Charter School fact and fiction

        When Governor Rick Scott visited Florida International Academy, a charter school - in Opa Locka in January, several years ago, he took his special advisor on education, Michell Rhee, with him. Rhee, the controversial former superintendent of the Washington DC school system, is a big believer in spending public money on privately-operated charter schools.

        “Who are we to deny a child, a low income child, who has the opportunity to take the same dollars and actually get a better education?” Rhee asks. The answer, in truth, is that kids in charter schools more often than not, simply  aren’t getting a better education.

        Although I'm not a huge fan of high stakes testing, it does offer an opportunity to evaluate charters against public performance in Florida.  When it comes to the failure rate, charter Schools – operated at public expense by private companies – markedly underperformed  on the 2011 FCAT.  Moreover, hasty explanations provided by  major charter school boosters  don't really adequately explain the phenomenon. .

        The numbers, first reported by a Miami CBS affiliate, are striking: Remember, these are 2011 numbers, however, the relevant demographics really haven't changed much in the subsequent years.  Of Florida’s 2,280 public elementary and middle schools, only 17 scored an “F” on the FCAT. For the math challenged, that's a .007% failure rate.  Of the state’s 270 Charter elementary and middle schools, 15 flunked. That's .05% .. meaning Charters were about  8 times more likely to fail, and that's just the academic story.

Almost immediately, Charter School boosters began manufacturing  reasons and working damage control.  Representative Erik Fresen, a Miami Republican who sits on several education committees and is a strong supporter of charter schools, offered this:  “Traditionally, they (the charters that failed) were in failing school neighborhoods,”  “They started as an “F” because they inherited, essentially, “F” performing students.”  Fresen said that a rule that requires charter schools to give the FCAT in their first year of operation accounts for most of the failure rate.

Sounds plausible, right? Yes, if you don't know better it almost does.  Fresen’s defense, however, does not stand up to actual critical thinking analysis, however. In truth,  of the 15 charter schools that failed, at least nine had  administered the test for at least two years. Some saw their grades drop  from an “A” to an “F.”  This diametrically controverts Fresen's  hypothesis. At least two had back-to-back “F” grades, including Broward Community Charter Middle School and Lawrence Academy Elementary Charter School in Miami-Dade.
        And now as Paul Harvey used to intone: "The rest of the story":  Fresen's  sister and brother-in-law own a charter school management company, Academica, yet he claims to  see no conflict between that and his leadership role in education in the legislature. At least five companies involved in charter school management contributed the maximum allowable donation to Fresen’s most recent election campaign. And finally, Fresen was named “legislator of the year” by Florida’s for-profit college lobbying group, the Florida Association of Postsecondary Schools & Colleges, in 2013.

        Now representing district 114, in the Florida House, Fresen has received at least $25,500 from the “career college” industry, made up mostly of for-profit schools.  A conflict of interest ethics complaint was filed against him as far back as  2011 for voting on a proposal that would give benefits to some charter schools, and in the 2016 legislative session he has fast-tracked a bill to force Florida public school districts to share their construction tax money with charters.

        Some  state lawmakers, however, simply don't buy the hype and have opined  that  the explosion of publicly-funded, privately-operated schools is a growing drain on the public education system.
“People need to get out of the business of profiting from public education,” (Rep. Dwight Bullard of Miami).

Rep. Luis Garcia, agreed:
“The present policies that….state government is taking seem to be attacking public education in favor of for-profit – to the extreme,” Garcia  said.

        In the first part of this piece I addressed performance issues related to Florida.  There are also many fiscal improprieties which, in some cases are simply mismanagement, in others are bordering on criminal enterprises, all in the name of "better" education. Nationwide, the story is probably worse.

• An Oakland Park man received $450,000 in tax dollars to open two new charter schools just months after his first collapsed. The schools shuttled students among more than four locations in Broward County, including a park, an event hall and two churches. The schools closed in seven weeks.

• A Boca Raton woman convicted of taking kickbacks when she ran a federal meal program was hired to manage a start-up charter school in Lauderdale Lakes.

• A Coral Springs man with a history of foreclosures, court-ordered payments, and bankruptcy received $100,000 to start a charter school in Margate. It closed in two months.

• A Hollywood company that founded three short-lived charters in Palm Beach and Collier counties will open a new school this fall. The two Palm Beach County schools did not return nearly $200,000 they owe the district.

 

        When members of the U.S. House of Representatives considered a recent   bill to incentivize the expansion of charter schools, there was, as expected  to be a lot of heat but not very much light in their discussion of the need for more of these institutions.

The bipartisan bill, HR 10, was passed amid rare  cross-aisle fist-bumping, and lots of floor speeches about the power of charters to help disadvantaged kids.  In today’s climate of trumped up political truisms, the alleged  "necessity" of charter schools is just the latest one.   In generally uninformed and poorly investigated treatments of education, charter schools are  regarded by many as a given “improvement.” New York Times columnist  David Leonhardt recently  illustrated this intellectual nonchalance the other day, writing for the paper’s magazine, that our nation’s “once-large international lead in educational attainment has vanished,” but “there are some reasons for optimism in education” – principally, “charter schools” that “offer some lessons about what works and doesn’t in K-12.”

        Parrotting this drivel  in Congress, Senator Mary Landrieu (D, LA) recently harangued U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan during a Senate committee meeting for not giving enough federal financial support to charter schools, chiding Duncan for proposing level funding for the federal charter program.”

        According to a report from Education Week, Landrieu scornfully said, , “We gave you billions of dollars for traditional public schools. You’ve given a very small amount of money for public high performing charters. The evidence is in, they work.”

The fact that the House vote on the HR 10 coincided with the president’s designation of a special week for charters tells you the marketing campaign for these schools has been very carefully orchestrated.

But giving the lie to this well crafted propaganda campaign (aided by significant donations to key legislators by "for profit"  educational businesses)  are a number of recent revelations showing that among “what is possible” from charter schools is a lot of bad education, ridiculous hype, wasted resources, and widespread corruption.

       In truth, and for  sure – and let’s get this straight from the get go – there are always a few “charter school success stories” that can be cherry picked from the tree, just like "some Bull Riders" don't ever get hurt but that’s not the point. Charter School boosters laud the accomplishments of the few and then imply that it is the norm. It isn't. Imagine the reaction if an advocate for traditional public schools pleading his case saying, “But look at this great public school over here.” He’d be mocked in the media and shamed by politicians. The point is that after years of studies about charter schools, there is not really any definitive proof of any “charter school magic” they bring to the field.

        Ignore the smoke and mirrors and let's look at facts.....remember facts?

        Opening the truth telling about charter schools was a recent study calling  for public schools to be replaced by charter schools in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee, you should note, is the city that has experienced the nation’s longest running experiment, more than 20 years, with charter schools and vouchers as replacements for traditional public schools.  Reality,  based on statistics and on the ground evaluation, however, is that charter schools in Milwaukee do no better than the public schools they replace, and many of the charter schools that perform the worst are never held accountable and continue to remain open after years of failure.

        Despite this very modest  track record for charters in Milwaukee, the report “Do Poor Kids Deserve Lower-Quality Education Than Rich Kids? Evaluating School Privatization Proposals in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,” explores the latest demand from state officials who are for “enamored with a new type of charter school represented by the Rocketship chain of schools.”

The study looked closely at Rocketship’s practices and found “everything is built around the tests.” However, tests scores for students in the Rocketship programs – as measured by California’s Academic Performance Index (where Rocketship is primarily based) – have declined by just over 10 percent from 2008–2009 to 2012–2013. “Indeed, in 2012–2013, all seven of the Rocketship schools failed to make adequate yearly progress according to federal standards.”

        Despite this poor performance, Rocketship executives are bent on an “unshakeable pursuit of large-scale growth”,  and are enriching politicians nationwide in an effort to gain support.  The  Rocketship model is driven by profit, instead of good education practice. As explained by the report and , as is intuitively obvious if one reviews the curriculum,  along with a test-driven instructional method,  Rocketship  relies heavily on substituting extensive online instruction for personal instruction from teachers. This model leads to clear conflicts of interest when Rocketship (or any)  charter network partners with its own for-profit providers of curricula, and two leaders of the charter venture both sit on Rocketship’s Board and are primary investors in a for-profit company that provides the math curriculum used by Rocketship.

        Thus, as the report concludes,  “Rocketship promotes itself as a dynamic learning organization, but, any true  innovation is limited.  since it apparently will not adopt education reforms that have no potential to make money for investors.”

This profit over pedagogy mentality “would likely be prohibited as illegal conflicts of interest if they took place in a public school system,” (or not: The Bush family had "interests" in the TX company which initially produced the FCAT!)  but “Rocketship is not bound to uphold the same standard of ethics demanded of public officials.”

        On state tests in Ohio, most charter schools do more poorly than public schools. Some equal public school performance but few surpass the public schools in test scores. While test scores do not show everything that schools should be accomplishing with their students, they do indicate that the promise of charter schools has not lived up to the reality. One must question the motivation behind the continued support for charter schools. Is it a misguided belief that they will better serve students or is it to pursue a political agenda to destroy anything that the government does, even if successful?

        Another outcome of "Charter School mania" is the circulation of unfounded and unwarranted rhetoric to support them. Demands for more charter schools, and more money for charter schools, are often justified by highly suspect information masquerading as “research” and inflated arguments about their financial needs. Two recent examples of the hype machine:

First, a new report arguing for more money for charter schools and, second, the annual ritual of circulating figures representing a charter school “waitlist.”

The  calling for more funds for charter schools found that in 2011, charter schools received $3,059 less per student than traditional public schools. “Shocking,” wrote one of the report  on his personal blog. But as education journalists noted, the report came from a University of Arkansas endeavor “funded by the Walton Foundation, a group associated with Walmart that aggressively uses its philanthropy to spur the creation of new charter schools. Even so, the foundation also included a  disclaimer that its findings “[do] not necessarily reflect” the group’s views.)”

        Additionally, Further, as charter schools expert and Western Michigan University professor Gary Miron explained, “This is not research that’s helping draw good policies.” Based on the data, charter schools often get less money simply because they don’t provide many of the services traditional public schools do, in particular, special education services, student support services such as counseling and health, vocational education, and transportation.

        In fact, A significant number of  charters have a cost advantage, especially when there is a thorough accounting of “considerable money that comes into charters from private sources.”

And about that extensive charter school wait list? A small number of very popular charters disproportionately account for the charter waitlists, while traditional public schools – which are not allowed to turn away applicants or, as with popular magnet schools, offer selective enrollment – are not given a “meaningful comparison” in the charter school data. As charter proponents continue to inflate their cause, the facts continue to deflate it. Maybe we’ve had enough of this shameless hype?

        Last but by no means least, and all too frequently seen in Florida, a  recent report released by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy revealed, “Fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.”

        The report, “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” combed through news stories, criminal records, and other documents to find literally hundreds of cases of charter school operators embezzling funds, using tax dollars to illegally support other, non-educational businesses, taking public dollars for services they didn’t provide, inflating their enrollment numbers to boost revenues, and putting children potentially in harm's way,  danger by foregoing safety regulations or withholding services. Not an opinion, but simply a public records search!  The report summarizes:  "Despite rapid growth in the charter school industry, as of today, no agency, federal or state, has been given the resources to properly oversee it. Given this inadequate oversight, we worry that the fraud and mismanagement that has been uncovered thus far might be just the tip of the iceberg.”

        In a write up of the report, senior editor at  Bill Moyers and Company, Joshua Holland, wrote, “The report looks at problems … with dozens of case studies. In some instances, charter operators used tax dollars to prop up side businesses like restaurants and health food stores — even a failing apartment complex.”

        Washington Post reporter , Valerie Strauss, cited some of the most egregious examples including a Washington, DC-based charter that used public tax dollars to cover travel-related expenses, membership dues and dinner tabs at an exclusive club, and slew of bills from sources as diverse as wine and liquor stores, Victoria’s Secret, and a shop in France frequented by the charter school operator and his wife.

        A state audit in Ohio found nearly $3 million in unsubstantiated expenses amassed by a charter in that state. Another operator in Milwaukee “spent about $200,000 on personal expenses, including cars, funeral arrangements and home improvement.” And yet another in California pleaded guilty to “stealing more than $7.2 million worth of computers from a government program.”

        Despite these urgent and well-founded calls for a change in direction on charter schools, not to mention that most simply don't work better (or in many cases, as well), public officials still seem intent on pursuing bad policy. This push for putting tax dollars into corporate pockets would be  derided by most charter supporters if it were any other instance. If the 2008 Housing bubble collapse proved nothing else (it did!) consider the consequences for many 2008 , 9, 10, and 2011 retirees had the George W. Bush privatization plan for Social Security been adopted .'Nuff said?

 

Pandora's Box

        Many will cheer the veto override of the recent bill allowing the families of 9/11 casualties to sue the Saudis, for whatever tenuous connections a clever lawyer might draw to the terrorists. Some will love it just because it was an action taken against the advice of the Chief Executive. These people will not use reason in that evaluation and will not understand how diametrically wrong they are.

        The precedent established here,  and a very good reason for the President's  veto,  is that  any stipulation that would establish (even if only in the US) the legitimacy of such lawsuits would certainly be grounds for a claim of reciprocity. In other words, victims of the US or its citizens could certainly justify suing the US on the same, or similar grounds. This entire effort was a pathetic play to the grandstand  by a senate concerned only with their reelections, not good judgment.

        Yes, I know , 9/11 was horrible. It was also the first of such  heinous and unfriendly acts to strike us on our home turf. In that we are unique among the world's superpowers. Unfortunately, residents of a number of other nations have not been anywhere near as safe from the US or its agents. Among the nations which would, by this standard, be justified in suing the United States for military offenses against civilians while not at war with that nation are the following:

        Laos: 30,000 civilians killed by US bombs, another 20,000 in the following years due to unexploded ordnance. We were never at war with Laos.

       Cambodia: same situation, at least 3,000 civilian dead from bombs.

      Afghanistan: over 26,000 non-combatant civilians killed by US military actions.

       Iraq: tens of thousands of civilians by bombs, at least 26 by Blackwater "security" forces, of whom 14 have been convicted of the crimes.

      Syria: Hundreds killed in misaimed drone strikes.

       By establishing the legitimacy of lawsuits based on allegations of terrorist military aggression aided by the Saudis,  we have opened Pandora's box. What the US did in Laos and elsewhere was state sponsored terrorism.

Monday Morning Redux

        Not too much in the news to inspire or revolt this morning. I'm sure the debate later tonight will fill that void. First, however, a nod of the head to Arnold Palmer, who gave many of us the "golfing bug."  RIP big guy.

        I had a huge laugh, however at a local TV spot promoting their consumer affairs advocate, Todd Ulrich. The spot begins with Todd intoning, "An Orlando  woman claims that a well know local law firm billed her for work they never did."  After a brief description of the specifics they cut to a shot of the sweetest little old lady you ever saw,  who looks directly  at the camera and says "I'm pissed, actually" then a slight smile blossoms.  Kudos to Channel Nine for letting it fly just as she said it! If the law firm in question is smart, they'll settle quietly and promptly , before the next time she says "And I'm going to sue the living shit out of them."  

        On a national note, GMA ran a spot featuring a mother who had been an anti-vaxxer and whose kids paid the price for it with a family wide bout of norovirus. She has had a change of heart and was sharing her message with the  country through this interview. She concluded by stating that  she and her husband realized that if their children had not been in good health when they fell ill, that the effects could have been dire, indeed. She continued to say that all the kids were now up to date on their shots, but that the family's decision to vaccinate had "cost them some friends!" I would propose that if  a personal decision such as to vaccinate your children (in consonance with the advice of every pediatrician in America) costs you a friendship, it wasn't a friendship in the first place.

       There is not one sane, creditable  pediatrician who would advise against vaccination for all healthy children, yet the Jenny McCarthy yentas continue harping on a terminally flawed study, since debunked multiple times by real research, which claimed (not showed) a link between autism and vaccines. Moreover, thimerosol, a preservative formerly used in vaccines and  erroneously blamed by the British study, has been removed from vaccines since 1999.  

       Andrew Wakefield, the author of the original "study" originally published in The Lancet, probably the leading medical journal in the world, was stripped of his medical credentials by the UK and cited as one of the "greatest risks to public health in history." 10 of the 13 coauthors on the report got queasy about the findings and disowned the paper, fearing it could damage public health efforts. In delivering  the verdict on the sanctions,  the panel's chairman, said  Wakefield had "brought the medical profession into disrepute" and committed  "multiple separate instances of serious professional misconduct".  In total, he was found guilty of more than 30 charges. The panel also  explained the reasoning for striking (un-licensing) Dr Wakefield off: "This is the only sanction that is appropriate to protect patients and is in the wider public interest, including the maintenance of public trust and confidence in the profession, and is proportionate to the serious and wide-ranging findings made against him."

        Out of regard for my sanity, I refuse to watch the televised blood sport playing Monday night. No, I don't mean the football game, I mean the Clinton-Trump "debate."  I have  too much gag reflex to watch Trump for more than about 5 seconds at a time.    

Mike Ditka, an American imbecile

"Mike Ditka to Colin Kaepernick: 'Get the hell out' if you don't like America" This is the headline for an article in "The Guardian," a real British daily newspaper. The salient sentence however is in the body of the article:   ".... I like this country, I respect our flag, and I don’t see all the atrocities going on in this country that people say are going on."


        Of course he doesn't. And I remember a time when I actually used to admire this man. If he "doesn't see all the atrocities....etc" then either Ditka sustained one too many blows to the head or  NFL retirement options don't include vision screening. This is just one more of many such examples of morons who apparently believe that blind support of everything your country does, even when some of it terribly wrong and can be changed to be better, is real patriotism.

        Real patriotism means first of all honesty, honor and love of the best in the country, and the corollary to that is the truthful acknowledgement that we can, all of us, be better than we have to this point.  American "exceptionalism" if it truly existed on the grand scale would mean seeing all our citizens and human contacts as individuals rather than a stereotype. It would mean acceptance, without the necessity having it legally adjudicated, of the fact that we are all equally entitled to, in Jefferson's words, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, without having some sunshine  patriot mental defective decide that the concept only applies to heterosexual white males of the Christian faith. People like Ditka  are the Levites and Pharisees, while people like Jimmy Carter show us what the parable of the good Samaritan really was about.

         Of course the Buddha's teaching originated the concept about 500 years earlier as was also the case with the prodigal son story. In fact, between Aesop and Buddha with a sprinkling of Confucius' more male centered morality, everything we consider the moral teachings of Jesus predates the generally accepted date of his birth by around 500 years, weird, huh? Don't tell Mike Ditka, he thinks Jesus is his yard guy, Buddha was "that fat lineman",  and Confucius is "that  Chinese joke guy."

Homework assignment

I have a number of friends (yeah, I know, who'd have thought it?) who are adamant supporters of Donald Trump's candidacy. what I don't have is a concrete reason from any of them regarding why they support him. They may, and frequently do spew a litany of reasons (none related to competence in running the nation) as to why they don't like Mrs. Clinton. These are usually simply mimicry of the Trump campaign's smear tactics.

One writer's letter to the local paper recently, after my letter pointing out that the Clinton foundation is actually one of the top rated charities in America, higher than even St. Jude's, is exemplary. The author apparently decide that it wasn't enough that the Clinton foundation actually was honest, open and extremely effective with minimal admin costs and roughly 90% of all funds going to direct aid, but it had to go to causes the writer espoused or it was a scam. Fighting AIDS and hunger worldwide with funds solicited worldwide was apparently not enough. The real issue as with so many is that once Trump levied a general and false accusation at Mrs. Clinton ("Crooked Hillary") the truth became irrelevant.

The same is true of speaking fees. The attack ads run by Trump supporters, especially Florida's should be felon and current governor, Rick Scott's PAC, simply list some of the Clinton's speaking fees and with zero factual data, imply that because they were paid a lot, it is either illegal, immoral or fattening. This approach plays into the receptors of one branch of the "deplorables" - that being the "ignorants." Ignorant means lacking knowledge or being undereducated, and both apply to much of the Trump power base. To them, other people having money is wrong, and other people being paid a lot for anything (other than jacked up pickup trucks and meth) is wrong. What passes these morons unnoticed is that Trump has made at least 17 speeches at 3 times the payday of Mrs. Clinton 's most highly compensated speaking engagements, giving absolutely none of it back to charity. Where's the outrage?

As for the other categories which Mrs. Clinton unfortunately publically described as the "deplorables", it has been lost in the shuffle that she said "about half" and also specified that they fell into categories which most decent folks would, indeed call deplorable - homophobes, racists, xenophobes, religious zealots who would force their beliefs on others, etc. While she should have been more attuned to the way this might be used against her, I would have no problem with the attributions or the percentage. If you do, simply look at the people at Trump rallies. Mrs. Clinton, in this one instance unfortunately used a labeling tactic, which Trump does daily. She did , however specify and was accurate. At least she didn't mock a handicapped man, a Gold Star mother, or allude to a journalists monthlies!

Finally, if you actually can read this and intend to vote for the most sociopathic, ego driven, undereducated blowhard I have seen in a lifetime of following American politics, from Eisenhower to the present, do me, and perhaps yourself, a favor before election day. Take a quiet five minutes, get a pad and paper and make a list of factual reasons why you support Trump. I don't mean reasons why you don't like Hillary, I mean real world attributes which make Trump presidential material. I have tried to do so being as objective as I can. I got nuthin'. Of course if you are a bigot, homophobe, xenophobe or evangelical who is actually ingenuous enough to believe that Trump actually has any spiritual side to his nature, or cares about you, then feel free to list it, but be aware of your bias. Good luck. and please, please, if you do actually come up with what you consider valid reasons, post them here, so that we may all be enlightened.

Friday Morning Musings

Friday Morning Musings

       As usual, morning TV, both local and network seldom fail to provide something which makes me say , "huh?"

       Today was no exception. Right out of the box, at the local level, a short  segment  pointed out that, so far, no Central Florida student athletes  have "taken a knee",  a la Colin Kapernick,  during the playing of the national anthem.  Failing to leave it at that, the piece went on to point out that Orange County Public Schools had determined/decided  that a student was within his or her  rights to do so "If they had parental permission." Really?  And if they don't? What then, have two burly assistant coaches grab them by the arms and force them to stand?  Kneeling may be bad taste, but it's not a crime. About the only thing more questionable than Kapernick's personal decision is the  proliferation of  twists in pantyhose of those who disagree with his actions.

         This issue, like not standing or reciting the pledge of allegiance, has long been settled in law at the USSC level. Mandated Bible reading was declared a violation in Schempp vs Abingdon Township (by 8-1), Mandated prayer outlawed in Engle vs Vitale (6-1, but would have been 8-1 but 2 Justices were ill) , and forced standing during  the Pledge outlawed in Minersville School Board vs Gobitis (6-3). It is worthy of note that none of these USSC decisions was even close. Finally, in WVa. State Board of Education v Barnette  in a 6-3 decision (of a relatively conservative court, it was 1943 during WWII!) forced or mandated pledging or saluting was outlawed.

        I point out all the above legal minutia to illustrate just how ludicrous and illustrative of administrative  hubris it is for the Orange County School Board to magnanimously agree to yield to students all the civil liberties which they have had for more than 50 years. "With parental permission?" Puhleeze!

        On a more mundane note, Good Morning America, while ballyhooing the CMA awards, which I'm sure will be shown on ABC,  played a snippet of a slew of redneck Adele and John Legend  wannabees  singing the John Denver classic, "Country Roads."  It struck me as I listened to the mostly nasally whiny  or  twangy ( and in the case of Willy Nelson, simply  ruined)  voices that none sang it nearly as well as the late Mr. Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr.

         I have never been a fan of country music, which we used to call more properly "hillbilly" music, mostly because of the general lack of real vocal ability of its practitioners. Poseurs in cowboy hats who wouldn't know cow shit if they stepped in it, seem to be cloned from somewhere near Nashville. I have also felt it worthy of note that those occasionally really good singers who are of the genre have, as an index of success, that their music "crosses over" into the mainstream, which is itself   muddied these days by a proliferation of subgroups, admittedly.

        The one thing which has stood out to me is that those few country singers who I have enjoyed could all actually sing real music - Dolly Parton (great writer also) , Garth Brooks (raised on rock), Wynona (a kick ass rock singer when she lets herself be one), and Vince Gill (guitar genius and great tenor) are examples. Ray Charles' superb album  "Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music"  showed us that a great performer can make even Hank Williams material sound good. Unfortunately, this generation  has mostly missed the best of the bunch. If you really want to know how really good country can be without the nasal whine and twang , listen to anything Patsy Cline ever sang, then listen to Kitty Wells, or a contemporary, but have a barf  bag at hand.   

        And finally, for now, I see that we are to be subjected to yet another Oliver Stone film. This time he will, no doubt,  issue an apologia for the espionage activities of one  Edward Snowden. I am far, far from politically conservative as most of my readers are aware. All that said, I would make the case that the difference between civilians sworn to protect classified material and military personnel with the same obligation is essentially non-existent. There may be some who would differentiate the severity of the breach based on the nature of the classified information. I would  deny such a claim because at the onset, the employee, civilian or military doesn't take a "conditional oath, along the lines of, " I promise to protect the security of classified data as long as I agree with the program." In the information age, it is inevitable that one cost of keeping ourselves as safe as is humanly possible may well mean that innocent private matters might be  scrutinized as well.

        Like Snowden, Jonathan Pollard, was a civilian analyst for the department of defense. Like Snowden, Pollard decided that some of what he knew would be helpful to others, in this case Israel. his rationale was that Israel was an ally, ergo "entitled" to said data.  Unlike Snowden (so far), Pollard did 30 years in jail and was, only last year, paroled. In defense of his actions, Pollard declared that he committed espionage only because "the American intelligence establishment collectively endangered Israel’s security by withholding crucial information."  While Pollard was compensated financially for his actions by Israel, comments (from the safety of Russia, of course) by Snowden make it fairly clear that his motivation was ego gratification - to be lauded by his fellow Americans.  Stone will undoubtedly do for reality in "Snowden" what he did for it in the fraught with holes, half truths, and outright fabrications,  "JFK."     

And you are angry about the Benghazi hearings?

        Sometimes a series of minor occurrences will "pile up" in the nooks and crannies of my subconscious until the hopper overflows and I think, "What the F**k, why haven't I written about this?"   Such a series is comprised of  several discreet, but distantly related  things  which I have considered over the last couple of months.  Some I have blogged about; most I haven't.     

        The events are: the anniversary of September 11, 2001, the recent House passage of a bill "allowing" US citizens to sue the Saudis for deaths resulting from those events, The same body's Benghazi "hearings" (I put it in quotes because I reserve the unaccented use of the word for actual efforts to find fact, not blame), my research on the House hearings on the 1980s  Reagan era Beirut bombings and resultant deaths,  a review of the 9/11 commission report, and finally, the imminent release of the 28 totally redacted pages of said report.

        Mulling over these with the background noise of a filthy Presidential campaign finally found me asking several questions of myself which I generally had partial answers to, but I realized that there were gaps.  Accordingly, let's see if we can fill some of those with facts (remember facts?) and formulate/speculate regarding motive.  This might take a while, so stay with me.

        First: Why has it taken 15 years for the US House to address the issue of Saudi complicity to the point of liability for the events of 9/11? What follows is based only on my assumptions based on research re: the Bush family and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and my knowledge of the mentality of the House majority party. Bob Woodward in his authorized bio of "W" points out that George H.W. advised his son to contact  Saudi Prince Bandar to discuss and "be advised" regarding his (as of then)  possible decision to run for the Presidency. This, as well as deep and longstanding Bush financial relations with the Kingdom should be troubling to most Americans. At this point let's ask and then pose answers to the original question.  Why did the Bush administration in its righteous anger in the wake of the destruction of 9/11, (or at least after the Commission report, containing the redacted pages, not pose such legislation?

         I would suggest several reasons.  Primarily, the Bush administration, having taken office planning to "finish" daddy's Iraq adventure (later admitted by disillusioned staff) , saw the need to base US forces in the Kingdom as more important than holding the Saudis accountable for the funding which Bin Laden derived from his family's immense wealth.  Second, the President would certainly have vetoed such a bill, since in the real world it would expose the US to similar suits from most Middle Eastern nations, Laos, Cambodia, and others.  Actually the Bush administration would have strangled any Partisan who dared propose such a measure. Jump ahead to the present, and a US  House controlled (again) by Republicans, some of whom delight in using the ignorance of the body politic against a President whose laundry they aren't fit to wash. The  current bill's timing is blatantly designed to force the President to veto it (as Bush would have) and then the finger pointing will start, stimulating frothing and finger pointing from the redneck hordes who know little  and suspect less. Immediately the Clinton-Obama bashing will ramp up. Wait for Faux News spin on this one! Incidentally, this apparent pang of sympathy for 9/11 victims with all the resultant monies spent by the NFL, MLB and other public persona organizations would be far better used in helping those responders and escapees whose medical issues continue to emerge, largely unrecognized or compensated by the rest of us.

        Having referred to the 9/11 Commission Report, I think it reasonable to make some legitimate comparisons between this "fact" finding attempt and the investigations into two other, albeit less profound in their scope, events resulting in American deaths at the hands of Islamic extremists.

       As previously discussed in my blog (here)   http://bubblehead1026.blogspot.com/2016/06/benghazi-brief-prequel-for-comparison.html    There were attacks on several US installations in Lebanon in the Reagan years. Between October, 1983 and September 1984, hundreds of US citizens, military and civilian were killed in four bombing attacks.  After the second, the horrific Beirut Marine Barracks attack,  a House committee was convened, by a Democratically controlled House under Speaker Tip O'Neill. That committee's report was bipartisan (remember when that word had meaning?) and findings of fact blamed no one specifically, much less the Secretary of State or the President. The report made specific recommendations aimed at improving Embassy security.  About 10 months  after the release of this report,   In September of 1984, for the third time in eighteen months, jihadists bombed a U.S. government outpost in Beirut yet again. President Reagan acknowledged that the new security precautions that had been advocated by Congress hadn’t yet been implemented at the U.S. embassy annex that had been hit. The problem, the President said, was that the repairs hadn’t quite been completed on time. Reagan actually said in a press conference,  “Anyone who’s ever had their kitchen done over knows that it never gets done as soon as you wish it would.” Can we even imagine the reaction today to a similar Presidential response to questions about Benghazi, in which just 4 Americans died, vice hundreds?  Draw your own partisan conclusions.

       I debated (with myself, because I trust him) regarding which "commission" to discuss next, and simply because I want the 9/11 information to remain in the reader's mind, I'll briefly discuss Benghazi next. Of paramount importance here, (remember this later for comparison) is the fact that the Benghazi committee was partisan from the get go. There was no attempt to find fact which didn't fit the desired result, in fact many such pieces of information were discarded or even worse, military decisions were attributed in several cases to the Secretary of State by implication,  a ludicrous  leap of illogic. The CIA's part in the affair was on the back burner because from the start, the aim of this committee was to politically hurt  the Administration in general and the Secretary of State in particular.   The fact that the CIA had a facility at the compound in Benghazi had been an open secret for weeks, although its central role was not fully acknowledged. I include the following paragraph only for the purpose of pointing out how little actual responsibility the State department had in this instance.  It turns out the annex (not the "consulate" a fine point omitted by many media outlets) was an outlet for weapons via CIA channels to  "good Libyans"

        A Faux News report  alleged that "Several operators at an agency annex had been denied help from their CIA higher-ups during the fighting", something the CIA strenuously denies, and there had even been indelicate hints of secret components to the Benghazi compound during an open hearing on Capitol Hill back in mid-October.  A U.S. official  who spoke under the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, confirmed  that the CIA had an extensive presence in Benghazi, and that the two former Navy SEALs who died in the assault,  were contractors working for the agency.  According to documents released by the House Oversight Committee, when the Undersecretary of State for Management, Patrick Kennedy, signed an order last December to maintain a presence in the Benghazi compound for another year, his official memo counted 35 “U.S. government personnel,” of whom only eight were State Department. Most of the rest were secretly with the CIA, the official confirmed. The U.S. official noted that at no point in the October congressional hearing did any of the State Department officials testifying use the word “consulate” to describe the Benghazi compound. This was no accident. In fact, the compound served little routine diplomatic purpose, and was largely under the operational control of the CIA.

          And yet, and yet....... as was later admitted by several House Republicans with consciences, the real committee purpose was to smear the presumptive Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential elections. The final cost of these 700 day efforts is more than was spent on investigations of Pearl Harbor, The JFK assassination, Watergate and the 9/11 commission - combined! The results were - in a word - zip!

        Finally, by the numbers, the Benghazi select committee alone , labored longer than the committees investigating Watergate, Katrina or Pearl Harbor. Perhaps even more surprising  the Benghazi hearings, first and foremost  regarding the tragic deaths of 4 Americans were convened for some 700 days, or more than half again as long as the 9/11 Commission met to deconstruct (sort of) the deaths of  about 3,000 Americans!

        Which brings me to the 9/11 Commission. Right up front, I have no time for conspiracy theories.  No, I don't think "W" did it or intentionally allowed it to happen. I believe that those who were ultimately blamed for it, did it, more than likely with the financial support of Saudi money, albeit, not overtly supported or contributed by the  Saudi government, but rather from other Saudi sources. Now that we've established what I believe, let's look at the commission.

         The 9/11 Commission members were appointed by President George W. Bush and the United States Congress, which led to continued  criticism that the Commission was not independent. Nixon SecState Henry Kissinger initially was appointed to head the commission, but resigned just  weeks after being appointed, because he would have been obliged to disclose the clients of his private consulting business. Former U.S. Senator George Mitchell was originally appointed as the vice-chairman, but he stepped down on December 10, 2002, not wanting to sever ties to his law firm. So the Commission, wasn't chaired by the "opposition party" but rather by men selected by the leader of the majority, himself. Hmmm. The Commission stated in its report that their aim was "... not to assign individual blame", a rather remarkable statement in and of itself, since so many died and someone certainly was to blame. This  judgment, some critics believed could obscure the facts of the matter in a nod to consensus politics, as directed by the White House, if not specifically the President. Remember, much of the orchestration of this was from the brains of Karl Rove and VP Cheney.      

        Some members of the  Commission, as well as its executive director Philip Zelikow, had conflicts of interest. Philip Shenon, a New York Times reporter, in a February 2008 book  entitled "The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation" claims that "Zelikow had closer ties with the White House than he publicly disclosed and that he tried to influence the final report in ways that the staff often perceived as limiting the Bush administration’s responsibility and furthering its anti-Iraq agenda."  According to the book, Zelikow had at least four private conversations with former White House political director Karl Rove, and appears to have had many frequent telephone conversations with people in the White House. Government Accountability Office records show his frequent calls to the 456 telephone exchange in the 202 area code used exclusively by the White House. Some panel staff members have later stated that  Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Nat'l Sec. Advisor, Condoleezza Rice's and President Bush's performance as "amounting to incompetence or something not far from it". According to Shenon, Rove always feared that a commission report that laid the blame for 9/11 at the president's doorstep (such as when Bush terrorism "czar" Richard Clarke could no longer be prevented from testifying about his urgent warnings over the summer of 2001 to Condoleezza Rice about the imminent threat of terrorist attack on US soil)  was the one development that could most jeopardize Bush's 2004 re-election. As early as Jan. 25, in a memo recently declassified, Clarke was very specific in warnings to Rice that "Al Qida" (sic) was a serious domestic threat and shared his concern that the administration wasn't focused on it  (read the memo here:  http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/clarke%20memo.pdf  )

        In contrast to the Benghazi hearings in which all the relevant persons were summoned,  sworn and examined at the will of the panel,  President Bush and Vice President Cheney did ultimately, but after considerable stalling, agree to testify. They did so only under several conditions: They would be allowed to testify jointly, They would not be required to take an oath before testifying, The testimony would not be recorded electronically or transcribed, and that the only record would be notes taken by one of the commission staffers. These notes would never  be made public. Plainly stated, they didn't want to testify, but would do so if they could lie (or dissemble) and not be held accountable.

        To further hinder the flow of information, The Commission was forced to use subpoenas to obtain the cooperation of the FAA and NORAD (Federal Aviation Administration and North American Air Defense Command) to release evidence such as audiotapes. The agencies' reluctance to release the tapes, and subsequently, e-mails, erroneous public statements and other evidence led some of the panel's staff members and commissioners to believe that authorities sought to mislead the commission and the public about what happened on September 11. "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described," said former NJ Atty. Gen. John Farmer,  who led the staff inquiry into events on September 11, in an August 2006 interview.

       A significant number  of former FBI, NSA and other federal intelligence experts, claim the 9/11 Commission report was fundamentally flawed because the Commission refused to hear, ignored, or censored testimony about the many pre–September 11 warnings given to the FBI and US intelligence agencies. These former operatives  claim that in an effort to avoid having to hold any individual accountable, the 9/11 Commission turned a blind eye on FBI agent-provided evidence before September 11 regarding the 9/11 plot.

       Able Danger: A far less publicized intelligence unit involved in pre-9/11 threat assessment was a military unit designated "Able Danger."  Most Americans have never heard of it, and even fewer had knowledge of it pre-9/11. One reason was that nominally, US military resources are forbidden from engaging in any sort of domestic surveillance, some of which Able Danger came very close to doing. That said, several members of this unit have, in the wake of the Commission report,  made some significant statements which have bearing on this essay. The existence of Able Danger was revealed by Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pa) in 2005, after the 9/11 Commission report began to look to him like a "cover up" for intelligence failures. During the summer of 2005, Weldon, vice-chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, revealed the existence of a secret Pentagon counter-terrorism operation codenamed Able Danger, which he claimed had identified Mohammed Atta, alleged ringleader of the 9/11 attacks, as early as 1999.

        It has been widely reported in Europe that Atta was known to US intelligence agencies and was actually under FBI surveillance in Germany as early as 1999, which seriously  undermines  Bush administration claims that the 9/11 attacks came out of the blue and that the US government had no idea before September 2001 that Al Qaeda terrorists were in the United States planning terrorist attacks.  This information has been largely suppressed in the American media, and the existence of Able Danger was omitted in  the official 9/11 Commission report in order to sustain its whitewash of the role of US military and intelligence agencies in permitting and even facilitating the attacks. Weldon stated in committee  that Able Danger had also identified three other future 9/11 hijackers as Al Qaeda loyalists: Marwan Al-Shehhi, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. He also claimed  that he had been in possession of a “link chart” tracing the connections of various individuals connected to Al Qaeda, and containing Atta’s photograph and name, and had turned it over to deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley at a meeting in the White House on September 25, 2001. Both Hadley and another Republican congressman, Dan Burton of Indiana, have confirmed the meeting with Weldon on that date and the handover of the link chart. The chart itself  "disappeared", according to the Bush White House.

      
          After Weldon's assertions were disputed, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, a member of the Able Danger team, identified himself as Weldon's source. Shaffer claimed that he alerted the FBI in September 2000 about the information uncovered by the secret military unit "Able Danger", he further alleged that three meetings he set up with bureau officials were blocked by military lawyers. Shaffer, who at the time worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, claims he communicated to members of the 9/11 Commission that Able Danger had identified two of the three cells responsible for 9/11 prior to the attacks, but the Commission did not include this information in their final report.

        Shaffer specifically states that in Jan 2000, Able Danger data-mining revealed the existence of a 'Brooklyn' Al-Qaeda cell connected to the "Blind Sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman, as well as two other cells overseas. Shaffer was soon after placed on paid administrative leave for what he called "petty and frivolous" reasons and had his security clearance suspended in March 2004, following a dispute over travel mileage expenses and personal use of a work cell phone. These allegations are claimed to have been pursued in bad faith & breach of process, in relation for Shaffer talking to the 9/11 Commission.

         Congressman Weldon asked for a probe into the activities undertaken to silence Lt. Col. Shaffer from publicly commenting on Able Danger and Able Danger's identification of the 9/11 hijackers, calling the activities "a deliberate campaign of character assassination." The Army agreed, Army investigations subsequently found these claims to be without merit, and cleared his promotion.

        Shaffer also told the story of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) opposition to Able Danger, prior to 9/11, based on the view that Able Danger was encroaching on CIA turf. According to Shaffer, the CIA representative said, "I clearly understand. We're going after the leadership. You guys are going after the body. But, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is, CIA will never give you the best information from 'Alex Base' (the CIA's top secret database) or anywhere else. CIA will never provide that to you because if you were successful in your effort to target Al Qaeda, you will steal our thunder. Therefore, we will not support this." This lack of interagency cooperation as well as the "Information Wall" which existed between the FBI and CIA at the time has been held by many interested parties as a critical failure to protect the nation because of petty inter-agency turf wars.

            If Schaffer/Weldon were lone voices crying in the night, it might be easy to dismiss their claims. However, this is far from true. Navy Captain Scott Phillpott, another Able danger member, confirmed Shaffer's claims. "I will not discuss this outside of my chain of command", Phillpott said in a formal public statement. "I have briefed the Department of the Army, the Special Operations Command and the office of (Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence) Dr. Cambone as well as the 9/11 Commission. My story has remained consistent. Atta was identified by Able Danger in January/February 2000".

           Shaffer's claims were also confirmed by James D. Smith, a civilian contractor who worked on Able Danger. In a later interview with media personnel, Smith reported that the project had involved analysis of data from a large number of public sources and 20 to 30 individuals. He stated that Atta's name had emerged during an examination of individuals known to have ties to Omar Abdel Rahman, a leading figure in the first World Trade Center bombing.

         Finally, regarding Able Baker, and the massive intelligence failure leading to 9/11: Operation Dark Heart by Anthony A. Shaffer, released in September 2010, includes memories of his time reporting to the 9/11 commission about Able Danger's findings. The 10,000 copies of the books have not been released yet. The DOD's Defense Intelligence Agency reviewers identified more than 200 passages suspected of containing classified information. "Specifically, the DIA wanted references to a meeting between Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, the book's author, and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, removed." There can, in my opinion, be only one explanation for such concerns, that being that it casts the shadow of "cover up" on the entire proceeding if the man responsible for the investigation knew of Able Danger and omitted it (by directive) from the final version.  DOD took the highly unusual step of purchasing all available copies of Shaffer's book at a cost of $47,000 and destroying them to deny the public the ability to read the book.

       

        There is one final oddity here on I wish to comment. Bush National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice strenuously dug in her heels to avoid testifying to the committee. She at first claimed she was a civilian employee of the administration, ergo was immune to subpoena, but was finally persuaded to do so. Here (because they are informative) are just a sampling of the questions she was asked under oath and when appropriate, some elucidation related to the veracity of her responses:

(Where it says "CLAIM" what follows are Ms. Rice's precise words. The statements after "FACT" are actual verified data)

CLAIM: "I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons."
FACT: Condoleezza Rice was the top National Security official with President Bush at the July 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa. There, "U.S. officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to crash an airliner" into the summit, prompting officials to "close the airspace over Genoa and station antiaircraft guns at the city’s airport." [Sources: Los Angeles Times, 9/27/01; White House release, 7/22/01]

CLAIM: "I was certainly not aware of [intelligence reports about planes as missiles] at the time that I spoke" in 2002.
FACT: While Rice may not have been aware of the 12 separate and explicit warnings about terrorists using planes as weapons when she made her denial in 2002, she did know about them when she wrote her March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed. In that piece, she once again repeated the claim there was no indication "that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04]

CLAIM: There was "nothing about the threat of attack in the U.S." in the Presidential Daily Briefing the President received on August 6th.
FACT: Rice herself later admitted that "the title [of the PDB] was, ‘Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’" [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: "One of the problems was there was really nothing that looked like was going to happen inside the United States…Almost all of the reports focused on al-Qaida activities outside the United States, especially in the Middle East and North Africa…We did not have…threat information that was in any way specific enough to suggest something was coming in the United States."
FACT: Page 204 of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 noted that "In May 2001, the intelligence community obtained a report that Bin Laden supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States" to "carry out a terrorist operation using high explosives." The report "was included in an intelligence report for senior government officials in August [2001]." In the same month, the Pentagon "acquired and shared with other elements of the Intelligence Community information suggesting that seven persons associated with Bin Laden had departed various locations for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States." [Sources: Joint Congressional Report, 12/02]

CLAIM: "If we had known an attack was coming against the United States…we would have moved heaven and earth to stop it."
FACT: a year later, Rice admits that she was told that "an attack was coming." She said, "Let me read you some of the actual chatter that was picked up in that spring and summer": "Unbelievable news coming in weeks", said one. "Big event — there will be a very, very, very, very big uproar. There will be attacks in the near future." [Source: Condoleezza Rice, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: "The Vice President was, a little later in, I think, in May, tasked by the President to put together a group to look at all of the recommendations that had been made about domestic preparedness and all of the questions associated with that."
FACT: The Vice President’s task force never once convened a meeting. In the same time period, the Vice President convened at least 10 meetings of his energy task force, and six meetings with Enron executives. [Source: Washington Post, 1/20/02; GAO Report, 8/03]

CLAIM: "The decision that we made was to, first of all, have no drop-off in what the Clinton administration was doing, because clearly they had done a lot of work to deal with this very important priority."
FACT: Internal government documents show that the Clinton Administration officially prioritized counterterrorism as a "Tier One" priority, but when the Bush Administration took office, top officials downgraded counterterrorism. As the Washington Post reported, these documents show that before Sept. 11 the Bush Administration "did not give terrorism top billing." Rice admitted that "we decided to take a different track" than the Clinton Administration in protecting America. [Source: Internal government documents, 1998-2001; Washington Post, 3/22/04; Rice testimony, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: The Bush Administration has been committed to the "transformation of the FBI into an agency dedicated to fighting terror."
FACT: Before 9/11, Attorney General John Ashcroft de-emphasized counterterrorism at the FBI, in favor of more traditional law enforcement. And according to the Washington Post, "in the early days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Bush White House cut by nearly two-thirds an emergency request for counterterrorism funds by the FBI, an internal administration budget document shows." And according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service, "numerous confidential law enforcement and intelligence sources who challenge the FBI’s claim that it has successfully retooled itself to gather critical intelligence on terrorists as well as fight crime." [Source: Washington Post, 3/22/04; Congressional Quarterly, 4/6/04]

CLAIM: "The FBI issued at least three nationwide warnings to federal, state and law enforcement agencies and specifically stated that, although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas targets, attacks against the homeland could not be ruled out. The FBI tasked all 56 of its U.S. field offices to increase surveillance of known suspects of terrorists and to reach out to known informants who might have information on terrorist activities."
FACT: The warnings are "feckless. They don’t tell anybody anything. They don’t bring anyone to battle stations." [Source: 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick, 4/8/04]

CLAIM: "I think that having a Homeland Security Department that can bring together the FAA and the INS and Customs and all of the various agencies is a very important step."
FACT: The White House vehemently opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland security. Its opposition to the concept delayed the creation of the department by months.

        It should be noted that Ms. Rice was compensated about the same as a U.S. Senator for her work here and in helping push the US into Iraq, thus facilitating the creation of ISIS.

        And last, what is in the redacted pages of this report? Who will it further embarrass? Beats me, but I'll bet the gist of it is that some prominent Saudis were complicit in helping Mohammad Atta and his band of one way pilots obtain entry in the US under other than legitimate pretense. I wouldn't anticipate finding out much more about the incompetence of the Bush administration of the inadequacies of the 9/11 Commission report, because that's been done.  

Repost of three year old post now relevant again

Someone recently responded interestingly to a minor rant about the Church's dogmatism and man made decisions regarding what is and what ain't scripture.  My point is that a bunch of old guys decided 300 plus years after the alleged events what did and didn't happen. The response included a reference stating, in essence, that "Any woman, including Mother Theresa who speaks up is put in her place"

Would that it were so. Of the many Catholic women who have served the Church over the centuries, Mother Theresa was  absolutely the last one to speak up or take a stand. Her stance was conservative almost to the point of Mel Gibson's.  She is lionized in the west due largely to ignorance of what she did (and more importantly didn't) do.  While Mother Theresa was becoming a world  renowned figure, nameless nuns  (and priests) in El Salvador were preaching liberation theology and truly helping their charges at the cost,  sometimes of their lives. When whichever Gandhi who was in charge at the time declared suspension of Indian civil liberties at one time, Mother Theresa immediately fell in line and declared that the people were "happy and content now." 

       The message seems to me to be the same as was presented to slaves in the ante-bellum South before the Civil War. That message was that "Of course we are all equal in the eyes of God, just don't try to improve your lot on earth because we'll crush you" In the same way, mother Theresa seemed to glorify poverty and its cause, ignorance, as if somehow the poor were really better off and just didn't know it. There are some serious criticisms to be laid at the (fast track) "sainted"  feet of mother Theresa of Calcutta.  Among them are:

Christopher Hitchens:

            "MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order.

The rich world has a poor conscience, and many people liked to alleviate their own unease by sending money to a woman who seemed like an activist for "the poorest of the poor." People do not like to admit that they have been gulled or conned, so a vested interest in the myth was permitted to arise, and a lazy media never bothered to ask any follow-up questions. Many volunteers who went to Calcutta came back abruptly disillusioned by the stern ideology and poverty-loving practice of the "Missionaries of Charity," but they had no audience for their story.

One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by his holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions."

“Everything everyone thinks they know about [Mother Teresa] is false. It must be the single most successful emotional con job of the twentieth century. It is often said, inside the Church and out of it, that there is something grotesque about lectures on the sexual life when delivered by those who have shunned it. Given the way that the Church forbids women to preach, this point is usually made about men. But given how much this Church allows the fanatical Mother Teresa to preach, it might be added that the call to go forth and multiply, and to take no thought for the morrow, sounds grotesque when uttered by an elderly virgin whose chief claim to reverence is that she ministers to the inevitable losers in this very lottery.”

Sanal Edamaruku:

When Mother Teresa received the Nobel Peace Prize, she used the opportunity of her worldwide telecast speech in Oslo to declare abortion the greatest evil in the world and to launch a fiery call against population control. Her charitable work, she admitted, was only part of her big fight against abortion and population control. This fundamentalist position is a slap in the face of India and other Third World Countries, where population control is one of the main keys for development and progress and social transformation. Do we have to be grateful to Mother Teresa for leading this worldwide propagandist fight against us with the money she collected in our name?

Mother Teresa did not serve the poor in Calcutta, she served the rich in the West. She helped them to overcome their bad conscience by taking billions of Dollars from them. Some of her donors were dictators and criminals, who tried to white wash their dirty vests. Mother Teresa revered them for a price. Most of her supporters, however, were honest people with good intentions and a warm heart, who fall for the illusion that the "Saint of the Gutter" was there to wipe away all tears and end all misery and undo all injustice in the world. Those in love with an illusion often refuse to see reality.

Sarmila Bose:

 "Perhaps the greatest harm she did to the very poor she said she served was her total opposition to both abortion and contraception, in accordance with her orthodox Catholic faith. She worked in a sea of poverty that is India, yet opposed one of India’s most important anti-poverty policies — its population control programme. When I visited her orphanage I was grateful to her for taking in babies abandoned in the streets of Calcutta, but there would be fewer abandoned and unwanted babies all around if India’s family planning programme were more successful. She had the right to her own faith, but her public work based on that faith collided with what was better for society.

For someone about to become a saint, Mother Teresa was cosy with nasty dictators like the Duvaliers of Haiti and notorious swindlers like Charles Keating of the USA. She did not hesitate to declare that the Duvaliers loved the poor, and did not care that Keating had stolen a lot of money from people who weren’t rich, just because he gave her some. In fact, she received lots of money from lots of people and it is worrying that none of it is accounted for through any public audit. It is also true  that her institutions offer only simple, rudimentary service, so the vast funds do not seem to have been used to upgrade and modernise the care provided."

Michael Hakeem, PhD:

Mother Teresa is thoroughly saturated with a primitive fundamentalist religious worldview that sees pain, hardship, and suffering as ennobling experiences and a beautiful expression of affiliation with Jesus Christ and his ordeal on the cross. Hitchens reports that in a filmed interview Mother Teresa herself tells of a patient suffering unbearable pain from terminal cancer: "With a smile, Mother Teresa told the camera what she told the patient: 'You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.'" Apparently unaware that the response of the sufferer was a put-down, she freely related it: "Then please tell him to stop kissing me."  .

  In short, it seems the west was sold a con job with regards to Mother Theresa, while the Church studiously avoided dealing with the real brutality visited on  Nuns and priests by Latin American nations in their own self interest at retaining power. The USA openly funded the Contras in Nicaragua, know killers of clergy, until forced to stop, at which point Ronald Reagan found another way. Seems to me the church stands strong while in possession of the upper hand (Crusades, Inquisition) and goes along to get along when it doesn't (Pius XII during the Nazi era, El Salvador, Nicaragua, India)  But in no case does mother Theresa get a pass for popularizing crushing poverty.