Category Archives: Failed schools education college corruption

Remember ACORN? They are Back

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From their website in part:

CPD now has 51 staff, offices in New York City, Washington, DC, and Oakland, CA, and staff in Minnesota, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Chicago. We work with a remarkably strong cohort of 11 national partners and 43 state partner organizations in 30 states.

CPD’s model for change draws from the successful base-building and policy advocacy of partner organizations such as Make the Road New York (MRNY), CASA de Maryland, and PCUN in Oregon, as well as New York Communities for Change (NYCC), Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) and Action Now in Illinois, among many others. Around the country, base-building organizations are demonstrating that it is possible to grow to scale, with strong institutional infrastructure and innovative organizing models, and leverage that strength to win cutting-edge policy victories at the federal, state and local levels. CPD grows out of this experience, to bring a range of additional capacities to the field to help base-building organizations scale up even further, to deepen and grow the progressive movement infrastructure, and to advance a pro-worker, pro-immigrant, racial and economic justice policy agenda nationwide.

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New $80M Anti-Trump Network Spearheaded by Soros-Funded Org With Former ACORN Employees

Network will focus on pushing back against voter laws leading up to the 2018 and 2020 elections

A new $80 million anti-Trump network is being led by an organization whose top funder is liberal billionaire George Soros and which employs former members of the controversial and now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN).

The Center for Popular Democracy Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) sister organization of the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), a New York-based nonprofit that receives the bulk of its funding from George Soros, announced at their spring gala Tuesday that they will be heading up the new $80 million anti-Trump network that will span 32 states and have 48 local partners, CNN reported.

The network will seek to mobilize new voters and fight voter identification laws. It will also focus on gerrymandering and automatic voter registration programs with an eye on the 2018 and 2020 election cycles.

Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, backed the new effort.

“This national network, led by working class people of color and immigrants, will supply the power and the fight we need to resist the Trump administration’s all-out assault on American values,” Ellison told CNN. “I look forward to standing with CPD Action’s leaders in the streets and in Congress to win real progressive change.”

The Center for Popular Democracy, which was founded in 2012, consists of old chapters of ACORN, the community-organizing group that was forced to close after being stripped of its federal funds following controversy in 2010.

Andrew Friedman, a co-executive director at the Center for Popular Democracy, co-founded Make the Road New York, a Latino immigrant group that has worked alongside CPD on a number of anti-Trump campaigns. Friedman serves on the board of Make the Road New York (MRNY) and Make the Road Action Fund, which are closely linked to CPD and contain many overlapping staffers.

Others in leadership roles at CPD have come directly from ACORN.

Brian Kettenring, the other co-executive director of the CPD, was an organizer for ACORN from 1995 to 2010.

Steve Kest, a senior advisor at CPD, worked for ACORN for 35 years and served as its national executive director.

Christina Livingston, a board member of CPD, is the executive director of the Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment. Livingston previously organized for ACORN out of Los Angeles.

Steve Dooley, the director of partnerships at CPD, began his career at ACORN in D.C. Dooley later directed ACORN’s offices in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Greg Basta, the director of sustainability initiatives at CPD, worked as the statewide canvass director for the New York ACORN for five years.

Basta was a founding staff member of New York Communities for Change (NYCC), an ACORN offshoot that was founded in 2010.

The groups, which have combined to receive millions in funding from George Soros, funnel money to each other.

From 2012 to 2014, New York Communities for Change provided $81,700 to the Center for Popular Democracy, according to the group’s Form 990s up to 2014, the last available year. NYCC also passed $358,533 to the Make the Road New York Action Fund during this time.

The Center for Popular Democracy gave New York Communities for Change $406,667 between 2012 and 2014. CPD additionally gave Make the Road New York $173,955. CPD’s Action Fund added another $100,000 to New York Communities for Change.

The Center for Popular Democracy did not respond to inquiries on the new $80 million anti-Trump network. New York Communities for Change and Make the Road New York also did not return requests for comment.

CPD and MRNY have been extremely active in the anti-Trump arena, using protests and pressure campaigns.

The two groups recently “partnered” on a “Corporate Backers of Hate” campaign that targeted JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Boeing, Disney, IMB, Uber, Blackrock, and Blackstone, corporations they say could profit from President Trump’s policies.

The “mass lobbying” campaign consists of directly pressuring higher ups at each company through emails and has been called “unprecedented” by corporate responsibility experts.

Make the Road was also reported to have organized the “spontaneous” protests at New York’s JFK Airport following Trump’s Muslim travel ban. However, it was later discovered that the protests had been planned since the day after the presidential election.

Uber, which had continued to pick up passengers from the airport during the event, found themselves in the center of the #DeleteUber pressure campaign following the protests. The CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, later stepped down from Trump’s advisory council.

The group is also behind the #GrabYourWallet campaign, which targets retailers for carrying Trump family products. Nordstrom ultimately pulled Ivanka Trump’s products, although the store had claimed they had dropped her brand due to declining sales.

The Center for Popular Democracy’s new multi-million dollar network falls in line with a number of major liberal groups who have reorganized to fight back against voter laws following Donald Trump’s victory.

Demos, a New York City-based progressive public policy group chaired by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D., Mass.) daughter, has been assisting unions in pushing back against election lawsuits in number of states after counties had failed to properly maintain their voter rolls. Demos received hundreds of thousands in funding from Soros’ groups.

Marc Elias, Hillary Clinton’s former top campaign lawyer, recently joined the board of Priorities USA Action, a major Democratic super PAC that received $9.5 million from Soros during the 2016 election cycle.

Elias was tapped as the group shifts its focus on pushing back against state-level Republican efforts on voting laws. Every Citizen Counts, a nonprofit founded by Clinton allies focused on mobilizing African American and Latino voters, was absorbed into Priorities USA.

Elias will spearhead challenges against state voting laws from the organization’s nonprofit arm, which is building a national database to be a “one-stop inventory of restrictive voting measures” that they will share with other progressive groups.

Elias previously engaged in a multi-state effort to overturn voter ID laws leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The challenges were backed by millions of dollars from Soros.

Soros has a goal of enlarging the electorate by 10 million voters by 2018, the Washington Free Beacon discovered after a trove of hacked Soros documents were released last year by DC Leaks.

The plan to grow the electorate by millions of voters and combating “suppression” was listed as a top priority in a 220-page guide from his Open Society Foundations.

“The Open Society Foundations supports efforts to encourage wider participation in U.S. elections, and opposes measures used to try to suppress voter participation,” a spokesman from the Open Society Foundations told the Free Beacon at the time.

Revolutionary Schools and Administrators, NY and Chicago?

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Primer: If applying for a visa or U.S. citizenship, note but one particular item that would deem the applicant ineligible.

9 FAM 302.5-6  (U) IMMIGRANT MEMBERSHIP IN TOTALITARIAN PARTY – INA 212(a)(3)(D)

9 FAM 302.5-6(A)  (U) Grounds

(CT:VISA-1;   11-18-2015)

(U) INA 212(a)(3)(D) renders ineligible any alien applying for an immigrant visa who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or other totalitarian party.

So, are we to assume a natural born citizen is free to practice or be a member of the party that antithetical to the United States? Just asking…

Park Slope Collegiate, serves grades 6 through 12 and is 79 percent black and Hispanic. Four of five Collegiate students get a ­subsidized lunch; the great majority live outside Park Slope, in more affordable precincts.

***

A Taxpayer-Funded Brooklyn Principal Is Under Investigation For Promoting Revolutionary Communism

The New York City Department of Education is investigating a taxpayer-funded secondary school principal in Brooklyn for allegedly promoting communism and recruiting students for radical political causes.

The principal, Jill Bloomberg of Park Slope Collegiate, has responded by filing a federal lawsuit seeking to stop the investigation, reports New York public radio station WNYC.

The New York City education department initiated its investigation into Bloomberg’s alleged communist and communist-recruitment activities based on a tip from someone who remains anonymous.

The tipster told officials that Bloomberg is affiliated with the Progressive Labor Party, a revolutionary communist political party based in Brooklyn.

Court documents filed by the education department say that the investigation is focused on allegations that Bloomberg has worked to promote the agenda of the Progressive Labor Party by recruiting students “to participate in organizational activities, including marches for her political organization.”

According to the Progressive Labor Party’s website, the group seeks to foment violent revolution. “Only the dictatorship of the working class — communism — can provide a lasting solution to the disaster that is today’s world for billions of people. This cannot be done through electoral politics, but requires a revolutionary movement and a mass Red Army led by PLP.”

Also: “Communism means the Party leads every aspect of society. For this to work, millions of workers — eventually everyone — must become communist organizers. Join Us!”

The Progressive Labor Party “fights to destroy capitalism and the dictatorship of the capitalist class” by organizing “workers, soldiers and youth into a revolutionary movement for communism.”

Court documents filed by New York City’s education department allege that students who disagree with Bloomberg and her comrades “are not allowed to express” their political views.

In addition, the school district says, Bloomberg and her husband used footage of Park Slope Collegiate students and staff in documentary for a Progressive Labor Party-affiliated group “without authorization” from the students or staff members. More here from the DailyCaller.

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NYC PAPERS OUT. Social media use restricted to low res file max 184 x 128 pixels and 72 dpi

Students at Park Slope Collegiate in Brooklyn rallied Friday after a student was handcuffed and roughed up by a school safety agent, allegedly for wearing a pin in his glasses.

(Debbie Egan-Chin/New York Daily News)

*** Speaking of schools…..enter Barack Obama

Obama unveils plans for presidential center in Chicago Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michele on Wednesday unveiled design plans for a 200,000-square-foot campus on Chicago’s South Side that will house the Obama Presidential Center.

“More than a building or museum, the Obama Presidential Center will be a living, working center for engagement — an ongoing project for the community and world to shape what it means to be an active citizen in the 21st century,” the foundation said in a press release.

“The Center will include a state of the art museum, classrooms, labs, and outdoor spaces, and it will conduct programs that will give visitors not just memories, but real tools to create change in their own communities. President Obama is expected to use the center as a platform to work on issues such as criminal justice reform and education for underprivileged children. The project is expected to cost $500 million and should be completed in 2021. More here from TheHill.

Janet Napolitano Took DC Fraud Tactics With Her

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Hello FBI, when you get a chance…how about dispatching a few agents to visit Nappy….got any agents available?

Primer: Using a visa loophole to fire well-paid U.S. information technology workers and replace them with low-paid immigrants from India is despicable enough when it’s done by profit-making companies such as Southern California Edison and Walt Disney Co.

But the latest employer to try this stunt sets a new mark in what might be termed “job laundering.” It’s the University of California. Experts in the abuse of so-called H-1B visas say UC is the first public university to send the jobs of American IT staff offshore. That’s not a distinction UC should wear proudly. More here.

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The corruption continues –>

Napolitano’s UC hid $175 million while demanding money, audit says

FNC: The University of California hid a stash of $175 million in secret funds while its leaders requested more money from the state, an audit released on Tuesday said.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the audit found that the secret fund ballooned due to UC Office of the President overestimating how much is needed to run the school system that includes 10 campuses in the state. Janet Napolitano, the former Department of Homeland Security chief, is in charge of the school system.

Napolitano denied the audit’s claim. She reportedly said the money was held for any unexpected expenses. Her office also denied the amount in the fund.

“The true amount is $38 million, which is roughly 10 percent of (the office’s) operating and administrative budget, a prudent and reasonable amount for unexpected expenses such as cybersecurity threat response and emerging issues like increased support for undocumented students and efforts to prevent sexual violence and sexual harassment,” her office said in a statement.

Elaine Howle, the state auditor who came up with the report, found that from 2012 to 2016 the office looked to raise more funding by inflating estimates. Howle also said that a top staff member in Napolitano’s office improperly screened confidential surveys that were sent to each campus. Howle said answers that were critical of Napolitano’s office were deleted or changed before being sent to auditors.

“I’ve never had a situation like that in my 17 years as state auditor,” Howle said. “My attorneys are looking at whether any improper government activities occurred.”

The UC Board of Regents is now hearing calls to overturn its decision to increase tuition this fall by 2.5 percent.

Howle said Napolitano also overcharged the system’s 10 campuses to fund its operations, paid its employees significantly more than state employees and interfered in the auditing process.

“Taken as a whole, these problems indicate that significant change is necessary to strengthen the public’s trust in the University of California,” Howle wrote in the report.

The audit found that over the course of four years, the UC’s central bureaucracy amassed more than $175 million in reserve funds by spending significantly less than it budgeted for and asking for increases in future funding based on its previous years’ over-estimated budgets rather than its actual expenditures.

“In effect, the Office of the President received more funds than it needed each year, and it amassed millions of dollars in reserves that it spent with little or no oversight,” the report said.

Napolitano argues the amount accounts for 10 percent of the operating and administrative budget. She called it “a modest amount for an organization our size.”

The office argued it did not need to disclose its reserves because the regents had approved the spending in previous years’ budgets. Howle said the undisclosed funds included $32 million collected from campuses that could have been spent for other purposes.

University employees and lawmakers, who requested the audit, expressed outrage over the audit’s findings.

“Today we learned that after squandering millions of public dollars on bloated management and unaccountable ‘initiatives,’ (the Office of the President) has effectively been operating a slush fund that shields hundreds of millions of public dollars from public scrutiny,” Kathryn Lybarger, president of UC’s largest employee union, said in a statement.

She criticized the office’s “skyrocketing executive pay,” a reference to the audit’s finding that the 10 executives in the office were paid a total of $3.7 million in the 2014-15 fiscal year — over $700,000 more than the combined salaries of their highest paid state employee counterparts.

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and member of the UC Board of Regents, said the audit calls into question the university’s decision to raise this fall’s tuition for the first time in six years when it has money available. The decision in January increases the cost of tuition and fees for California residents, who currently pay $12,294 a year, to $12,630.

“It is outrageous and unjust to force tuition hikes on students while the UC hides secret funds, and I call for the tuition decision to come back before the Board of Regents for reconsideration and reversal,” he said.

Among her recommendations for reforms, Howle suggested that state lawmakers should increase oversight of the office.

However, she said the office’s attempt to interfere with the audit process by reviewing surveys auditors sent to the campuses “cast doubt on whether it will make a genuine effort to change.”

In 2012, the director of the California Parks Department resigned after it came to light that the department hid $54 million in parks funding for more than a decade, at the same time the state threatened to close dozens of parks to save money amid a state budget crisis. The state auditor recommended new accounting methods, which were later adopted.

 

Pro-Globalist College Radicals a Product of IB?

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This is how CBS reported the protests over the weekend at Berkeley.

So, these protestors cover their faces, they are in fact recruited and the pool of students highly agree on issues like being anti-American. pro-globalism and anti-war. It was taught to them in public education beginning as early as Kindergarten. (by the way, ‘kindergarten’ is a German word).

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So, what is the point here?  Read this summary as a primer.

Students enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program are taught they are elitists and exceptional over other student programs such at Advanced Placement.

High schoolers who have embraced IB’s global educational philosophy can elect to earn an IB diploma, which is recognized by colleges around the world.

IB is primarily an international program – there are nearly 4,000 IB schools in close to 150 countries, according to the program’s website.  

Notable alumni (per Wikipedia)

***

Related reading: International Baccalaureate Undermines U.S. Founding Principles

It’s time to re-affirm our founding and end the use of taxpayer funds for the IB program.

In the United States, criticism of the IBDP has centered on the vague claim that it is anti-American, according to parents anonymously quoted in The New York Times, who objected to the program’s funding from UNESCO in its early years. The base cost is considered to be higher than other programs.[81] In 2012, the school board in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, voted to eliminate all IB programmes in the district because of low participation and high costs.[83]

UNESCO, a United Nations division is in charge of your child’s education and is that okay with you?

Its declared purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through educational, scientific, and cultural reforms in order to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the United Nations Charter.

Although controversial, UNESCO’s aim is “to contribute to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information”. Other priorities of the organization include attaining quality Education For All and lifelong learning, addressing emerging social and ethical challenges, fostering cultural diversity, a culture of peace and building inclusive knowledge societies through information and communication.

So, read deeper on this as a summary white paper gives you great help on the topic and further explains just what is happening in education and the genesis of the willing demonstrators we see across college campuses today. Thanks to the ‘Truth about IB’ for all the years of hard work, research and truth.

Top U.S. Universities Challenge Free Speech, Get Big Dollars

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FNC: Controversial author Charles Murray is scheduled to speak at the University of Notre Dame on Tuesday and despite growing calls for protests from some students and faculty, organizers are standing behind the invitation.

The event comes weeks after violent protests broke out at Middlebury College where Murray was set to speak.

The 74-year-old author of “Coming Apart: The State of White America” was invited to the Catholic university as part of a lecture series for a constitutional law and politics class.

CHARLES MURRAY: ‘INTO THE MIDDLE OF A MOB’ — WHAT HAPPENED WHEN I TRIED TO SPEAK AT MIDDLEBURY

*** When domestic universities go global due to foreign money, do we really know what is being taught and why?

FNC: During the past 20 years, eight British universities — among them Oxford and Cambridge — have taken more than $292 million from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic governments. These contributions represent “the largest source of external funding to UK universities,” according to the director of Brunel University’s Center for Intelligence and Security Studies.

This phenomenon is also not isolated to the United Kingdom: Harvard alone has received more than $30 million from the Saudi government.

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Stop and think about this.

Money used to fund professorships, scholarships and centers of study is coming from regimes with long histories of violating religious freedoms. As well-intentioned as the contributors might be, it is clear these contributions are not arriving without strings attached.  A cynic might say that they are buying off professors and universities in order to advance their own agenda, even while forbidding similar activities within their own countries. They are happy to exploit Western freedoms in order to strengthen their own theocracies.

They’re not just doing it via the academy, either.

Saudi Arabia also plays a significant role in the establishment of mosques — the centerpieces of Muslim communities — across the world. According to a hearing conducted before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security in 2003, the vast majority of mosques in the United States were then under Saudi influence. In all, it is estimated that Saudi Arabia has spent more than $100 billion to spread the country’s worldview. More here from FNC.

What about our own government dollars going to universities? What influence does that have? Glad you asked…

FNC: Over a six-year period, Ivy League schools have received tens of billions in tax dollars, bringing in more money from taxpayers than from undergraduate student tuition. In fact, they received more federal cash than 16 state governments.

The stunning numbers are all part of a new report, first seen by Fox News, released Wednesday by Open the Books — a non-profit group whose stated mission is to capture and post online all disclosed spending at every level of government.

The 43-page report shows the massive amount of money flowing into not-for-profit Ivy League schools, including payments and entitlements, costing taxpayers more than $41 billion from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2015.

The spending is controversial because these eight schools — Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Yale University — have enormous resources at their fingertips, including endowment funds (money raised from donors) in 2015 exceeding $119 billion. Take that total and split it up among Ivy League undergrads and it comes out to $2 million each.

The study says another federal perk — the schools pay no tax on investment gains on their endowment — a tax break is estimated at $9.6 billion over the six years of the study.

In a statement, Princeton, suggested the study was flawed because it didn’t take into account all the money the college receives and then reinvests. Robert Durkee, a Princeton vice president and secretary, said most of the tax incentives the college receives goes toward libraries, laboratories, classrooms, research and financial aid.

“The tax exemption for endowment earnings allows these institutions to use all of those earnings to support their missions of teaching and research, for this generation and for future generations,” Durkee said in a statement. “This means
that the universities spend earnings now, but they also reinvest a portion so they can continue to support their programs of teaching and research well into the future.”

Yale said that rather than being a drain on taxpayers — as the study suggests — the college is a huge financial boon to the towns that surround it.

“Since 2000, over 50 startups based on Yale inventions and located in New Haven have attracted over $5 billion in investment to New Haven and surrounding towns,” Tom Conroy, a Yale spokesman, told Fox News. “Alexion, which employs 1,200 people in New Haven, is a prime example of Yale’s impact.”

Conroy also pointed out that Yale funds a large portion of its research.

Some question if these schools should receive any federal funding…much less, such a large amount.

Here’s a reality check list:

  • With continued donations at the present rate, the money could provide free tuition to the entire student body in perpetuity,
  • Without new donations, the endowment could provide a full-ride scholarship for all Ivy League undergraduate students for 51 years

The report also shows that in fiscal year 2014, the balance sheet for all eight Ivy League schools combined showed accumulated gross assets of more than $194 billion, or the equivalent of $3.35 million per undergraduate student.

“The Ivy League needs to pay its own way…The taxpayer gravy train needs to end,” Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books, told Fox News.

His report does say that Americans should be proud of the schools and “applaud the many contributions of Ivy League colleges and graduates.” But he told Fox News he feels that “they don’t need taxpayer help, they don’t need taxpayer assistance.”

Some of the federal spending makes sense, like the study of AIDs. But, he said, some are less defensible.

One grant was given to Cornell for nearly $1 million to study whale presence in the Virginia offshore wind energy area. Other grants to Ivy League schools were to study college binge drinking, ethics in Tanzania and sex chromosomes in turtles.

“They have got an endowment, right?” Andrzejewski said. “They can use their endowed funds – they don’t need public funds – to fund studies.”

He went on to compare what he calls Ivy League, Inc. to “a hedge fund with classes.”

Finally, the report dives into some of the big bucks being paid out to Ivy League employees. It shows more than $62 billion in salaries, benefits and reportable compensation to faculty, staff and other employees from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2014 and names four employees who made more than $20 million and three more who made more than $13 million.

Fox News reached out to every Ivy League school for comment Wednesday morning. Princeton and Yale replied, Dartmouth declined to comment, and the others have not responded.

The entire report can be read here.