Way back in March, I wrote about how MI gov Snyder declared himself King of Michigan and would be assigning Lord Protectors. That's really a semantic difference from the reality--the legislation passed gave the governor (or a company hired by the governor) the power to declare areas (cities/towns/school districts) insolvent. And because of that, a "fiscal emergency" would occur and the governor or his agent can appoint an emergency manager to oversee all financial issues. From the legislation:
The emergency manager shall have broad powers in receivership to rectify the financial emergency and to preserve the local government's capacity to provide necessary governmental services essential to the public health, safety, and welfare. Upon the declaration of receivership and during the pendency of receivership, the governing body and the chief administrative officer of the local government may not exercise any of the powers of those offices except as may be specifically authorized in writing by the emergency manager and are subject to any conditions required by the emergency manager.
5) All of the following apply to an emergency manager:
(a) The emergency manager shall be chosen on the basis of competence.
(b) The emergency manager may but need not be a resident of the local government.
(c) The emergency manager may be an individual or firm.
(d) The emergency manager shall serve at the pleasure of the state treasurer, with the concurrence of the superintendent of public instruction if the local government is a school district.
(e) The emergency manager's compensation and reimbursement for actual and necessary expenses shall be paid by the local government and shall be set forth in a contract approved by the state treasurer.
You notice that? You pay for your new ruler! Anyway, this is the relevant bit to today's news--in Section 19 it says:
(j) Reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing contract. After meeting and conferring with the appropriate bargaining representative and, if in the emergency manager's sole discretion and judgment, a prompt and satisfactory resolution is unlikely to be obtained, reject, modify, or terminate 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement. The rejection, modification, or termination of 1 or more terms and conditions of an existing collective bargaining agreement under this subdivision is a legitimate exercise of the state's sovereign powers [...]
And, so, what has happened is that Detroit Public Schools' (new) Lord Protector, er, Emergency Manager, has slashed teacher pay by ten percent, without regard to the union contract:
A 10 percent wage reduction would mean an average of $7,300 per teacher for the teachers expected to return this fall, DFT officials have said.
[...]
Keith January, president of the AFSCME local, which has 1,400 member at DPS, including food service workers and bus attendants and aids for special needs students, said the pay cut and health care cost increase will force his employees to consider public assistance.
"It will devastate our bargaining unit, who all make less than $24,000 a year," he said.
Which will put even more people below--or even further below-- poverty limits.
Teachers, by the way, were already voluntarily giving a $250 deduction back to the district every two weeks. It is illegal for teachers to strike in MI and the president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, Keith Johnson, has not indicated that they will--but they reject this plan all the same.
Time will tell to see if this further fuels a voter referendum to get rid of the law.
It's just a lot of men and babies going yachting, all right?
Elton John and David Furnish attend to their son Zachary; Neil Patrick Harris
and David Burthka attend to their twins Gideon Scott and Harper Grace.
Straight Scoop: There is a part of me that recoils with distaste at such displays of wealth and privilege, and even though that part of me is kinda barfing, the part of me that is Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain cannot stop laughing at how TOTALLY PISSED every homobigot who sees those pictures is going to be.
LOOK AT ALL THESE RADICAL GAY MEN RAISING RADICAL GAY BABIES!!! JUST LOOK AT THEM!!! IT'S THE END OF AMERICA!!!!!!1!!eleventy!!!!1!
I'm thinking about Maud today, because it's her birthday.
I miss her. I still miss her all the time, especially when I'm looking at an old thread and see her comments, her gloriously verbose comments, or recall a piece she wrote in the process of writing something new. I miss her wicked humor, her intellect, her compassion, her vast talent for teasing out an important idea.
But mostly I just miss her fundamental decency. She was a great broad.
"There are times when you must speak, not because you are going to change the other person, but because if you don't speak, they have changed you."—Mary Quinn, aka Maud.
Texas Governor and GOP Presidential Candidate and Total Nightmare Rick Perry will be hosting a Christian prayer-fest called "The Response" this weekend in Houston, "where participants will ask for divine help to overcome America's myriad problems."
I'm guessing one of those "problems" is not the fact that a Christian Supremacist dipsack like Rick Perry is considered a viable candidate in a secular nation.
Anyway!
"A historic crisis facing our nation and threatening our future demands a historic response from the church," Perry said in a video recorded to promote the event. "We must, as a people, return to the faith and hope of our fathers. The ancient paths of great men were blazed in prayer - the humility of the truly great men of history was revealed in their recognition of the power and might of Jesus to save all who call on His great name."
You know what goes great with the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ...? Testosterone. Lots and lots of testosterone.
In all seriousness, when non-Christians—and liberal Christians—object to these sorts of aggressive displays of conservative Christianity, conservative Christian leaders tend to frame that criticism as a rejection of Christianity, or religion, full-stop. And, you know, sometimes that's true: There are certain instances in which Christianity is simply inappropriate in the public sphere in a secular nation.
But, a lot more often, it's mostly (or entirely) about the precise flavor of the Christianity being celebrated—and frequently framed as the One True Christianity. Rick Perry's Party is some real male-centric, heterocentric, Patriarchal, small-minded shit, and it's not remotely indicative of the pluralistic, inclusive, egalitarian ideology that anyone who wants to be the leader of a diverse, multicultural nation needs to have to be fair and effective.
That ain't about God in Heaven; that's about being a decent human in this very earthly place.
Luckily, "The Response" will probably be a flop.
For Perry, "The Response" is not without its risks. According to the Associated Press, only 8,000 of the 71,500 seats at the stadium hosting the event have been booked, creating a potentially embarrassing situation if attendance is low. Some of the attending religious leaders have expressed views that may not play well for a national audience -- for example, one pastor participating in the event has condemned the Statue of Liberty as a "demonic idol" and "false goddess" sent to turn Americans away from religion.
But the rewards are just as clear: if Perry can steal some of Michele Bachmann's magic with social conservatives while attracting a healthy portion of establishment GOP voters he could be a formidable challenger to Mitt Romney in any number of states. "The Response" will be his best chance to make a splash with Christian voters ahead of a possible presidential announcement later the same month.
As President Barack Obama once again pivots to focus on economic growth, Press Secretary Jay Carney declared Thursday that "the White House doesn't create jobs."
...Carney listed legislative priorities the president believes will create jobs, including an infrastructure bank, the passage of free trade agreements, and tax cuts. But he would not say what was being done to further those goals while Congress takes a month-long vacation.
"The White House doesn't create jobs," Carney said, adding "the government, together — White House, Congress — creates policies that allow for greater job creation."
Asked whether the White House could do more, Carney said "there is no silver bullet" to creating jobs — but he didn't answer the question.
It's true that the White House does not and cannot create jobs on its own, but, I dunno, in the absence of a series of insistent requests for revenue for robust job-creation programs, e.g. infrastructure reinvestment, and the absence of repeated entanglements with House Republicans denying those requests, it seems a little, well, peevish to retort that the White House doesn't create jobs when asked what the White House is doing to create jobs.
I don't think anyone's expecting the President to wave a magic wand and poof three million jobs into existence, but I do think there's some rather reasonable expectation that there be more focus on job creation and more support for economic policies that stand a snowball's chance of creating jobs, as opposed to being exceedingly likely to result in deeper unemployment.
I am a huge nerd for documentaries, and will watch a documentary film on just about any subject imaginable, though people-centered docs are generally my favorites.
Grey Gardens, which I love, was the first to come to mind, but my all-time favorite is probably the 1992 Ron Fricke (with Mark Magidson) film Baraka, which I believe is even better than his possibly more well-known Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke invented a camera specifically to make the film, which was shot across 24 countries in 14 months and was one of the last films shot in the TODD-AO 70mm format.
Baraka, which takes its name from an ancient Sufi word translated as "a blessing, or as the breath, or essence, of life from which the evolutionary process unfolds" (and is also the root of President Obama's first name), is the story of our planet, and its breathtaking beauty, and its amazing people, and the things we have created, and the destruction we have wrought. It has no dialogue; just a score comprised of music and song and natural sounds, and it is as close a thing to hymns as music gets for someone like me—the hum of the world and the people in it.
I first saw in the theater about fifteen years ago now; I walked in not knowing what to expect of a film which was described by friends who recommended it as stunning, poetic, life-changing. It was all of those things.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton answers a question during a joint press conference with Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird State Department in Washington, DC, on August 4, 2011. Clinton urged the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab militants to stop blocking aid to famine-hit areas of Somalia and allow it to reach scores of starving people. Clinton said during it was tragic that the Shebab militants were preventing assistance from reaching the most vulnerable, children, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Let me just underline, in case you have not been following this story, how serious the issue is: Almost 30,000 children under the age of 5 have died in Somalia because of the famine, which is being complicated by militants' thievery. Aid organizations are having to serve "wet food," already-prepared meals, soup-kitchen style, because sending people away with dry food puts them at risk for violence by militants who want to stock up on non-perishables.
This is a dire global emergency, and it is incredibly important that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is speaking not only about the famine, but about the terrorism exacerbating the food insecurity.
It's not incidental that wire services continually publish pictures of Clinton caught making funny faces mid-sentence in some childish attempt to mock and discredit her, especially when attached to stories like this one. She is one of the most famous and influential women in the world, who chooses to use her extraordinary platform to speak on behalf of other women, who are, with children, disproportionately affected by famines.
To treat her like some silly bim is not merely to say, "What she says does not matter," but also to tacitly endorse the message that women do not matter.
Congressional leaders struck a deal on Thursday to resolve a partisan dispute and end a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration that has halted airport projects and threatened thousands of jobs.
The standoff, which began on July 22, has centered on partisan differences over full funding of the agency through the middle of next month.
Because of the disruption, certain airline ticket taxes were not collected, leaving a huge hole in government revenues for aviation programs.
"I am pleased to announce that we have been able to broker a bipartisan compromise between the House and the Senate," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement.
Reid said the compromise did not resolve key differences that held up the stopgap funding legislation, leaving contentious issues until lawmakers return from recess in early September.
Back in April, I wrote about Chrissy Lee Polis, a trans woman who was attacked and beaten at a McDonald's in the Baltimore suburbs by two teenage young women, ages 14 and 18.
Today, the elder of the two, now 19, pleaded guilty to to one court of first-degree assault and one count of a hate crime.
Prosecutors expect to seek a prison term of five years when [Teonna Monae Brown] is sentenced next month.
The girl who was charged as a juvenile in the same attack admitted her role in juvenile court on July 1 and was committed to a locked facility, [Baltimore County State's Attorney Scott Shellenberger] said.
This was an excellent application of a hate crimes statute. I fervently hope that the two young women who attacked Polis will, during their incarceration, have access to rehabilitative therapy that challenges and ultimately changes their transphobia, which would be comprehensive justice for Chrissy.
Ethically bereft celebrity toad and CNN host Piers Morgan can't seem to catch a break in the phone-hacking scandal engulfing the cesspool that is News International.
In July, British tabloid News of the World was found to have illegally hacked into the voicemail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl who disappeared in 2002. After word got out, Rupert Murdoch shut down the 168-year-old newspaper and fired its employees.
The move didn't stop increasing scrutiny of Murdoch, however, who was called to testify before Parliament with his son about what he knew. In the meantime, police have identified a potential 4,000 Murdoch victims of voicemail hacking.
On this side of the pond, CNN's Morgan — a former editor of News of the World and the Daily Mirror, who can apparently "take a punch" — has repeatedly maintained his innocence, despite his history of bragging about getting inside information from voicemail break-ins.
The latest revelation — after Morgan's whining denials of any wrongdoing — comes from Heather Mills, according to a BBC article. In it, she recounts how a Mirror Group Newspapers employee (I can't seem to type the word "journalist" anywhere near Morgan's name) "started quoting verbatim" voicemail left for her by then-boyfriend Sir Paul McCartney.
"At one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone," he wrote.
"It was heartbreaking," Mr Morgan wrote. "The couple had clearly had a tiff, Heather had fled to India, and Paul was pleading with her to come back. He sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang 'We Can Work It Out' into the answer phone."
Mills has joined a growing chorus of outraged Brits looking for the CNN host to come home and answer some questions about his role in any illicit eavesdropping.
Morgan, for his part, is doing a great job indicting himself.
Disingenuously, Morgan parses his proclamations of innocence like a two-bit lawyer: "For the record, in my time at the News of the World and the Mirror, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, or published any stories based on the hacking of a phone,” he said on CNN, which must be thrilled there is no Truth In Advertising Law in the United States.
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
In case you are concerned about inadvertently reading rubbish produced by the tainted Murdoch properties, there is now a browser toolbar to warn us about such infection.
"We just passed a bill—$1.2 trillion in cuts. If it were about reducing the deficit, the statement has been made about seriousness to do that. This isn't about that. This isn't about reducing the deficit; it's about destroying the public space. It's about destroying federal involvement in education, clean air, clean water, food safety, public safety. You name it, they're there to diminish it, destroy it."—House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, on the goal of her Republican colleagues in Congress.
Sign Think Progress' open letter to Pelosi requesting that her appointees to the super committee insist on new revenues and a jobs creation program here.
$761 million: Tiffany's first-quarter sales, up 20% from the last quarter of 2010. (And that's just Newt Gingrich's accounts! *rimshot*) I found this delightful tidbit in a New York Times article headlined: Even Marked Up, Luxury Goods Fly Off Shelves. It's about how the sales of luxury goods are recovering. Phew!
I can't wait for the trickle-down so I can buy my yacht!
Shaker Daniel emailed me about this letter, left by a little girl explaining why she was going to run away from home (don't worry; she's fine):
"I am runing away becas you think I farted when I dident. PS You are mean."
That is obviously the greatest. It is also totes one of those times that a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, whomever has to totally stifle one's laughter because even though something is self-evidently hilarious to an adult, it is THE MOST HORRIBLE THING EVARRRR!!!!eleventy!!1! to a child.
Like when I came home absolutely beside myself because another kid from the neighborhood had called me a "bow-head." MamaShakes, who did a pretty amazing job of controlling the gales of laughter that were fighting to come pouring out of her, asked me what a "bow-head" even is, to which I responded with the irate indignation of an aggrieved 8-year-old, "I DON'T KNOW BUT IF RENEE SAID IT IT IS HAS TO BE BAD!"
Which also puts me in mind of this great bit by Brian Regan:
At the park, we saw another family; they had like a 5-year-old boy, holding a helium balloon. And he accidentally let go of his balloon. The boy started crying, and his parents are like, "Why are you crying? It's a balloon. We'll get you another one."
I'm like: Jeepers creepers, folks. Sometimes I don't think adults try hard enough, you know, to understand what kids are going through. You know, if you want to relate to what he's going through, imagine if you took your wallet out and it just started floating away... [mimes desperately reaching for wallet as it floats away] "AHHHHHHHHHH!"
[mocking parents who dismissed their son] "Why are you acting like that? It's a wallet. We'll get you another one."
[mimes panicking and pointing up to wallet in sky] "BUT I WANT THAT ONE!"
The city council of South America's biggest city has adopted legislation calling for a Heterosexual Pride Day to be celebrated on the third Sunday of each December.
The Brazilian Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Association criticized the legislation, saying it could provoke homophobic violence.
"How many LGBTs will be attacked because of the message that only heterosexuality makes someone a moral person and a good citizen," the association said in a statement.
In a recent report, the gay rights group Grupo Gay da Bahia said 260 gays* were murdered last year in Brazil, up 113 percent from five years earlier.
Wow, just wow.
--
*This figure undoubtedly includes a significant number of trans* individuals who may or may not be GLB.
WASHINGTON—After months of heated negotiations and failed attempts to achieve any kind of consensus, President Obama turned 50 years old Thursday, drawing strong criticism from Republicans in Congress.
"With the host of problems this country is currently facing, the fact that our president is devoting time to the human process of aging is an affront to Americans everywhere," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who advocated a provision to keep Obama 49 at least through the fall of 2013. "To move forward unilaterally and simply begin the next year of his life without bipartisan support—is that any way to lead a country?"
According to White House officials, Obama attempted to work with Republicans right up until the Aug. 4 deadline, but was ultimately left with no choice except to turn a year older.
Real but garbage media outlet, World Net Daily—Happy birthday? (love the question mark LOL!):
How much don't we know about Barack Obama as he nears the end of his third year of White House occupation?
Well, he claims today is his 50th birthday.
Yet, incredibly, it is still only an unsubstantiated claim – and, perhaps, more suspect than ever.
This was the year Obama finally yielded to pressure, largely from me, Jerome Corsi and a handful of other Americans, to release his so-called "long-form birth certificate" – the one he had been scrupulously hiding for so long. ... When he posted an image of this document last April on the White House website, the news industry fell all over itself proclaiming that all questions about his background had now been answered.
Nonsense.
...While the media and the failed Washington political establishment would like it to just go away, that will never happen.
Not as long as I am around to sit on Obama's birthday cake.
Happy fucking birthday, Mr. President. Love, America.
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Sign Think Progress' open letter to Pelosi requesting that her appointees to the super committee insist on new revenues and a jobs creation program 
