Posted on 01/17/2002 4:29:18 PM PST by doug from upland
SCHEDULE AND LINK TO HEAR THE SHOW
Okay, as the host is getting nervous because the inaugural show if getting closer, FReepers are grabbing a beer and tuning in. At least, I hope they're going to tune in.
We have a great guest --- Marsha Richards from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. Her group is making life hell for the Washington Education Association.
We will give away some CDs of THE BALLAD OF MIKE MORAN to the first person, on this thread, who can answer questions I will ask during the show.
We will name Dishonorable Mentions and the MORON OF THE MONTH.
We will talk about some news items.
If we have time near the end of the show, we will try to take a few quick FReeper calls. 866.723.4673
/tinfoil hat"
It must have been the monopole exhaust from a close UFO flyby?
I hope we can get a transcript of this teacher. This is good.Here is some background information from:
Evergreen Freedom Foundation
WHO WE ARE
and from CNSnews.com :As a public policy research organization based in Olympia, Washington, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is contributing to the renewal of civil government around the time-honored truths of freedom, justice, sacrifice, and stewardship. These ideals are permanent; they transcend politics.
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation was founded in 1991 with a first year support base of 341 individuals and businesses. Today, over 2,500 individuals, businesses, associations, private foundations, and trusts help make EFF's work possible.
Our Mission is to advance individual liberty, free enterprise, and responsible government.
Our efforts center around public policy research and alternatives in these core areas: state budget and tax policy, welfare reform, health-care reform, education, citizenship and governance issues..."
Legal Costs Skyrocketing for Defiant Teachers Union
By Matt Pyeatt
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
January 09, 2002
(CNSNews.com) - The Washington Education Association (WEA), now staring at more than $700,000 in fines and court fees for illegally using teacher union dues for political purposes, remains defiant with the union's spokeswoman promising an appeal and insisting "we've always complied with the law."
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor thought otherwise when he recently ordered the WEA to pay $190,000 in legal fees to the Washington State attorney general's office and reimburse another $143,000 to teachers, whose dues were illegally spent on politics. The WEA, the state branch of the National Education Association, was slapped with a $400,000 fine last July for the same offense.
Critics of the WEA say the union pursues a liberal social agenda and expects teachers to fund that agenda with their dues.
"They support [the] homosexual ... agenda as far as teaching about it in the schools [and] having extra training on how to accommodate open homosexuals," said Olympia public school teacher Forrest Clark in an August, 2001 interview with CNSNews.com. "They also are very pro-choice, pro-abortion, to include birth control available in school clinics without parental notification or approval."
The $773,000 in fines and legal fees are "by far the largest ever imposed in Washington for campaign finance violations, approached only by a previous $430,000 penalty for similar infractions charged to WEA in 1998," according to the Education Intelligence Agency, an education research, analysis and investigation agency.
"We are appealing and saying that we believe that we've always complied with the law and that we will continue to do so and that we were complying with the law in this case," Debra Carnes, communication director for the WEA, said. "We were dealing with unclear statutes in the first place and we believe we were in compliance with those statutes."
Carnes said she believes the case will end up in the Washington Supreme Court.
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation (EFF), an Olympia-based policy research organization and advocate of free speech and fair elections, sued the union along with a group of teachers.
Marsha Richards, communications director for the EFF, said spending fees from unwilling teachers on politics is wrong. "For us, it is a basic issue of free speech ... We don't believe anyone should be compelled to support politics that they don't agree with or haven't explicitly given their permission for," Richards said.
"Voters and citizens are living with the results of elections that are paid for, really, by money taken from unwilling teachers," she added.
Richards said the reason the EFF is involved is to look after the rights of teachers to spend their money on politics as they see fit, not as the union sees fit.
"The reason that we are in this is because teachers came to us asking for help protecting their free speech rights. That is fundamental. It is all about freedom and liberty," Richards said. "That is an American principle that people have the right to spend their resources on the political causes that they choose. The union takes that choice away from teachers."
Well, it could be from the "I live in the country and have just a rural phone line connection", but that sound too simple (that's how they get us). So I will (/tinfoil hat).
Lied to diary
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