Newt Gingrich wants every state to open a work-study college where students work 20 hours a week during the school year and full-time in the summer and then graduate debt-free.

In poverty stricken K-12 districts, Mr. Gingrich said that schools should enlist students as young as 9 to14 to mop hallways and bathrooms, and pay them a wage. Currently child-labor laws and unions keep poor students from bootstrapping their way into middle class, Mr. Gingrich said.

“This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” he told an audience at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard on Friday, according to Politico.

“You say to somebody, you shouldn’t go to work before you’re what, 14, 16 years of age, fine,” Mr. Gingrich said. “You’re totally poor. You’re in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I’ve tried for years to have a very simple model. Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Gingrich, who back in 1994 proposed bringing back orphanages for children on welfare, was quickly labeled “Dickensian” by people commenting on Twitter.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, called Mr. Gingrich’s proposal “absurd.”

“Who in their right mind would lay off janitors and replace them with disadvantaged children — who should be in school, and not cleaning schools,” Ms. Weingarten said. “And who would start backtracking on laws designed to halt the exploitation of children?” [New York Times]

A reader of the New York Times article, RC, of Minnesota, commented:

Sounds like China under Mao. Ha ha. Anyway, the work/college plan is a good idea, but why does the “state” have to set this up? Anyone can do this already in the free market.

Oh Yes! The unionized janitors in our public schools been keepin’ us down too long!

David of Michigan, said:

We need to open more Poor Houses. The poor-house movement will then need a Historian @ $1 million/year. Children could also help out in those tight spots in coal mines. Newt is always there when we need him.

Jane Bone of Palatin, Illinois:

It’s nice – yes, I’m being sarcastic – that wealthy Newt feels students as young as 9 should be working at cleaning jobs at their schools instead of either having time and teachers to help them learn, or just plain necessities like food, shelter, and–let’s hope- loving parents who do want them to rise in the world and set their sights on achieving academically.

My God! Maybe his wife would like to donate some of her Newt-given jewelry to finance this endeavor he is proposing.

Or is Newt thinking that by setting up chances for kids to hold these kinds of jobs, he is showing them how to grow up and get full-time ones with limited potential for advancement and educational growth?

Oh, am I going to work my tail off for Obama and the Democrats! How fast can 2012 and a Democratic victory get here?

The GOP presidential candidate wants nine-year-olds to work as janitors. It’s not merely a crazy plan (although it’s plenty crazy). It’s also evidence of a deep disrespect for and ignorance of American work.

But don’t overlook the fact of the rising of Gingrich in the Republican polls. The New York Times also reports:

Republicans are most likely to name Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich as their first choice for their party’s 2012 presidential nomination, with Herman Cain close behind. Among all Republicans nationwide, Romney is the choice of 20% and Gingrich 19%. Among Republican registered voters, Gingrich is at 22% and Romney at 21%.

The fact that Gingrich is a dimwit doesn’t mean he might not be nominated by the Republican Party to run for President. I don’t think that if he is nominated that he can beat President Obama. But at the same time I didn’t think George Bush would beat John Kerry either. Democrats cannot afford to ignore the threat.

Related posts:

1. Gingrich’s Consulting Work
2. Newt Gingrich can’t last much longer
3. Reminder: Joe Heck Calls Social Security a pyramid scheme

Watch the video first at: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7388134n

Should our elected officials be able to use insider information to pad their own pockets? CBS has an interesting story about elected representatives in Congress that use insider information to increase their personal wealth.

Steve Kroft of CBS 60 Minutes, reports that “members of Congress and their aides have regular access to powerful political intelligence, and many have made well-timed stock market trades in the very industries they regulate. For now, the practice is perfectly legal, but some say it’s time for the law to change.”

The next national election is now less than a year away and congressmen and senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funds they’ll need just to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year.

And we think they are in Congress to look out for the interests of the United States and you and me, their constituents.

Few of them are doing it for the salary and all of them will say they are doing it to serve the public. But there are other benefits: Power, prestige, and the opportunity to become a Washington insider with access to information and connections that no one else has, in an environment of privilege where rules that govern the rest of the country, don’t always apply to them.

Most former congressmen and senators manage to leave Washington – if they ever leave Washington – with more money in their pockets than they had when they arrived, and as you are about to see, the biggest challenge is often avoiding temptation.

Peter Schweizer, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank at Stanford University in California says:

This is a venture opportunity. This is an opportunity to leverage your position in public service and use that position to enrich yourself, your friends, and your family.

According to Schweizer “insider trading on the stock market. If you are a member of Congress, those laws are deemed not to apply.”

“The fact is, if you sit on a healthcare committee and you know that Medicare, for example, is– is considering not reimbursing for a certain drug that’s market moving information. And if you can trade stock on– off of that information and do so legally, that’s a great profit making opportunity. And that sort of behavior goes on,” says Schweizer.

It’s really the way the rules have been defined. And the people who make the rules are the political class in Washington. And they’ve conveniently written them in such a way that they don’t apply to themselves.

The buying and selling of stock by corporate insiders who have access to non-public information that could affect the stock price can be a criminal offense, just ask hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam who recently got 11 years in prison for doing it. But, congressional lawmakers have no corporate responsibilities and have long been considered exempt from insider trading laws, even though they have daily access to non-public information and plenty of opportunities to trade on it.

Schweitzer continued:

In mid September 2008 with the Dow Jones Industrial average still above ten thousand, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were holding closed door briefings with congressional leaders, and privately warning them that a global financial meltdown could occur within a few days. One of those attending was Alabama (Republican) Representative Spencer Bachus, then the ranking Republican member on the House Financial Services Committee and now its chairman.

Schweizer: These meetings were so sensitive– that they would actually confiscate cell phones and Blackberries going into those meetings. What we know is that those meetings were held one day and literally the next day Congressman Bachus would engage in buying stock options based on apocalyptic briefings he had the day before from the Fed chairman and treasury secretary. I mean, talk about a stock tip.

While Congressman Bachus was publicly trying to keep the economy from cratering, he was privately betting that it would, buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down. He would make a variety of trades and profited at a time when most Americans were losing their shirts.

Bachus declined to talk with Schweizer. Bachus did issue a statement:

What we got was a statement from Congressman Bachus’ office that he never trades on non-public information, or financial services stock. However, his financial disclosure forms seem to indicate otherwise. Bachus made money trading General Electric stock during the crisis, and a third of GE’s business is in financial services.

During the healthcare debate of 2009, members of Congress were trading health care stocks, including House Minority Leader John Boehner, who led the opposition against the so-called public option, government funded insurance that would compete with private companies. Just days before the provision was finally killed off, Boehner bought health insurance stocks, all of which went up. Now speaker of the House, Congressman Boehner also declined to be interviewed, so we tracked him down at his weekly press conference.

John Boehner: “I have not made any decisions on day-to-day trading activities in my account. And haven’t for years. I don’t– I do not do it, haven’t done it and wouldn’t do it.”

Later Boehner’s spokesman told us that the health care trades were made by the speaker’s financial adviser, who he only consults with about once a year.

Congressmen and senators also seem to have a special knack for land and real estate deals. When Illinois Congressman Dennis Hastert became speaker of the House in 1999, he was worth a few hundred thousand dollars. He left the job eight years later a multi-millionaire.

In 2005, Speaker Hastert got a $207 million federal earmark to build the Prairie Parkway through these cornfields near his home. What Jan Strasma and his neighbors didn’t know was that Hastert had also bought some land adjacent to where the highway is supposed to go.

Strasma: And five months after this earmark went through he sold that land and made a bundle of money.

Kroft: How much?

Strasma: Two million dollars.

Kroft: What do you think of it?

Strasma: It stinks.

Hastert is now a lobbyist in Washington.

But the same good fortune befell former New Hampshire (Republican) Senator Judd Gregg, who helped steer nearly $70 million dollars in government funds towards redeveloping this defunct Air Force base, which he and his brother both had a commercial interest in. Gregg has said that he violated no congressional rules.

And former House Speaker (Democrat) Nancy Pelosi and her husband have participated in at least eight IPOs. One of those came in 2008, from Visa, just as a troublesome piece of legislation that would have hurt credit card companies, began making its way through the House. Undisturbed by a potential conflict of interest the Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars. Two days later it was trading at $64. The credit card legislation never made it to the floor of the House.

Congresswoman Pelosi also declined our request for an interview, but agreed to call on us if we attended a news conference.

Kroft: Madam Leader, I wanted to ask you why you and your husband back in March of 2008 accepted and participated in a very large IPO deal from Visa at a time there was major legislation affecting the credit card companies making its way through the– through the House.

Nancy Pelosi: But–

Kroft: And did you consider that to be a conflict of interest?

Pelosi: The– y– I– I don’t know what your point is of your question. Is there some point that you want to make with that?

Kroft: Well, I– I– I guess what I’m asking is do you think it’s all right for a speaker to accept a very preferential, favorable stock deal?

Pelosi: Well, we didn’t.

Kroft: You participated in the IPO. And at the time you were speaker of the House. You don’t think it was a conflict of interest or had the appearance–

Pelosi: No, it was not–

Kroft: –of a conflict of interest?

Pelosi: –it doesn’t– it only has appearance if you decide that you’re going to have– elaborate on a false premise. But it– it– it’s not true and that’s that.

Kroft: I don’t understand what part’s not true.

Pelosi: Yes sir. That– that I would act upon an investment.

Congresswoman Pelosi pointed out that the tough credit card legislation eventually passed, but it was two years later and was initiated in the Senate.

Pelosi: I will hold my record in terms of fighting the credit card companies as speaker of the House or as a member of Congress up against anyone.

Schweizer: If you are a member of Congress and you sit on the defense committee, you are free to trade defense stock as much as you want to if you’re on the Senate banking committee you can trade bank stock as much as you want and that regularly goes on– in– in all these committees.

Brian Baird is a former (Democrat) congressman from Washington state who served six terms in the house before retiring last year. He spent half of those 12 years trying to get his colleagues to prohibit insider trading in Congress and establish some rules governing conflicts of interest.

Baird: One line in a bill in Congress can be worth millions and millions of dollars. There was one night, we had a late, late night caucus and you could kind of tell how a vote was going to go the next day. I literally walked home and I thought, ‘Man, if you– if you went online and made– some significant trades, you could make a lot of money on this.’ You– you could just see it. You could see the potential here.

So in 2004, Baird and (Democratic) Congresswoman Louise Slaughter introduced the Stock Act which would make it illegal for members of Congress to trade stocks on non-public information and require them to report their stock trades every 90 days instead of once a year.

Kroft: How far did you get with this?

Baird: We didn’t get anywhere. Just flat died. Went nowhere.

Kroft: How many cosponsors did you get?

Baird: I think we got six.

Kroft: Six doesn’t sound like a very big amount.

Baird: It’s not, Steve. You– you could have– ‘National Cherry Pie Week’ and get 100 cosponsors.

When Baird finally managed to get a congressional hearing on the Stock Act, almost no one showed up. It’s reintroduced every session, but is buried so deep in the Capitol we had trouble finding congressmen who had even heard of it.

Baird: When you have a bill like this that makes so much sense and you can’t get the co-sponsorships, you can’t get the leadership to move it, it gets tremendously frustrating. Set aside that it’s the right thing to do, it’s good politics. People want their Congress to function well. It still baffles me.

But what baffles Baird even more is that the situation has gotten worse. In the past few years a whole new totally unregulated, $100 million dollar industry has grown up in Washington called political intelligence. It employs former congressmen and former staffers to scour the halls of the Capitol gathering valuable non-public information then selling it to hedge funds and traders on Wall Street who can trade on it.

Baird: Now if you’re a political intel guy. And you get that information. Long before it’s public. Long before somebody wakes up the next morning and reads or watches the television or whatever, you’ve got it. And you can make real– real-time trades before anybody else.

Baird says its taken what would be a criminal enterprise anyplace else in the country and turned it into a profitable business model.

Baird: The town is all about people saying– what do you know that I don’t know. This is the currency of Washington, D.C. And it’s that kind of informational currency that translates into real currency. Maybe it’s over drinks maybe somebody picks up a phone. And says you know just to let you know it’s in the bill. Trades happen. Can’t trace ‘em. If you can trace ‘em, it’s not illegal. It’s a pretty great system. You feel like an idiot to not take advantage of it.

One thing for sure, it seems to me, is that the Stock Act that Brian Baird and Louise Slaughter have been trying to get passed is a step in the right direction and we should be agitating to help them get it off the ground and into law.

God help us all!

[Sources: CBS, Wikipedia]

Related posts:

1. Money paid Congress Members by health insurance industry
2. Growing wealth of members of Congress
3. The FAA and the dysfunctional Congress

Some of Rick Perry must have rubbed off onto Herman Cain.

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain struggled to answer a question about U.S. foreign policy toward Libya in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board Monday.

“Okay, Libya,” said Cain, glancing up. “President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of [Muammar] Gaddafi. Just wanted to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, ‘Yes, I agreed. No, I didn’t agree,’” said Cain.

“I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason,” Cain started, before cutting himself off. “Nope, that’s a different one.” Cain shifted in his chair, adjusted his jacket and looked up again.

“I got all this stuff twirling around in my head,” he added.

Cain repeated he would have “assessed the [Libyan] opposition differently,” speaking in generalities about his problem-solving approach.

Cain raised broader questions about the nature of the Libyan opposition. “It’s not a clear yes-no answer, because all of those things I think should have been assessed, that’s what I’m saying.”

“And you don’t think they were assessed?” asked an editorial board member.

“I don’t know that they were or were not assessed. I didn’t see reports of that assessment,” Cain responded.

Cain has made multiple foreign policy gaffes in his campaign. Earlier this month, he warned China was “trying to develop a nuclear capability,” though the country tested a nuclear device in October 1964. When asked whether he was prepared to answer “gotcha” questions in October, he said, “When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I’m going to say, you know, ‘I don’t know. Do you know?’” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Afghan President Hamid Karzai later joked about the exchange.

In the editorial board interview, Cain also expressed support for collective bargaining rights and suggested that Ohio Gov. John Kasich went too far in trying to strip public employees of those rights.

This stumble is just the latest to roil the GOP primary. At a debate last week, Cain’s rival, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, was unable to remember the three federal agencies he would cut as president. After naming two, Perry took nearly a minute to regain his bearings before conceding, “I can’t think of the third one. I can’t. Sorry. Oops.” He later clarified that he had been thinking of the Department of Energy.

[Source: Huffington Post]

Related posts:

1. Cain Backs Collective Bargaining for Public Employees
2. Angle speaks and leaves without answering questions
3. Two-thirds of Republicans say minds are not made up

Maybe Herman Cain is departing from the GOP line of busting unions. Probably thinks it will help people overlook or forget the sexual harassment of women.

In a move that will undoubtedly puzzle if not enrage conservative voters, Herman Cain said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Monday that he supported the rights of public workers to collectively bargain. He also said he believed that Ohio Gov. John Kasich went too far when he tried to strip those rights with Senate Bill 5.

On the issue of collective bargaining, Cain said he supported the right of public employees to bargain collectively.

“But not collective hijacking. What I mean by that, if they have gotten so much for so many years and it’s going to bankrupt the state, I don’t think that’s good. It appears that in some instances, they really don’t care.”

Asked about last week’s vote in Ohio, in which the state’s new collective bargaining law was rejected by voters, Cain said that “maybe they tried to get too much and as a result it failed.”

Cain’s answer means he is more progressive on the issue than Mitt Romney, who notably endorsed Kasich’s SB 5, then declined to comment on a campaign to repeal it before finally coming out against that campaign. And while it may make some political sense for Cain to make this case in the course of a general election campaign — Kasich’s polling numbers have plummeted — it will do him no favors in the primary.

Also notable is the fact that Cain gave his response to a Milwaukee-based newspaper, as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, like Kasich, is staunchly anti-union and has advanced legislation that curbs collective bargaining rights.

You can watch a video of his interview on the Huffington Post.

[Source: Huffington Post]

Related posts:

1. Herman Cain Stumbles On Libya Questions
2. Plea Bargaining: Good or bad thing?
3. GOP takes it in the shorts trying to bust unions

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“The Environmental Protection Agency has been looking into better ways to regulate coal ash since there are huge, huge pits of the stuff sitting around aging coal fire plants all over the country. Often, as in Wisconsin today, they are conveniently poised right next to the source of drinking water for millions of people. Two weeks ago, Republicans in the House voted to block the EPA from being able to do anything about this. They voted to block the EPA from having authority over coal ash which, after all, the industry says is healthy, absolutely nothing to worry about. Lake Michigan full of coal ash? Well, that’s no different than Lake Michigan with no coal ash in it. Have a sip, take a dip, eat some fish, it’s fine.” -

Rachel Maddow on the lack of regulations leading up to Monday’s Oak Creek, Wisconsin coal ash spill. It happens to have occurred in Republican Paul Ryan’s district.

The house, remember, a couple of days ago passed the resolution reaffirming the motto that “We Trust in God.” I sure hope God intervenes and cleans up the mess. Republicans don’t care about it.

No work done in the House on creating jobs, however. at least to my knowledge.

Related posts:

1. Republican Party Lost?
2. Obama budget passes House and Senate
3. Rush Limbaugh: Head of the Republican Party

Related posts:

1. Jobs for America
2. Jobs for America Now! Nationwide
3. Status of the American Jobs Act

Go check out Obama for America.

Related posts:

1. Putting Americans In Control of Their Health Care
2. Obama’s Organizing for America comes to Pahrump
3. President Obama’s Listening Tour in Pahrump

I was watching 60 Minutes on CBS earlier this week. The segment was about the closing of the outpatient clinic for chemotherapy at the University Medical Center (UMC) in Las Vegas. UMC is a Clark County public hospital, the only hospital available to poor people without health insurance. The current economic crisis makes the public hospital more needed than ever.

UMC, like schools, had to cut its services to patients because of the lack of tax revenues.

“Recently thousands of letters went out across Las Vegas telling cancer patients that the only public hospital in the state was closing its outpatient clinic for chemotherapy.” [60 Minutes]

It is certain that residents of Nye County who travel to and from Las Vegas for their chemotherapy were suddenly cut off from treatment at UMC.

Helen Sharp was one of those outpatients. Watch the video of her and others’ comments. They are people, just like you and me, and but for the grace of God any one of us could find ourselves in their position. Helen is age 63, and has been fighting lymphoma.

"I don’t want to die. I shouldn’t have to die. This is a county hospital. This is for people that, like me, many people have lost their insurance, have not any other resources. I mean I was a responsible person. I bought my house. I put money away. I raised my two children. And now I have nothing. You know my house isn’t worth anything. I have no money. And I said ‘What do I do, but what do all these other people do after me?’ ‘And they said we don’t know,’" Sharp told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.

Last year, Helen received charity care at the University Medical Center. She was one of 2,000 patients who got the letter. She said the reading of the letter meant “A death sentence.”

UMC is the safety net for two million people. It is a teaching hospital, the only fully equipped trauma center, the only burn unit, the only transplant unit, and the primary source of charity care in a city that has fallen on the hardest times it has ever seen.

"Obviously, our gaming and tourism is tanking. The construction industry has been decimated. And all of those things cause big, gaping holes in the state budget. The hardest-hit area for us was the Medicaid budget," Kathy Silver, the hospital’s CEO, explained. The UMC budget was cut by $72 million.

Silver said, "We no longer provide prenatal services. We closed the outpatient oncology program. We cancelled a contract for outpatient dialysis. We closed the dedicated high risk obstetrical unit that we had. And we stopped doing outpatient mammography."

60 Minutes indicated “There are two medical assistance programs for the very poor, like the folks who line up at a Las Vegas building before dawn to apply for state services: there’s Medicaid and Clark County medical assistance.”

"If you’re poor enough you’re fine because those patients are being taken care of," Silver said. "If you’re rich enough you’re obviously fine. So who is falling through the cracks here?" Scott Pelley, of CBS, asked. “Patients who don’t qualify for a social services type of program,” Silver answered.

"What we’re talking about here are people who are making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year and have lost their jobs and therefore lost their insurance?" Pelley asked. That would be the middle class, both Pelley and Silver confirmed.

Those who have been cut off from medical treatment at UMC cannot find medical care from the health insurance industry. Roy Scales, one of the victims of the UMC problem, when asked what he could do if he could not find a doctor to take care of him simply responded, “Die peacefully.”

Depressing state of affairs. Here we are, presumably the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth, yet thousands, perhaps millions of us, are dying because we cannot afford to provide medical care.

I can’t help thinking about all the money wasted by the United States in wars we can’t afford; Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Libya and others potentially on the list. In Nevada, where the tax burden is not equitably spread among taxpayers. Locally, in Nye County, where spending thousands of dollars for such things as theme parks and the like is being contemplated.

Somehow we just don’t seem to have our priorities straight. And there appears to be no end in sight.

Related posts:

1. Republicans vs Working Middle Class
2. Middle East Turmoil
3. 2009 Graduating Class Needs Some Help

Sharron Angle’s impromptu performance of “God Bless the USA” at Las Vegas tax day tea party rally April 15, 2011.

Related posts:

1. Sharron Angle angling in New Hampshire
2. Sharron Angle’s Fundraising Surge
3. Sarah Palin backs Sharron Angle

Bill Maher to GOP: President Obama Just Ate Your Lunch

Click the link and watch the video.

Related posts:

1. President Obama pushes Congress on healthcare
2. Bill Maher: Birther Rant
3. Video: President Obama