9: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided"--Reconstruction Then, Cabinet Advocacy Now.

Lincoln's War began in 1861, ended in 1865. Before the close of the Civil War, Reconstruction had begun. Reconstruction remedied the slavery question already prohibited Constitutionally in Article 9(1) and by several other regional, state, and local laws.

Indentured servitude/slavery affected less than 700,000 people. Many of these bartered labor for room and board and farm products. 90% of these resided in 4 states. Many were illegals engaged with "slave dealers" in illegal activity.

Reconstruction produced three Consitiutional Amendments:
1865: 13th Amendment: Slavery prohibited.
1866: 14th Amendment: Former US slaves granted citizenship, including right to vote.
1870: 15th Amendment: Black Suffrage, voting rights restated.

The new nation arose from the War of Independence from Great Britain, in 1776. The US Constitution, including the three Reconstruction Admendments, was ratified by
1891. The problem was solved.

Despite Lincoln's advice to reunite the nation "with malice toward none", the legacy of the Reconstruction has been replayed regularly in the 145 years since the end of the Civil War.

The Obama legacy reflects back on where he arose. From black community organizer, to law school, to black activist in Illinois politics, Obama concentrated on black causes and demanding funding for black causes.

Like his political mentors from the 1960s, The Black Panther Party, Obama focused on racial profiling in the 1990s Illinois legislature. It is a legally expensive but empty circular argument: demand police officers make detailed racial notes about suspects, then bring lawsusits against the police department, city, county, and state governments for "racial profiling".

It is a form of the "de facto" fallacy in reasoning. If the police patrol a predominantly black neighborhood, police will stop more blacks than whites, because there are more blacks than whites in the area they patrol.

From ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)/Project Vote registration, Obama sought to redraw districts with high numbers of blacks for ease of electing black candidates, large contingency fees or commissions from a 1995 $500 million federal civil rights lawsuit settlement against the state of Illinois on behalf of ACORN/Project Vote. And Obama sought votes for his campaigns for the Illinois legislature. Obama lost money for Cook County and Illinois. In a lawsuit against Cook County Hospital and the Hebtoen Research institute, the County lost $5 million back to the federal government from Cook County Hospital and $500,000 from Hebtoen.

The Obama/Holder Department of Justice (DoJ) continues Obama's legacy of black and ethnic advocacy. The AIG/Wilmington Finance lawsuit discussed in an earlier blog
("2: Obama Accounting: Black Funding and Lawsuit Settlements") delivered a $6.1 Million dollar settlement from AIG for wholesale broker fees involving an Afro-American mortgage company, without a finding of AIG wrongdoing. DoJ demanded $1 Million go to an "approved" ACORN-type financial literacy and credit counselling company.

Black and ethnic advocacy has become DoJ policy. In 2009, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julia Fernandez stated she would not support any enforcement of federal "Motor Voter" law Section 5 which requires the state to periodically purge voter rolls of dead people, felons, illegal voters, and those who have moved out of state. Fernandez stated "We are not interested in those kind of cases. What do they have to do with helping increase minority access and turnout? We want to increase access to the ballot, not limit it." What outrageous federal encouragement of voter fraud, and possibly "stuffing the ballot box" for the Administration-supported candidate and cause.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Division Thomas Perez restates the "de facto" lawsuit approach as the "disparate impact theory": there may be no intent to discriminate but there is a difference in results". This theory has been applied to school test scores (as in "Race for the Top" funding) and mortgage lending (as in the AIG/Wilmington, DE mortgage case mentioned above). Under this theory, white residents of any city, county, or state should be able to successfully win lawsuits for disproportionate lack of cheap housing for whites in cheaper, predominantly colored inner city neighborhoods. Whites must have been denied cheap housing in those neighborhoods, otherwise at least an equal number of whites would be living there.

Thomas Perez was a former aid to the late Senator Ted Kennedy. As an ethnic activist and Councilman in Montgomery City, Maryland, Perez promoted in-state tuition funding and drivers' licenses for Hispanic and other illegals.

Obama lawyer Craig Becker, National Labor Relations Board, formerly employed by the SEIU Service Employees International Union and affiliated with the AFL-CIO, has been investigated for ethical complaints. Becker revealed insidious special interest group government bureaucratic strategies stating "major policy changes could be implemented without legislative approval".

To save the United States from being revised from within, the educated electorate will need to monitor meetings and policies of all governmental departments, a return to large news staffs sorting through voluminous government settlements and other documents. A down-sized government bureaucracy at the federal and other levels would help make this task less formidable.

The Obama/Hillary Clinton State Department has been working with local and regional "advocacy groups" termed NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to prepare the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Report. Obama's submission of the Arizona Immigration Law to the UN is a very controversial appeal for support for his anti-Arizona law position outside of the United States.

Membership in the UN Council for Human Rights (UNCHR) and the proposal for the human rights Periodic Review was rejected by the Bush Administration for including known human rights violators like Libya and China. The UNCHR policies make it easier for known human rights violator countries to join the council, than to be dismissed for human rights violations. The UNHRC could become a council of human rights violators ignoring or promoting human rights violations.

The Obama/Clinton State Department also has been in the news for advocating "Muslim outreach" by paying travel expenses for Near Ground Zero Fitness Center & Mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf to travel to and from Muslim countries.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) too deserves mention for offering Shirley Sherrod a job in "Advocacy and Outreach" after her racially offensive statements about not offering the "full force of my help" to a white farmer as Georgia Rural Director with a $2 Billion budget. USDA missed a teachable moment" about how racial respect goes both ways. Only CNN Cooper and Johns covered this and other comments by her black activist husband Charles Sherrod. On this broadcast CNN noted the $1.15 Billion "Pigford Farm" federal settlement to the Sherrods and other black farmers.

Department of Education (DoEd) Secretary Arne Duncan of the $4.3 Billion "Race to the Top" emailed over 4,000 department employees to attend Al Sharpton's counter-rally to the August 28, 2010 Glen Beck Lincoln Monument event. This raises questions of violations of The Hatch Act which forbids federal employees from participating in political campaigns, particulary those espoused by the current administration. David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute noted the email "sends a signal that activity on behalf of one side of a political debate is expected within a department. It is highly inappropriate...even in the absence of a direct threat", sic, of job loss, loss of promotion, etc. at work, for not participating.

Arne Duncan called education "the civil rights issue of our generation" thus politicizing DoEd including the "Race to the Top" and changing education funding into Black Racial Politics.

Also disappointing was Washington, DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's statement that Beck's rally "would change nothing...We will move rght over you."
What most Americans understood as equal opportunity for everyone was changed into a Black Power message of "redistribution of wealth" and "transfer of power" from whites to blacks.

Obama et.al. have changed American politics into a Black Supremacist takeover of a non-racially motivated Government and, of course, the Treasury.

The financial cost of these black and ethnic advocacy programs is phenomenal, more so during a $12.9 Trillion dollar deficit. How much of the deficit is direct cost for these advocacy programs? The ethical and moral damage done by black racializing our historically democratic government, traditionally striving for fairness and impartiality, is inestimable.

Graphic: Scales and fasces, attributes of Justice, Cartari, 1647, in Dictionary of Symbolism, H Biedermann.

References: CNSNews.com, The Washington Examiner, biggovernment.com.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com for more blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com.

8: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided"--Reconstruction Then

,
The Civil War raged on. In the South, north through Virginia, to the Washington, DC capital, and beyond to Maryland, above the Mason-Dixon line to Pennsylvania, west to Louisiana, the energies, monies and lives of Americans were lost. The Union lost 360,222 men (110,000 in battle). The Confederacy lost 258,000 (94,000 in battle). At least 471,427 were wounded on both sides.

Despite the war, Lincoln won re-election in 1864. The Confederacy, army and money, was weakened. General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Confederate Army to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, VA on April 7, 1865. The Civil War was over.

Seven (7) days later on Good Friday, actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln at Ford's Theater with a single bullet wound to the head. Lincoln never regained consciousness and died the next morning on April 15, 1865.

Booth's shout "sic semper tyrannis!" ("So always to tyrants!") summarizes the irony of Lincoln's Administrations. The "Great Emancipator" freed the slaves in the rebellious Confederate states. But in his war to end slavery, Lincoln became a tyrant, violating the Constitution of the US which he fought the war to preserve. Lincoln expanded the Union Army wth the first military draft in US history, the Conscription Act of 1862. Lincoln declared martial law and suspended the Writ of Habeaus Corpus, the right of the accused to face the accuser and to know the offense of which he(/she) is accused.

Lincoln's goal was to block expansion of slavery to the North and new Western territories, and gradually, even with conpensation to the southern states, to extinguish slavery in the South by 1900.

Lincoln, Black Hawk War militia captain, postmaster, and lawyer, had re-entered politics to protest repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise forbiding slavery and to protest passage of the more limited 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act prohibiting slavery north of the 36 degree 31 minute latitude. Other earlier local laws also prohibited slavery.

The nation was new. The War of Independence from Great Britain had been won less than 100 years before in 1776. The Constitution of the United States was debated and ratified by the states between 1787 and 1791.

The North was building factories, becoming industrialized and monetarized. The South remained agrarian, land rich, cash poor. The Southern economy depended on the barter of labor to continue farming the land. Congress recognized the south depended on laborers in various conditions of "servitude". Congress prohibited slavery by 1808, penalizing slaveholders prior to 1808 in Section 9(1)...a "tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person." Congress limited "the migration or importation of such persons", to limit immigration and the entry of "illegals" into the US.

But there were conflicting goals: prohibiting slavery yet permitting expansion of the economy, particularly the labor-intensive southern farm economy. This occurred in the aftermath of the destruction of land and loss of money during the Revolutionary War, only fifty years earlier.

In the first US Census of 1790, the term "slave" was not well-defined, appearing to refer to non-family farm workers, indentured servants, and slaves. Local laws and local opinion prohibited slavery in the North. Congress banned slavery in 1808.

17.2% of American families were "Slaveholder" families. 90% of slaves resided in 3 Southern states, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and in Maryland. 603,540 of 697,624 people classified as "slaves" in the 1790 Census resided in these 4 states.

Interestingly enough, there were black as well as white slaveholders. Thomas Day was a mixed race black cabinet maker who owned 14 slaves who worked in his antebellum North Carolina furniture shop.

The Era of Reconstruction followed the Civil War, led by Lincoln's party of Republicans and Radical Republicans. The latter coalition of newly emancipated and other blacks, northern "Carpetbaggers", and their southern collaborators the "Scalawags", molded the re-admitted Southern States to the will of the federal government in Washington, DC.

Emancipated coloreds and poor whites in various conditions of "servitude" were freed. The new "Freedmen" were provided schools and education, citizenship, voting rights, and protection from angry former Confederates under various military and other Reconstruction Acts through the 1860s.

In another irony of the Civil War and Reconstruction, on January 23, 1864 President Lincoln recgnized the concept of "free" labor in contract relations between "ex-slaves" and plantation owners and ordered the Army to encourage and supervise such contracts. This of course makes it dfficult to count the numbers of "freedmen" and slaves at the close of the Civil War.

Other significant Reconstruction era acts include the 3 related Amendments to the US Constitution:
1865: The 13th Amendment, Abolition of slavery.
1866: The 14th Amendment, The Civil Rights Act, US citizenship for all former slaves.
1870: The 15th Amendment, Black Suffrage.

Despite timely legal remedies 145 years ago, the issues of Reconstruction, including education for citizenship, voting rights, and equal rights under the law, repeatedly have been raised and remedied by the federal government. The Reconstruction Era policies of the Radical Republicans continue to this day, now under the Democratic Party and the Obama Administration Cabinet level Advocacy programs, to be discussed in the next blog in this series at http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com (or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com if indexing problems have not been resolved).

Photograph: 3 cent Lincoln's Gettysburg Address (Nov. 19, 1863) Stamp, 1948:
That government, of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth. (Nov. 19, 1863).
from Research Guide to American Historical Biography, R. Mussigrosso, Ed., Beacham Publishing, W,DC: 2008.

Other references include: NPR, The World Book Encyclopedia, 20003; Encyclopedia of American biography, JA Gararaty; Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, DS & JT Heidler; Historical Dictionary of the Civil War and Reconstruction, WL Richter.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to request a copy of this or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogpot.com.

7: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided" - Obamacare v. 36 States

"A house divided against itself cannot stand". (Abraham Lincoln, 1858, Old State Capitol, Springfield, IL)

Barack Obama echoed the words of Abraham Lincoln when announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States on February 10, 2007.

There are differences. Lincoln, a Republican, campaigning for IL Senator to the US Congress, lost to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. In the debates with Douglas, Lincoln and his views became well-known. Lincoln's primary goal in this tumultuous time was the preservation of the United States, "the Union". His position on slavery was negotiable and pragmatic.

In the debates, Douglas identified "local control" as the key to maintaining Southern agricultural wealth. Farm wealth included slaves which aded $150-400 to the farm value and kept labor affordable in a barter economy dependent on exchanging work for room, board, and some farm products.

Two (2) years later, in 1860, Lincoln would campaign and win to become the 16th President of the US.

Those words, "A house divided", were prophetic for the new President Lincoln. Southern Democrats, believing Lincoln would be hostile to the South, began to withdraw from the USA. South Carolina adopted the Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1860 to protest Lincoln's election with only 40% of the popular vote.

By March 4, 1861, seven (7) states had seceded to form the Confederate States of America (CSA). The Confederacy attacked a Union rescue expedition at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, on April 12, 1861. The Civil War had begun.

Barack Obama's challenge to individual freedom, including each American's right to buy or not buy health care insurance also has provoked a battle over "local control", "state sovereignty" 150 years later.

Idaho began a legal challenge on March 18, 2010, before Congressional passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of March 23, 2010 (PPACA). Less than an hour after the Act was signed into law, 13 states, FL, AL, CO, ID, LA, MI, NE, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT and WA, filed a lawsuit in Pensacola, FL challenging the Act. Later 4 additional states joined the lawsuit (AZ, IN, MS, ND). VA has filed a separate lawsuit involving a recently enacted state law. In MO, a ballot initiative about exemption from Obamacare provisions has passed. At least 36 states have objected to this federal intervention into health care.

Obamacare demands each citizen buy insurance or register for the welfare medical card, Medicaid, if eligible, or be charged an IRS assessed and collected penalty.

Obamacare passes the cost of health care back to the individual and to the states. Ohio estimates budget increases of $444.00 for each of the 554,000 new welfare enrollees, $237 million dollars, during an expected budget deficit of over $8Billion dollars in the next 2-year budget.

Federal Congressional support for the Act was partisan. The Senate voted 60-39 with all Democrats and Independents voting for and all Republicans against on December 24, 2009. The Act passed in the House of Representatives by only 7 votes, 219-212 with all 178 Republicans plus 34 Democrats voting against, with 4 vacancies.

Public opinion has been largely negative. CNN polls of March 19-21, 2010 reported 59%opposed to it while 39% supported it. Bloomberg LP found only 4 of 10 supported it. Only a USA Today/Gallup poll had different results. 49% viewed it as "a good thing, while 40% viewed it "badly", wth +/- 4% error. However, senior citizens opposed Obamacare while those younger than 40 supported it.

Rasmussen Reports polled 59% opposed. After passage, 55% of Americans favored repealing Obamacare.

Rep. Steve King(IA) introduced HR 4972 to Repeal Obamacare.

Not often mentioned by Obama and the Democrats, or the media, is the IRS assessed and collected penalty for not purchasing insurance. Obama et.al. did mention penalties against businesses, employers who do not provide health care coverage benefits. However, seasoned employees will know that employer plans usually require a payroll tax deducted contribution by the employee.

Nor did Obama et.al. mention "rationed" medical care under the Obamacare plan. Obama appointed and Department of Heath & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius backed "rationed" medical care advocate Harvard Medical School Dr. Donald Berwick to be Director of Medicare and Medicaid Services.

(See 5: and 6: Obama Accounting for blogs on rationed health care and IRS penalties for the "non-compliant".)

Photgraph: Abraham Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton (left) and Major General John A. McClernard (right) following the battle of Antietam, October 3, 1862. Photograph by Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress. In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, DS Heidler & JY Heidler, Editors, ABC-Clio, California, USA, 2000.

Other references: Wikipedia, CNSNews.com, National Press Club archive video.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to request an email of http://monthlynotes.four.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff.

6: Obama Accounting: Levying Taxes & Liens Under the Pretense of "Consumer" Health Care Reform?

The pie chart to the left describes the "Federal Dollar": 47 cents of each dollar comes from individual taxpaying Americans. This is the light-blue shaded right half of the circle. An additional 35 cents also comes from individuals who pay "social insurance payroll" taxes. 82 cents of every US federal government dollar comes from individual income and payroll tax deduction taxpayers.

The underlying plan of ObamaCare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March, 2010, is to increase federal revenue with penalties, fees, and fines paid to the IRS by the individual taxpayer who does not want to buy insurance or cannot afford the insurance mandate and who does not want to risk losing home and assets to insolvency by "signing up" for the welfare medical card, Medicaid.

The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee staff recently estimated the IRS would need to hire 16,500 new agents over the next decade and spend an additional $10 Billion dollars to enforce the health care insurance mandate.

IRS representatives speaking at the National Press Club, posted by CNSNews.com, April 7, 2010, stated the IRS would work with both the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and insurance companies to investigate Americans for compliance with the insurance mandate. The IRS plans to require taxpayers to attach a "Yes/No" insurance form from their insurance provider to their annual tax return. The IRS then "will run a matching program around that". If the taxpayer doesn't have coverage, the IRS will notify the taxpayer how much is owed to the IRS for the insurance mandate penalty.

Changes in health care companies or coverage, even among those who comply, could create financial nightmares for taxpayers as the IRS seeks to maximize penalties, fees, fines, and interest for Department of Treasury/IRS revenue through health care insurance coverage issues. IRS could initiate liens and levies against taxpayer bank accounts, homes, and other assets.

Obama's promise of "universal health care" has been broken. There always has been universal "access" to health care. Every American can buy health care insurance, at regular or "high-risk" rates, or apply for the welfare medical card known as Medicaid.

Nor has Obama been "transparent" in discussing health care reform. The implication of "universal health care" as free, available to everyone, unlimited free-market state of the art and science medical care, was an empty promise enticing financially pressured voters to the polls to vote for Obama and the Democratic Party.

"Free universal health care" continues to be available only to welfare recipients. Now working and middle class Americans have been given an ultimatum to purchase health care coverage or risk the financial embarrassment of IRS levy and lien, or risk insolvency and loss of house and assets by "signing up" for welfare Medicaid.

Most working and middle class Americans who earn less than $100,000 already do have government-monitored and managed health care insurance Medicare accounts. These employees "pay in" to Medicare through the payroll tax deductions taken from their paychecks by their employers, which are to be forwarded to the federal Medicare fund. No mention is made of how these paid Medicare premiums would be credited or factored in to the insurance mandate.

The proposed change from "free market" to a vague "rationed" health care system through Medicare and Medicaid makes the insurance mandate an even less attractive health care plan to the average taxpayer as patient/client/customer.


Graphic: The US Federal Government Dollar from the World Book Encyclopedia, 2003.
Where the federal dollar comes from:
47 cents Individual income taxes,
35 cents Social insurance payroll taxes
10 cents Corporate income taxes
03 cents Excise taxes
04 cents Other

Other references: CNSNews.com, National Press Club video archives.

email mkrause@381gmail.com or mkrause54yahoo.com to request a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

5: Obama Accounting: Why Pay Mandated Obamacare Insurance Premiums for Rationed Medical Care?

Barack Obama has selected Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Donald Berwick, as Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency which manages Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Berwick is an unconfirmed "recess" appointee, appointed without the usual Senate confirmation.

Dr. Berwick, also CEO of Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is a very aggressive opponent of free-market medicine. He advocated rationed care in Great Britain. Berwick praises the socialized British government-run health care system for spending only 9% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on rationed health care, rather than the current 17% of GDP spent in the United States.

Kathleen Sebelius, Cabinet Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), gave full support to Dr. Berwick as the "right leader at this time" for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid in a videotaped question and answer session at the National Press Club posted May 26, 2010.

ObamaCare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March, 2010), mandates insurance premiums to be paid by taxpayers earning above the poverty level. Americans below the poverty level must register for Welfare medical care, Medicaid. Americans will be required to provide "proof of insurance" or pay IRS fees, fines, and penalties for "non-compliance".

Why mandate insurance premiums for anyone in a proposed rationed health care system? Who will receive the mandated insurance premiums or the services paid for by these premiums in a rationed health care system? What care will be available under a rationed health care system? Was rationing covered in the over 2,000 page Obamacare Act voted on by Congress? Is this a late, but very significant Obama Administration modification?

Medicare is a "pay-in" plan for workers deducted from payroll checks by employers for payment to the federal "Medicare" account for that employee, to be available to that employee when eligible as a "senior citizen". Over 40 million Americans now participate in Medicare.

Medicaid is the welfare medical card, providing over 30 million welfare recipients with free medical care. Medicaid is referred to as "insurance", a Federal Guaranty Insurance Corporation-type plan, the stated purpose of which is to repay medical centers and providers for caring for welfare patients. Medicaid in the past made projected payment plans of only 10-11% of health care expenses incurred at "usual, reasonable" rates. This creates enormous losses for welfare medical centers and providers.

This is another Democratic Party "redistribution of wealth" plan, a socialist term as startling in American politics now, as when first uttered by former President William J. Clinton. Who is the wealth to be redistributed to?

The obvious possible answer is to the welfare population, currently covered under Medicaid. The "pay-in" Medicare premiums, because of the combination of "pay-in" health insurance with "free Medicaid", are used to subsidize welfare health care. This obscures an accounting of the actual cost of providing Medicaid welfare health care. How much does the Medicaid welfare card health care cost? (Total current Health and Human Services cost $414.9 Billion.)

The less obvious possible answer is the premiums will be used to subsidize other government budget items proposed by the Obama Administration. Despite his spoken commitment to "transparency" in government, Obama has begun a process of moving funds from one department to another or involving multiple departments in a single, complex piece of legislation, obscuring the source and location of the money. Obama already has set record budget deficits, $458.6 Million in 2008 and 1.8 Trillion in 2009, doubling the national debt under Bush in 2002 from $6 Trillion to $12.9 Trillion or more.

Obama et.al. are planning to subsidize hiring a large number of IRS agents to investigate and collect penalties, fees, fines, and needed tax refunds from Americans who do not chose to buy health care insurance or become insolvent, risking loss of home and assets, by signing up for welfare.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com for a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com.

Photograph: Higggins Eye Pearlymussel, Unionidae, an endangered species of freshwater mussel since 1976, in IL, IA, MN, MO, WI, from Beacham's Guide to the Engangered Species of North America, 2001.

References: CNSNews.com. NYT Almanac 2008, 2009, 2010.

4: Obama Accounting: Trying to Make Poverty Profitable for Education?

Obama's $4.3 Billion "Race to the Top" Department of Education (DoEd) program administered by Chicago friend, DoEd Secretary Arne Duncan is a high priced federal intervention into national, state, and local education policy.

Initially there were 3 major criticisms: 1)"Race to the Top is a Charter School initiative. Charter schools create a 2nd public school system, a duplication of services in a weak economy. If you cannot educate in School 1, why start over in School 2? 2)"Race to the Top" created a competition between states and "consortia" of states for federal DoEd money. 3)What was the identified problem in school achievement, the student, teachers, or schools? How can you propose a solution if you haven't identified a problem?

The Obama DoEd money may be a "trojan horse" deployed by the Democratic Administration in the months before the primary elections. Enormous amounts of state and local educator time and energy has been devoted to the compilation of voluminous reports required for the "Race" applications. In Round One, only Delaware and Tennessee tentatively "won", $100,000 million and $500,000 million respectively. New York, Goergia, North Carolina, Ohio, Washington, DC, Illinois, Hawaii, Maryland and Rhode Island are in Round Two, filing paperwork for the "Race" funds.

Published Federal press releases of state "winners" have not mentioned that these are preliminary awards and amounts, pending review of an additional application by November. Applications are further complicated by which school districts and charter schools choose to "sign on" to the state application. These are not uniform awards to the states or to schools within the states by population or other criteria.

Despite generating huge volumes of data for government data entry technicians, it is not clear how any actual distribution of funds could occur.

DoEd Secretary Arne Duncan notes "the creativity and innovation in each of these applications is breathtaking", relinquishing the concept of standards.

The New York Daily News reports New York has tentatively been awarded $240 million of $700 million to be disbursed over 4 years in Round Two. New York goals would include creating testing standards for math and reading for 3rd - 8th grades and High School which are "rigorous, globally competitive, and consistent". New York has not made a final decision to continue the application for these funds.

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reports Ohio has been tentatively awarded $400 million, $29.8 million for Cuyahoga County. The Ohio Education Department interprets the amounts as a reform effort determined by the number of students in low-income families. This is hard to reconcile with achievement criteria, based on student and school performance data on OH standardized tests.

Schools at the highest level of achievement are held to that standard for a 2-year period, from which they fall by not achieving more. If you have an "A", your "A" will fall to "B" for not raising above the "A". Under this interpretation, the best students at the best schools probably would not receive funding, until they fail. So the best must "Race to the Bottom" to get the most "Race to the Top" funding.

In OH "no teacher will be left behind". The OH goal is to train teachers in instructional strategies that vary by building. Marilyn Tromer, OH State Superintendent, said the money "will be used to bring more tools and services to OH teachers so they can better track their students' achievement". Other OH goals include improving graduation rate by 0.5%, halving the gap between minority and white student graduation rates and test scores, and halving the gap between OH and the best performing states in national math and reading assessments.

In New Jersey, the "Race to the Top" has been divisive. Governor Chris Christie fired his Education Commissioner for early "Round" application errors.

There is a minimum $100,000 application amount for state school districts which apply to "Race to the Top". Government analysts and penny counters must have been off the day Obama introduced this legislation to Congress. Why appropriate more money if less will do? The "Race to the Top" terms resemble commission-based collateral business loan applications.

There is another question. With a $1.5 trillion dollar federal deficit, where is the loan money coming from? US students not able to learn under normal conditions may not be able to study under the pressure of a foreign, particularly United Arab Emirate (UAE), lien against the schoolhouse, their teachers, themselves or their parents.

"Save the little red schoolhouse!"

Photos: Top--One-room country schools were common in the US in the 1800's. One teacher taught all grades. Teaching methods stressed memorization and discipline.
Next--1930's Progressive Education teachers rejected the formal teaching methods of the 1800's. Pupils learned about community life by building a miniature town.
(The World Book Encyclopedia, 2003)

Other references include: The New York Daily News, The (Cleveland, OH) Plain Dealer.

Email mkrause54@yahoo.com or mkrause381@gmail.com for a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com (when indexed) or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

3: Obama Accounting: Green as in Clean Energy or Money, Money, Money?

Obama White House website observers noted the absence of Obama Clean Energy funding information around August 23, 2010. Why would Obama scrub his website clean of popular environmental projects?

The $1.5 Billion Obama Department of Energy (DoE) Fisker Automotive electric hybrid grants and loans may be one reason why. The February 17, 2010 Wall Street Journal (WSJ) featured the most recent readily available information about Fisker hybrid cars, noting "Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large US Loan".

Henrik Fisker, a California custom car designer, gained automotive experience at BMW and Aston Martin. In 2007, Henrik worked for Tesla, a "start-up" electric hybrid California automotive company, under a $565 million DoE grant for the proposed Tesla $109,000 roadster.

Henrik Fisker left Tesla to join Barney Koehler of "Fisker Coachbuilder". The 10/23/2009 WSJ reported Koehler became co-founder and COO of Fisker Automotive. Koehler's Fisker Coachbuilder redesigned a General Motors (GM) door handle for the proposed Fisker "Karma" model.

=========================================
That's FisKer, not FisHer (Coachbuilder).
=========================================

In April, 2008, Tesla investors filed against Henrik Fisker alleging stolen technology used to develop the "Fisker Karma". Tesla claimed the Tesla "Model S" design by Koehler of "Fisker Coachbuilder" was substandard and that Fisker Automotive diverted the best ideas to the "Fisker Karma".

In September, 2009, DoE gave Fisker Automotive a $529 million grant. An additional $500 million DoE loan was made to the Fisker Automotive "start-up".

Congress established a $25 billion fund under DoE Section 136 Energy Independence Act of 2007 for Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM) in 2007for grants and direct loans to automotive and automobile part manufacturers for the cost of re-equipping and establishing manufacturing facilities in the US to produce advanced technology vehicles or qualified components and for associated engineering integration costs.

There are 2 proposed Fisker models, the "Karma" and the Project NINA "Kx". The Kx is a $39,000-$48,000 car due on the market by 2012.

Fisker's Karma originally was slated to be manufactured in Valmet, Finland. However, the DoE grant/direct loan program specifies a US location.

DoE project deadlines approached. Fisker now knew if there was no site, the award was lost, and the whole company was out of business.

Kyle Braden, VP Real Estate, and Mike Deighan, VP Marketing Motor Liquidators Co. (MLC) became property liquidators in the General Motors (GM) bankruptcy/bailout plan. MLC said "GM left behind" several old facilities in the bankruptcy, particularly the Wilmington, DE (Delaware) Boxwood Rd. plant.

MLC, involved in restructuring GM properties and assets also were investors in New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (NUMMI), a Fremont, CA company run by Kunihiko Oguka, whom they mentioned in early negotiations for a CA site for Fisker Automotive. MLC, owner/managers of the GM bankruptcy plants, and Linda Lovelace, of Washington, DC Wellford Energy Advisor representative for Fisker Automotive, discussed possible plans with CA Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger and CA Senator Barbara Boxer, for a site for engineering work to complete the first Fisker car, the Karma. Other possible former GM manufacturing sites included plants in Michigan and Ohio.

Fisker decided on the Wilmington, DE GM Boxwood Rd. plant. President Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden, from Delaware, were to meet to announce the deal in October, 2009. Vice President Biden promoted the deal for jobs and money to re-tool the old GM manufacturing facility.

Visit the Fisker corporate website for concept photographs of the Karma and the Kx. The Fisker Automotive slogan is "Designed to Get You Hot, Not the Planet". Fisker Automotive employs only 100, far fewer than the usual 1,000 employees for work on a new model.

Fisker Automotive only designs and promotes the cars the company designs. Almost everything is outsourced to other companies, battery, electric power train, parts, and accessories.
==================================================
"Designed to Get You Hot, Not the Planet."
==================================================
Fisker Automotive investors include: 1) Eco-Drive Capital partners, LLC with Vinood Khosha, formerly of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers Venture Capital firm, who has donated $3.2 million to Barack Obama and other Democratic Party politicians including Hillary Clinton, and 2) Qatar, the state-run investor.

Vinood Khosha also consulted with O. John Coletta, Eco-Motors, Intl. of Troy, MI, who was a good sport about being denied a $20 million DoE loan for their hybrid car. Scott Redmond, CEO XP Vehicles, was denied $40 million by the DoE for their proposed $15,000-$25,000 hybrid.

It is only August 2010. But is it too soon to call Obama DoE Secretary Steven Chu's Deputy Secretary Missy Biden Owens to ask when we can expect to see the Fisker Karma and Kx on the showroom in Delaware, $1.5 billion later?

References: The Wall Street Journal, www.wikipedia.com, www.judicialwatch.com

(Email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com for a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com on www.google.com.