Why the NAACP is Suing New York by Benjamin Todd Jealous - The Washington Post

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For 102 years, the NAACP has fought to ensure that all our children have access to high-quality public education. Our founders made improving education our primary strategy for improving America. They did so because they knew from experience that educational inequities are not only the product of broader inequalities and dangerous social tensions but also maintain them.

We believe that if we make all our schools great places to learn, we will have more than better institutions and better-prepared students — we will have a better country.

Toward this end, we filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of New York City’s public schoolchildren and their parents.

The NAACP has a long history in New York. One hundred years ago this month, our first local branch in the nation was founded in Harlem. Since then, thousands upon thousands of New York students, parents and grandparents have volunteered with the NAACP to end the mistreatment of schoolchildren.

This lawsuit was filed for the most common reasons we have sued boards of education across the decades: Students are being grossly mistreated, their parents are being deeply disrespected and the entire community stands to suffer.

There are two issues we are particularly concerned about.

First, the city has located charter schools under the same roofs as traditional public schools in a way that is unfair and unjust. Their poor handling has led to many complaints from our members and their neighbors, including:

■ Students in the traditional public school must now eat lunch at 10 a.m. so that charter school students can enjoy lunch at noon.

■ The “regular school’s children” had library access for a little over four hours so that the “new charter school’s kids” could have access for almost seven.

■ “Traditional school students” were moved to a boiler room to make room for their charter school peers, and teachers of the regular students were forced to teach in the halls due to lack of space.

We are asking that the court require the city to follow state law and handle these shared space situations equitably.

Second, inequitable co-locations exacerbate the problem created by the city’s persistent failure to follow the law and engage parents before making major changes. New York state law requires the city to involve parents before announcing its intention to shut down a school or make way for a charter to share a school’s space.

We filed suit against the city in February 2010. New York City’s Department of Education lost the case in March 2010 and lost its appeal in July 2010. Yet it continued to close schools without regard for the law or a court order enforcing the law. The lawsuit we filed last month asks the court to enforce its judgment requiring the city to collaborate with communities on efforts to support and improve local schools before it shuts them — something the city has failed to do time and again.

The city’s actions impede learning, increase tensions among students and tear at the fabric of communities. When one set of students is perceived as getting preferential treatment over another, or the city refuses to work with parents to fix problems at a school before closing it, the inequity leaves all our children suffering.

Some have criticized the NAACP for joining the teachers union in this cause. Unable to refute the facts of our case, these critics question our motives, apparently also unable to comprehend that we are independent actors.

We have always been clear that just as we praise teachers for dedicating their lives to a heroic profession, we have no tolerance for bad teachers or bad schools. To spur the changes needed to help students succeed, we even stood with many of these critics when a Rhode Island district fired all the teachers at Central Falls High School.

For a century, the NAACP has practiced the maxim that Shirley Chisholm often reminded us of: There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. In this case, as with our past education cases, our permanent interest is clear: High-quality public education for all children and a stronger nation for us all.

The writer is president and CEO of the NAACP.

The Bush Tax Plan vs. The Obama Tax Plan in One Chart by Ezra Klein - The Washington Post

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Hillary Clinton Should Be Obama's Vice President by Sally Quinn - The Washington Post

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Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden should switch jobs.

Really.

It makes sense for the Democrats, actually. Clinton has done an incredible job as secretary of state. First of all, she has worked harder than anyone should ever be expected to. She has managed to do the impossible: She is the ambassador of the United States to the world, maintaining her credibility while playing the bad guy to President Obama's good guy, such as with North Korea, Iran and Israel, and still looking good. She has been a true team player. If Clinton is dissatisfied with her role, you would never know it. She has been loyal and supportive to the president and has maintained a good relationship with him and with others in the White House. If she is being left out of the policymaking, or being sent on trips to keep her out of town, she has not shown it. She is cheerful, thoughtful, serious and diligent. There are no horror stories about her coming out of the State Department. Most notable, though, is that Bill Clinton has not been the problem that so many anticipated. He has been supportive of her and of Obama, and he has stayed out of the limelight and been discreet about his own life.

In short, the arguments against Hillary Clinton being Obama's vice president have pretty much evaporated.

So, what kind of running mate would she be? We've seen the team player. Now consider Hillary the Democratic campaigner. She is tireless and relentless. Given the combination of votes that she and Obama got in the 2008 primary campaign, they would be a near-unbeatable team. Clinton also appeals to independents, but importantly, she would neutralize the effect of Sarah Palin. Whatever Palin came up with, Hillary could best her -- and the Tea Party crowd as well. The Republicans would lose their "year of the woman" argument. And based on experience alone, Hillary is far more qualified to be president than any of the Republicans being considered today, including Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, Tim Pawlenty and Palin.

Clinton is also young enough to be the Democratic nominee at the end of an Obama second term; she will be in her late 60s in 2016 but still younger than Ronald Reagan was when he was inaugurated in 1981 (just shy of 70) and younger than John McCain, who was 72 when he ran in 2008. Most important, were she vice president and Obama were for some reason not able to fulfill his term, she would be ready to step in.

True, Joe Biden has been rehabilitated. A recent profile in The Post portrayed him as a successful and intelligent man whose foreign policy advice is valued by the president. The gaffe-prone former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee seems to have worked out the kinks. Clearly, he is aware that he is no longer an independent voice but, rather, a representative of the president. But Biden has no intention of running for president in six years. His passion is foreign policy. He would have been an ideal choice for secretary of state had he not been Obama's running mate. And those who know him have said that secretary of state is his dream job.

It would not be out of the question for Clinton and Biden to switch jobs sometime after the midterm elections. After the president announced the switch, majorities in both houses of Congress would have to confirm Clinton to her new position, following the rules laid out in the 25th Amendment. She could then immediately begin campaigning for Obama for 2012, and she would also have at least two years in the White House as vice president to give her unassailable experience, clout and credibility. For his part, Biden would simply need Senate confirmation to get to work in Foggy Bottom.

Another scenario is that Obama could wait and choose Hillary as his running mate for 2012 and then have her step down as secretary of state so she could start campaigning. The catch with that plan, however, is that it would make Biden a lame duck and Obama would probably have to appoint an interim secretary of state.

Take it seriously.

Leonie Haimson: Steve Brill's Imperviousness to the Facts by Leonie Haimson - The Huffington Post

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Steve Brill wrote a controversial and much criticized article in the NY Times Magazine, in his ongoing effort to demonize the teachers union and promote the privatization of public education.

The article failed to interview a single opponent of the rapid spread of charters except for the sole exception of Michael Mulgrew, the head of the teachers union in NYC, although there are many parents, advocates and experts throughout the country who decry how our public schools are being steadily undermined by their expansion, with a two tier system, inherently inequitable taking hold.

He failed to mention the bitter battles over space taking place in communities throughout the city, as charters invade and often take over classrooms, libraries, art rooms, and special education intervention spaces, leading to students with disabilities having to receive their services in hallways or converted closets. He neglected to mention the legions of disaffected charter parents, who complain of their children suffering overly harsh disciplinary methods and being pushed out of their schools. He failed to mention any of the numerous scandals in which charter operators have been found to engage in improper financial practices.

But the most absurd part of his article was when he compared the scores of children at PS 149 with those at Harlem Success Academy, the charter school that shares its building, implying that they served the same sort of students. These were his exact words: "Same building. Same community. Sometimes even the same parents."

Last week, Brill responded to online questions at EdWeek; one concerned the claims he made in his NY Times article:

Mr Brill, given the importance of these issues and the crisis in funding for public education today, I was troubled by the unbalanced nature of your recent NYT Magazine cover story. Specifically, Where was balanced discussion of conflicting research on the diversity of the charter school movement, showing that many charter schools - even in new york - underperform district schools; that charter schools enroll significantly smaller proportions of ELL and SPED students than district schools; and that some charter schools do counsel out students, in which cases declining cohorts of students correlate powerfully with increasing test scores? Where was serious discussion from experts on both sides of the education reform divide of the inadequacy of standardized testing as a metric for evaluating student and teacher performance? ....

This is how Brill responded:

The way i stepped through that debate was 1) to acknowledge clearly that not all charters schools are good for kids (didn't you see that statement?); and 2) to use a building that had two schools in it -- one a charter, one a traditional public school -- and compare expenses and results side by side. I labored over this, and think the comparison is valid FOR THOSE TWO schools. And taxpayers pay nothing extra for the school choice that these two schools provide, so i don't understand you statement that the government is using "valuable funding as a stick to spur undemocratic reforms." Choice is usually thought of as being pretty democratic. As for empirical evidence, one thing is clear, we keep spending more money than all other countries with worse results. And the charter i spent time examining spends less with better results.

First of all, nowhere in his article or the above is it mentioned that Eva Moskowitz raised $2.4 million for her charter schools in 2009, and pays herself a very hefty salary.

Secondly, it is clear that Steve Brill still hasn't learned a thing.

Numerous blogs have shown since the publication of his article that these two schools have widely different student populations.

Valerie Strauss in the Washington Post; Kim Gittleson in Gotham Schools, and I at the NYC public school parent blog, have pointed out in detail the disparity in the sort of students enrolled in Harlem Success Academy compared to PS 149; and how the charter school enrolls far lower numbers of free lunch, English language learners, sped students with serious learning disabilities, and homeless kids.

Here are the figures side by side (taken from each school's NY State report cards from 2008-9, Kim's analysis of sped reports and homeless figures from here and here):

STUDENT CHARACTERISTICS
PS 149 vs. Harlem Success Academy
% free lunch: 68% vs. 49%
% Limited English Proficient: 10% vs.2%
% students with IEPs: 21% vs.14%
% of IEPs; separately educated more than 20% of day: 67% vs.35%
% homeless students: 10% vs.1%

Apparently, Brill is impervious to correction, with PS 149 serving many more poor students, five times the percent of LEP students, twice as many seriously disabled students, and ten times the number of homeless.

Taking a closer look at the state report cards, I also examined the data relating to teachers and staff (all for 2008-9, unless otherwise indicated):

TEACHER CHARACTERISTICS
PS 149 vs. Harlem Success Academy
teacher turnover (2007-8): 22% vs. 50%
total no. of teachers: 41 vs. 27
total no. of other professional staff: 7 vs. 26

HSA had twice the teacher attrition than PS 149; with fully half of all teachers turning over that year. This is not the sign of a good working (or learning) environment. Apparently as a result of this high level of attrition, 30% of HSA teachers had less than 3 years experience in 2008-9- compared to 20% at PS 149.

The comparative data on "other professional staff" is quite striking: HSA had 27 teachers and 26 other "professional staff" in 2008-9. Compare that with 41 teachers at PS 149, with only 7 other professional staff.

I don't know who all these other "professionals" are, whether they are administrators, fundraisers, PR flacks, or people who actually provide instruction or services to kids; but so little proportional investment in classroom teachers seems to me an indication of poor educational priorities.

See also the many letters written in response to Brill's articles in today's NY Times magazine.

D.C. Sports Bog - Controversy at the Spelling Bee By Dan Steinberg - The Washington Post

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Not a good week for sports judges. I'm going to try to lay this out as clearly as possible.

Round Six of the 2010 Scripps National Spelling Bee began with 19 contestants, one of whom had been reinstated after a previous judging controversy. Between the several commercial breaks, only four of the first 13 to spell got their words correct. The primetime broadcast typically begins with around a dozen spellers, so it seemed like the pool was being whittled far too quickly.

After yet another ESPN commercial break, the Bee organizers then announced that all 10 remaining spellers on stage -- the four who had already gotten words right, and the six who had yet to spell -- would advance to the ABC primetime broadcast on Friday night. The order of spellers, I should note, is based on the alphabetical order of their home state. So the remaining kid from Texas was in, while both kids from California -- who had already spelled and missed -- were out.

(Organizers later explained that the sixth round would resume mid-stream during the primetime broadcast, so no spellers were gifted into the championship round, but this wasn't announced in the ballroom. As you can see above, they all celebrated as if they were in; one of these girls had already spelled, and the other hadn't.)

And then, chaos. There was some scripted bit involving Shaquille O'Neal. Everyone was trying to take pictures of Shaq. Organizers were attempting to set up a press conference for the 10 remaining spellers, less than half of whom had actually qualified for what is known as the championship round. Parents of at least one recently eliminated speller tried shouting out questions to Paige Kimble, the Bee director, and she tried to silence them.

"The rules have a provision for it," she told the parents and media members. "These children are competing in the championship finals," she said, gesturing to the press conference. "The rules have a provision for this."

Then the press conference started. There were a series of run-of-the mill questions for the 10 left standing, whatever you want to call them. Included in that group is Potomac's Lanson Tang, attempting to become the first D.C. area winner since 1984. Finally, at the end of the press conference, one of the kids themselves chimed in on the controversy.

"I don't think it's fair that so many got out and some just whooshed along," said 13-year old Elizabeth Platz, as audience members clapped and Kimble managed a frozen smile. "I'd rather have five finalists than five who didn't deserve it. I think it was unfair."

Kimble later dealt with the media again, explaining that the sixth round would simply be continued from where it had stopped, and that any of the remaining sixth rounders who missed his or her first primetime word would not be considered a championship finalist and would receive an identical prize as the previously eliminated contestants.

"These kids haven't gotten a free pass, the ones who didn't spell," she said. "And if they misspell, then they get the same prize and the same rank as the [previous] kids who misspelled....They're competing in what ABC calls 'The Championship Finals.' They're not officially championship finalists until they spell that final word in the sixth round."

That distinction, clearly, will be lost on most Americans, who are coming to this fresh. I don't know if this was a Bud Selig moment, exactly, but it certainly defies common sense. Why do the in-between spellers go to the finals press conference? Why do they get to be part of this Shaq event? Why will their local news broadcasts talk about them? Why do they get spotlighted on ABC? Why are they LISTED AS CHAMPIONSHIP FINALISTS ON THE BEE'S WEB SITE? I'm not the only one asking.

"It's not fair that just because you're from California and someone else is from Wisconsin that you shouldn't be there," thundered Sonia Schlesinger, a former D.C. speller who was eliminated in the fifth round but understands that what's right is right. "It's not fair. [Anvita Mishra's] from California and Andrew Grose is from Wisconsin and he gets to go and she doesn't?

"The Bee doesn't really understand. They're more worried about TV than about the Spelling Bee," she continued. "Ok, it's true, that they can't go over the time on TV and that they need enough finalists for TV, so they wouldn't be able to do another round. But that's the Spelling Bee. I mean, I know TV is a big deal, but it's not what the Bee is all about. The Bee is about spelling your words right and being fair."

She was standing near Mishra, who was in tears. Mishra tried to suggest that they should have finished the round, and if there weren't enough remaining spellers for ABC's purposes, then they could have some sort of re-spell-off.

"They're promoting TV rather than education," she said. "I could have done better. If they didn't have enough, they could have brought people back, and I could have done better."

"Maybe next year we should move to a state that starts with G," her dad, Anil joked.

Sure, a lot of this was about the honor of being recognized in front of those lights on ABC, but that's about rewarding them for their studies, too. This is the time the nerds get saluted by the sports broadcast. And then some of them get treated like the play-in teams in the NCAA tournament.

"Attention is encouragement," Anil explained. "There are so many different bees: geography bee, math bee, science bee. So many bees, and this is most popular. Why? Because it is there on the primetime TV. It is there, everywhere, everyone knows who is there. All the news, CNN, everyone covers it."

The early-exiting sixth rounders won't get covered. Because their states come early in the alphabet.

"It's just not right, at all." Schlesinger said. "If [the six remaining sixth rounders] get out in the first round tonight and they're not considered finalists, nobody's gonna know that. Everybody's gonna be watching them and thinking of them as finalists. It kind of tells you something about the Bee. They always say our mission is primarily an educational one. It's like, well, actually, our mission is primarily a media one."

"Is it just about making money?" asked Anju Mishra, Anvita's mom, who was especially angry that no one would answer her questions. "It's a bad precedent. Everybody should be equal.... This could be one of the reasons why there's a decline in the quality of the education in the United States."

I asked Kimble, the director, whether she feels badly for the kids who got sent home early.

"I don't feel bad at all for giving these children the opportunity," she said of the remaining 10 contestants. "Do I wish we could give it to 19? Yes, certainly, but that's not practical in a two-hour broadcast window. And, again, the provision is there for it in the rules. In fact, we met with the kids last night and we discussed it. It's happened before, and that's why it's in our rules, so we have provision for it. We know it's unpopular, and we don't like to do it, but sometimes you get into a position where that's exactly what you have to do."

Anyhow, about an hour later, they put the 10 sort-of-finalists in a group on stage. Some producer type directed all the remaining people in the audience to stand and clap and whoop for "the winners, who are going to be in the finals tonight," as he put it. Good times.

Postscript: From where I sit, the concerns were not allayed by ABC's handling of the primetime show.

"Ten have earned the right to be here," the host said to start the broadcast, even though only four had earned that right at the time.

"We started with 10 finalists tonight," he said later, completely missing the point.

This is just what the kids were saying Friday afternoon: that regardless of the exact definitions provided by organizers, anyone on that stage would be seen by the world at large as a real finalist. They each earned the flashy pre-produced ABC profiles, with hardly an indication that they weren't finalists yet.

And another concern of diehard fans was that the brutal words from the start of the sixth round would ease up at night, since the primetime broadcasts traditionally begin with more forgiving words. No balm there, either; only four of 13 sixth rounders survived in the afternoon, but four of six got their words right in primetime.

A former competitor agrees.

All in all, it was still a great event, but this one needs to be fixed. Maybe put them in a random order. Maybe have them ranked by how they qualified. Maybe tell the TV folks to take a hike. But something has to change.

Oyster Decision Could Alter Bay - washingtonpost.com

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Sometime in the next few days, three men will make a decision that comes awfully close to playing God with the Chesapeake Bay.

[Photo caption: Eastern Oyster]

The officials -- Cabinet secretaries from Virginia and Maryland and a colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers -- will choose whether the estuary should get a new oyster. Seafood interests want to transplant an Asian species to supplement the decimated Eastern oyster, which can no longer fill its role in the bay's ecosystem and the region's deep-fat fryers.

A lot of people think the answer should be no.

Environmental groups, states and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency say it's not clear whether the new oyster would become a kind of kudzu on the half shell, crowding out the old one, or simply die and waste everyone's money.

For now, the officials seem split. One is leaning against the Asian oyster, one is neutral and a third supports it, at least if the oyster is confined to shellfish farms.

Their choice could alter the Chesapeake in a way few recent decisions have. Once an animal that can lay 10,000,000 eggs is set loose, it's loose.

"There's no real experience in an open aquatic system like Chesapeake Bay . . . of completely removing a non-native species," said Donald F. Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "So it really is a point of no return."

A favorable ruling could pave the way for watermen and shellfish farmers to put millions of the Asian oysters in the Chesapeake. That makes it the most important decision in a long regional debate -- all arising from the odd-sounding idea that one of America's great shellfish grounds needs a Chinese transplant to save it.

"This is the moment we've been waiting for, you know, 10 years. . . . We will potentially be looking back on this for decades to come, either with fondness or regret," said Bill Goldsborough of the nonprofit Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

The Chesapeake's Eastern oysters, which once filtered its water and provided a living for generations of watermen, have dropped 99 percent below historic levels, because of overfishing and a pair of diseases.

[Photo Caption: Critics of the plan to add Asian oysters, above, to the Chesapeake say they could do further harm to the native Eastern oysters - Photo Credit: By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post Photo]

But Goldsborough said he thinks the Asian oyster is too much of a risk.

"It's like saying, 'We're going to replace our black bear with a panda bear from China, and assume the forest ecosystem is going to be fine,' " he said.

The officials are expected to make their decision in the next two weeks, although the ruling will not be officially made public until April.

One idea that had frightened environmentalists -- putting the Asian oysters overboard and letting them spread unchecked -- now seems unlikely to be chosen.

"It's probably not as seriously discussed as it was before," said Col. Dionysios Anninos, commander of the Corps of Engineers' Norfolk District and one of the officials who will decide the oysters' fate. "The scientists [are] telling us there's a lot of uncertainty" about that plan, he said.

But there's still a major fight left.

Seafood dealers and watermen want to create a network of shellfish farms, where sterilized Asian oysters would be suspended in the water in mesh bags or cages. They say it would provide benefits -- a natural water filter and a valuable harvest -- without the worry of the oysters multiplying on their own.

"If you're serious in Chesapeake Bay about restoring an oyster industry . . . why aren't we looking at all the tools in the toolbox?" said A.J. Erskine, president of the Virginia Seafood Council.

[Photo caption: Asian Oysters]

The council has a pilot project raising 1 million Asian oysters at farms in Chesapeake tributaries, including the Potomac River. They sell out, Erskine said. Customers say the oyster has a slight metallic aftertaste when eaten on the half shell and tastes just like an Eastern oyster when cooked in a stew.

But environmental groups and some scientists have objected, saying that some of the supposedly sterile oysters will turn out not to be. They say the oysters will make sperm and eggs, which will be carried off by currents and brought together to make baby oysters, called spat.

The Asian oyster, without so much as a leg or a fin, will have effectively escaped.

"It will happen, and we don't know when," said Roger Mann, a professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

And once it happens, Mann said, the Asian oysters could wind up harming the native ones. In a bad accident of nature, the two species' sperm and eggs could essentially kill each other off.

"It doesn't appear as if it's going to coexist nicely," Mann said.

Now, a number of environmental groups and government agencies have lined up against approval for the Asian oyster. The EPA called it "environmentally unsatisfactory." New York, New Jersey and Delaware wrote a joint letter. The Natural Resources Defense Council said "what we need is not a new oyster" but more work to help the old one.

The Corps of Engineers was supposed to settle questions about the risks of the Asian oyster, with a 4 1/2-year, $15 million study.

But a draft report released in October found that "no specific level of risk" could be attached to the possibility that oyster farms might lead to an escape. Then, to compound the confusion, a curious resident spotted a large math error in one of the Corps' calculations: One key figure was off by a factor of 100,000.

"The research that's been done has been a little disappointing," said L. Preston Bryant Jr., the Virginia secretary of natural resources and another of the officials who will decide the oyster's fate. "After five years and $15 million or so, we still don't know if non-native [oyster] introduction would be successful, or if sterile non-native aquaculture would lead to a de facto introduction" of Asian oysters in the wild, Bryant said.

Despite that, Bryant said, he's leaning toward supporting Asian oysters in farms. He said he'd been persuaded by the success of Virginia's pilot program, which had never reported an oyster escape in seven years.

"Given that, why would we recommend backing away from that which has been successful?" Bryant said.

In Maryland, Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin is skeptical about the Asian oyster, a subordinate said this week.

That could make Anninos the deciding vote.

And he hasn't decided.

"My answer right now is I am neutral, and I'm not quite sure which way I'm going to lean," he said last week.

If the two states disagree, it is possible that they could issue separate rulings. But officials say that would only muddy the debate that their choice was supposed to clear up.

N.Y. Congressman Gets Five Days in Jail for DUI by Christian Davenport - washingtonpost.com

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U.S. Rep. Vito Fossella, the New York congressman whose political career fell apart after a DUI arrest in Alexandria led to revelations that he fathered a child in an extramarital affair, was sentenced yesterday to five days in jail.

Fossella, who was convicted of driving under the influence in October, had said he made a mistake when he drove after drinking. During yesterday's hearing, he tried to convince General District Court Judge Becky J. Moore that his blood-alcohol level could not have been above 0.15, the level at which jail time is mandatory.

A breath test after his arrest indicated that he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.17, more than twice the legal limit, according to police. Fossella's attorneys claimed that the machine used to measure his blood-alcohol level had a "software glitch" and that the congressman did not appear inebriated in the hours before he was arrested.

Immediately after the verdict, Fossella, 43, appealed the decision and left the court in Old Town Alexandria without talking to reporters. The maximum penalty on the misdemeanor charge is one year in jail.

One of his attorneys, Barry Pollack, said that the hearing was "the first step in a lengthy process" and that "we look forward to taking that next step."

Fossella, New York City's lone Republican congressman, was pulled over shortly after midnight May 1 after an Alexandria police officer said he observed him running a red light at Seminary Road and Library Lane. Fossella told the officer that he was going to visit his sick daughter. That led to the revelation that he had fathered a child out of wedlock with retired Air Force Col. Laura Fay. Fossella is married with three children who live in Staten Island.

After his arrest, Fossella announced that he would not seek reelection. He did not take the stand yesterday.

During his October trial, Fossella testified that he had been at a White House reception April 30 to celebrate the New York Giants' Super Bowl victory. Later, he went back to his Capitol Hill office and cleaned his hands with Purell, a hand sanitizer that is more than 60 percent ethyl alcohol.

The alcohol in the hand sanitizer led to his elevated blood-alcohol reading, his attorneys said. Fossella said he went to a private dinner at Bobby Van's Steakhouse in the District about 8 p.m. and drank not quite two glasses of wine with dinner. He sipped a third at the bar afterward, he said.

About 10 p.m., he went to Logan Tavern with a friend who is a Secret Service agent, he said. The friend was so drunk he fell face first into a table, breaking it, bar employee Alexander Castro testified yesterday. But Fossella did not appear intoxicated, said Castro, the only witness to testify.

The men were asked to leave the restaurant. In pre-sentencing arguments, Fossella's attorneys wrote that Fossella drove his friend to his office in the District and then went straight to Virginia.

At the time of his arrest, he registered a 0.13 blood-alcohol level. He was taken to the Mount Vernon police station in Fairfax County, and police there tried to give him another blood-alcohol test nearly three hours later. Initially, Fossella "claimed he was not able to perform the test and threatened to defecate on the floor of the police station if he was not allowed to use the restroom," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney David Lord wrote in a pre-sentencing document.

In that test, he registered a 0.17, police said. During the hearing yesterday, defense attorneys argued that the second device, known as Intoxilyzer 5000, had a "software glitch" that led to the elevated reading.

They said the machine twice omitted letters of the name of the officer operating the machine. "Something happened to that machine," attorney Jerry Phillips said. "It left out a letter. It could have been a number."

They also argued that there was no way the level could have risen from 0.13 to 0.17 in between tests because "the alcohol level dissipates over time."

Lord argued in pre-sentencing documents that the machine that registered the 0.13 "does not have so high a degree of scientific reliability that it can be used to determine a specific" blood-alcohol content. It is a preliminary test used "for determining the presence of alcohol in a suspect's system."

The machine that registered the 0.17 was working properly, he argued, and "presents results that are scientifically accurate and reliable for determining a specific" blood-alcohol content.

The rise in alcohol in the blood could also be the result of "slamming" drinks in rapid fashion, he said.

The Real Iraq We Knew - washingtonpost.com

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By 12 former Army captains
Tuesday, October 16, 2007; 12:00 AM

Today marks five years since the authorization of military force in Iraq, setting Operation Iraqi Freedom in motion. Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles.

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out.

What does Iraq look like on the ground? It's certainly far from being a modern, self-sustaining country. Many roads, bridges, schools and hospitals are in deplorable condition. Fewer people have access to drinking water or sewage systems than before the war. And Baghdad is averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

Iraq's institutional infrastructure, too, is sorely wanting. Even if the Iraqis wanted to work together and accept the national identity foisted upon them in 1920s, the ministries do not have enough trained administrators or technicians to coordinate themselves. At the local level, most communities are still controlled by the same autocratic sheiks that ruled under Saddam. There is no reliable postal system. No effective banking system. No registration system to monitor the population and its needs.

The inability to govern is exacerbated at all levels by widespread corruption. Transparency International ranks Iraq as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And, indeed, many of us witnessed the exploitation of U.S. tax dollars by Iraqi officials and military officers. Sabotage and graft have had a particularly deleterious impact on Iraq's oil industry, which still fails to produce the revenue that Pentagon war planners hoped would pay for Iraq's reconstruction. Yet holding people accountable has proved difficult. The first commissioner of a panel charged with preventing and investigating corruption resigned last month, citing pressure from the government and threats on his life.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. military has been trying in vain to hold the country together. Even with "the surge," we simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions. Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents' cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances. Millions of Iraqis correctly recognize these actions for what they are and vote with their feet -- moving within Iraq or leaving the country entirely. Still, our colonels and generals keep holding on to flawed concepts.

U.S. forces, responsible for too many objectives and too much "battle space," are vulnerable targets. The sad inevitability of a protracted draw-down is further escalation of attacks -- on U.S. troops, civilian leaders and advisory teams. They would also no doubt get caught in the crossfire of the imminent Iraqi civil war.

Iraqi security forces would not be able to salvage the situation. Even if all the Iraqi military and police were properly trained, equipped and truly committed, their 346,000 personnel would be too few. As it is, Iraqi soldiers quit at will. The police are effectively controlled by militias. And, again, corruption is debilitating. U.S. tax dollars enrich self-serving generals and support the very elements that will battle each other after we're gone.

This is Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reality we experienced. This is what we tried to communicate up the chain of command. This is either what did not get passed on to our civilian leadership or what our civilian leaders chose to ignore. While our generals pursue a strategy dependent on peace breaking out, the Iraqis prepare for their war -- and our servicemen and women, and their families, continue to suffer.

There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.

America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

This column was written by 12 former Army captains: Jason Blindauer served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Elizabeth Bostwick served in Salah Ad Din and An Najaf in 2004. Jeffrey Bouldin served in Al Anbar, Baghdad and Ninevah in 2006. Jason Bugajski served in Diyala in 2004. Anton Kemps served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Kristy (Luken) McCormick served in Ninevah in 2003. Luis Carlos Montalván served in Anbar, Baghdad and Nineveh in 2003 and 2005. William Murphy served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Josh Rizzo served in Baghdad in 2006. William "Jamie" Ruehl served in Nineveh in 2004. Gregg Tharp served in Babil and Baghdad in 2003 and 2005. Gary Williams served in Baghdad in 2003.

The Washington Post: Audit Finds Exclusive Clubs Monopolizing Public Parkland -Similar Conclusion in 1984 Had Little Effect...By Elizabeth Williamson

WASHINGTON — The National Park Service has for decades allowed members-only beach, yacht and sports clubs — including New York City’s largest beach resort — to “monopolize” public lands that by law should be open to all, an Interior Department audit shows.

The audit also found that the Park Service failed to consider “environmental consequences” for 18 of 20 sites included in the survey.

The clubs “have enjoyed exclusive rights to public lands through restrictive and costly memberships that deny the general public the same benefits,” the report reads. “In some instances, the National Park Service has authorized this exclusivity for 30 or more years.”

The Washington Canoe Club in Georgetown and the Breezy Point Surf Club in Queens are among the private clubs occupying waterfront land, the survey by the Interior Department inspector general’s office found. Park service officials acknowledge the problems, but say they have no idea how many private clubs occupy public land under so-called “special use” permits. A sampling of parklands for the audit turned up five private clubs occupying scores of acres on the East Coast, three in New York and two in the Washington area.

[Later in the article]

Two of the biggest New York beach clubs, Breezy Point and Silver Gull, located in the Gateway National Recreation Area on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, operate on special use permits dating from the 1970s. Both clubs were singled out in the 1984 report questioning their exclusive use of large swaths of parkland, but they have remained private.

The park service has renewed permits for those clubs, as well as nearby Rockaway Point Yacht Club, for more than 30 years without the legally required environmental reviews, the audit said. Among the environmental concerns the park service failed to consider were waste disposal, hazardous material storage and the impact on the park’s plants and animals of the more than 3,000 people who are members of each club.

Breezy Point Surf Club occupies 60 acres of prime oceanfront land in the park. According to its website, the club “offers acres of pristine beach area for roaming and relaxation,” as well as an Olympic size and kiddie pool, playgrounds, mini golf, and playing fields.

Breezy Point pays the park service $340,000 yearly, about one-tenth of what it earns. A summer membership for a family of four is $1,500, and requires renting a bath cabin or cabana which range from $400 to more than $4,000 for the season.

The Silver Gull Club celebrates “Our 34th Year of Fun in the Sun with the National Park Service” on its website. The club features four pools with water slides, water aerobics to meditation classes, a poolside patio bar and free day camp. Summer membership for a family of four starts at $2,200, plus a changing cabin or cabana which ranges from $700 to more than $4,000. The club pays one-tenth of its $3 million in revenues to the park service.

The Rockaway Point Yacht Club’s permit expired in 2004, the audit said. The club continues to pay the park service $500 a year, the same rate it charges each of its 100 members.

Managers at the three clubs could not be reached.

Read entire article...

Silver Gull Club website


Breezy Point Surf Club website


Rockaway Point Yacht Club website