Israeli social justice protests continue

Tens of thousands of Israelis demanding social justice have staged protests across the country for the fourth consecutive week.

An estimated 70,000 people attended demonstrations Saturday night after a decision was made to hold protests outside of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. The protests are part of the social justice movement that has erected tent cities in towns and cities demanding equality and an end to rising costs, Ynetnews.com and Haaretz reported.

The largest protest was in Haifa, which drew more 25,000 Israelis and Arabs, Ynetnews.com said. Protests were also in Beersheba, Rosh Pina, Beit She'an Nazareth, Nahariya, Netanya, Rishon Lezion, Ashkelon, Dimona and Eilat.

Protesters want a halt to rising food costs, affordable housing for all, free education in elementary schools and control of university tuition fees.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has formed a team to investigate the protesters' demands and is expected to receive its recommendations within a month.

Professor Manuel Trachtenberg, the chairman of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education, was appointed to head the team.

Norway massacre suspect revisits scene

The suspect accused of killing 77 people in a bombing and shooting spree in Norway walked through a re-enactment with police near Oslo, his attorney said.

Scores of officers escorted Anders Breivik on a walking tour of the island of Utoya Saturday and recorded his descriptions of what happened July 22 when 69 people were gunned down, Norway News reported.

Before the shooting rampage, a bomb exploded in Oslo, killing eight people.

Breivik's lawyer, Geir Lippestad, told the VG daily newspaper his client agreed to walking investigators through the crime scene.

A large contingent of police followed Breivik around for eight hours as a police helicopter hovered above and six police boats ringed the island, the report said.

Breivik was handcuffed, bound with rope and in ankle shackles as he led investigators around the scene where members of a Labor Party youth camp were gunned down.

He has confessed to the bombing and shootings, although a trial date hasn't been set.

Ahmadinejad warns Israel, United States

Iran will respond " decisively" if the United States or Israel attempt to attack the Islamic Republic, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Russia Today.

"They wish to do it, they want to do it, but they know about our power. They know we are going to give them a decisive response. We have a saying in our language if someone throws a smaller stone, you should respond with a bigger stone. We will defend ourselves within our capabilities," Ahmadinejad said in an exclusive interview with the Russian network published Sunday.

The Iranian president also said his country's objective is to develop peaceful nuclear energy.

"Nuclear weapons have no capabilities today. If any country builds a nuclear bomb, in fact, they waste their money on resources and secondly, they create a big danger to themselves.

"The Americans have nuclear bombs and nuclear weapons. Could they win in Iraq or Afghanistan? Could nuclear weapons help the Zionist regime win in Lebanon and Gaza?" he said.

4 die, 40 hurt in fair stage collapse

Storm winds slammed the Indiana State Fair grandstand Saturday night, killing at least four people and injuring 40 when the stage collapsed, authorities said.

The death toll from the collapse at the fairgrounds in Indianapolis, which occurred as a crowd of about 12,000 waited for a performance by the country band Sugarland, could go higher, police said.

"I want to be very frank that there could be other deaths," state police Sgt. Dave Bursten at a 1:45 a.m. briefing.

The Indianapolis Star reported the fair would be closed Sunday and then is expected to resume Monday with a memorial service honoring the victims.

"It was like it was in slow motion, you couldn't believe it was actually happening," concert-goer Amy Weathers of Centerville told the Star.

WANE-TV employee Kirby Ehler, who was at the fair to see Sugarland perform, said the wind grabbed the stage and its roof "like a sail and then it crashed forward into the people standing in the front."

"There were people trapped underneath and everyone was running and screaming," Ehler said. "They were asking any medics or nurses not to leave."

An emergency center was set up at the fairgrounds to treat victims, firefighters said.

The opening act, Sara Bareilles, had finished her set and the crowd was being directed to evacuate when the storm struck.

Sugarland later posted a message via Twitter: "We are all right. We are praying for our fans, and the people of Indianapolis. We hope you'll join us. They need your strength."

Cracking the housing bust conspiracy

Conspiracy theorists ran into a brick wall earlier this month in efforts to connect the collapse of the mortgage industry to politicians -- a controversial quest because most agree the housing bust was one of the first indicators, and one of the first causes, of the lagging U.S. economy.

Judicial Watch, the capital's conservative and sometimes quixotic legal watchdog organization, started the whole thing in May 2009 by asking the newly created Federal Housing Finance Agency to disclose "[a]ny and all Freddie Mac ... or Fannie Mae records concerning political campaign contributions."

No can do, the agency responded.

Judicial Watch went to court, filing a Freedom of Information Act suit to acquire the relevant documents. Understanding why the suit failed, at least short of the U.S. Supreme Court, requires an understanding of the background.

The Federal National Mortgage Association -- Fannie Mae -- and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp -- Freddie Mac -- buy residential mortgages from banks, then repackage them for sale as mortgage-backed securities. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee the securities, pledging to reimburse investors if borrowers default.

The federal appeals court in Washington nicely captures what went wrong with the two lenders.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "are structured as private corporations, but they are federally chartered and play an important role in the national housing market by making it easier for home buyers to obtain loans. ... In 2009, the two companies guaranteed three-quarters of new residential mortgages in the United States."

But things had begun to go south.

"National housing prices began a sustained decline in 2006 that by mid-2008 had substantially eroded the value of Fannie- and Freddie-held mortgages," the court said. "Worried that either or both Fannie and Freddie might become insolvent, Congress passed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 ... which created the (Federal Housing Finance Agency, or FHFA) and authorized this new agency to place the two companies into conservatorship under specified circumstances," such as when Fannie's or Freddie's assets are insufficient to meet its obligations and where the management in the relevant agency consents to a conservatorship.

"On Sept. 7, 2008, with the consent of management at Fannie and Freddie, the FHFA placed both into conservatorship," the appeals court said. "As conservator, the FHFA has power to exercise 'all rights, titles, powers and privileges of the regulated entity, and of any stockholder, officer or director of such regulated entity with respect to the regulated entity and the assets of the regulated identity.'"

Given this structure, it was natural for Judicial Watch to approach the FHFA for the documents it wanted, and then file a FOIA suit against it when the request was rejected. But that structure turned out to be part of the problem.

The Freedom of Information Act "gives federal courts jurisdiction 'to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant,'" the appeals court said. "But under FOIA, a federal court may only order an agency to release 'agency records.' ... Judicial Watch acknowledges that Fannie and Freddie," not being federal agencies, "are not themselves subject to FOIA, but argues that the requested documents became 'agency records' when the FHFA took over as conservator."

In asking for summary judgment in the FOIA suit from a federal judge, "the FHFA acknowledged that it had access to responsive documents, but, in an accompanying affidavit, swore that no one at the agency had ever read them." The affidavit was a declaration from FHFA Deputy General Counsel David A. Felt. "The FHFA argued that until someone at the agency uses the requested documents, they cannot be 'agency records' for purposes of FOIA. The (U.S. District) court agreed and granted summary judgment for the agency."

It was like being lost in some remote area, asking for directions, and being told, "You can't get there from here."

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals agreed with the judge and the FHFA.

"The Supreme Court has held that FOIA reaches only records the agency controls at the time of the request," the unanimous opinion by U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith said. "Control means 'the materials have come into the agency's possession in the legitimate conduct of its official duties.'"

The opinion said it had to weigh the case based on the four factors identified in the Supreme Court's 1996 ruling in Burka vs. HHS: "(1) the intent of the document's creator to retain or relinquish control over the records; (2) the ability of the agency to use and dispose of the record as it sees fit; (3) the extent to which agency personnel have read or relied upon the document; and (4) the degree to which the document was integrated into the agency's record system or files."

At the trial stage, the judge "considered these factors and determined that the FHFA does not 'control' the documents Judicial Watch requested because the agency had neither used the documents nor integrated them into its files," the appeals panel opinion said.

"Judicial Watch argues that the FHFA controls the documents because it holds title to them and that we therefore need not consider the Burka factors in this case," the opinion said, later adding, "But our cases have never suggested that ownership means control."

The opinion concluded: "Although there is no doubt that the FHFA could consult the requested records as it conducts its business, the problem for Judicial Watch is that no one from the FHFA has done so. The Supreme Court held in (1980's) Forsham vs. Harris that documents an agency had the right to acquire would not become agency records subject to FOIA 'unless and until the right is exercised.' ... In the same way, the FHFA's unexercised right to use and dispose of the records requested in this case is not enough to subject those records to FOIA."

No word yet on whether Judicial Watch will ask the full D.C. Circuit to rehear the case en banc or ask the U.S. Supreme Court for review.

After the appeals court ruling, Jill S. Farrell, director of public affairs for Judicial Watch, sent out an e-mail describing her frustration in classical terms: "An outrage? Youbetcha. Just another day for Sisyphus; keep pushing that rock uphill."

But the rigidly non-partisan Open Secrets, dedicated to revealing the finances of lobbyists and political sugar daddies, said in 2008 it learned -- presumably from recipients -- that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave $4.7 million to members of Congress, Politico reported. Among the top 10 recipients -- then Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Accepting properly packaged contributions from corporations is no crime. But being linked to an increasingly unpopular segment of the economy would carry a political price.

The meltdown itself occurred under President George W. Bush, and at least partially under a Congress controlled by a Democratic majority.

Meanwhile, recent news is still bad for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Following S&P's downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, the rating agency downgraded the two lenders to the same degree, from AAA to a slightly less than sterling AA+.

Bankrate's Greg McBride told The Baltimore Sun, "The downgrade of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt is what could lead to greater spreads between Treasury yields and those on mortgage-backed securities, and the rates borrowers pay."

McBride told the Sun investors who "buy mortgage bonds often buy them because they're guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The yield they're getting is only as good as the guarantee. If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been downgraded, then those investors may command a higher premium for holding that debt, and that would translate into higher mortgage rates."

Right now, he said, a weak economy is keeping mortgage rates low. But if and when the economy picks up, rates will rise.

The Boston Globe said local financiers told it the downgrade of U.S. credit and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is "fraying nerves and making a double-dip recession closer to reality." But higher lending rates are more of a long-term problem.

"Long-term, the downgrade is going to mean inflation," Rob Lutts, president of Cabot Money Management of Salem, Mass., told the Globe.

All this likely will lead to more consumer anger. Whether the courts will cooperate with efforts to direct that anger at select politicians remains up in the air.

School reform: Teachers, public at odds on what to do to improve schools

With states scrambling to get out of No Child Left Behind benchmarks, anemic tax collections decimating education budgets and test scores indicating U.S. students are losing ground to students in other countries, how are Americans reacting to these developments and are they pushing for effective reforms or out to punish teachers?

Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week said the No Child law -- a cornerstone of the Bush administration education policy -- actually is impeding efforts to raise standards and has led to a "dumbing-down" of curriculum to meet the law's proficiency standards. As the law currently stands, school districts that raise standards, increasing the percentage of students not reaching the higher bar, are being punished for trying to improve education.

"We need more highly trained, highly skilled workers; we need to keep raising standards, raising the bar," Duncan told reporters at the White House.

"I've always said from day one, the best ideas in education, frankly, aren't going to come from me and they're not going to come from anyone else in Washington; they're going to come at the local level."

But a study by Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance and Education Next indicates teachers and the general public are not on the same page when it comes to improving education.

Professor William G. Howell of the University of Chicago, the director of the survey, acknowledged teachers and the public have different reasons for supporting or opposing reform efforts.

"There are two classes of explanations for the differences we observes between teachers and the general public -- or so it seems to me," Howell said in response to an e-mail inquiry.

"The first focuses on interests and underscores the role that teachers play as stakeholders in public education. By this account, teachers resist some policy reforms not because they are bad for kids, but because they make their jobs more difficult, less rewarding -- financial and otherwise -- or both.

"The second class of explanations emphasizes the expertise that teachers have. By this account, teachers simply know more about what is required to educate children generally, and the specific children in their communities in particular. Hence, the differences that are observed between teachers and the public are emblematic of the kinds of differences of opinion one regularly observes between laypersons and experts."

Teacher opposition to reforms is increasing along with public support for accountability, the study found.

"The public's appetite for standardized tests appears undiminished," said study authors Howell, and Martin West and Paul Peterson, both of Harvard.

The study found strong support for annual proficiency testing for grades 3-8 and once in high school, mirroring the No Child mandates.

The study, appearing in the fall issue of Education Next, found teachers opposing such reforms as merit pay (favored by 47 percent of the public but only 27 percent of teachers) and alterations to tenure practices -- with 55 percent of the public favoring tenure decisions be based on student achievement and only 30 percent of teachers in favor of academic progress as a basis.

"The idea (of merit pay) remains anathema to teachers," the study found.

"Sixty percent of teachers support the idea of tying grade promotion to test performance, while 66 percent support high school graduation exams, even as these same teachers overwhelming oppose the idea of linking their own remuneration to student test scores."

When asked if teachers' salaries should be cut, only 7 percent of the public said they supported such action, with 55 percent saying teachers deserve a raise; however, support for raises dropped to 43 percent once respondents were told what the average teacher makes in their states. Two-thirds of the public also wants teachers to pick up 20 percent of their pension and healthcare costs -- a budget-balancing measure overwhelmingly rejected by teachers, the study said.

Such issues came to the fore in February amid protests in Madison, Wis., as the governor moved to limit the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

"All in all, the Wisconsin controversy seems to have contributed to a divergence of opinion between teachers and the general public," The authors said. "The biggest changes in opinion took place within the teaching profession, which moved further away from the views of the public at large. The public, and especially the affluent, nonetheless want to pay teachers more."

Support for vouchers has grown by 8 percentage points since last year, with 47 percent of the 2,600 people surveyed April 15-May 4 saying they support giving families the chance to enroll their children in private schools with tuition paid by the government. On charter schools, support was little changed with 43 percent saying they supported such schools and only 18 percent opposed.

Thirty-three percent said they think teachers unions affect schools negatively, up two points from the 2009-10 survey while 58 percent of teachers said unions have a positive impact, up from 51 percent.

The study found more affluent, college graduates were more critical of unions, 56 percent saying unions have a negative impact, and a nearly like proportion (54 percent) rated their schools, where per pupil expenditures averaged $12,300, A or B while only 15 percent would give the nation's schools overall a similar grade. Thirty-seven percent of teachers would grade schools nationally at A or B.

Nationally, per pupil expenditures averaged $10,792, the National Center for Education Statistics showed, ranging from a low of $5,964 per student in Utah to more than $17,000 in New York City.

"Teachers are much more likely to give schools high marks; on many issues, a majority of teachers takes the side opposite to that of the larger public, revealing tensions between what Americans overall think is best and what employees within the education industry prefer," the study found.

Though the Obama administration is encouraging the development of national standards, public education in the United States is locally controlled.

"Through votes, school board meetings, petition drives, and direct advo­cacy, all citizens, at least in principle, can influence public education," the authors said. "Principle and practice, however, often part ways. That all citizens can influence public education is not to say that all citizens do so. Generations of political science research confirm that higher-income and, especially, better-educated citizens are orders of magnitude more likely to participate in politics. And recent evidence demonstrates that teachers are far more likely to vote in school board elections than is the general public."

The authors concluded, "Plainly, the battles over school reform are far from over."

Politics, money, unions and the Wisconsin recall elections

Democrats and public unions may not be dancing in the streets after picking up two of six Republican Senate seats in last week's recall election, but they may be smirking a little -- or not.

The recall elections for nine state senators -- six Republicans and three Democrats in what some observers said was more retaliatory than reasoned -- is unprecedented. A Democrat was the first to face -- and win -- a recall election last month and two more face recall votes Tuesday.

To put it in perspective: There have only been 13 successful recalls in the state since 1913.

Unions, their workers and their money backed Democratic candidates and some pundits wondered if the 4-2 score Tuesday may spell trouble for the efforts.

"The results are deflating for unions because they expended much financial and membership effort and did not achieve their goal," said Steven Schier, political commentator and professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. "That, combined with their loss in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election [earlier this year] is a double setback."

But, unions did effectively organize their campaign and flooded the Senate districts under recall with media ads, Schier said, "So they probably improved their organization infrastructure for the 2010 election in Wisconsin."

In fact, last week's recalls could be a cautionary tale for other governors and lawmakers deciding whether to curtail collective bargaining rights or otherwise upsetting public unions. Democrats, even in losing, had a good showing in Republican districts.

Democrats also plan to try to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker once he's eligible -- the recall results so far haven't changed their minds -- and try to maintain momentum heading into the 2012 elections.

The intense get-out-the-vote effort from both sides drove the non-statewide, non-presidential voting numbers into orbit, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. In one contest last week, the total vote exceeded that of the race for governor last fall.

And the money flowed. At least five of the elections last week topped the 2000 $3 million spending record for money spent by all parties in a Senate race.

Unions played a major role for Democrats by plunking down huge sums on advertising and supplying manpower in all six Senate districts. But conservatives responded in kind and pumped out large amounts of money as well.

More than $35 million has been spent on the recall races, reports the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which follows the money. The spending on the nine races eclipses the $19.3 million total spent in last year's 115 legislative races, and approaches the $37.4 million spent in the gubernatorial race that Walker won.

"Welcome to the new normal," Schier said. "The 2012 campaign will be closely contested with pugnacious rhetoric and campaign tactics and intense jousting by the rival candidates."

"The hot battle in Wisconsin is a portent of the temperature of the upcoming 2012 campaign nationally," he said.

The spending spigots spewed because unions saw the recalls as the best way to stop Walker's agenda and send a message to other states considering changing their collective bargaining laws, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media reported.

"I think it's a huge victory for us," John Hogan, director of the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate, told the Journal Sentinel. "Voters gave us a mandate last fall. … They backed us up again [Tuesday]. Voters told us loud and clear, 'Stay the course. Things are working.'"

Whoa, Democrats said -- we captured two seats from Republicans.

"We went on their turf and we won on Republican turf," said Mike Tate, chairman of the state Democratic Party. "We will not stop, we will not rest … until we recall Scott Walker."

In a recent editorial, The New York Times called the two Democratic wins "an impressive response to the governor's arrogant overreach."

More importantly, the editorial said, a warning was issued to Republican lawmakers across the United States who are working to break public employee unions.

"Tuesday's vote proved that the unions and the middle-class voters who support them remain a potent force," the editorial said.

Schier also said governors and legislatures would take note.

"I think other governors will be cautious because Walker and the state GOP have had to expend much time, money and effort to defend themselves regarding the governor's controversial agenda," he said. "Other governors will probably take more cautious and indirect courses … to avoid the costs he incurred."

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal gave the "W" to the Republicans, saying in an editorial, "Unions across the country threw everything they had to defeat Wisconsin state senators who voted for collective bargaining reforms for government workers … and on Tuesday the unions lost."

Although the Senate remained in GOP control, albeit by a slimmer 17-16 margin depending on Tuesday's recall outcomes, the summer of the recall may have reinvigorated the state's labor unions, a historian told Salon.

"Tuesday's recall elections were not statewide, but they do indicate that in some districts Republicans continue to be vulnerable, while in some areas there is a definite movement toward the center if not the left," Andrew E. Kersten, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, said. "Although clearly the Democrats came up a bit short with their overall goal of taking the state Senate back, these were tight races. The Republican electoral base is not as stable as it would appear."

He offered the caveat that the right wing pull of the Republican Party remains "very strong" and "for the moment, that is where the money is in terms of corporate sponsorship."

Walker attacked unions during his campaign -- and really wasn't challenged by media or others on his comments -- then cranked up his anti-union volume once in office. The Capitol was Republican controlled -- and so, for all practical purposes, was the state Supreme Court, even though it's supposed to be non-partisan.

Walker painted public workers -- teachers, firefighters, police officers, nurses, city employees -- as the "haves" and sold that argument to turn collective bargaining in the Badger State on its head, getting passed game-changing legislation that severely curtailed bargaining rights and other union rights.

"Despite all their weaknesses and faults, unions are the bulwark of progressivism in Wisconsin and across the nation," Kersten said. "This could be a turning point. But, instead of it being the end of the labor movement, it might turn out to be the end of the beginning. Walker's attack … could energize union forces."

Wisconsin always has been considered a progressive state, and to basically roll back union rights could portend similar fights elsewhere.

"As [former Alaska Gov.] Sarah Palin has said, the line in the sand is here," Kersten said. "If they take the beach in Wisconsin, other states -- and ultimately the federal government -- are next."

The Wisconsin AFL-CIO chalked Tuesday into the win column because voters flipped two traditional Republican districts.

"In today's historic elections, thousands of voters sent the message that we are a growing movement to reclaim the middle class," Phil Neuenfeldt, president of the state AFL-CIO, said in a blog, noting, "Wisconsinites took a great step to restore balance and accountability in the Wisconsin Legislature. Let's be clear, anyway you slice it, this is an unprecedented victory …. ."

Even if a change in Senate leadership didn't happen, "the real story of the recalls is that the middle class is fighting back and we are starting to win," said Stephanie Bloomingdale, state AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer. "In Wisconsin, we don't give up easily. This fight is not over."

People likely will look on the summer of the recalls as "an early engagement in a long fight over the size and scope of government in our new 'era of debt' -- record public and private debt -- that promises to make our politics nasty for the foreseeable future," Schier said.