2011. (Image: SnowViolent)

Brooks’ current legal troubles should not obscure the significance of her testimony before the Leveson Inquiry last week. During her several hours on the witness stand, she was confronted with an explosive email that, if true, implicates Conservative Party Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt in a conspiracy to pervert the British regulatory process in favor of News Corporation’s bid to acquire the ten-million-subscriber pay TV company BSkyB. News Corp owns 39% of the company. It sought the remaining 61%.

The acquisition was absolutely critical for for News Corp. BSkyB accounted for 14% of News Corp net income in 2011. Had the Murdoch’s completed the acquisition by the start of 2011, BSkyB would have accounted for 36% of 2011 profits.

In addition to the Hunt-BSkyB evidence, Brooks’ testimony at the Leveson Inquiry last week may result in additional charges of hiding and destroying evidence.

Were the emails lost on Brooks’ BlackBerry part of the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?

When Brooks left the News International CEO position in 2012, she surrendered her BlackBerry to the company. Under questioning by Queen’s Counsel Robert Jay of the Leveson Inquiry on May 11, 2012, she noted of the emails that the BlackBerry had contained: “We had to image them and we had some problems with that.” (See Brooks Blackberry.) The emails were all destroyed except one, a compressed message from Prime Minister David Cameron that had no content.

Queen’s Counsel Jay pinned down the dates of the missing emails in this question: “So we have, as you explain, emails and texts which only cover a limited period, from the beginning of June 2011 until, you say, 17 July. Maybe 15 July or 17 July. Brooks responded, “I think it was the 17th.”

Those dates include a portion of the time period during which prosecutors allege that Brooks engaged in the conspiracy to pervert justice. Brooks claimed that “my Blackberry was imaged by my legal team,” the point at which the emails disappeared. If the lost BlackBerry emails are part of evidence destroyed or hidden, maybe it wasn’t Brooks’ legal team that imaged the BlackBerry and hid or destroyed the stored messages. No one on her legal team was charged in the conspiracy by Crown Prosecution Services.

Could it be that Brooks was somehow responsible for the destroyed or hidden emails? If so, her inquiry testimony last week makes her the star witness for her own prosecution. There is little doubt that Brooks provided vital evidence for any future prosecution of Jeremy Hunt.

The Michel-to-Brooks smoking gun email, June 27, 2011

The high point of the Brooks testimony last Friday came when Queen’s Counsel asked about an email sent at 16:29 on June 27, 2011: “Frederic Michel sends an email and it goes to just you” (full email). Brooks seemed surprised even though she had reviewed the evidence prior to the hearing: “I would be surprised if it just came to me. As you’ve seen from the previous emails, they were always copies in to the same — almost the same group of people, but perhaps it was directly to me.” (See Brooks 5.)
At the opening of the email, Michel tells Brooks that “Hunt will be making references to phone hacking in his statement on ­ this week … hacking has nothing to do with the media plurality issue.”

Plurality refers to the criterion Jeremy Hunt has outlined as the basis for approving News Corp’s bid to acquire the remaining shares of BSkyB. The term references the number and diversity of media outlets available to the British public. If the acquisition reduced media plurality, there would be cause to deny the bid (an unlikely outcome). Michel claimed that Hunt would exclude the explosive phone hacking allegations against News Corp’s British newspapers from his considerations on bid approval.

If true, Michel’s statement implies a conspiracy between Hunt and News Corp to rig the BSkyB approval process. Hunt would be acting as an agent for News Corp.

The Michel-to-Brooks memo ends with this: “JH [Hunt] is now starting to look into phone hacking/practices more thoroughly and has asked me to advise him privately in the coming weeks and guide his and Number 10′s [Cameron’s] positioning.”

The closing elaborates the opening paragraph and expands the conspiracy from Culture Secretary Hunt to Prime Minister Cameron.

In her reply to Michel, Brooks asks “when is the rubicon [sic] statement” and Michel responds “Probably Wednesday” (June 29, 2011).

Is Michel’s smoking gun email reliable? Look at the evidence.

News Corp apologists have seeded the media with the notion that Michel, News Corp’s chief lobbyist on the BSkyB acquisition, is some sort of Walter Mitty who exaggerates claims of his access. Brooks even alluded to this in her testimony.

Rather than rely on name calling, let’s look at the evidence based on Hunt’s behavior after June 27, 2011, to determine the veracity of the claims in the email and the implications about a Hunt-News Corp conspiracy to rig approval of the BSkyB bid. (Image: DCMS)

Thursday, June 30, 2011, House of Commons: Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Tom Watson asked Culture Secretary Hunt: “… if he will make a statement on the News Corporation acquisition of BSkyB.” Hunt replied, “Earlier today, I placed a written statement before the House outlining the next steps in my consideration of the potential merger between News Corp and BSkyB.” That statement, he said, reflected changes in his process of approving the bid that offered “a further layer of very important safeguards.”

Hunt made his statement to the House of Commons on Thursday, in line with Michel’s predictions in his email to Brooks. Was the written statement to which Hunt referred the “rubicon statement” Brooks had asked about in her reply to Michel?

What did Hunt say in his written statement on the News Corp bid to acquire BSkyB?

Written Ministerial Statement: News Corp/BSkyB merger, Jeremy Hunt, June 30, 2011 (or here)

“I believe that there are sufficient safeguards to ensure compliance with the undertakings [by News Corp]. Furthermore, the various agreements [between News Corp and the government] entered into pursuant to the undertakings will each be enforceable contracts. Therefore whilst the phone hacking allegations are very serious they were not material to my consideration.”

Hunt announced that he was in favor of approving the bid and that he was referring the News Corp acquisition to the Competition Commission. He outlined the new safeguards he had referenced to MP Watson and, in the last sentence, separated “phone hacking allegations” from his considerations. To remove any impact of the outrage against News Corp for phone hacking, Hunt had structured the referral to make sure that the Competition Commission would be “constrained to rule on issues of media plurality” only.

Hunt was playing a double game with the public, it seems. On July 20, 2011, Hunt told the BBC, “The question that News International have to answer is why malpractice happened throughout a very important part of their organisation without people like Rupert Murdoch knowing,”

Hunt was simply acting out the strategy that Michel talked about in the smoking gun email, separating the real prize, the approval of the BSkyB acquisition, from the hacking scandal while talking tough on the scandal.

Michel’s smoking gun email is clearly reliable evidence of a News Corp-Cameron government conspiracy to rig approval of News Corp’s BSkyB acquisition. Hunt’s behavior, just what the email predicted, demonstrates that the email is highly reliable evidence of that conspiracy.

Hunt went to Parliament to make a key statement on the bid within Michel’s time frame. He took the position that Michel had said he would on the bid. And, most cynically, Hunt separated the issue of corporate responsibility and fitness represented by Murdoch media properties from the approval criteria for the bid.

Ironically, to fend off the intense attacks on Hunt after the testimony of Rupert and James Murdoch in mid-April, PM Cameron suggested that the Leveson Inquiry would be the forum that would best judge Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s suitability for office.

That judgment is clear – Hunt acted as an agent for News Corp.

The inquiry also foreshadowed the charges against Rebekah Brooks for perverting the course of justice by destroying evidence.

How many careers will Rupert Murdoch end during his descent into a maelstrom of business and political oblivion?

More importantly, how many lives has Murdoch destroyed through the nihilistic news and editorial policies throughout his media empire?

END

This article may be reposted with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

Rebekah Brooks Leveson Inquiry with Comments

The Money Party

“Rich people are likelier to steal candy from children” (Harpers, May, 2012, Findings, pp.80).

I thought about it for awhile and it made sense.  In fact, childhood itself has been stolen.  The rich who run corporate America and indeed the corporate global economy have been stealing from children for a very long time and it isn’t just candy; they’ve foreclosed on their future stealing generations of youth lives throughout the world.  Educational and cultural theorist, Henry Giroux has been writing about “disposable youth” for some years now.  According to Giroux, disposability is:

“a set of ideas and practices characterized by a ruthless indifference to human suffering whereby the most brutalizing forces of capitalism are unleashed on individuals and communities who are increasingly denied the protections of the social state.  Under such conditions certain groups such as immigrants, poor minority youth, and those individuals considered bad consumers are viewed as excess, waste, and expendable” (Giroux, Henry, (2012) Disposable youth, Racialized Memories and the Culture of Cruelty, Routledge pp. 56).

Feds crackdown on student loan defaulters

A culture of cruelty indeed, for I also found it a cruel  irony that on the same weekend  the New York Times published the editorial “Control Reckless For-Profit Colleges” (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/05/12/easing-the-pain-of-student-loans/control-reckless-for-profit-colleges) and the article “A Generation Hobbled by the Soaring Cost of College” (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/student-loans-weighing-down-a-generation-with-heavy-debt.html), the Sun Sentinel published the article “Feds crack down on South Florida student loan defaulters”  which reported  how the federal government is suing Florida students who have defaulted on their student loans to recoup government money. (http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2012-05-12/news/fl-student-loan-lawsuits-20120510_1_student-loan-default-rate-federal-stafford-loans).
According to the Sun Sentinel article, 10.5% of all Florida student loan debtors were required to start repaying their loans in 2009 but due to no jobs, lack of opportunities, poverty, disability, the state of being broke in America they went into default.  This, while the default rate for for-profit college and university students soared to heights of 40%.

Department of Education Rules Allow for-profit institutions of higher predation to have student loan default rates as high as 40% and still receive federal funds

The Wall Street Journal noted that Department of Education (DOE) rules permit all colleges, public, non-profit, and private to have student loan default rates as high as 40% in any one year and 30% over three years before eligibility to participate in federal student loan programs is negatively affected. These so-called ‘rules’ are little more than licenses for the for-profits to steal.   It is obvious that the ‘rules’ accommodate predatory for-profit colleges, since non-profit colleges on average have default rates under 10%. 
(http://online.wsj.com/articleSB10001424052748704709304576124280473684142.html).   It’s apparent that the DOE rules were written and hammered out either by or for the for-profit disaster colleges and universities, their lobbyists, lap-dancing politicians and right wing think tanks that rationalize the whole rape of America under the guise of education.

Even the corporate press, the same press that take ads from the for-profit colleges, had to acknowledge that for-profit colleges target and recruit poor, veteran and minority students knowing many of these students will default on their loans.  As the Washington Post Company (owner of Kaplan University)  admitted in a court filing ” Plaintiff alleges that KHE’s supposedly “secret business model” depended upon the recruitment of “low-income and minority” students who were dependent upon federal loans and grants. But that was not a secret.
(http://dailycensored.com/2012/01/14/in-court-filing-washington-post-admits-telemarketing-boiler-room-tactics-at-kaplan-u/). 

We send you into debt purgatory because we love you

But it’s much worse than this.  Kaplan University in the form of its major stockholder, Donald Graham, actually is on record arguing that sub-prime Kaplan and other such disaster colleges do minority and low-income students a favor!  This is the same argument used by Pay-Day Loan hucksters where the public is told that without the existence of these corporate parasites, low-income citizens would not be able to get loans. 

The Orwellian argument, like most, relies on the material conditions of human despair and a beleaguered mind devoid of facts for the for-profit colleges and universities are simply parasites looking for a host.  They offer little more than despair as curriculum and debt as a consequence of a sub-prime diploma.  Never do these higher educational outfits mention the fact that there are no jobs and that there may never be, for under capitalism a permanent surplus population has emerged worldwide that may never see work in their lifetimes and if they do, it will be precarious, unsteady low-wage work.

The absurdity of the federal government allowing for-profit colleges to have default rates up to 40% and then to keep all the money they obtain from federal loan programs without penalty or consequence can only be understood in the seedy context of cash, corruption and lobbying.   While the lax rules allow the one percent enough wiggle room to commit criminal acts that are not legally called criminal acts, the corporate government that colludes with them sues the same veterans and low-income students that were commodified and exploited by the sub-prime colleges in the first place. 

There you have it: the corporate government enables capital extraction by the for-profit industry at rates beyond comprehension and eventually shouldered by taxpayers as a result of student defaulted loans while the same corporate government goes after working class, poor and minority students in default with a vengeance. What a racket.

Collecting defaulted student loans

How does the government attempt to recruit the defaulted loans?  The answer is by using questionable corporations who they farm out the job of collection to for a percentage of the take.  Sound like the Mafia collecting on a protection racket?  It should, for on the fortieth anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic film, ‘The Godfather’, shy-locking has now become a legal part of daily life, not just in the form of pay-day loans, cash checking joints, car title companies, rent-to-own and the rest of the sub predatory economy which is now the main street economy, but in the educational economic sector where some of the most ruthless racketeers are busy extracting billions in capital from the American economy and leaving students like carcasses, on the road with their pockets turned inside out like tramps. 

In fact the entire Mafia is now institutionalized.  Prohibition and the illegal drug trade along with loan sharking and gambling made the Mafia a rich force in America. initially outside of the law.  The profits and revenues from peddling booze and drugs allowed this same Mafia to invest in ‘legitimate businesses’ and ‘investments’ and develop the entire Southwest region of the US with the help of the Savings and Loan industry and some of the most corrupt politicians in the nation. 

When the student loans are not paid the ‘boyz’ are called in and one of the goon squad collection agencies that might be of interest to readers is Allied Interstate, Inc. (http://dailycensored.com/2012/05/02/allied-interstate-inc-student-loan-collection-is-big-business/). 

The Federal Trade Commission’s website discusses a rather substantial fine that was levied against the debt collection company for engaging in egregious and unlawful practices against consumers. (http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/10/alliedinterstate/shtm).  Further research, based on numerous consumer complaint websites, leads one to plausibly infer that this company continues to practice many of the behaviors that caused them to be fined in 2010 with impunity.  Alas, fines are simply the cost of doing illegal business in America as the “mordida” is in most parts of Latin America.  Once again, a questionable shylock collection outfit is getting paid by the government with your tax monies to, in this case, grab young people by the ankles and dangle them upside down to collect money from broke and broken disposable students.

The ‘rules’ allowing up to 40% default rates for for-profit colleges is proof positive that the federal government is little more than a corporate kleptocracy devoted to serving the one percent while punishing and prosecuting the ninety nine percent who subsidize the life styles of the rich and famous.    It is also evidence that supports the findings that the rich are more likely to steal candy from children.  The tragedy is that they have not just stolen the candy, the bastards have stolen the whole piñata.

There seems to be little doubt that in the new Carceral State punishment, fear, economic uncertainty and policies linked to ideologies of human disposability have replaced empathy and compassion for our nation’s youth.  Where once American youth were looked at as an investment in the future, they are now visualized as a future for investment and since many will never work, have no money to consume, are not a good debt risk and are considered a problem for the world’s one percent, they will undoubtedly suffer the ravages not unfamiliar to hunted prey; that is unless they fight for a more just and democratic economic and political future.

(http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/vassal) the definition of a “vassal”

is:

Noun:

1. (in the feudal system) a person granted the use of land, in return for rendering homage, fealty, and usually military service or its equivalent to a lord or other superior; feudal tenant.

2. a person holding some similar relation to a superior; a subject, subordinate, follower, or retainer.

3. a servant or slave.

 Adjective

4. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a vassal.

5. having the status or position of a vassal.

The current Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, certainly meets the criteria set out by dictionary.com which constitutes the definition of the term.

As the US barrels towards neo-feudalism, there are now many “vassals” willing to come forward to work for the new feudal lords like Art Pope of North Carolina, the Koch Brothers (the feudal lords who controls Scott Walker as vassal) and many others, including those on the payroll of the neo-philanthro-pirates like Bill Gates and his billionaire ilk.

The vassals are rewarded kindly by the new feudal lords.  Take a look at John Corzine, vassal celeb.  A former Senator, a former Governor, the former head honcho at Goldman Sachs and bundler for Obama and his banking cabal.  $1.6 billion dollars missing from vassal Corzine’s MF Global, now bankrupt, no problem.  JP Morgan and others ponied up the missing funds and vassal Corzine is off the hook.  No hearings, no prosecutions.

This is the story of America now; a narrative that speaks to the public garroting of the public commons and the criminals who get away with it. 

So, with this we now turn to Larry Miller for news of what Governor Scott Walker, vassal to the Koch Brothers is up to now.

Larry Miller’s Blog: Educate All Students!

Community colleges across California are facing the wrath of privatization efforts by reactionary forces, most notably for-profit colleges and their surrogates, the corporate media and coin-operated politicians.  Both democrats and republicans have been and are continuing to use shock doctrine crisis management to privatize the community college campuses. 

One of the recent salvos in the battle in California came with the introduction of legislation, AB515, by Democrat Assembly Member, Julia Brownley, on February 15, 2011.  The bill would have set up a ‘corporation’ within the community colleges that could charge 400 times the fees for traditional classes.  This, the access hierarchy, was an attempt by liberals to govern in face of privatization.  The bill was soundly defeated (http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_515/20112012/).

But the forces of privatization will not stop with one defeat.  Both corporate liberals and reactionaries have decided the best way to deal with austerity crisis and budget cuts are to capitulate to the forces of capital, not to mount an offensive.  They have drafted and engineered another “access hierarchy” which, if ever successful, promises to form a class-based tollbooth for students who wish to attend community colleges.  What this means is a two-tiered class system of fees for a two-tiered class society.  Those students who can pay more at the ‘tollbooth’ will do so and those who cannot will be denied access to classes.

The despicable capitulation to privatization for-profit forces means that community colleges are set to compete with the likes of Kaplan University, DeVry, Cappella, ITT and a host of predatory sub-prime for-profit colleges.

Readers can go back to an article at Dailycensored.com, http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/26/california-community-colleges-decide-not-to-fornicate-with-for-profit-predatory-kaplan-university/, written in August of 2010 that chronicles how current Chancellor of the California Community College system, Jack Scott attempted to contract out community college classes to predatory, subprime, Kaplan University back in 2010.  The despicable failure of the liberal Chancellor and union leadership at the 112 community colleges to fight for students has now created the material conditions for the private control of the educational means of production.

This is the moment that the for-profit disaster colleges have been waiting for as more and more students cannot “get in community college classes due to shortages” and “cannot get out of them” due to class shortages; they hover in wait like predatory parasites waiting for a host.

Santa Monica College takes a stand

Recently, the situation at Santa Monica College in Los Angeles has shown the degree to which the ruling elites will go to assure that autocracy runs the day and that privatization becomes the new economic structure.  There, in early April, students were blocked from entering a public meeting where a two-tiered tollbooth system for access to classes was to be voted on.  Students were pepper sprayed by police and two of the victims taken to the hospital (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/santa-monica-college-protest-pepper-spray.html)

The denial to allow students and the public to enter into public space where a public hearing was held was and is a direct violation of the California Brown Act (http://ag.ca.gov/publications/2003_Intro_BrownAct.pdf) which requires notice and the ability to participate in a public hearing but that did not stop police from pepper spraying students and even a four year old girl.  There were many other procedural problems with the Trustee meeting that ended in police violence.

Since this time an investigation has been launched by the SMC but the investigatory body is made up of members of the SMC, hardly an impartial body.  The lawyer for the SMC is the head of the investigatory committee.  The investigation will most likely blame students for the episode as explained to me by Harrison Wills, Student President for the Associated Students at SMC.

Advance the Dream or Advance the Scheme?

Santa Monica College was chosen as a Petri dish to launch the two-tiered system in light of the failure of AB515 to pass.  The college has a student body of 20,000 and is highly diverse.  Built in 1939 the campus is huge and if it had dormitories, it would qualify for a state college or university – it is that big.  Looking for a community college where they could experiment with students in an attempt to compete with for-profit colleges, the Board of Trustees attempted to shove through their own version of AB515 for SMC.  SMC also has 40% of their student body eligible for waivers from fees as opposed to most California Community colleges that se approximately 60% of their campus student body eligible for fee waivers.  This makes the experiment even more savory for the privatizers for if the idea would work at SMC, they could then take the pilot on the road to the other 112 community colleges.

Meanwhile the attempt to continue to fully privatize the college has not abated.  The Board of Trustees, determined to force a hierarchy for classes on SMC, are now trying to see the idea using sophist rhetoric.  They call the two-tiered program, Advance the Dream when it would be more logical to entitle it, Advance the Scheme.

SMC is now facing both a Student Association election and further hearings on Advance the Dream. 

Two candidates are running for student body president.  One candidate is Ernesto Sevilla and he is a middle aged, returning student who has shifted his position on privatization and Advance the Dream.  He says he now has no position but there are members of the community college who believe that Sevilla is merely a stealth candidate to stop students from maintaining power and fighting privatization.  He is running on a slate.

The other candidate is Parker Jean, a young student who is running against Advance the Dream and for a “paradigm change”.  Parker is part of a slate of students running for government on the platform of engaging in community building, bringing a political consciousness to SMC and encouraging environmental awareness.

On May 30^th, the night before May Day, students slept outside on the campus lawn to protest privatization and Advance the Dream.  The administration, hearing of the camp-out, spread manure on the lawn and made sure the sprinkler system delivered a nice dose of water for the students’ overnight (see caption picture).  This is clearly juvenile and constitutes petty harrassment.

SMC is potential occupied territory for for-profit colleges

I was fortunate enough to be invited by current Student Body President, Harrison Will to attend the college on May Day, for events planned to raise political awareness.

When I arrived at the campus I entered the main entrance and was greeted with a job’s fair.  Tables were lined on each side of the walkway and as I entered it was like entering a corporate and security state Mausch Pit.  The FBI had recruitment tables; the military was present with tables and brochures.  Merrill-Lynch representatives dressed like Men in Black, with shades manned tables for the sleazy corporation. 

Eager students, many of them fearful they may never work, lingered by the sides of tables asking for information.  But there is no employment.  The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 34.7 to 40.5 percent between February and March 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 27.5 to 30.5 percent during the same period, according to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In addition, the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 21.3 to 22.5 percent between February and March 2012; while the official jobless rate for all U.S. workers between the ages of 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 23.8 to 25 percent during the same period (http://wherechangeobama.blogspot.com/2012/04/black-youth-unemployment-rate-increases.html).

Students form General Assembly: The Student Organizing Committee

A General Assembly of about forty or more students was held on May Day and students sat in breakout groups to discuss Advance the Dream and other educational issues.  This was organized by the Student Organizing Committee, a student forme3d group on campus.  The break-out groups reconstituted themselves after an hour into a larger general assembly where students reported the discussions they had.  Many students spoke of the inability they have of developing their full potential for they must work part time or often full time and find they are tired from lack of sleep and irregular eating habits.  Other students spoke of exorbitant rent or the fact they cannot get housing.  One student told me that he shared a two bedroom apartment in Santa Monica where four students occupied the residence.  Two students to each room slept on the floor for the cost of $650 per student.

Capitalism has now meant that students cannot get an education, they cannot get job, they cannot get housing and they are left on the side of the road mired in non-dischargeable debt.

Police occupation on campus palpable

The campus appears like an armed camp.  Throughout the campus there were uniform police walking in pairs or in fours.  They seemed to be everywhere and Harrison wills told me that the night of the campout, police were positioned on the roof of the campus.  Clearly police presence is the norm at SMC as our video surveillance cameras.  Posted alongside buildings and within them are notices in the form of plaques informing students they are under 24 hour constant video.

Intimidation and fear seem to ‘occupy’ the campus and many students told me that they felt they were under direct surveillance and even thought that their phones might be monitored.  Advance the Dream is being pushed from everyone from members of the ACLU, the college president and of course the for-profit colleges.

The Student Newspaper taken over by for-profit college ads

The SMC student newspaper is called the ‘Corsair’.  The Corsair is not owned by the corporatized campus.  Part of the revenue of the college comes from full or partially full page ads in the college paper from for-profit colleges like National University, DeVry and others.  These colleges have now taken over the revenue stream for the paper.

I have recently requested information about the paper (under the California Public Records Act) about its ownership and which colleges pay to advert5ise in the paper and how much is being paid for advertisements for the years of 2010, 2011 and 2012.

The Corsair also runs ‘college News stands’.  These are marquee stands that advertise by for-profit colleges.  They are all over campus and stand out like corporate bill boards.

What was amazing is that when I spoke to one of the student managing editors at the paper, he seemed to have no problem with for-profit colleges providing ads for a community college paper.  He defended the practice as ‘a revenue necessity’ and said anyone could advertise with the paper.  The presence of privatization seems to run so deep it is hardly even ‘seen’ by many students who attend the SMC.

Clearly the for-profit colleges know that students cannot get classes they need to graduate or transfer.  This is why they advertise, to sell education as a commodity to students who cannot otherwise get it publicly.  For a community college to allow these for profit predatory colleges to advertise so vividly and openly at a public college is testimony to the fact that privatization is being embraced by many forces on campus.

The administration of SMC is committed to an access hierarchy and privatization.  This is due to the fact as highly paid administrators and chummy Trustees they see their positions and power threatened if they do not make a deal with the forces of privatization.  This is what poses as invertebrate leadership at community colleges through California and throughout the nation.  It must stop.

May 12^th meeting formed to stop the privatization of community colleges

The good news is that concerned citizens, teachers, students and others are committed to standing up against the for-profit colleges and privatization.  A meeting to begin to develop strategies to stop the privatization of community colleges is scheduled for May 12^th in San Francisco.

It is essential that the privatization of education be seen as a package deal – from K-university.  Those parties working to fight off privatization in K-12 are highly encouraged to attend to ally their interests with those of us concerned about the privatization of community colleges, state colleges, the UC system and all forms of higher education.  The struggle is the same, the forces identical.

Called for by Students and Faculty from city College of San Francisco

112 Community Colleges serving 260,000 students in the State of California

Join us to discuss:

 • The Student Success Act (a series of legislative and regulation changes that will ration CCC education)

• The formation of a statewide student union

• Neoliberalism and student struggles around the world

Together we will build a statewide coalition of students, faculty and workers from California Community Colleges to assert our right to public higher education.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

9:00am to 5:00pm

CCSF Mission Campus
Valencia St., Between 22 and 23rd, San Francisco

Please register for this event at http://kccc.eventbrite.com/

info: CCSF Mission

 Campus is accessible and public transportation available24th St. BART, and MUNI lines 12,14, 14L, 48, 49, & 67.

Community colleges across California are facing the wrath of privatization efforts by reactionary forces, most notably for-profit colleges and their surrogates, the corporate media and coin-operated politicians.  Both democrats and republicans have been and are continuing to use shock doctrine crisis management to privatize the community college campuses. 

One of the recent salvos in the battle in California came with the introduction of legislation, AB515, by Democrat Assembly Member, Julia Brownley, on February 15, 2011.  The bill would have set up a ‘corporation’ within the community colleges that could charge 400 times the fees for traditional classes.  This, the access hierarchy, was an attempt by liberals to govern in face of privatization.  The bill was soundly defeated (http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_515/20112012/).

But the forces of privatization will not stop with one defeat.  Both corporate liberals and reactionaries have decided the best way to deal with austerity crisis and budget cuts are to capitulate to the forces of capital, not to mount an offensive.  They have drafted and engineered another “access hierarchy” which, if ever successful, promises to form a class-based tollbooth for students who wish to attend community colleges.  What this means is a two-tiered class system of fees for a two-tiered class society.  Those students who can pay more at the ‘tollbooth’ will do so and those who cannot will be denied access to classes.

The despicable capitulation to privatization for-profit forces means that community colleges are set to compete with the likes of Kaplan University, DeVry, Cappella, ITT and a host of predatory sub-prime for-profit colleges.

Readers can go back to an article at Dailycensored.com, http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/26/california-community-colleges-decide-not-to-fornicate-with-for-profit-predatory-kaplan-university/, written in August of 2010 that chronicles how current Chancellor of the California Community College system, Jack Scott. attempted to contract out community college classes to predatory, subprime, Kaplan University back in 2010.  The despicable failure of the liberal union leadership at the 112 community colleges to fight for students has now created the material conditions for the private control of the educational means of production.

This is the moment that the for-profit disaster colleges have been waiting for as more and more students cannot “get in community college classes due to shortages” and “cannot get out of them” due to class shortages, they hover like parasites waiting for a host.

Santa Monica College takes a stand

Recently, the situation at Santa Monica College in Los Angeles has shown the degree to which the ruling elites will go to assure that autocracy runs the day and that privatization becomes the new economic structure.  There, in early April, students were blocked from entering a public meeting where a two-tiered tollbooth system for access to classes was to be voted on.  Students were pepper sprayed by police and two of the victims taken to the hospital (http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/04/santa-monica-college-protest-pepper-spray.html)

The denial to allow students and the public to enter into public space where a public hearing was held was and is a direct violation of the California Brown Act (http://ag.ca.gov/publications/2003_Intro_BrownAct.pdf) which requires notice and the ability to participate in a public hearing but that did not stop police from pepper spraying students and even a four year old girl.  There were many other procedural problems with the Trustee meeting that ended in police violence.

Since this time an investigation has been launched by the SMC but the investigatory body is made up of members of the SMC, hardly an impartial body.  The lawyer for the SMC is the head of the investigatory committee.  The investigation will most likely blame students for the episode as explained to me by Harrison Wills, Student President for the Associated Students at SMC.

Advance the Dream or Advance the Scheme?

Santa Monica College was chosen as a Petri dish to launch the two-tiered system in light of the failure of AB515 to pass.  The college has a student body of 20,000 and is highly diverse.  Built in 1939 the campus is huge and if it had dormitories, it would qualify for a state college or university – it is that big.  Looking for a community college where they could experiment with students in an attempt to compete with for-profit colleges, the Board of Trustees attempted to shove through their own version of AB515 for SMC.  SMC also has 40% of their student body eligible for waivers from fees as opposed to most California Community colleges that se approximately 60% of their campus student body eligible for fee waivers.  This makes the experiment even more savory for the privatizers for if the idea would work at SMC, they could then take the pilot on the road to the other 112 community colleges.

Meanwhile the attempt to continue to fully privatize the college has not abated.  The Board of Trustees, determined to force a hierarchy for classes on SMC, are now trying to see the idea using sophist rhetoric.  They call the two-tiered program, Advance the Dream when it would be more logical to entitle it, Advance the Scheme.

SMC is now facing both a Student Association election and further hearings on Advance the Dream. 

Two candidates are running for student body president.  One candidate is Ernesto Sevilla and he is a middle aged returning student who has shifted his position on privatization.  He says he now has no position but there are members of the community college who believe that Sevilla is merely a stealth candidate to stop students from maintaining power and fighting privatization. 

The other candidate is Parker Jean, a young student who is running against Advance the Dream and for a “paradigm change”.  Parker is part of a slate of students running for government on the platform of engaging in community building, bringing a political consciousness to SMC and encouraging environmental awareness.

On May 30^th, the night before May Day, students slept outside on the campus lawn to protest privatization and Advance the Dream.  The administration, hearing of the camp-out, spread manure on the lawn and made sure the sprinkler system delivered a nice dose of water for the students’ overnight. 

SMC is potential occupied territory for for-profit colleges

I was fortunate enough to be invited by current Student Body President, Harrison Will to attend the college on May Day, for events planned to raise political awareness.

When I arrived at the campus I entered the main entrance and was greeted with a job’s fair.  Tables were lined on each side of the walkway and as I entered it was like entering a corporate and security state Mausch Pit.  The FBI had recruitment tables; the military was present with tables and brochures.  Merrill-Lynch representatives dressed like Men in Black, with shades manned tables for the sleazy corporation. 

Eager students, many of them fearful they may never work, lingered by the sides of tables asking for information.  But there is no employment.  The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age in the United States increased from 34.7 to 40.5 percent between February and March 2012; while the “not seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 27.5 to 30.5 percent during the same period, according to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In addition, the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 21.3 to 22.5 percent between February and March 2012; while the official jobless rate for all U.S. workers between the ages of 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 23.8 to 25 percent during the same period (http://wherechangeobama.blogspot.com/2012/04/black-youth-unemployment-rate-increases.html).

Students form General Assembly: The Student Organizing Committee

A General Assembly of about forty or more students was held on May Day and students sat in breakout groups to discuss Advance the Dream and other educational issues.  This was organized by the Student Organizing Committee, a student forme3d group on campus.  The break-out groups reconstituted themselves after an hour into a larger general assembly where students reported the discussions they had.  Many students spoke of the inability they have of developing their full potential for they must work part time or often full time and find they are tired from lack of sleep and irregular eating habits.  Other students spoke of exorbitant rent or the fact they cannot get housing.  One student told me that he shared a two bedroom apartment in Santa Monica where four students occupied the residence.  Two students to each room slept on the floor for the cost of $650 per student.

Capitalism has now meant that students cannot get an education, they cannot get job, they cannot get housing and they are left on the side of the road mired in non-dischargeable debt.

Police occupation on campus palpable

The campus appears like an armed camp.  Throughout the campus there were uniform police walking in pairs or in fours.  They seemed to be everywhere and Harrison wills told me that the night of the campout, police were positioned on the roof of the campus.  Clearly police presence is the norm at SMC as our video surveillance cameras.  Posted alongside buildings and within them are notices in the form of plaques informing students they are under 24 hour constant video.

Intimidation and fear seem to ‘occupy’ the campus and many students told me that they felt they were under direct surveillance and even thought that their phones might be monitored.  Advance the Dream is being pushed from everyone from members of the ACLU, the college president and of course the for-profit colleges.

The Student Newspaper taken over by for-profit college ads

The SMC student newspaper is called the ‘Corsair’.  The Corsair is not owned by the corporatized campus.  Part of the revenue of the college comes from full or partially full page ads in the college paper from for-profit colleges like National University, DeVry and others.  These colleges have now taken over the revenue stream for the paper.

I have recently requested information about the paper (under the California Public Records Act) about its ownership and which colleges pay to advert5ise in the paper and how much is being paid for advertisements for the years of 2010, 2011 and 2012.

The Corsair also runs ‘college News stands’.  These are marquee stands that advertise by for-profit colleges.  They are all over campus and stand out like corporate bill boards.

What was amazing is that when I spoke to one of the student managing editors at the paper, he seemed to have no problem with for-profit colleges providing ads for a community college paper.  He defended the practice as ‘a revenue necessity’ and said anyone could advertise with the paper.  The presence of privatization seems to run so deep it is hardly even ‘seen’ by many students who attend the SMC.

Clearly the for-profit colleges know that students cannot get classes they need to graduate or transfer.  This is why they advertise, to sell education as a commodity to students who cannot otherwise get it publicly.  For a community college to allow these for profit predatory colleges to advertise so vividly and openly at a public college is testimony to the fact that privatization is being embraced by many forces on campus.

SMC administration committed to an access hierarchy

The administration of SMC is committed to an access hierarchy and privatization.  This is due to the fact as highly paid administrators and chummy Trustees they see their positions and power threatened if they do not make a deal with the forces of privatization.  This is what poses as invertebrate leadership at community colleges through California and throughout the nation.  It must stop.

Already the student cafeteria is privatized, the student garden was contracted out to privatizd forces for $250,000 when students requested they be allowed to build the garden, and many other services at the college have ben contracted out leaving only a public college in name only. 

Even the logo for the college has been changed for the cost of $110,000 to reflect the creeping corporatization of the college.  More insidious, is that the word “community” was taken out of the title “Santa Monica Community College” reflecting the fact that the coordinating class of highly paid administrators and corporate forces prefer the new ethics and philosophy of Ayn Rand and go-it-alone individualism than they do a philosophy of student/faculty solidarity, appreciation or diversity, participation in power, and equity in opportunity. 

Students at the college have told me that they are devoted to the struggle to protect SMC from the forces of further privatization.  They are busy conducting teach-ins to educate themselves about how their campus has served as a host for privatized forces.

May 12^th meeting formed to stop the privatization of community colleges

The good news is that concerned citizens, teachers, students and others are committed to standing up against the for-profit colleges and privatization.  A meeting to begin to develop strategies to stop the privatization of community colleges is scheduled for May 12^th in San Francisco.

It is essential that the privatization of education be seen as a package deal – from K-university.  Those parties working to fight off privatization in K-12 are highly encouraged to attend to ally their interests with those of us concerned about the privatization of community colleges, state colleges, the UC system and all forms of higher education.  The struggle is the same, the forces identical.

Called for by Students and Faculty from city College of San Francisco

112 Community Colleges serving 260,000 students in the State of California

Join us to discuss:

 • The Student Success Act (a series of legislative and regulation changes that will ration CCC education)

• The formation of a statewide student union

• Neoliberalism and student struggles around the world

Together we will build a statewide coalition of students, faculty and workers from California Community Colleges to assert our right to public higher education.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

9:00am to 5:00pm

CCSF Mission Campus
Valencia St., Between 22 and 23rd, San Francisco

Please register for this event at http://kccc.eventbrite.com/

info: CCSF Mission

Campus is accessible and public transportation available 24th St. BART, and MUNI lines 12,14, 14L, 48, 49, & 67.

When things don’t work out, doing business with Murdoch can be the kiss of death.

No matter how hard you try, how loyal you are, if something goes wrong, you can be sure it will be your fault.

Reporting has failed to lay the proper foundation for understanding Rupert Murdoch’s remarkable testimony before the Leveson Inquiry in London and his behavior of late.

Rupert Murdoch is a nihilist.

Murdoch’s television outlets in the United States stoked the fires for the 2003 invasion of Iraq based on outrageous misrepresentations like the idea that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The war cost tens of thousands of dead and seriously injured U.S. soldiers, several hundred thousand dead Iraqi civilians, and $3 trillion. (Image: acb)

Last summer, Murdoch went full throttle to support Republicans in the U.S. Congress as they fabricated a debt ceiling crisis that seriously damaged the credit rating of the United States of America.

Murdoch’s support of the Tea Party created an utterly irrational voice in U.S. politics that prevents even the most modest necessary reforms. Created by right wing lobbyists, this pseudo party blocks every vital project, from reviving the economy to an effective, coordinated response to the crisis created by climate change.

In the nations occupied by his multinational media empire Murdoch takes the path of maximum damage to the public and governance.

It was appropriate for the House of Common’s culture, media, and sport committee to find Rupert Murdoch ‘not fit’ to lead major international company (May 1).

Where were they and the majority in Parliament over the past three decades while Murdoch exceeded all limits or propriety and civility, trashed the political system in Great Britain and elsewhere, and dragged down the level of public dialog and governance to record lows?

Called to account by the Leveson Inquiry

The Leveson Inquiry (the inquiry) was established on July 13, 2011, just nine days after the Guardian’s Nick Davies broke the story of Murdoch’s tabloid News of the World hacking the voice mail of deceased kidnap victim Millie Dowler. Prime Minister David Cameron had no choice but to bow to a furious public and appoint an inquiry.

Headed by the distinguished jurist Lord Justice Brian Leveson, the inquiry is examining “the culture, practices and ethics of the media.” It seeks to answer the question “Who guards the guardians?” The inquiry began hearing testimony in November 2011.

It was just last summer that Rupert and son James testified confidently before a House of Commons committee. The Murdoch’s seemed in control of the MPs, many of whom had spent years groveling before Murdoch and his News Corporation media executives.

Last week’s Leveson Inquiry hearings were entirely different. Father and son Murdoch were questioned for hours by a professional prosecutor. Unlike the July 2011 appearance at the House of Commons committee, their testimony was integrated with substantial evidence, carefully gathered and presented to the public before the hearing. The Leveson Inquiry produced a 160-page pdf of emails featuring Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, and Frederic Michel, News Corporation’s ubiquitous lobbyist.

What did we learn about Murdoch’s treatment of the British people and system of government?

The high points were Murdoch’s show of contempt for the political process and of his hyper focus on obtaining approval for the acquisition of remaining shares of the BSkyB (Sky) pay TV network. News Corporation already owned a controlling interest in Sky, 39%. (For the importance of the Sky acquisition, see Rupert watch – signaling the end, Michael Collins).

Contempt for the political process

Murdoch installs and topples British governments at his discretion using the power of his media properties. Despite steadfast support for PM Tony Blair and New Labour for over a decade, Murdoch switched his allegiance to David Cameron’s Conservative Party in 2010. That change was a major factor in the defeat of Blair’s successor, then-PM Gordon Brown.

David Cameron’s public courtship of Murdoch was without shame. In May 2007, as Conservative opposition leader, the future PM hired Andy Coulson as Conservative Party communications director at the suggestion of Rebekah Brooks, a Murdoch insider and executive. Coulson was former News of the World editor who was up to his neck in phone hacking, about which he misled Parliament’s early inquiries. (Guardian timeline)

In November 2008, Cameron wrote a column for Murdoch’s favorite tabloid, The Sun, attacking BBC’s leadership and its licensing fee. He said, “It’s become bloated with many of its executives overpaid.” He also insisted on reduction of the fee, a move that would curtail BBC revenues and the network’s ability to compete with Murdoch’s media proerties.

A few month later, in July 2009, Cameron gave a major policy speech in which he set his sights on Murdoch’s number one regulatory nemesis, Ofcom, the British media regulatory agency. Cameron signaled to Murdoch what would happen to Ofcom and the identity of the Conservative MP likely to become secretary of culture, media, and sport.

“Jeremy Hunt has concluded that OFCOM currently has many other responsibilities that are matters of public policy.

“So with a Conservative Government, OFCOM as we know it will cease to exist.”

The attack on BBC and plan to strip Ofcom of its powers, placing them in the hands of a sympathetic cabinet secretary (“Jeremy Hunt has concluded”) were Cameron’s way of saying that he would play ball with the head of News Corporation. It was part of Cameron’s public audition for a role as a highly placed lackey.

Mr. Hunt made a fateful visit to News Corporation headquarters in New York City in August, 2009. He said he spent five days studying local television. Last week Murdoch testified that at this time he and son James were fine tuning the decision to buy the remainder of Sky shares.

Did Hunt indicate that a Cameron government would green light the Sky acquisition at the New York meeting?

Shortly after Hunt’s mission, James Murdoch, then chairman of Sky, met with Cameron, promising Murdoch support for Cameron’s bid to become prime minister. Cameron did become prime minister after he formed a coalition government in May 2010. He appointed Hunt secretary of culture, tried to pair back Ofcom, and froze BBC’s licensing fee for several years. As inquiry evidence showed, Hunt delivered on the biggest action item — support for News Corporations acquisition of the remaining shares of Sky that it didn’t already own.

Extensive email evidence shows that after Cameron assumed power, a robust back channel opened up between News Corporation’s lobbyist, Frederic Michel, and Hunt’s man at Culture, Media and Sport, Adam Smith.

The incriminating emails start in June 2010 and run through February 2011. Smith provided a blow-by-blow description of Hunt’s efforts as well as previews of upcoming decisions. Michel fed Smith instructions and got confirmation when they were implemented.

Fast forward — April 29, 2012. The Independent ran this headline:

Exclusive: Hunt on the brink as he is accused of misleading Parliament

From evidence and testimony by Rupert and James Murdoch last week, it is abundantly clear that Hunt concealed his agent relationship on behalf of News Corporation. The culture secretary withheld evidence from Parliament as illustrated by the emails presented before the Leveson Inquiry. Those emails were not in his submission to Parliament. Nevertheless, they exist.

PM Cameron is also in hot water for not appointing an independent investigation of Hunt. After the testimony and evidence of last week’s hearings, there is zero doubt that Hunt is a bad actor. The worse he looks, the more pressure will mount on Cameron to justify his failure to investigate Hunt’s failures.

Fly too close to the media Sun King and your wings melt, then you crash and burn.

Cameron’s kiss of death

Jeremy Hunt’s position is simply indefensible. He withheld evidence in his possession, evidence critical to Parliament’s responsibilities. The evidence (emails) showed up at the inquiry last week.

When the evidence of Hunt’s agent role for Murdoch came out last week, Hunt appealed to Lord Justice Leveson for an earlier appearance at the inquiry to clear his name sooner. The inquiry issued a statement saying that “in the interests of fairness to all” there would be no change in the schedule. Why? Because the inquiry is not about ministerial conduct, Hunt’s or that of any other Cameron minister.

As clear as this statement from the Leveson Inquiry was, Cameron continues to insist that the inquiry is the best forum to evaluate Hunt’s actions. This signals the beginning of the end for Cameron. He’s proposing a solution for the Hunt investigation that is outside the rules of Parliament in a forum that has rejected him. Upon closer examination, existing evidence will lead to even stronger condemnation of Hunt’s behavior. Any new materials produced by the inquiry will bury him.

Where will that leave Cameron?

Finished!

Doing business with Rupert Murdoch is the kiss of death.

END

This article may be reproduced with attribution of authorship and a link to this article.

The Money Party

Addendum: Smoking emoticon ?

This interesting exchange occurred during testimony by James Murdoch under questioning by Queens Council (QC) Robert Jay last week (Afternoon hearing, James Murdoch, April 24). QC Jay noted that the email (below) from News Corporation lobbyist Frederic Michel to James indicated that “absolutely illegal” behavior was employed to get government plans regarding the Sky acquisition. James brushed this off with a smile claiming that the greater than symbol and explanation point indicated that “it’s a joke.”

Q. Robert Jay, QC: Look at the email on page 54, 01695, in the middle of the page, January, Mr Michel to you: (below)

Leveson Inquiry, Evidence, Rupert Murdoch, Exhibit-KRM-18.pdf
Video: James Murdoch, Part 3, 54:00 Transcripts: Page 39-40; pdf page 10

A. James Murdoch: I thought it was a joke. I think the little — the “greater than” and the exclamation point there, or wink — it’s a joke.

Q. Robert Jay, QC: Is it? It was absolutely illegal in one sense. It’s completely unethical, wasn’t it?

What emoticon is Murdoch talking about? The email above is a copy of an email sent from Michel to James Murdoch. James Murdoch says that the symbol >! is a “joke” or indicates a “wink.” The following combinations of the supposed emoticon written by the Murdoch lobbyist don’t seem to exist: >! – >!] – ..>!]

The alternative explanation is more consistent with the behavior brought out by the Leveson Inquiry. QC Jay is correct. The text and symbols refer to “absolutely illegal” behavior. In light of that, Frederic Michel’s symbol ..>!] may be a means of exclaiming the highly illegal method of acquiring the information from the government source.

Was absolutely illegal phone hacking employed to obtain information from the offices of Jeremy Hunt or other Cameron ministers?

###