Grand Rapids Bus Driver’s Union and Equity PAC trade words over November Transit Millage
On November 7, voters in the Greater Grand Rapids area can vote on whether or not to renew an operational millage for The Rapid bus system.
The issue has been a contentious one for more than a year, mostly because The Rapid board has failed to reach a negotiation with the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 836. 
In recent months the issue has become more intense, with the ATU engaging in actions around the millage, most recently their confronting of Grand Rapids Mayor Bliss on Labor Day.
Since then, the Kent County Democrats have sided with the ATU to not support the millage, unless there is a contract agreement reached before the November 7 Millage vote. Some political candidates have also sided with the ATU in not endorsing the Millage, such as Robert Van Kirk who is running for the 77th State House seat and Rachel Hood who is running for the 76th House seat, although both want to see both of these things happen and are urging The Rapid and the ATUGR to find a just solution.
On October 9, Equity PAC formally endorsed the Transit Millage, with their entire statement at this link. Equity PAC does acknowledge that The Rapid and the union need to agree on a contract, but then it takes an ugly turn.
Equity PAC also strongly feels that it is important for The Rapid and the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) to come together in agreement on a contract. The assurance of seniority and proper compensation is vitally important for those employed by The Rapid. However, it is more important above everything else that we support the interests of low income people, seniors and people with disabilities, and others in the need for this service.
“For too long we have allowed people to prosper, benefit and make money off the backs of minorities – and people in poverty in general. The latest move by the transit union, and its supporters to use the endorsement of the upcoming millage hostage until the ATU contract is negotiated is consistent with that unfortunate history. What is inconsistent is the amount of ‘allies’ who sit silent or agree to the tactic,” says Darel Ross, Equity PAC board member.
This statement from Equity PAC board member Darel Ross certainly got the attention of RiChard Jackson, who is the President of the ATUGR. Jackson released a statement today, which we reprint below.
There is less than a month before the November 7 vote. We will update readers on any new information in regards to a potential contract agreement and other positions on the Transit Millage.
The Acton Institute conference on Education & Freedom: School Privatization, School Choice and the Benefits of Free Market Capitalism
Last month, we reported that Betsy DeVos will be the keynote speaker at the Acton Institute’s 27th Annual Dinner. The $175 a plate Acton event will be held at the DeVos Hall in downtown Grand Rapids on October 18.
The very next day, on October 19, the Acton Institute will host an event entitled, Education and Freedom. This event, which is being held at the Acton Institute headquarters on the corner of E. Fulton and Sheldon, makes this claim:
Everyone in the United States knows education is badly in need of reform. While K-12 and higher education costs have outpaced inflation, we have yet to see commensurate returns. And parents who opt out of such a system pay twice for their children’s education–taxes and tuition.
Choice, flexibility and innovation are needed.
The lack of freedom for parents, teachers, students, and state and local governments is distorting the purpose and function of education across the country.
It is clear that the Acton Institute is not hiding their ideological bias on the issue of education. They embrace the same fundamental framework as the current Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. The Acton Institute sees the existence of Charter Schools, Private Schools and School Vouchers as synonymous with FREEDOM. So do the people they have invited to their one-day conference.
Brian Britton – He is the current CEO of National Heritage Academies (NHA), which is based in Grand Rapids. The NHA was founded by J.C. Huizenga, who is a current board member at the Acton Institute. Huizenga is part of the West Michigan power structure, because of his wealth and the organizations that Huizenga is part of. Over the past 10 years, the National Heritage Academies has spent $810,000 lobbying Congress on education legislation.
Joe Cohn – Joe Cohn works for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE). FIRE is a major proponent of the intellectual diversity movement, which aims to dismantle the so-called liberal bias in higher academia. Cohn writes about numerous issues related to higher education, but has spent a great deal of time writing about and supporting Betsy DeVos’s revision around Title IX. Like DeVos, Cohn believes that those accused of sexual assault are not treated fairly.
Ben DeGrow – Ben is the director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. DeGrow writes regularly about the importance of school choice and Charter Schools for the Mackinac Center. DeGrow’s work and that of the Mackinac Center around education policy, “is devoted to privatizing state institutions and to deregulating public education.” Over the past decade, the Mackinac Center has received $325,000 from the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation and $210,000 from the DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative. 
Timothy Hall – Hall works as the Director of Operations and Academics at Thales Academy in North Carolina. Thales Academy was founded by Bob Luddy, a businessman who supports GOP candidates and created Thales Academy because he wanted to offer parents private school options. Luddy was the top contributor to the anti-diversity-policy electoral effort in 2009 in North Carolina and is accused by the NAACP of desegregating school districts.
Tom Lindsay – Lindsay is the Director of the Center for Higher Education at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) is a conservative think tank founded in 1989 by James R. Leininger. It is a member of the right-wing State Policy Network (SPN) and is based in Austin, Texas. It has ties to Texas Governor and former presidential candidate Rick Perry, Ted Cruz, and many other powerful politicians. The TPPF has been a champion of many of the ALEC bills used in states across the country and has a history of supports legislation that supports school privatization, virtual schools, attacking public education teachers and eliminating pensions for public school teachers.
Catherine Pakaluk – Pakaluk is a faculty member at the Busch School of Business and Economics in Washington, DC. The Busch School is a Catholic School, and like the Acton Institute, believes that Catholicism and Capitalism are perfect bedfellows.
Greg Reed – Greg Reed is an attorney with the Institute for Justice. The Institute for Justice (IJ) is a libertarian public interest law firm registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit and founded in 1991. The IJ names its four major issues as “private property, economic liberty, free speech and school choice.”
Mitchell Rocklin – Mitchell Rocklin is a Resident Research Fellow at The Tikvah Fund, a Jewish educational think tank and philanthropic organization in New York. The Tikvah Fund is a private philanthropic foundation that works closely with neoconservative think tanks and media outlets as well as an array of academic institutions to promote conservative ideologies. The foundation seeks to influence both academic discourse and the media on issues impacting economics, politics, culture, and religion, with a particular emphasis on the role of Judaism in society. The Tikyah Fund is politically Zionist in its orientation.
Jeff Sandefer – Jeff Sandefer has been the President of Sandefer Capital Partners. Sandefer Capital Partners is a U.S. based investment company. In February 2004 they announced that they would takeover Southern Pacific Petroleum (SPP), an ailing company that had been attempting to develop oil shale deposits in North Queensland. The project had been opposed by Greenpeace and other environmental groups due to its greenhouse gas emissions and the company’s refusal to relinquish leases over shale deposits that extended to within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Sandefer considers himself an entrepreneur educator.
Richard Vedder – Richard Vedder is a Distinguished Professor of Economics at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Vedder is also on the Board of Scholars and the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
So, it seems pretty clear that the notion of Education and Freedom for the Acton Institute invited speakers means school choice, education privatization and education that embraces free market capitalism.
Activists tell the City of Grand Rapids they need a policy that doesn’t make immigrants feel threatened
Last night, during the Grand Rapids City Commission, several activists and organizers with the Micah Center and Movimiento Cosecha GR, spoke passionately during the public comment portion of the meeting about the urgency of having a policy that would not threaten immigrants in this community.
Since December, the City of Grand Rapids has opted to call itself a Welcoming City and not a Sanctuary City, due to the possible loss of federal funding. The Trump administration has sought to withhold federal funds from cities that declare themselves a Sanctuary City. However, a federal judge recently ruled to block the administration from preventing cities that are designated as Sanctuary Cities from receiving federal funds. Last month CNN reported:
“The harm to the city’s relationship with the immigrant community, if it should accede to the conditions, is irreparable,” Judge Leinenweber wrote. “Once such trust is lost, it cannot be repaired through an award of money damages.”
Friday’s decision marked the second time this year a federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to force sanctuary cities to cooperate on immigration enforcement. A judge in San Francisco restricted a January executive order from Trump that threatened to block all federal funds to sanctuary cities — a catchall term generally used to describe jurisdictions that have some policy of noncooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Gema Lowe, with the Workers Center made her statement in Spanish, without an interpreter, thus highlighting the intimidation factor that immigrants face when interacting with the city. She also had a statement on her back saying NO Intimidation, which underscored the urgency for the city to adopt a policy that doesn’t make immigrants feel threatened. Lowe stated that the city needs to adopt a policy to make sure that no city employee, and especially the GRPD, does not ask people what their immigration status is.
Russell Olmsted also spoke about how such a policy was a matter of equity. He also said that the city needed to send a strong message to the immigrant community that they are valued and that they will be protected from intimidation.
LaDonna Norman both spoke about the importance of immigrants feeling welcomed in this city and Martha Cooper said that people who already feel intimidated by the Federal government, should not have to feel intimidated by local government as well.
Jim Howe asked the Mayor of Grand Rapids where she was born. He did so to illustrate how invasive and intimidating it would be for city staff to ask something similar. Howe said that the City needs to adopt a policy where immigrants, regardless of status, should be protected from further harassment and intimidation.
WXMI 17 station parent company about to merge with Trump Administration friendly Sinclair Broadcasting Group
In May of this year it was announced that the Fox affiliate, WXMI 17 and their parent company the Tribune Media Co., would be bought up by the Sinclair Broadcasting group.
MiBiz recently ran an article about this buyout and does a pretty good job of pointing out that this merger would be in violation of current Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules.
This is because the Sinclair Broadcasting Group already owns a TV station in the area, WMMT, channel 3, based in Kalamazoo, and according to FCC rules, you can’t own more than one TV station in the same market.
Radio/TV ownership deregulation
The deregulation of radio and TV stations is nothing new. Beginning in the 1980s, there was the first major push to deregulate the broadcast market and allow for greater media ownership consolidation.
The largest shift came in 1996, under the Clinton administration, where radio corporation were allowed to expand the number of stations they owned in one market from 3 to 8. This FCC shift during the Clinton years gave birth to mega-media corporations like Clear Channel, which owns 8 radio stations in the Grand Rapids market.
However, the push to further consolidate media ownership didn’t end with the 1996 FCC ruling, especially since the media companies themselves have become monopolies looking out for their own interests. Media companies spend millions annually lobby the federal government to further deregulate the broadcast market. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, you can see how much the commercial TV & radio companies have been spending on lobbying and how they give pretty much equally to both parties.
WXMI 17 and media bias
As someone who has been monitoring the local news over the past 30 years, it is clear that WXMI presents news through the lens of the dominant culture. When I say dominant culture, I mean they represent the views of those with economic and political power, along with a bias towards white supremacy.
This bias has nothing to do with them being a FOX affiliate, since they have never been owned by FOX, they just rely on FOX News as a source for national news. We have tracked WXMI 17 around election coverage since 1998, along with war coverage, racial representation and a number of other issues and WXMI 17 is no more biased that WOOD TV8 or WZZM 13.
Sinclair Broadcasting Group and the Trump Administration
While WXMI 17 has not demonstrated any partisan bias, this may change if the station gets bought up by the Sinclair Broadcasting Group.
The partisan bias of the Sinclair Broadcasting Group has been well documented for more than a decade. According to the Center for Media & Democracy (CMD), The company and its executives have consistently funded right-wing political candidates, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
In April 2004, Sinclair refused to let its stations broadcast a special “Nightline” episode, produced by the ABC television network, that was devoted to reading the names of soldiers who had died in “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” It also directed its stations to air an anti-Kerry program ahead of the 2004 presidential election.
Sinclair stations are forced to make room for “must run” segments produced by the company, such as brashly right-wing video op-eds from Sinclair executive Mark Hyman and the station’s chief political analyst (and senior advisor to Trump’s campaign) Boris Epshteyn, who memorably claimed that President Obama won North Carolina because of voter fraud.
Sinclair stations are also fed scripts to introduce must-runs, leaving local news stations across the country echoing language such as, “Did the FBI have a personal vendetta in pursuing the Russia investigation of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn?” as evidence was mounting that Flynn was in serious legal jeopardy for failure to report foreign ties and for withholding information from the Pentagon and the FBI.
According to the national media reform group, the Free Press, the Sinclair media merger would be detrimental to a free flow of information. In a recent post, the Free Press writes:
In addition to violating the agency’s longstanding ownership rules, the merger would give an even bigger megaphone to a company that forces its stations to run right-wing political commentaries every single day. Sinclair routinely overrides the objections of local journalists and fails to provide coverage that serves community needs. At its worst, Sinclair uses its massive network of broadcast stations to fan the flames of racial and religious prejudice and put local communities at risk. “When a broadcaster’s political perspective is so strident that it inhibits local editorial control and subverts localism, the Commission must consider whether that broadcaster is acting in the public interest,” reads the Free Press response.
“Sinclair has long evaded the FCC rules it’s now trying to completely erase with the help of the Trump FCC under Chairman Pai,” said Free Press President and CEO Craig Aaron. “Sinclair forces its local stations to air pro-Trump propaganda and then seeks favors from the Trump administration worth billions. This should be a national scandal. And if it’s allowed to happen, it will unleash a new and unprecedented wave of consolidation in local TV that may boost short-term stock prices but will spell long-term disaster for local communities.”
“For all their bluster, Sinclair and Tribune have once again failed to show how this unprecedented merger could possibly serve the public interest,” said Free Press Policy Analyst Dana Floberg. “Instead they seek to distract the FCC with boasting and technical quibbles in the hopes that Chairman Pai will overlook the transaction’s blatant violations of FCC ownership rules. The reality is that this deal would seriously harm people of color, low-income families and other communities that rely on local television for local news. It would silence independent community voices while giving mega-broadcaster Sinclair even more control over what we see and hear on the news.”
This proposed media merger will benefit the small number of media monopolies that exist, but you won’t hear about it from other broadcasters. The local TV stations certainly are not making this an issues, especially since they are also owned by major media corporations. WOOD TV 8 is owned by Texas-based Nexstar Media Group Inc. and WZZM 13 is owned by Gannett.
It is difficult to fight these corporate conglomerate, but there are groups like the Free Press who do take up that fight. We also recommend that you seek out independent sources of news and information, particularly sources that were created by and led by marginalized communities, like communities of color, immigrants, queer & transgender communities and working class communities. Change the narrative!
A Eulogy for Public Education: Demonstrators march in Grand Rapids and denounce the policies of Betsy DeVos
About 60 people gathered in downtown Grand Rapids yesterday, to hold a mock funeral for public education.
Organized by the Michigan Student Power Network, people met at Monument Park, most dressed in black, to eulogize Public Education in the US. Those who organized the action handed out a small document, something you might find at a funeral, which read in part:
It is with great sadness that we announce the impending death of the great institution of Public Education. After years of living on life support, Public Education is now in the terminal stages of its long battle with underfunding, privatization, segregation, and rich political donors, it would seem that the end is drawing near for this vital institution.
Shortly after 2pm, one of the organizers read the entire statement, a statement that was offered up as a eulogy in this video.
After the eulogy, the march/procession began with people carrying signs, banners, flags and coffins, each speaking to the death of public education. The group of 60 marched west on Fulton Street, then around the arena district, to end up back on Fulton Street. Here is a short video of the march/procession.
Along the route, the march/procession made stops at the downtown GVSU campus, the GRCC campus and back to Monument Park. At each stop there were speakers addressing a variety of issues such as the assault on Title IX policies, which will decrease the efforts to support those who have been sexually assaulted on school campuses across the country.
Another speaker addressed the issue of budget cuts for education, especially to programs that are offered to students with disabilities and other marginalized groups.
Another speaker addressed how the Secretary of Education and her policies have and will impact the Grand Rapids Public Schools. This speaker also addressed the relationship between Betsy DeVos and the Superintendent of the GRPS.
Along the march/procession route, there were a few detractors, but most people responded positively to what the action was drawing attention to. As expected, the police got involved early on in the march/procession (see photo above) and even threatened people at one point with arrest if they didn’t get out of the street.
You can follow the Michigan Student Power Network on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/michiganstudentpower/?ref=br_rs.
Updated – Working without a contract, Kendall Faculty Association takes action to challenge Ferris Board of Trustees
(Thanks to Sarah Doherty for the updated information and for sharing the video posted here at the end.)
Earlier today, several dozen members of the Kendall College Faculty Association and 20 additional community supporters held an informational picket today. The action was called by the Kendall Faculty Association, which has been operating without a contract.
In addition, Kendall College faculty are amongst the lowest paid for a four-year public college in Michigan. This of course is all happening while the annual compensation for the four-person administration has a total cost in excess of $600,000.
We interviewed several of the faculty members about their action and what they are asking for. The first interview wis with the president of the faculty union, Adam.
There are more specific issues that the faculty at Kendall are dealing with such as the fact that they do not have a pension plan and they already pay for a portion of their health plan. These kinds of policies have historically been used to try to break unions.
We also interviewed Stefanie, another member of the Kendall faculty.
The third person we spoke with is also with the Kendall faculty and has been teaching at the college for 16 years.
Just before 11:00am, faculty members and community supporters entered the building, since the board of the college was meeting. People went in with signs and stood in the back of the room while the board members began their meeting. Some of the members of the Kendall Faculty Association were planning on addressing the board, but unfortunately, this writer had to leave and was unable to stay for that portion of group’s action.
The video below is Kendall Professor Deb Rockman addressing the administration board. Rockman was speaking on behalf of the Kendall Faculty Association. After her comments the demonstrators left the meeting and reconvened on the sidewalks outside of the KCAD federal building. They chanted under the window of the second floor room where the board was meeting, and continued to hand out fliers to people walking by.
The objectification of women is the norm within the media world, whether we are talking about films, TV shows, advertising or video games. Read or watch any of the videos produced by educator and feminist Jean Kilbourne and it is hard to argue this assertion.
The use of women’s bodies and their identities is also prevalent as a market gimmick. This is certainly the case with a recent effort by the Grand Rapids radio station WGRD.
On September 15, WGRD posted on their website this piece, which began by saying:
There are plenty of places to go to enjoy the nightlife of Grand Rapids on a daily basis, and those of us who have lived here for a while know that we often have to explain the different bars to new people. So, we’ve come up with a comprehensive way to explain the bars in GR to your new-to-town friends by comparing them to girls we all know. You know… THOSE girls…
The posting then provides readers with 7 bars that are now referred to as “girls.” Here is an example:
Now, a common reaction might be, so what’s the big deal? At the bottom there is a link to bars in Grand Rapids that are named after guys. So, it seems that WGRD equally objectifies men and women. While, I believe that thinking of bars as people is a stupid idea, the notion that men and women in this culture are equally objectified is just plain nonsense. 
The hyper-objectification and sexualization of women in our media saturated world happens a great deal more than the hyper-objectification of men’s bodies. More importantly, the objectification of women’s bodies must also be seen in the context of the statistical reality of how frequently women and girls are sexually assaulted by men. In other words, the consequences to the objectification of women’s bodies is much more serious than the objectification of men’s bodies.
In addition, it is worth pointing out that WGRD has a history of objectifying women’s bodies, specifically for male pleasure.
In 2004, an intern with GRIID conducted a research project looking at the objectification of women on local radio stations and their websites. WGRD had numerous links to porn sites and used to promote the Babe of the Day. Here is one of the images (above) from the 2004 study, with a WGRD DJ posing with women in bikinis.
A year later Media Mouse conducted a study of WGRD and wrote this:
local Grand Rapids alternative rock station 97.9 WGRD makes extensive use of sexism and misogyny to generate an appeal to its core demographic of 25 to 34 year old adults. The study, focusing on a month long period of monitoring this winter, found that DJ David Fox repeatedly made reference to prostitutes, strippers, sex, and “hot chicks” in addition to making racist and homophobic statements.
DJ David Fox was eventually fired, but in 2007, Media Mouse did a follow up study and found that the hyper-sexualized content was still a problem. Media Mouse wrote:
Like the websites of other radio stations in the West Michigan area, the “Babe of the Day” feature syndicates content from “Stare Magazine” that uses the slogan “we don’t even HAVE articles” to promote its “bikini and lingerie” photographs. The image featured on WGRD’s site when this review was conducted was an example the “dismemberment” of women when they are reduced to nothing more than a single body part (or set of). Essentially, there is no humanity in the photo and instead the body is presented as the only defining aspect of the woman. Based on Stare’s website, this is quite common as the majority of the photos on the website–including the header image–feature such dismemberment.
The “WGRD Girls To Be Thankful For!” feature is a contest that solicits photos from women. Women who submit photos are displayed on the website and then are eligible to win WGRD “prize packs.” Not surprisingly given the portrayals of women elsewhere on the site, photos tend to be shot in a way that represent stereotypical “male” “fantasies.”
WGRD uses the public airwaves that are technically supposed to be use to serve the public interest, not to promote the objectification of women. We encourage people to not listen to their station and to contact their Brand Manager John Walker at this e-mail John.Walker@townsquaremedia.com.
Over the past 10 days, people are deeply saddened by the devastation occurring in Puerto Rico and are pissed off at the administration’s lack of empathy for those on the island that are suffering.
Groups on all parts of the political spectrum have been weighing in on Puerto Rico, including the Grand Rapids-based Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. In fact, there have been two postings on the Acton website in the past 2 weeks, postings that are worth unpacking.
The first post from September 22nd is entitled, Hurricanes Prove Human Solidarity: The law written on the human heart. The headline sounds encouraging, but the content is not what you think.
The Acton article, written by Steve Stapleton (a financial investment advisor), uses this opportunity to dismiss climate change before he even talks about solidarity. This is consistent with the position that Acton has taken over the years, a position that is essentially one of climate denial.
Last year, a group of US Senators identified 32 organizations in the US that effectively promote climate denial, and among those groups was the Acton Institute.
In 2007, the Acton Institute brought in a speaker from the Competitive Enterprise Institute to talk about corporate responsibility, but he also talked about how climate change was a hoax. That same year, the Acton Institute screened a climate denial documentary at the Wealthy Street Theater and it has been know for years that the Acton Institute has been the recipient of funds from ExxonMobil (beginning in 1998) for the specific purpose of publicly denying that climate change is a reality.
After injecting anti-climate change rhetoric, the author of the Acton article finally gets to the issue of human solidarity. He only spends a few paragraphs talking about human solidarity, but in a very simplistic and vague fashion, without really providing clear examples. Essentially, the author ends up talking about charity, instead of human solidarity. Real solidarity is what is being practiced by those involved in the Mutual Aid Disaster Relief network.
Steve Stapleton then quickly shifts gears to talk about how it is not the state’s function to intervene when disasters happen. The author goes as far as to refer to states that do act in the face of disaster as, “the nanny state.” In the end, this article on human solidarity ends up being just another opportunity for the Acton Institute to push its ideological propaganda.
The second article on the Acton Blog, which addresses Puerto Rico and hurricane relief, appeared on September 28 and is entitled, How protectionism is hindering Puerto Rico relief efforts. This article was written by Joe Carter, who is the senior editor at the Acton Institute.
The author’s focus in this article is essentially to point out that government protectionist policies are the problem, specifically the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act.
While in principle, I would support the repeal of the Jones Act, this alone is not the problem. First, the Acton writer fails to even acknowledge the colonialist history between the US and Puerto Rico. Second, the recent history of neoliberal capitalist changes in Puerto Rico must be acknowledged, which has impacted public education, workers and health care on the island. Lastly, it is absolutely necessary to also expose those who have profited from the austerity measures being imposed on the people of Puerto Rico. The group Hedge Clippers has identified many of the individuals and corporations profiting from the economic policies imposed on the people of Puerto Rico , including the Baupost Group, a Boston-based hedge fund group that hold about a billion dollars of Puerto Rico’s debt.
Lastly, the Acton Institute and many other groups, both conservative and liberal, are also practicing a form of white savior politics, by failing to really listen to the voices in Puerto Rico who have been fighting colonialism, economic austerity and are the people on the ground who are involved in the real solidarity work with their people. These people published an important statement on Monday that speaks to what must be done, including a list of demands.
Once again, the Acton Institute demonstrates their own brand of arrogant paternalism and their endless quest to promote a free market fanaticism.
The significance of Betsy DeVos appointing John Engler to the National Assessment Board
Last week it was reported by MLive, that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos had appointed several new people to the National Assessment Board, including former Michigan Governor John Engler.
The National Assessment Board’s mission is to:
The National Assessment Governing Board was created by Congress in 1988 as an independent, nonpartisan board to set policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), also known as The Nation’s Report Card.
MLive includes a brief comment from DeVos about the appointment of Engler, where the Secretary of Education says, “He is a tireless advocate for all our nation’s students, and his strong leadership will be a substantial asset to the board.”
The MLive article also mentioned that Engler has been a supporter of Charter schools and, “as governor helped launch the sector in 1993 with an effort to overhaul school funding and the eventual passage of the Michigan Charter School Act of 1994.”
The MLive article didn’t say much more than what is cited above and the same was the case for the announcement in the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News.
Shortly after John Engler became Governor of Michigan, the issue of public education funding became an issue. Engler had proposed in the summer of 1993 to cuts property taxes by 20%. At the time, as a State Senator, Debbie Stabenow proposed a 100% cut to property taxes.
According to a story on Michigan Radio,
At the time, Stabenow’s move was widely interpreted as an attempt on her part to show how silly it was to cut taxes without specifying new revenues for the schools. If that was its purpose, it backfired. The Senate passed the amended bill the same day, the House followed a day later, and the governor immediately announced that he would sign the bill. With little debate the state had eliminated $6.5 billion in school taxes for the 1994-1995 school year. Absent further action, there would be no way to finance the public schools.
This decision to gut financing for public schools, eventually paved the way for charter schools to be introduced into Michigan.
I remember when this was all happening. Governor Engler came to Grand Rapids in the fall of 1993 to visit what was then called Henry School (now MLK School). There were parents and other activists waiting for the Governor’s motorcade. One parent held a sign that said, “Hey Engler, Remember what happened to Custer.” Engler’s motorcade did not stopped and parents were prevented from speaking with him while he visited the school.
The Michigan Radio piece then goes on to say, “Both Republicans and Democrats worked together to create school choice in Michigan – that issue was not put to voters. The question to voters was how to pay for it. Proposal A increased the state sales tax and tobacco tax to help pay for schools. It also put a cap on how much money local governments could raise to spend on schools.”
Since then the record on the performance of Charter Schools is not good, according to a recent story by The Bridge. And John Engler is certainly a part of that same legacy, a fact that seems to be missed by MLive and the other major dailies in Michigan.
For a listing of those who will join John Engler on the National Assessment Board, see the information that the Secretary of Education posted on each of the new appointees.
35 years later, American Made movie tells part of the story of US Drug Policy, the CIA and Barry Seal
This past weekend, the Hollywood version of what pilot and drug runner Barry Seal did for the CIA in the 1980s, opened in movie theaters across the country.
If you go see the film, there are some things you should keep in mind, as Hollywood is prone to sensationalize real-life events, especially when Tom Cruise is involved. Before we talk about the role of Barry Seal and his relationship to US government agencies, it is important to point out what the black community has been telling us for years, which was something like, we don’t have the planes and the boats to bring these drugs into the US, this was always done by white people, yet it has had devastating effects in the black community.
Barry Seal was an airplane pilot who started transporting drugs into the US in the mid-1970s. He first began by bringing in marijuana, but that eventually evolved to cocaine. Seal was eventually murdered in 1986, by what were believed to be hitmen hired by Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
It is important that we put the role that Barry Seal played as a drug smuggler for the CIA in solid historical context. Seal was engaged in the bulk of his drug smuggling work during the Reagan administration, which was eventually confronted by the Iran-Contra affair. This guns, for drugs, for hostages scandal underscores many of the same dynamics that Barry Seal was involved in. You can read details about the Iran-Contra scandal through the declassified documents that were put together by the National Security Archives.
Another important historical context to acknowledge is the fact that there was a major investigation by the US Senate, which produced a report released in 1989. This investigation and report admitted that various US agencies were either fully aware of or deeply involved in facilitating the drug trade during the 1980 in Latin America.
However, there are two independent books I wanted to talk about that also shed a great deal of light on this topic and the role that Barry Seal played in drug smuggling for the US government in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The first book is the scholarly work done by Peter Dale Scott and Johnathan Marshall, which produced the book, Cocaine Politics: Drugs, Armies, and the CIA in Central America. Barry Seal’s involvement with illegal drug smuggling and his relationship to the DEA and CIA is cited throughout the book, but we will reference one section that has the most details on pages 98 – 102.
“In March 1983, after a DEA investigation, Barry Seal was indicted in Fort Lauderdale for a shipment of 200,000 Quaaludes. Through 1983 and 1984 Seal attempted to beat the indictment by offering to become an informant for the DEA’s Miami Field Division. His offers were refused. Then, after his conviction in February 1984, Seal found a more sympathetic audience for his problem, who arranged for Seal to stay out of jail and in the cocaine business: in March 1984, while out of jail on an appeal bond, Seal flew his Lear jet to Washington and telephoned Vice President Bush’s office; and he spoke on the street to staff members of the vice president’s South Florida Task Force.
The Task Force’s DEA liaison sent Seal to DEA’s Washington headquarters, which then found a supervisor, newly posted to the Miami Field Division, who reversed previous DEA policy and agreed to handle Seal as an informant. Less than a month later, on April 6, 1984, Seal flew to Colombia for a drug shipment that soon led to one of the White House’s bigger propaganda efforts against the Sandinistas: photographs allegedly linking them to the Medellin cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar.
The CIA was certainly involved in the preparations for Seal’s trip to Nicaragua: it was the CIA that provided the cameras for Seal’s C-123K cargo plane in 1984. It was the CIA that provided the disputed description of Seal’s Nicaraguan contact, Frederico Vaughan, as an aide to Nicaraguan Interior Minister Borge. It was certainly Duane Clarridge, the CIA’s Latin American Division Chief in charge of the Contras, who was responsible for Oliver North’s learning, the very day of Seal’s return with the film, that the photos show Vaughan and Nicaraguan interior troops. General Gorman claimed three days later that the US now had firm proof of Sandinista drug trafficking; and DEA officials soon learned to their dismay that Clarridge and North had somehow obtained the Seal photos. Within weeks both the story and the photos had been made public, and the DEA had to break off the Seal flights to Nicaragua.
The second book worth referencing on Barry Seal’s role in the US/CIA/DEA drug operations in the 1980s was journalist Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance: The CIA, The Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.
While working for the San Jose Mercury News, Gary Webb had discovered the CIA/Contra connection in California in the mid-1990s, while investigating the crack cocaine epidemic within the Black community. He wrote a four-part series for the San Jose Mercury News, which eventually became the book, Dark Alliance. 
The wrecked C-123K in which those flight logs were found had a history of involvement with cocaine, the Medellin cartel, and the CIA. It was the same plane Louisiana drug dealer Barry Seal used in a joint CIA-DEA sting operation in 1984 against the Sandinistas. In that case the CIA had taken Seal’s plane – which he’d recently obtained through a complicated plane swap with the cartel – to Rickenbacker Air Force Base in Ohio and outfitted it with hidden cameras. Then Seal, who was working as a DEA informant, flew the aircraft to an airfield in Nicaragua and snapped pictures of men loading bags of cocaine into his plane.
One of Seal’s grainy, almost indistinguishable photos was later shown on national TV by President Ronald Reagan the night before a crucial vote in Congress on Contra Aid. “This picture, secretly taken at a military airfield outside Managua, shows Frederico Vaughan, a top aide to one of the nine commandantes who rule Nicaragua, loading an aircraft with illegal narcotics, bound for the United States,” Reagan announced. “No, there seems to be no crime to which the Sandinistas will not stoop – this is an outlaw regime.”
After the president’s remarks were uncritically spread across the country by the national media, both the DEA and the Justice Department admitted there was no evidence, other than Barry Seal’s claims, to support Reagan’s accusations.
A 1988 congressional investigation raised troubling questions about whether or not the Seal sting was even a real sting. It produced evidence suggesting that the whole episode had been stage-managed by Oliver North and the CIA as a domestic disinformation operation. Among other things, the House Judiciary Committee investigation revealed that the alleged Sandinista official named by Reagan, Frederico Vaughan, may have actually been working for the US government. Committee chairman William Hughes of New Jersey told reporters that “subcommittee staff recently called Vaughan’s number in Managua, Nicaragua and spoke to a domestic employee who said the house belonged to a US Embassy employee,” and that his investigators were told the house had been “continuously rented” by the United States since 1981.
Four DEA officials testified before Hughes’s committee that they’d received pressure from North and the CIA to leak the news of Vaughan’s involvement with drugs to the press. They also said North wanted to take $1.5 million in drug profits Seal had collected from the Medellin cartel and give it to the Contras. When the DEA refused to to either, the DEA officials testified, the story was leaked by the White House to the rightwing Washington Times, which was supporting the Contras both financially and editorially.
Therefore, don’t be misled by the sensationalized version of this story as depicted by Tom Cruise. In fact, if you wanted to watch a Hollywood film that more accurately tells the story of US drug policy in the 1980s and 90s, watch the 2014 film Kill the Messenger, which is about journalist Gary Webb and what he uncovered. One of the things that this film does, which is so important, is to link the crack-cocaine epidemic within the black community with the US government role in facilitating drugs coming into the US.
