Thread: Beheadings for the Wealthy?

Beheadings for the Wealthy?

By Bobby Eberle January 8, 2013 12:03 pm

Give Karen Lewis a microphone, and you never know what she's going to say. Lewis is the president of the Chicago Teachers Union... you know, the one who led the strike last year leaving so many students without teachers. Now, she's talking about the so-called "wealth disparity" in America and harkening back to the days when the wealthy were beheaded.

As reported by Mediaite.com, Lewis was giving a speech at the Illinois Labor History Society’s “Salute to Labor’s Historic Heroes from the History Makers of Today” conference. She drew laughter when she mentioned that back in the "old days," the evil wealthy people were simply beheaded.

Video at the page link: » Beheadings for the Wealthy? » The Loft -- GOPUSA

There is so much wrong with her comments, that I don't even know where to begin. First of all, I don't think there was ever a time in the United States of America when the wealthy were beheaded. Just sayin'.

Lewis says we're not "at that point," but what's the whole purpose of alluding to it? That we might be soon, and that it's ok?

Diving deeper into her comments reveals the mind of a liberal: "Do not think for a minute that the wealthy are ever going to allow you to legislate their riches away from them."

Think about that statement for a minute. "Their riches." What does she mean by that? Money? Probably. Property? Possibly. Other possessions? Sure. The fact is that "riches" mean those things which those people OWN. If they own it, why would they let it be "legislated" away. Why would ANYONE, regardless of income, support legislation that takes his or her possessions away?

But that's how liberals think. They think government owns. Government commands. And people are there simply to serve the government. Wrong!!
Unfortunately, these are the people who occupy positions of leadership. And their entire platform is, "What can I take away from this person?" That's not the kind of leadership we need.

» Beheadings for the Wealthy? » The Loft -- GOPUSA

Malkin: Chicago teachers union president is part of the deep-pocketed elite
Posted: September 14, 2012 - 11:08pm


By Michelle Malkin

Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis walks, talks and barks like a rootsy Occupy Wall Street activist. But this Big Labor loudmouth who’s leading the abandonment of nearly 400,000 schoolchildren in the Windy City is just another power-grabbing union fat cat.

Instead of academic excellence, she rails about “social justice.” Instead of accountability, she fumes about “profits” and curses merit pay. Lewis has marched with the Occu-clowns denouncing capitalism and promoting “socialism (as) the alternative.” She raves: “Occupy Wall Street and the whole concept of the 99 percent is an extraordinarily important movement.”

And she earned praise as a “fist-in-the-air, crowd-rousing, dynamic union leader” by former Communist Party revolutionary turned Obama-funded “school reformer” Michael Klonsky.

While she pays solidarity lip service to the 99 percent, Lewis is part of the deep-pocketed elite of public employee union chiefs who blame everyone else for their own financial and educational ruin. She’s good at pandering to her Che Guevara T-shirt-wearing colleagues and trash-talking the political machine. But she is the machine.

The Chicago Teachers Union rakes in nearly $30 million in forced dues from rank-and-file teachers every year. CTU is an affiliate of the behemoth AFL-CIO, which dropped an estimated $100 million in forced dues to support Democratic candidates and causes during the 2008 and 2010 election cycles.

Before Lewis took control of the CTU, the union was teetering on bankruptcy and owed millions of dollars in loans. The previous CTU president pulled down nearly $300,000 a year in base salary and compensation. Local union watchdogs reported that top CTU officers and staff with six-figure salaries and bonuses also received: “... A monthly expense account for each administrator — officers, coordinators and field representatives — of $1,500; a car allowance of $7,000 per year (whether or not you have a car); 85 percent of car insurance and expenses paid; parking allowance; cellphone allowance; life insurance paid with union dues; and among other perks, a 53rd week of yearly pay for “working” over the Christmas holiday.”

Lewis assumed the CTU presidency in June 2010. “Teachers union officials declined to provide information on Lewis’ salary,” The Chicago Tribune reports, but records show she made more than $71,000 for half a year’s work in 2010 -- along with compensation from the Illinois Federation of Teachers in 2011 totaling at least an additional $64,000 on top of her unknown base salary and benefits.

When she’s not urging other teachers to ditch the classroom or organizing traffic blockades to impede everyone else in Chicago from getting to and from their jobs, Lewis spends her time trashing public charter schools and business leaders trying to reform our Soviet-style monopoly in education. The results speak for themselves: While CTU members earn an average of $74,000 a year and are now spurning 16 percent pay hikes, 71 percent of the third-largest school district’s 8th-grade students can’t attain the most basic level of science proficiency, and nearly 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in reading.

Lewis, a vulgar standup comic wannabe who has joked publicly about smoking weed in college, sneered at parent-centered charter schools that defied the strike on Monday as not “real” schools. Competition is the enemy of union-enforced stagnation. She also played the race card like a Vegas poker pro. And in a stem-winder straight out of the Barack Obama/Elizabeth Warren/Occupy rhetorical handbook, Lewis blasted the “wealthy” at a strike rally this week: “You don’t make money by yourself,” she hissed.

Nope. In Social Justice World, you make that money by climbing up the public employee union ladder and extracting it forcibly through a compulsory dues racket that redistributes hard-earned dues from nearly 30,000 captive members to the union leadership’s class-warfare demagogues.

It bears repeating often: The goals of the teachers union radicals are not academic excellence, professional development and fairness. The goals are student indoctrination, social upheaval and perpetual grievance-mongering in pursuit of bigger government and spending without restraint: 2, 4, 6, 8! One agenda: Agitate!

Malkin: Chicago teachers union president is part of the deep-pocketed elite | Lubbock Online | Lubbock Avalanche-Journal

she's look'n pretty healthy with 4 - 5 chins ..... the teacher's Union must be paying her very well to accumulate that much chin

Crass and classless bully perhaps? Seems to like to play the race card at every opportunity. JMO

CTU's Lewis Caught on Tape Mocking Arne Duncan's Lisp

By Andrew Greiner
| Monday, Nov 14, 2011 |


The CTU President makes fun of Arne Duncan's lisp. Video Courtesy of the Education Action Group Foundation.

Maybe Rahm Emanuel isn't the only bully in Chicago.

Chicago Teacher's Union President Karen Lewis didn't hold much back when she gave a speech Oct. 1 before a gathering of the Northwest Teachers for Social Justice in Seattle, Washington.

In fact, some say she crossed the line by mocking U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who speaks with a lisp.

"Now, you know he went to private school ‘cause if he had gone to public school he would have had that lisp fixed," she said on stage. "I know – that was ugly wasn’t it? I’m sorry.”

Lewis has gained plenty of attention in 2011 after taking on Rahm Emanuel's plan to extend the Chicago Public School day despite a union contract calling for changes next year.

At one point she said Emanuel tried to bully her.

But it appears that Lewis played the bully in October, when she mocked Duncan, the former head of Chicago Public Schools.

She appears to justify her actions by referencing a Chicago Tribuneeditorial cartoon that paints her in an unflattering light.

“You all should go to the Chicago Tribune editorial cartoons," she says."There is a vicious, nasty cartoon of me with my fat butt sitting on a little tiny chair in the corner with a dunce cap on and they made sure they darkened me up in case people didn’t know…had my locks, you know…My husband wants to beat somebody up. … And I have to say, ‘baby, let them do it because you can’t go to jail.’ And I’m too fat to go to jail is what I tell him – I can’t fit in the cell, so I have to behave a little bit. But I’m losin’ weight because I’m preparin’ to go ‘cause they’re sending me to jail, I just know it at some point. I’m goin’ to jail. That’s why I’m losin’ weight – so I can fit in that cell and sit on that little toilet – that’s the only reason.”

Later in the speech -- which was supposed to be about social justice in schools -- she talks about her own drug use.

“I am the only black woman in the class of 1974 from Dartmouth College. Whoo. People are impressed – let me tell you, I spent those years smoking lots of weed – self-medicating. Self-medicating – thank you! [cheers] Sounds like you all did, too. [laughs and cheers] Oh, I’m sorry – there’s kids here. I wasn’t supposed to say that, right? [laughs] Too late!”

Chicago Teacher's Union spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin released a statement Monday in response to the video, saying in part that Lewis' speech was "self-deprecating humor" in "an attempt to lighten the mood during a long and serious discussion about the on-going campaign to blame and vilify teachers for everything wrong with public education."

Lewis spoke with Duncan on Monday and says that she was "hurt and defensive" about attacks on her character.

"This teaches me that I can never let the frustrations get in the way of carrying out my responsibilities as a leader," Lewis said.

But Kyle Olsen of the Education Action group which released the video, criticized Lewis' comments about Duncan.

"I think it was ridiculous. It was unnecessary. And it goes contrary to what we hear in school about no bullying, treating people with respect," Olsen said.

See the entire 35 minute video on the EAG Foundation YouTube Channel.




Source: CTU's Lewis Caught on Tape Mocking Arne Duncan's Lisp | NBC Chicago