Today, The Sacramento Observer Newspaper highlights a community meeting targeting the Black community to discuss Social Security Reform.

Under the title, “Social Security vs. Privatization?” the meeting convened at the Hart Senior Center on 27th and J streets to discuss whether the social security reform is a crisis, President George W. Bush’s proposal, issues concerning privatization and the personal responsibility to save.

But while the forum was couched as a debate (thus the title “Social Security vs. Privatization?”), there was no one invited to speak supporting privatization. But when one looks at the list of event organizers it is no wonder.

The two-hour town hall meeting was sponsored by several organizations including the Division of Social Work and the Gerontology Program at Sacramento State University, AARP, California Alliance for Retired Americans, Gray Panthers, the Older Women’s League, Resources for Independent Living and the Sacramento Central Labor Council.

And as usual, the propaganda machine does not even bother itself with the facts.

In a statement she did not agree with, Madoshi said she heard President Bush say social security reform would be “beneficiary” to African Americans.

“Without doing any research I just laughed at that,” Madoshi said of Bush’s assumption. “This plan (to reform), or non-plan, or thought or dream will not be beneficiary. African Americans, women and disabled persons will (only) be displaced by this plan.”

And the reality is that those who continually trash the idea of Social Security Privatization have deliberately chosen not to do the research, because they know that the facts are not on their side.

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And if you want to know the real facts about how Blacks have faired under the current Social Security System, read my commentary “Social InSecurity- A Bad Investment For Black America”

Craig DeLuz

Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense…
www.craigdeluz.com

Now redistricting is swirling around the bowl.

I lose track, how many times has SchwarzenGrin caved to date?

He must look really pretty to the democrats in that skirt. Good thing he has Skelator to look after him on that dangerous walk from the Hyatt to his office. It wouldn't look good if some K Street bound wino clocked him the way the nincompoops around him let the democrats connect to his glass jaw.

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Mark Williams is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. His work appears in this publication, on Fox News Channel and nightly on Sacramento’s 1530 AM KFBK radio. For more on Mark and his background visit his web site.

Liberals in the California Legislature are continuing their war on the High School Exit Exam. They claim that test is unfair to minority and low-income students.

How fair is it to send these students into the world not being able to read, write or do math at a 10th grade level?

The Los Angles Times reports that legislative Democrats and political activists are once again mounting an attack on the High School Exit Exam.

Momentum is growing to provide alternatives to California's controversial high school exit exam, which critics say contributes to low graduation rates and discriminates against minority students.

But not everyone agrees that this is the case.

An independent analysis of California's exam found that dropout rates decreased after it was originally introduced for the Class of 2004. But researcher Lauress L. Wise cautioned that the exit exam could be one of many contributing factors.

"What I would conjecture, based on interviews with school principals, is that there is a lot more attention being paid to students at the margins," said Wise, president of the nonprofit research think tank Human Resources Research Organization in suburban Washington.

"It may be that this increased attention … is keeping [them] in school longer," Wise added.

Others have found that repeating a grade in middle school or high school is a better predictor of whether a student will drop out because of the stigma associated with being held back.

If a high school diploma is going to mean anything in the real world, it is important to set standards for students to obtain one. It is equally crucial that we provide a measuring stick to ensure that students are meeting those standards. This is the best way to be assured that our youth are academically prepared for an increasingly competitive job market.

As usual, liberals are more concerned with student’s “feelings” than whether or not they are equipped for the future.

I'm very concerned that students will be discouraged and [question] why they should go forward if their futures rest on one exam," Assemblywoman Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) said before the vote, which fell largely along party lines.

"I've already seen it demoralizing the ones who haven't passed," said Elizabeth Minster, a teacher at Los Angeles High School and a leader of Coalition for Educational Justice, a grass-roots Los Angeles group.

I wonder how these students are going to “feel” when they can’t get a job because they can’t read or write at a 10th grade level? Or do math at an 8th grade level?

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Craig DeLuz

Visit The Home of Uncommon Sense…
www.craigdeluz.com

This is my first time back in DC since the Islamic Terror attacks of September 11th. The post-9/11 Washington, DC is a very different place than the city in which I have spent so much time over the years.

Obviously, I was never in wartime London but this is what it must have felt like. While the seats of power in that city were surrounded by sandbags, barbed wire and soldiers, this seat of power is surrounded by anti-terrorism barriers and an open show of marginally civilian firepower.

Broad avenues once open to bustling traffic are now cordoned off with concrete blocks and steel doors. The same goes for monuments and symbolic buildings both important and not. Everywhere you turn there is massive construction going on. That is not new. For as long as I have been coming here DC has been a city in progress; from the building of the Metro to the rehabilitation of whole neighborhoods. The difference this time is that this construction is not for the purposes of civic improvement but for purposes of hiding entire facilities underground for security, the rerouting of the city’s flow to create acres of separation between what are now the fortresses of power rather than the seats of power. The White House and the Capitol Building are in the process of becoming huge compounds within the city, but separated from its flow. Where I remember throngs of tourists and city life mingling with history and government there is now a fearful partition.

The open show of force too is awesome but not reassuring. The security both uniformed and not is massive. But, while not soldiers standing on sentry these men and women are nonetheless not the picture of Officer Friendly of whom one might inquire as to directions when lost. These are almost artificial looking robo-cop types who are frighteningly cold. Far from reassuring they are scary. Where Officer Friendly was ready with a smile yet gave one the feeling that everything was under control, these heavily armored and armed, perfect human specimens reek of the opposite. Making eye contact with one of them instantly draws the attention of the others and you are studied with a reptilian intensity that makes the skin crawl on the back of your neck.

Everywhere we go where those eyes are not directly on us we are on camera; our every move is monitored and logged. Each and every individual outside of the compounds is a threat to the frightened people inside and a hair-trigger stands between us. No one person is in charge, it is an automatic, self-perpetuating system I suppose not that different than the old Nuclear War machine, only this one is pointed not at an external enemy but at us. Yesterday I had to give directions from our Capitol Hill hotel to the White House to our cab driver! Upon alighting from the cab at Lafayette Park we instantly became objects of interest to eyes seen and unseen on rooftops and on the ground. The level of potential threat that we represented was no doubt assessed and evaluated.

This city’s nerves are on edge. The people who lead us are terrified, and that frightens me. What’s even more frightening is that it is we against whom they have fortified our heritage and symbols.

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Mark Williams is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. His work appears in this publication, on Fox News Channel and nightly on Sacramento’s 1530 AM KFBK radio. For more on Mark and his background visit his web site.

See all of the radio shows broadcasting from DC at Radio Row.

300 people at today's White House rally. Lots to talk about tonight at 7:00 on KFBK.


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Listen to 1530 AM KFBK weeknights from 7-10 PM for details on how you may join in me banging pots and pans for immigration reform in the very belly of the beast, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. this April 23-28!

Mark Williams is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, and Investigative Reporters and Editors Inc. His work appears in this publication, on Fox News Channel and nightly on Sacramento’s 1530 AM KFBK radio. For more on Mark and his background visit his web site.