POLITICS, WORLD ECONOMICS AND OTHERS THINGS THAT SUCK HARD

Is it too much to ask to have one day where I don't want to go back to bed, pull the covers over my head and pretend the world is doing much better than I keep seeing? Sadly, this was not one of those days.

Both Obama and Romney both had really bad days as a leaked document purports new corporate powers Obama is fighting for which demonstrates how dangerous he really is. Meanwhile, Romney shows he has no clue as how to fix anything by pushing for privatization of our school system while also defunding college financial aid. This could be the first election where there is truly no winner for either side. Say what you want about one of the worst Presidents ever, George W. Bush, and even he wouldn't go for either of these awful ideas.

Let's start with Obama's new trade deal. In another awful free trade agreement (God I hate those words) with eight Pacific nations, it was revealed today that the current administration is intending to give radical new powers to multinational corporations, breaking more worthless promises from a guy who seems incapable of telling the truth at this point. This is from the Huffington Post:

The leaked document has been posted on the website of Public Citizen, a long-time critic of the administration's trade objectives. The new leak follows substantial controversy surrounding the secrecy of the talks, in which some members of Congress have complained they are not being given the same access to trade documents that corporate officials receive.

The newly leaked document is one of the most controversial of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. It addresses a broad sweep of regulations governing international investment and reveals the Obama administration's advocacy for policies that environmental activists, financial reform advocates and labor unions have long rejected for eroding key protections currently in domestic laws.

Under the agreement currently being advocated by the Obama administration, American corporations would continue to be subject to domestic laws and regulations on the environment, banking and other issues. But foreign corporations operating within the U.S. would be permitted to appeal key American legal or regulatory rulings to an international tribunal. That international tribunal would be granted the power to overrule American law and impose trade sanctions on the United States for failing to abide by its rulings.

The terms run contrary to campaign promises issued by Obama and the Democratic Party during the 2008 campaign.

"We will not negotiate bilateral trade agreements that stop the government from protecting the environment, food safety, or the health of its citizens; give greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors; require the privatization of our vital public services; or prevent developing country governments from adopting humanitarian licensing policies to improve access to life-saving medications," reads the campaign document.

Yet nearly all of those vows are violated by the leaked Trans-Pacific document. The one that is not contravened in the present document -- regarding access to life-saving medication -- is in conflict with a previously leaked document on intellectual property (IP) standards.

That statement is belied somewhat by recent American efforts in other international negotiations to establish controversial medical patents that grant companies long-term monopolies on life-saving medications. Those monopolies increase drug prices, which impede access to medications, particularly in developing nations. The World Health Organization and dozens of nonprofit public health groups have objected to the standards sought by the Obama administration. Two United Nations groups recently urged global governments not to agree to trade terms currently being advocated by the Obama administration, on the grounds that such rules would hurt public health.

Trans-Pacific negotiations have been taking place throughout the Obama presidency. The deal is strongly supported by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the top lobbying group for American corporations. Obama's Republican opponent in the 2012 presidential elections, Mitt Romney, has urged the U.S. to finalize the deal as soon as possible.

So both morons running for office agree this is a great idea even though it would give foreign companies a bigger stake than US law by giving tribunals the ability to overturn the will of the people. Fabulous.

Not to be outdone Romney is advocating the privatization of schools and a huge cut in funding to state colleges. This is from College Dreams.com:

On 23 May, the Romney campaign released its education policy white paper titled A Chance for Every Child: Mitt Romney's Plan for Restoring the Promise of American Education. If you liked the George W Bush administration's education reforms, you will love the Romney plan. If you think that turning the schools over to the private sector will solve their problems, then his plan will thrill you.

The central themes of the Romney plan are a rehash of Republican education ideas from the past 30 years, namely, subsidizing parents who want to send their child to a private or religious school, encouraging the private sector to operate schools, putting commercial banks in charge of the federal student loan program, holding teachers and schools accountable for students' test scores, and lowering entrance requirements for new teachers. These policies reflect the experience of his advisers, who include half a dozen senior officials from the Bush administration and several prominent conservative academics – among them, former Secretary of Education Rod Paige and former Deputy Secretary of Education Bill Hansen, and school choice advocates John Chubb and Paul Peterson.

Romney offers full-throated support for using taxpayer money to pay for private-school vouchers, privately-managed charters, for-profit online schools, and almost every other alternative to public schools. Like Bob Dole in 1996, Romney showers his contempt on the teachers' unions. He takes a strong stand against certification of teachers – the minimal state-level requirement that future teachers must pass either state or national tests to demonstrate their knowledge and/or skills – which he considers an unnecessary hurdle. He believes that class size does not matter (although he and his children went to elite private schools that have small classes). Romney claims that school choice is "the civil rights issue of our era," a familiar theme among the current crop of education reformers, who now use it to advance their efforts to privatize public education.

When it comes to universities, Romney excoriates Obama for the rising cost of higher education. He claims that more federal aid leads to higher tuition, so he offers no new federal funding to help students burdened with debt. His plan does not mention the fact that tuition has increased in public universities (which enroll three-quarters of all students) because states have reduced their investments in higher education and shifted the burden from taxpayers to students. Romney will encourage private-sector involvement in higher education, by having commercial banks again serve as the intermediary for federal student loans – an approach Obama had eliminated in 2010 as too costly. (Until 2010, banks received guaranteed subsidies from the federal government to make student loans, while the government assumed nearly all the risk. When the program was overhauled by the Obama administration, billions of dollars in bank profits were redirected to support Pell Grants for needy students.) To cut costs, Romney encourages the proliferation of for-profit online universities.

The Romney education plan says that no new money is needed because more spending on schools will not fix our problems. However, he proposes to dedicate more taxpayer money to the priorities that he favors, such as vouchers, charter schools, and online schools. He also wants more federal money to reward states for "eliminating or reforming teacher tenure and establishing systems that focus on effectiveness in advancing student achievement". Translated, that means Romney is willing to hand out money to states if they eliminate due process rights for teachers and if they pay more to teachers whose students get higher scores on standardized tests and get rid of teachers whose students do not.

In making the case for vouchers – which provide government funding to pay the tuition at any private or religious school that parents choose – Romney exaggerates the evidence; indeed, some of his claims are simply false. He points to the DC voucher program, which began in 2004, the first program to use federal tax dollars to subsidize private-school tuition – as "a model for the nation". He asserts that "after three months, students [in the DC voucher program] could already read at levels 19 months ahead of their public-school peers."

This is flatly wrong. A congressionally-mandated evaluation of the DC program found that students with vouchers made no gains in either reading or math. As the report stated:

"[T]here is no conclusive evidence that the OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] affected student achievement."

Romney claims that 90% of voucher students graduated from high school, as compared to only 55% in the low-performing public schools of DC. But here, he exaggerates. The federal evaluation of the program said that 82% of the students receiving vouchers graduated from high school, as compared to 70% of the students who applied to the voucher program and were not accepted. This is a respectable gain, but nowhere near as large as the numbers Romney cited. Because students who enter a lottery tend to be more motivated than those who do not, reputable social scientists usually compare the outcomes of those who won the lottery and those who did not.

In the vision presented by Mitt Romney, public dollars would flow to schools that teach creationism. Anyone could teach, without passing any test of their knowledge and skills and without any professional preparation. Teachers could be fired for any reason, without any protection of their freedom to teach. In some states and regions, teachers will be fearful of teaching evolution or global warming or any controversial issues. Nor will they dare to teach books considered offensive to anyone in their community, like Huckleberry Finn.

And candidate Romney should explain how privatizing the way we school our children will further his goal of "restoring the promise of American education". "Restore" suggests a return to the past. When in American history did the for-profit sector run American schools? Which state ever permitted it until the advent in our own time of for-profit charter corporations and for-profit online corporations? Which founding fathers ever railed against public education? John Adams, that crusty conservative, said this:

"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves."

Restoring the promise of American education should mean rejuvenating public schools, not destroying them.

Privatization and deregulation has been the "bain" (sic) of the country as it has NEVER worked as advertised. When Joe "douchebag" Lieberman proposed deregulating the cable industry we were promised lower rates, more competition and other pie in the sky crap. Funny, how my cable rates almost doubled in the three years that followed and that so called competition never materialized. Contrary to what we have been told, private industry can actually be worse than government as they will squeeze every penny they can from you and still ask for more. The government won't do that but instead drive you insane with years of red tape to get anything accomplished.

While our country falls apart with Dumbass One and Dumbass Two trying to see how can they out douche the other, comes word that money is flying away from Greece, Spain and Italy. Greece is losing somewhere between 100 and 500 million Euros a day as people flee the banks, Spain is losing 100 million a day and one of Italy's largest banks had to declare a bank holiday Monday as their funds dried up and were unable to pay out any money that day. Spain's bailout is seen by some as too little too late and Greece is going to fail at some point, possibly as soon as next week after a critical vote on the 17th for new elections, sending the Dow into fits and starts.

Also on the horizon, Russia is selling attack helicopters to Syria and rumors of Spetnaz troops to aid Assad. Obama is still weighing military action which could get ugly with Russia getting more and more involved. The world is not going the right way and war, economic disaster and the rise of a totalitarian state loom.

I'm going back to bed now and pull those covers back over my head. Maybe my dreams will be better than this awful reality.