CONTINUING EDUCATION WITH PROFESSOR WILLIE SUTTON

When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton, a prolific bank robber of the 1920s and 1930s, replied by saying, "because that's where the money is."

On Tuesday, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the latest states to win the Race to the Top competition — and a share of $3.4 billion in federal financing — he said they were chosen because they outlined the boldest plans for shaking up their public school systems.

But others noted another common denominator: geography. Of the dozen states that have won major grants to date in the two-part grant contest that is the Obama administration’s signature education initiative, 11 are east of the Mississippi and most hug the East Coast, including Florida and Georgia in the South and New York and Massachusetts in the North. Among the winners, Hawaii is the lone geographic exception.

Educators in many of the states that did not win, or did not even participate in the competition criticized the competition’s rules saying that they were tilted in favor of densely populated Eastern states. To these critics, Willie Sutton, were he still alive, would surely have responded, well that's where the students are.

Asked whether he was concerned that almost all of the winning states were Eastern, Mr. Duncan noted that Geography was irrelevant in the selection process.”

In fact, some rules governing other federal education money are stacked in favor of largely rural states. For example, most federal education money flows to states, using formulas that give rural ones more federal financing per student than their big urban counterparts.

Those disgruntled educators can take a lesson from old Willie. If you want to invest in education you have to invest where the students are. Isn't continuing education a wonderful thing?

REPUBLICANS AND RIGHT WING MEDIA TAKE ISSUE WITH THE U.S. CONSTITUTION AND THE PRESIDENTIAL OATH OF OFFICE AND POSSIBLY THE TOOTH FAIRY AND APPLE PIE AS WELL

THE REPUBLICAN RIGHT-WING COMES OUT AGAINST FREEDOM OF RELIGION

Republicans and right-wing media are attacking President Obama's statement that he "believe[s] that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country" and are entitled to build a mosque in Lower Manhattan.

Either they have not read the Constitution;

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

or the Presidential Oath;

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

in which the President swears to preserve, protect and defend the constitution, or they have and they don’t believe in either one.

Perhaps they should take the time to read the document that they so readily send our youth out to defend with their lives because if they have read it, their beliefs, while cloaked to seem patriotic could not be more unpatriotic and un-American. Shame on them!

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me

and by that time no one was left to speak up."

WHAT ELSE HAVE YOU GOT BESIDES NO?

Republicans, the party of NO, once again said NO to the American People this week when they failed to agree on a small business aid package that could inject $300 billion into the economy. The reason? You guessed it: politics.

The small-business aid bill -- a central component of what President Obama has called "Recovery Summer" -- would create a $30 billion fund designed to increase lending to small businesses, in addition to providing $12 billion in small-business tax breaks over the next decade. The government says small banks could use the fund as capital to provide $300 billion in small business loans.

The republicans blocked this bill because the Democrats would not allow any amendments to be added to it. What did the republicans want to add to the bill? They wanted to add the only thing they know how to say yes to, a provision which would have made the Bush tax cuts, which benefit only the wealthiest Americans, permanent.

They want to take the country back to the days of unfunded, deficit exploding, tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, saying that tax cuts are the answer to the nation's unemployment problems and economic woes. Are we in a time warp here? Does the country suffer from a case of collective amnesia? We tried that in the past administration and look where it has gotten us.

It is a failed theory, and today no less a champion of republican economics, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan said so.

"....the push by congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts without offsetting the costs elsewhere could end up being "disastrous" for the economy. Greenspan expressed his disagreement with the conservative argument that tax cuts essentially pay for themselves by generating revenue and productivity among recipients.

"They do not," said Greenspan.

The country was economically devastated by the last administration, it didn't just happen. Rather it was the direct result of failed republican economics.

Ever since he took office, this President has been trying to dig the country out of the hole the republicans left it in and at every turn the republicans have taken the opportunity to shovel more dirt into the hole so as to make it harder for the country to recover. Why? Politics. If things get better for the nation they will not improve for the republicans at the ballot box in the midterms, so instead, the republicans just say NO. They can dress it up any way they want and they can spin it this way and that, that are very good at that but the facts can not be hidden.

Blocking the small business aid bill is only the latest example of Republicans using procedural tactics to stymie President Barack Obama's midterm-election-year agenda. In the past week alone the republicans have said NO to help for the millions of Americans who as a result of republican economic policies find themselves among the long term unemployed, NO to helping small businesses and their access to capital, NO to aid for the heroes of 9/11. At each opportunity to do the right thing and help the country the republicans have said NO to the American people and yes to the failed, wrong headed, policies that brought us to the brink.

To the republicans, when it comes to providing the tools (be they unemployment benefits or a second round of economic stimulus) needed to help ordinary working American's climb out from under the economic rubble left by the previous administration, deficit spending is akin to devil worship but when the issue is tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest Americans, they have, based upon their words and deeds, no problem with it. The party of NO, you see, is also the hypocrisy party.

Memo to the party of NO: Tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans don't produce new jobs. This is not a just theory but thanks to you a proven fact.

The question the American people are asking the republicans is what else have you got besides NO?