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A group of cardiologists recently had a proposition for Dr. Andrew Rosenblatt, who runs a busy heart clinic in San Francisco: Would he join them in buying a CT scanner, a $1 million machine that produces detailed images of the heart? The scanner would give Dr. Rosenblatt a new way to look inside patients’ arteries, enable his clinic to market itself as having the latest medical technology and provide extra revenue. Although tempted, Dr. Rosenblatt was reluctant. CT scans, which are typically billed at $500 to $1,500, have never been proved in large medical studies to be better than older...

Big Government types and Prop 99 All you really need to know about the two eminent domain propositions on the June 3 ballot, 98 and 99, is that Proposition 99 is being touted by politicians and other government types as the real solution to government intrusion on private property ownership. Among them are the usual suspects, including California Sen. Dianne Feinstein and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, both of whom believe in Big Government, and both of whom describe Proposition 98 as a hindrance to solving such state problems as water quality and supply. Feinstein, in a release at the end...

CHICAGO (AP) — A fire department spokesman two people are dead and more than a dozen others injured after a tractor trailer crashed into a Chicago Transit Authority station during rush hour. Spokesman Larry Langford says the two women killed Friday apparently were walking near the Cermak-Chinatown Red Line elevated train station on the city's South Side when the collision occurred. Langford says seven people were critically injured and about a dozen others could be injured. Witnesses say the truck didn't appear to slow down before it plowed into the station. Chicago police say the accident happened about 5:20 p.m.

A tractor-trailer careened into a busy local train station here during the evening rush hour on Friday, killing two people and injuring nearly two dozen others just south of downtown in Chinatown. Witnesses described hearing a deafening screech then the tremendous roar of the truck slamming into the street-level waiting area of the elevated train station, a bustling stop on the Red Line which runs a north-south route through the downtown Loop. The truck crashed through the glass front of the station, Cermak-Chinatown, and caused the escalators to collapse. Eleven people, four of them children, were in critical condition...

Have you gotten over your euphoria over the CTA bailout yet? Only in Illinois could hiking a regressive tax and narrowly dodging an opportunity to reform the fiscally unsustainable underpinnings of mass transit in Chicago be described as averting the so-called doomsday scenario. Never underestimate the lengths to which the lumps of lobbyist fodder in our legislative bodies will sink in order to provide cousin Frickie with his third public pension. If you enjoyed the CTA bailout, you are really going to get a kick out of what is in store. Next month, gaming legislation is set to move in...

Here's a perfect example of the destructive power of government. It's also a representative example of why it's a canard that government ever gives anything away for "free" as that so-called free gift inflicts pain on everyone under that government. In this tale Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has pulled a fast one on the people of Illinois. He's agreed to a plan that hikes a tax that few people even know the existence of and he's added his own layer of cost just to get old people in the city of Chicago to like him. In pandering to this tiny...

Measure would cut fees, guarantee funding level for community colleges. The community college measure on the Feb. 5 ballot is shaping up to be a battle royale between California's biggest teachers' unions.On one side is the California Federation of Teachers, the state's second-largest teachers' union. It has been the biggest financial backer of the campaign for Proposition 92, which would lower community college fees and set aside a percentage of the state budget for the two-year schools.On the other is the California Teachers Association, the largest teachers' group in the state, which so far has been the sole funder of...

Chicago -- A Chicago mass transit crisis was averted at the last minute on Friday. The doomsday scenario set to take effect on Sunday has been derailed. A cash infusion means no service cuts and no fare hikes for now. As Political Editor Jack Conaty reports from Springfield, the governor came up with some new money but lawmakers still don’t have a permanent fix.

Despite heightened attention to children's health and education issues, a greater investment needs to be made in California's 9.7 million youngsters so they're prepared to compete as adults, a study released Tuesday says. The annual California Report Card, released by Children Now, says the state has made progress in reducing drug and alcohol use, decreasing teen pregnancies and lowering mortality rates. However, the percentage of children covered by their parents' work-based health insurance is declining; while the rates of smoking, obesity, asthma and autism are on the rise, the report said. "Despite some progress, when you measure that against the...

This caucus of moderate Calvinists, i.e., "Calvinists in the Tradition of Arminius" is called to order ONLY FOR CTA's or their FRIENDS in regard to this question. What is position of us CTA's on the Tulip.... Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and Perseverence of the Saints? Two answers have been forthcoming to date. P-Marlowe has offered one, and I have offered another. INITIAL Suggestion From P-Marlowe: The TULIP was developed as a reaction to the Remonstrants and belief in the petals of the Tulip was not necessary in order to be a Calvinist at the time...

Although Schwarzenegger often oversold even his modest achievements as historic reforms, in private he talked about his frustration with the slow pace of change in the state, and about how the political reality stymied major progress. He wanted to invest billions in repairing California's infrastructure, but the budget, though far healthier than when he took office, was still unbalanced. As the governor tried to make political history, his own political history boxed him in. He knew it would be a struggle to reconcile his campaign promises to reduce the state budget deficit, avoid a tax increase and protect popular public...

Founded in 1929 to unite the country after Mexico's revolution, the PRI ruled by accepting all ideologies. It catered to unions, the rich, the poor -- anyone who would support it. Its platform was maintaining power." - Associated Press, Sunday, June 25, 2006 I've been thinking the past few weeks about the conservative movement and the idea of winning versus merely staying ahead -- a strategy seemingly employed at the national level to ensure that the Republicans maintain the majority. Notice none of the political pundits are talking about Republicans trying to pick up seats this election cycle. They're merely...

For years, Sacramento wags have joked about “state Sen. Rudy Bermudez, D-California Correctional Peace Officers Association,” because the only thing the Norwalk lawmaker seems to care about is propping up the pay and benefits of prison guards. Given what happened this week in the Legislature, it is now just as proper to think of Sens. Don Perata, Debra Bowen and Gil Cedillo as being “D-California Teachers Association” – because their primary allegiance obviously isn't to Californians in general. This week Perata, Bowen and Cedillo killed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's nomination of David Crane, a highly regarded San Francisco financier, to the...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday announced a plan to repay billions of dollars to schools that educators say he has owed them since he backed out of a budget deal he made shortly after taking office in 2003. The deal, reached as the governor finalized the annual May revisions to his proposed 2006-07 budget, calls for the state to repay $2.9 billion over seven years. Another $2.8 billion from an unexpected tax windfall this spring will also go to education. The agreement is expected to settle a lawsuit brought by education groups and it may also quiet one of Schwarzenegger's...

For two years, the California Teachers Association has beat up on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger with relentless ferocity. It made sense: The CTA is used to treating state revenues as if they were an all-you-can-eat buffet, and the governor – at least in his old fiscal-conservative iteration – was eager to take the union on. Last November, unfortunately, the CTA won the power struggle. All four reform initiatives Schwarzenegger touted were rejected after a campaign in which the CTA-run Alliance for a Better California ran loads of demagogic ads describing the governor as a threat to truth, justice and the American...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has reappointed to the state Board of Education a top political officer of the California Teachers Association, a union which continues to call for the governor's head. Schwarzenegger's office said the reappointment of Joe Nunez, 53, of Stockton was neither an election-year olive branch to the union nor politically motivated in any other way. "Mr. Nunez has more than three decades of experience in education," Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Sabrina Demayo Lockhart said. "The governor is always looking for the most qualified folks... We highly regard each appointment that we make, we look for people who are highly qualified...

The Long Beach Board of Education has just mailed a letter to 235,000 constituents declaring that the board will not be bullied by the teachers union into providing more than the 4 percent pay raise being offered. Most of us love teachers. The popular perception is that they are self-sacrificing altruists dedicated to guiding our children to a golden future. The image is that they struggle to survive on low pay and carry on instruction with few resources. While this romanticized image may actually fit a few teachers, mostly at private schools, what is seldom considered is that the unions...

Pro-preschool campaign well ahead in fundraising The campaign for Proposition 82, the Preschool for All Act, raised $2 million between Jan. 1 and March 17, according to campaign-finance records released this week. That's 10 times as much as the $196,000 raised by the ``No on 82'' campaign. The no campaign has $81,000 in remaining cash on hand; the pro-82 campaign, $1.6 million. Rob Reiner, who at nearly $657,000 is the campaign's biggest donor, has also become the focal point for its opposition. Much of the controversy surrounds conflict-of-interest charges stemming from Reiner's role as chair of a state commission, First...

"The teachers united will never be defeated!" chanted thousands of public-school teachers at a union rally. They may be right -- unfortunately. Teachers unions in this country are very influential because they can assemble a crowd. Randi Weingarten, head of New York's teachers union, put out the word, and thousands of teachers filled Madison Square Garden to demand a new contract and more money. That clout brings timid politicians into line. The unions can pay for expensive rallies at "the world's most famous arena" because every teacher in a unionized district like New York must give up some of his...

Philosopher George Santayana's famous maxim that "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" should be engraved on large slabs of Sierra granite and permanently affixed to the wall of every office in the state Capitol - and quickly, because a much-weakened Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a reality-oblivious Legislature may replay one of California's worst political blunders. A half-decade ago, as California's dot-com bubble began to burst, those holding stock or stock options in shaky high-tech companies liquidated (or at least the smarter ones did). The state experienced a huge, one-time surge in personal income tax revenues from the...

NOTE: this is the first in a series of posts in which we will discuss concrete steps to do battle with and ultimately substantially defund teachers unions. These unions are clearly a subsidiary of the DemocRATic Party, and they are a big part of what is wrong with public education. ========================================================================== Proposition 75 was defeated yesterday in California. The teachers union spent over a hundred million dollars to defeat it. They were quaking in their boots at the thought of actually having to ask permission of its members before spending money on partisan politics. Not surprisingly, they spend virtually all...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Eric Christensen October 27, 2005 703-554-6100 703-554-6119 (fax) eric@landmarklegal.org www.landmarklegal.org (LEESBURG, VA)…Landmark Legal Foundation won a significant victory recently when it forced the California Teachers Union (CTA) to offer full refunds to nonunion, fee paying teachers for a special $60 per teacher assessment that the union is using to fund a $50 million campaign to defeat ballot initiatives in the November 5 special election. Landmark filed a complaint on September 14 with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) documenting how the union’s special assessment would be used to retire a $50 million debt amassed for...

-----Original Message----- From: Tiffany Delepine To: director@contracostagop.com Cc: tgfdg@aol.com; joe@joinarnold.com; tiffanymoffat@randallcommunications.com Sent: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 15:16:18 -0700 Subject: CTA to Protest at Private Dinner for the Governor...we need your help!! ***HIGH PRIORITY*** The Governor is attending a dinner this evening at a home in Lafayette. The CTA have caught wind of the engagement and are planning to ?crash the party? (See the email below) This is an opportunity for us, as members of the Contra Costa Republican Party to show the media and the Governor that there is strong support for his reform agenda here in the East Bay!!...

SACRAMENTO - An anti-union group filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to block the powerful California Teachers Association from raising dues to fight four ballot measures pushed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The class-action suit -- prepared by the National Right to Work Legal Foundation on behalf of six instructors, including Franklin Lowenthal, a professor at Cal State East Bay -- alleges the $60-per-member increase is an involuntary loan and violates their free-speech rights. "We should not have to pay that," said Lowenthal, who contacted the nonprofit foundation after learning of the fee hike. The teachers association dismissed the challenge as a...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A small group of teachers and lawyers who are seeking class action status for a lawsuit against the California Teachers Association was drowned out by screams and chants Thursday as they tried to hold a news conference outside the union's office. The National Right to Work Foundation, which filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Jose on behalf of six named teachers and professors, claims the CTA is illegally collecting a $60 levy in each of the next three years to pay for electioneering. The union voted to raise dues by that amount in hopes...

On August 9 the California Teachers Association and its most famous employee, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, announced that they were suing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for $3.1 billion in money they think the public schools are owed under Proposition 98. The fees for the lawyers for both sides of this dispute will be paid for by the taxpayers, using money that could have been used to fix stopped-up toilets in our schools or buy textbooks for the kids. Prop. 98 was passed by telling the voters it set a minimum level of funding for K-12 public schools of...

In California, "Principal Faye Banton can walk through the classrooms of Edison Middle School in south Los Angeles and quickly identify her weakest teachers. But Banton knows she can't dismiss them without a drawn-out fight," the Los Angeles Times reported this week. "It takes much too long to get rid of them," she said. Under California law, school districts can dismiss teachers during their first two years on the job without providing any reason. But after two years in the classroom, teachers earn the more protective "permanent status." Before dismissing a permanent-status teacher, district officials must meticulously document poor performance...

Shades of the 1998 primary election and Prop. 226 come to mind when I think of this move by the California Teachers Association. Back then the state’s most powerful business advocacy groups cut a deal with labor not to support the paycheck protection initiative in exchange for unions not putting tax-hikes and anti-business initiatives on the ‘98 fall ballot. Read More... Craig DeLuz Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense... www.craigdeluz.com

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The state's largest teachers union has dropped an initiative that would have poured billions of dollars into schools by raising property taxes on businesses, union officials said Thursday. Instead, the California Teachers Association will work with the opponents of the "Tax Fairness Act" to craft long-term solutions to school funding in the state, CTA president Barbara Kerr said. The CTA had gathered enough signatures - more than 900,000 - to qualify the initiative for the June 2006 ballot, Kerr said. It would have exempted California commercial and business properties from Proposition 13's rule that property value, upon...

Remember the woman who sued McDonald's after hot coffee spilled in her lap and was awarded $2.9 million by a jury? Although the trial judge later reduced the verdict to $480,000 and McDonald's settled with the woman for something less, the case became a widely cited example of evading personal responsibility. After all, critics noted, the woman had stuck the coffee cup between her legs as she was leaving a McDonald's drive-through and was trying to pry off the lid when it spilled and burned her. As one listened to two prominent state politicians put their spin on a new...

Some say the dogs were a victim of progress. Others suggest it was a test of wills, and the little dogs simply succumbed to the bigger dogs. But many who were munching on the $1.84 hot dog and fries combo Friday night were less concerned with what killed this celebrated and scruffy little hot dog stand under the Fullerton L station than with the fact it was the last time they'd ever walk through its door. After work. Or headed to a Cubs game. Or just to grab a quick lunch. At age 22, Demon Dogs, of Lincoln Park, is...

Los Angeles (AP) -- The union representing 335,000 teachers approved a dues hike Saturday as it prepared a $50 million war chest to fight education reform measures backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 800-member governing council of the California Teachers Association approved a dues assessment of $60 a year for up to three years. The money will replenish funds the union plans to use to fight a November special-election that will include measures to raise tenure requirements for public school teachers and limit increases in state education funding. The dues increase does not need rank-and-file approval. Schwarzenegger was expected Monday...

I have been a language teacher with the Los Angeles Unified School District since 1991. Today I will sign a final agreement after an exhaustive grievance process, in which I will never be allowed to teach in the District again. For its part, the District will remove my negative teacher performance evaluation. During my last two years at Dorsey High, I’ve had my classroom burnt to the ground, had a death threat, physical assaults, and constant accusations of racism. Community “activists” in our area have written woeful letters to the Superintendent, imploring her to remove me from my position as...

New Web Site Gives Teachers Voice to “Stop the Teacher Tax” Teachers union to vote on $180 mandatory increase in dues FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Karen Hanretty April 7, 2005 The California Republican Party (CRP) today launched a new web site, www.StopTheTeacherTax.com, to draw attention to a new “teacher tax” that one of California’s most powerful unions plans to impose on teachers and educators statewide. California’s largest teachers union will meet Friday, April 8, 2005 in Los Angeles to vote on increasing the union dues of classroom teachers by $180 over the next three years. The union intends to raise...

SACRAMENTO – A labor-backed coalition announced a signature-gathering drive yesterday for an initiative that would increase business property taxes by an estimated $2.8 billion a year to aid schools, transportation, local public safety and senior citizen tax relief. The drive, funded by the California Teachers Association and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, is part of a scramble to ready measures for a possible special election this fall. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, calling this the "year of reform," has business backing for four proposals that would control state spending, create new legislative and congressional districts, change public employee pensions and switch...

On Friday, it was released that the California Teachers' Association (CTA) will vote next month to increase their dues by $180 per teacher over 3 years. (source: Sacramento Bee weblog by Dan Weintraub, 3/18/05) This will raise an additional $54 million which they would specifically target to oppose the Governor's education proposals. They will borrow against this stream of revenue to be able to spend much of the money this year. The vote will be made by an 800-member union council which has to ability to compel 350,000 teachers around the state to pay the dues, whether they want to...

The state's largest teachers union will ask its members to consider a $60 hike in dues in each of the next three years to help raise tens of millions of dollars to combat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's merit pay, pension and budget initiatives, union officials said Friday. If approved by the California Teachers Association's state council in June, the increase would tack on a total $180 over the next three years to the $500-a-year dues that its 335,000 members now pay the statewide organization. "We feel the need to defend public education and our students," said CTA President Barbara Kerr. "Our...

The 335,000-member California Teachers Association (CTA), the state's most powerful union, is airing radio spots claiming that Governor Schwarzenegger wants to “stiff our kids for $2 billion every year!” Does he? The most recent ad starts with a first-grade teacher saying: “Last year Governor Schwarzenegger borrowed two billion dollars from the public schools. But now he says he’s not going to pay it back.” Another voices chimes in. “Our schools need more resources, not less.” A previous spot features a mock phone call to the governor’s office. A man tells the operator that he’s concerned schools “just aren’t getting the...

State and local government pension costs have shot through the roof and are threatening the funding of essential programs throughout California. It is time for action to stanch the bleeding. There are growing signs that this will be a front-burner topic for the state Legislature in 2005. Taxpayers are well-advised to watch developments closely. Thanks to significant news coverage, particularly in The Sacramento Bee, the Legislature is scheduled to conduct a special hearing on January 24 in Sacramento. The Bee has uncovered outrageous abuse of disability retirements among top officers of the California Highway Patrol. Also, there are alarming numbers...

Parental Rights Battle Tomorrow at Roseville School Board! The battle continues in Roseville! Tomorrow evening, January 4 (Tuesday), the Roseville High School Board will discuss changing their district policy to allow children (as young as age 12) to leave campus for confidential medical services without parental notification. We hope that, if you live in the area, you will be able to attend! Even if you do not have children in the school district, your voice is needed to protect parental rights. In a recent phone survey in the county, more than 84 percent of persons surveyed said that parents should...

Just what is the Bernardin Legacy? Ask that simple question to any Catholic and the answers you receive will vary from one extreme to the other. One either loved him or despised him. But regardless of your personal opinion of the man there is one point, I believe, we can all agree on: He was a powerful and influential individual, both politically and spiritually. James Hitchcock wrote in an article published shortly after the Cardinal’s death that: “He [Bernardin] consistently used his influence to promote liberal causes, even attacks on Church teachings and traditions.” Hitchcock went on to say: “...he...

BURLINGAME - In a show of support for the 70,000 Southern California grocery workers who are striking to prevent supermarket chains from destroying their health care benefits, the California Teachers Association today launched a statewide radio campaign calling on Californians not to shop at these stores. "Grocery workers are part of our communities and their children attend our schools," Barbara E. Kerr, president of the 335,000-member CTA, says in one ad. "We see the strain on their kids every day. These workers are on strike because giant corporations are trying to destroy their health care." The significant four-week campaign, which...

<p>Barbara Kerr is proving that you can be president of the CTA, the muscular California Teachers Association, and a nice person at the same time.</p> <p>But in her press conference earlier this month with the equally muscular Arnold Schwarzenegger, she looked less like the primary schoolteacher she used to be and a lot more like the cat that swallowed the canary.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO - The state's largest teachers union today endorsed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's effort to pass a $15 billion bond in March, boosting his effort to woo skeptical voters.</p> <p>The 800-member California Teachers Association's State Council of Education gave its backing to the bond, Proposition 57, and a companion measure, Proposition 58, to limit state spending.</p>

(CNSNews.com) - The nation's leading teachers' union and its largest state affiliate are planning an aggressive campaign to unionize charter school teachers, who represent a growing faction of workers outside of the unions' realm. The National Education Association is committing upwards of $1.75 million over the next three years for the effort. It will begin in California, where the state affiliate is devising a strategy to convince charter school teachers to join the California Teachers Association. "One of the things we noticed early on in the charter school movement was that the teachers in those schools were inadequately compensated in...

<p>Secretary of State Kevin Shelley on Monday gave backers of a proposed statewide education-funding initiative the go-ahead to begin gathering signatures to place the measure on the November ballot.</p> <p>The measure, called the Improving Classroom Education Act, is being sponsored by a partnership of the California Teachers Association and Hollywood director Rob Reiner, who spearheaded the 1998 ballot initiative that uses cigarette taxes to fund early childhood development programs.</p>

Monday, December 08, 2003 - THE California Teachers Association is the 800-pound gorilla of California education. As the largest teachers union in the state, it has succeeded for years in blocking teacher-testing, merit pay, an end to teacher tenure -- and, most importantly, the right of parents to choose better schools for their children. Despite its efforts at derailing some of the most obvious and desperately needed reforms of California's catastrophic public schools, its unending PR machine has masked its anti-reform mission from most of the public. Indeed, many California voters fail to recognize the CTA as the special interest...

<p>THE FORCES that want to dumb down public schools never rest. Failure never cows them; success never hinders them.</p> <p>After years of producing poor readers, California has returned to recommending phonics-rich reading programs. As more new schools adopt the program each year, reading test scores have risen modestly as a result.</p>