Dr. Dreyfuss musings

We have a tie for asshole of the week.
You decide who gets the award?

Coach disciplined for distributing flier at school
Instructor urged Latino students to attend rally on immigration
By JENNIFER RADLIFFE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Rudy Rios was stripped of his duties as junior varsity baseball coach at Chavez High School last week after using a district copying machine to make a flier encouraging Latino students to attend a rally protesting restrictions on illegal immigration.

Rios, who still retains his duties as an English-as-a-second-language teacher, (wtf) was copying and distributing a flier that read:
"We gots 2 stay together and protest against the new law that wants 2 be passed against all immigrants. We gots 2 show the U.S. that they aint (expletive) with out us (sic)," according to district officials.
(Sounds like a real great 'English' teacher...)

"Mr. Rios used taxpayer-funded school equipment to copy and distribute to children an offensive statement," said Houston Independent School District spokesman Terry Abbott. "The principal exercised his authority to remove Mr. Rios as junior varsity baseball coach, and it certainly was an appropriate decision."

Chavez Principal Dan Martinez made the decision, but referred questions on the issue to Abbott. Rios could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

According to district records, Rios has been with HISD since August 2002. He earned about $42,000 a year.

Last week, Reagan High School Principal Robert Pambello was disciplined for putting a Mexican flag below the U.S. and Texas flags that fly at his school.

Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said many educators are struggling to keep their opinions on the controversial changes to the immigration laws out of the classroom.

"It's a very tough one for a lot of the teachers because it's a highly emotional issue," she said. "A teacher's role is to be informative, but not persuasive. They need to talk to students. They need to make sure they know the issues, but like any other political issue, their role is not to express a specific opinion."

Teachers would be allowed to demonstrate on their own time, including during duty-free lunches, she said. "A teacher is a citizen. A teacher has every right to — on their own time — be as public as they want, no matter how popular or unpopular their views," she said.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/metropolitan/3771915

Schakowsky ire phony as kited checks>

Published April 7, 2006

Every time Democratic U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky mentions "Republicans" and "scandal" and "accountability," she'll be sticking her husband's foot in her mouth.

The foot I'm talking about belongs to her spousal unit, Robert Creamer, the noted champion of the poor and the downtrodden and Democratic political organizer.

"More than anything, I am proud of who Bob is ... He has been a constant crusader," Schakowsky said the other day.

She said this after her constant crusader had been sentenced for a criminal check-kiting scheme and a tax fraud charge. For those of you who are unfamiliar with check kiting, here's how it works:

When you run out of money, you write a bad check. Then you write another bad check to cover the first one, and another, and millions of dollars later you might be convicted, like Creamer, the champion of the poor and the downtrodden. But when it comes to sentencing, you might run into a problem, if you're you, and not Creamer.

If you're yourself, regular old you, a taxpayer who's not married to a highly connected liberal Democrat who shrieks about how the little guy is always getting screwed by those evil Republican money grubbers, you'll go to prison for a very long time.

At least taxpayers know something about taxes: Every time taxes are raised, a liberal gets his wings. It's kind of like the bells for angels in "It's a Wonderful Life," only this one comes on April 15 and it doesn't ring. It tolls. It tolls for thee.

And since you're not Creamer, you probably won't have scores of prominent Democrats--like U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and a host of other progressive politicians--writing glowing letters to a federal judge about how wonderful you are.

Creamer's judge was U.S. District Court Judge James Moran, the former Democratic state legislator from Evanston. Moran's son-in-law is Democratic political consultant Peter Giangreco, who has worked politics with Creamer and Schakowsky and had a seat on the board of one of Creamer's many organizations.

Judge Moran says he thought about recusing himself from the trial, but the defense and the prosecution didn't ask him to leave. So he stayed.

A federal judge with a conflict of interest as glaring as that shouldn't wait to be asked. He should have walked away on his own. But he didn't.

This week, Moran gave Creamer 5 months in prison, which means he'll do about 4 months and change. And another year of home confinement, which in Creamer's case is a five-bedroom home in Evanston, said to be worth seven figures.

Five months isn't even a slap on the wrist. It's more like a lick on the wrist, or a kiss, but even a lick or a kiss involve contact and so might cause bruising. Think of Creamer's punishment as a breath on the wrist.

In his arguments for mitigation, Creamer portrayed himself as something of a saint, a fellow who fought against racial discrimination--although what that has to do with check kiting is beyond me.

His lawyers argued that he made no personal fortune off his check kiting, and that it was paid back. In essence, he gave himself zero-interest loans to keep his politics afloat, and though it was wrong, it was noble.

But they forgot to mention that the money was paid back only after he got caught, and that the feds warned him about this in 1990 and gave him a break then, but he kept doing it anyway.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Joseph Ferguson said Creamer "casts himself as a sort of latter-day, white-collar Robin Hood," but that he "seems not to appreciate that Robin Hood was a crook."

Creamer's defense argued that "Up until the present day, Bob Creamer spends nearly every waking moment focused on how he can serve the public interest--the interest of average working citizens, consumers, the elderly and the underprivileged."

Creamer and Schakowsky were probably focused on the underprivileged--when the underprivileged were serving them at the Four Seasons resort at Punta Mita, Mexico, in January. It was one of those congressional junkets paid for by a private organization, a six-day stay worth $7,045, part policy wonk navel-gazing, part fun in the sun. Think they tipped?

"There's no question it's a nice place," Schakowsky said in a Tribune article. "But it's very important policy work. It's serious."

A few days later, they flew back from their serious work at the resort and Schakowsky joined a crowd of Democrats scolding those Republicans about ethics. She looked extremely serious about ethics up there on the podium.

I'm not challenging her criticism of Republican weasels--personally, I'd like the political head of Republican White House Rasputin Karl Rove on a pike. And I'm not criticizing her for standing by her husband.

But she'll keep pontificating about political accountability, though her husband received only 5 months in the federal can. And the Washington media is probably too polite to call her on that spousal left foot in her mouth.

So I'll say it. Jan? Please put a sock on it.

By John Kass, Chicago Tribune

http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/premium/printedition/Friday/chi-0604070150apr07,1,3...