SUN VALLEY, IDAHO (July 2, 2017)—Nearly 100 cyclists gathered to race in the Idaho State Championship Criterium in Ketchum, ID on July 1, 2017. The event was part of the Ride Sun Valley Bike Festival and was sanctioned by USA Cycling. More than $1,000 in cash primes and amazing prizes were awarded. An enthusiastic crowd lined the streets to cheer for six consecutive races while the sun set over the Wood River Valley. In the end, Allan Schroeder won the men’s Category 1 race and Shannin Miller landed on top of the women’s podium. Full results are available on ridesunvalley.com.
Ride Sun Valley Festival events will conclude July 2, 2017 with the final stages of the SCOTT Enduro Cup presented by Vittoria. The annual festival is a celebration of life on two wheels. Visitors can participate or spectate in one of the many fast-paced races—or kick-back, saddle up and enjoy the summertime recreational offerings of iconic Sun Valley, ID. The four-day festival is host to endurance, skill and learning based events centralized around all things cycling.
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REMARKS AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY BY NEA PRESIDENT LILY ESKELSEN GARCÍA TO THE 96TH NEA REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLY
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
Boston, Florida
10:58 a.m. EDT
So… I promised short speeches, so let’s get right to it.
The world has changed since last we met. I think our last RA was 413 years ago. Doesn’t it seem like a lifetime has gone by in the last few months?
And we’ve got a lot to talk about.
It was in his interest and not the interest of school children that he nominated a woman who had never worked or volunteered or even stepped inside a public school to be his Secretary of Education. He chose a billionaire — the queen of for-profit privatization of public education — Betsy DeVos.
Were you quiet about that? I think not. We asked you to act, to make some phone calls to your senators to tell them what you thought of this nominee. We’re usually pretty happy when we get 100,000 messages. We got one and half million. And she failed to win a majority of the Senate she needed for her confirmation, having been rejected by members of both political parties. We forced the Vice President, for the first time ever on a cabinet nomination, to schlep up to the Capitol and break the tie. That is not a small thing.
I received an invitation from Betsy DeVos to meet. I responded by writing back and told her that before we talked about meeting, I needed to hear the answers to the questions that she refused to answer at her Senate confirmation hearing. And I made it easy. These are all True/False questions. Yes or No.
I’m going to let you all know her answers just as soon as she gets back to me. But in a profoundly disturbing way, we’ve already received them, haven’t we?
One of the first acts of the Trump/DeVos administration was to rescind the Office of Civil Rights letter that the Obama administration sent to districts clearly stating that they were legally responsible for protecting our transgendered students from discrimination. This administration gave a green light to the despicable, intentional, institutional humiliation of a vulnerable population of students. So, her answer is “no”. She will not protect ALL our students.
Let me tell you that for me this is not partisan. I’m from Utah. When I left my state and the Democratic Party didn’t have a quorum. I have worked and played well with Republican legislators and governors. I know how to find common ground with people who will never agree with me on lots of things that are really important to me. But I can usually find something to bring us together. Because whether or not you're Republican, Democrat or of some other party, we might disagree on how to get there — but in my experience, most people — most people — want something good for kids and their families, even if they have bad ideas about how to do it. They don’t have bad intentions. I get that we need to find ways to use our influence wherever we can.
I need to say that, because there have been plenty of people — people I know and love in my own family; people in this very room — who’ve pulled me aside and told me — in very patient and respectful ways (most of the time) — that even if all I just said about this president and this secretary of education were true, that the election is over and we have to find ways to cooperate with this administration.
Let me say this to all of you as clearly as I can, so that even if you disagree with me, you understand what is in my heart: I will not allow the National Education Association to be used by Donald Trump or Betsy DeVos. I do not trust their motives. I do not believe their alternative facts. I see no reason to assume they will do what is best for our students and their families. There will be no photo-op.
We will find common ground with many Republicans and many Democrats on many issues. We will not find common ground with an administration that is cruel and callous to our children and their families. And I don’t just judge them by their words; I judge them by their actions. By their works shall ye know them.
Look at their budget. Now there’s a piece of … work. I have 10 BILLION reasons not to trust them. One reason for every dollar they cut from programs that lifted up our struggling students — cuts to after-school programs; cuts to special education; to student loans and college work study; to Head Start, to Historically Black Colleges and American Indian education programs; community schools and magnet schools and gifted programs and arts programs all cut, cuts to children’s health care; cuts to food for hungry families — and what did they increase using the money cut from children? — a brand new shiny private school voucher program for schools that are allowed to discriminate and over-promise and under-deliver and not be held accountable for the public dollars they take away from public schools.
I was venting to my neighbor. She said: Lily, it’s bad, but don’t worry. I don’t believe he really means it. It’s just a place to begin bargaining.
Maya Angelou wisely said: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
We know who Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos are. They show us every day. And I believe them. They show us every time we watch the news. By the way, how many of you can hardly stand to watch the evening news anymore?
Good lord, I stopped turning on the TV news. Which is ironic, because for many years, current events was how I began my day with my sixth graders.
Every morning, my kids could get extra credit if they reported on an article they read in this thing called a “newspaper”. Remember “news”? Remember “paper”? Good times.
They had to summarize it; explain what was happening; give an opinion. Then the class got to give their own opinions. And they got to ask their own questions. (In my class you got a jellybean for a good answer. You got two jellybeans for a good question — and all my kids had cavities. Now, THAT would be a fun measurement on a teacher evaluation.)
But my kids knew what question would get them three jellybeans.
Soon or later, someone would ask: So, are we going to do something about it? Ah!
There’s a blood shortage. Should we put on a blood drive? Yes!
A nice man named Barney Clark is in the hospital at the University of Utah receiving the first artificial heart. Should we send him valentines shaped like actual human hearts with right and left ventricles? (Yes! But that was actually a little creepy.)
Cars are parked illegally in the handicapped parking spaces. Should we throw rotten eggs at them? No. No we should not.
Sometimes the answer was no. But mostly, the answer was yes. Yes. We are going to do something about it.
In this room, we’re many things. We’re Democrats and Republicans and Independents. We’re bus drivers and teachers and secretaries, adjunct faculty and public service employees and librarians and nurses and college students and retired educators. We are young and old and gay and straight and men and women of every race, religion and ethnicity. And I know guests who have entered this Assembly amazed at how diverse we are, and how we still manage to debate and disagree and respect and even love each other.
But I understand what brings us together. We come into this room unafraid of facing the brutal reality. We never kid ourselves. But we listen to each other. We form our opinions. We ask a lot of questions and the most important one is: Are we going to do something about it?
Now, you don’t wait for the NEA Representative Assembly to act. Not all the fights are in Congress. Back home, all year long, you’ve been using the power of our collective voice to fight and to win.
Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia — you protected your students by beating back vouchers at your state capital this year. You won!
When the governor in Georgia pushed a ballot initiative to give the state power to takeover local schools, the Georgia Association of Educators led the fight and the public said: No thank you. You won!
In ruby-red South Dakota, the mighty South Dakota Education Association did the impossible and brought together Republicans and Democrats to do a good thing: to raise needed taxes and get more money to starved public schools. You won!
And right here in Massachusetts, the MTA with an amazing coalition of true believers in public education fought back an initiative on unaccountable charter expansion — and you won!
Now I could go on and on and on and on about the amazing work of every state in this room, but I promised you a short speech. So I want to leave you with this:
We can win. We have power. And they know it. So, we stand in a dangerous place. We stand between a profiteer and his profits. They’re going to hit us with everything they’ve got because we are a threat to them. They will try to take away your freedom to organize. They will try to take away your freedom to negotiate with a collective voice. They will try to silence us because when we win, the entire community wins. Working people who don’t even have access to a union win, because we’re there to fight for their kids’ schools and affordable college and affordable health care; for their Social Security and Medicare; for a living wage and the ability to support our families. So they want us stopped.
Our opponents know that a lot of us are retiring, and so they will pour alternative facts into the ears of the new generation of educators and those in public service with lies about who we are.
But they won’t succeed. Because we know in our bones who we are. And we will tell every new colleague the truth about who we are: We are the members of the National Education Association. We are the voice of education professionals. Our work is fundamental to the nation, and we accept the profound trust that is placed in us.
This is not a drill. We will be fearless. We will hold strong. We will focus on growing even stronger — defending our students, our families and our communities;
We know who we are and we know the power of our mission:
That we welcome every blessed child
No matter what shape they come to us.
No matter the color of their skin.
No matter the language they speak
No matter where they find God.
We take them all.
We love them all.
And we give the world
The mothers and the fathers and the
Thinkers and the builders
And the artists and the dreamers.
We give the world the American Dream.
We give the world the future.
Hermanos y Hermanas — esa es la democracia.
This is what democracy looks like in the house of the National Education Association.
Be fearless. Be Proud. Be warriors.
Ya es tiempo.
Go Fight Win.
The full keynote address can be viewed on Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/neatoday/videos/1331834796884534/
For more information and a full listing of scheduled events, go to www.nea.org/ra
Follow on Twitter at @NEAmedia and @Lily_NEA
Keep up with the conversation at #neara17
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The National Education Association is the nation’s largest professional employee organization, representing nearly 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, educational support professionals, school administrators, retired educators and students preparing to become teachers. Learn more at www.nea.org.
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Are Wild Horses being Categorized for Slaughter?
Colorado Springs, CO 07-01-2017 - The Cloud Foundation received an anonymous tip from a BLM employee that Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and/or top Bureau of Land Management officials have ordered all wild horses currently in short term holding facilities be categorized by weight and age in anticipation of the approval of the federal budget. The current recommendation for this budget would allow for “sale without limitation” many or most of the wild horses currently in holding. This, of course, can eventually lead to the barbaric slaughter of our iconic wild horses. The tipster stated that this categorization was to ensure the BLM was ready to ”ship out” horses older than five years of age. The only place to “ship out” these horses would be to slaughter. The caller stated that the shipping would start with the smaller facilities so that wild horse advocates wouldn’t be able to impose an injunction before the plan was already started. Although anonymous, the caller also told The Cloud Foundation that direction has been given to the one of the government’s top transportation official to prepare for this shipping.
Ginger Kathrens, Volunteer Executive Director of The Cloud Foundation said, “Surely Secretary Zinke would not allow for this devious, clandestine and under the radar ploy to destroy wild horses when 80% of Americans are against slaughter. If only Secretary Zinke and other DOI and BLM officials would have implemented tried and proven on-the-range-management ideas as we have asked for over a decade, we would not be where we are today.”
“There are currently in excess of 50,000 wild horses that have been rounded up, torn apart from their families, and corralled at the taxpayer expense because on-the-range-management has not been implemented as hundreds of thousands of cattle and sheep graze at little or no cost,” says Lisa Friday, volunteer Vice President of The Cloud Foundation. “Our indigenous American icons deserve better.”
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ACREAGE – JUNE 2017
UTAH HIGHLIGHTS
Utah principal crop planted acreage, which includes acres planted to all major crops and those expected to be cut for all hay, is down 1 percent from 2016 to 928,000 acres, according to the June 1 Agricultural Survey conducted by the Mountain Regional Field Office of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, USDA.
Utah corn producers planted 80,000 acres of corn this year of which they intend to harvest 30,000 acres for grain, up from 29,000 acres harvested in 2016. This is an increase of 3 percent from last year's harvested grain acreage, but no change in planted acreage for all purposes. Barley planted area, at 28,000 acres, is 3 percent less than last year's acreage. Expected harvested acres, at 16,000 acres are 16 percent below 2016.
Winter wheat producers planted 130,000 acres in the fall of 2016 for harvest in 2017, up from 120,000 acres planted for the previous year’s crop. Acreage expected to be harvested for grain increased 3,000 acres from last year to 115,000 acres. Spring wheat seedings, at 10,000 acres, are up 1,000 acres compared with a year ago. Acreage for harvest is expected to total 8,000 acres, unchanged from last year.
The area to be harvested for hay is expected to decrease 20,000 acres from a year ago to 680,000 acres. Alfalfa hay harvested acreage is expected to decrease 10,000 acres to 520,000 acres and all other hay harvested acreage is expected to decrease 10,000 acres to 160,000 acres. Safflower growers planted an estimated 20,000 acres this year, up 6,000 acres from last year. Harvested acres are expected to total 19,000 acres, up from 13,500 acres harvested in 2016.
UNITED STATES HIGHLIGHTS
Corn planted area for all purposes in 2017 is estimated at 90.9 million acres, down 3 percent from last year. Compared with last year, planted acres are down or unchanged in 38 of the 48 estimating States. Area harvested for grain, at 83.5 million acres, is down 4 percent from last year.
Producers seeded 2.38 million acres of barley for the 2017 crop year, down 22 percent from the previous year. This represents the lowest seeded area on record since records began in 1926. Harvested area, forecast at 1.95 million acres, is down 24 percent from 2016. If realized, the harvested acreage for barley will be the lowest since 1879. Record low planted acreage is estimated in Oregon.
All wheat planted area for 2017 is estimated at 45.7 million acres, down 9 percent from 2016. This represents the lowest all wheat planted area on record since records began in 1919. The 2017 winter wheat planted area, at 32.8 million acres, is down 9 percent from last year but up less than 1 percent from the previous estimate. Of this total, about 23.8 million acres are Hard Red Winter, 5.61 million acres are Soft Red Winter, and 3.42 million acres are White Winter. Area planted to other spring wheat for 2017 is estimated at 10.9 million acres, down 6 percent from 2016. Of this total, about 10.3 million acres are Hard Red Spring wheat. Durum planted area for 2017 is estimated at 1.92 million acres, down 20 percent from the previous year.
Producers intend to harvest 53.5 million acres of all hay in 2017, up less than 1 percent from 2016. The expected harvested area of alfalfa and alfalfa mixtures, at 17.1 million acres, is up 1 percent from 2016. All other types of hay harvested are expected to total 36.4 million acres, down less than 1 percent from 2016. Harvested area of all hay is expected to increase or hold steady in most Midwestern States, but declines are expected in parts of the Southern Plains, Northeast, and Pacific Northwest.
NASS provides accurate, timely, and useful statistics in service to U.S. agriculture. We invite you to provide occasional feedback on our products and services. Sign up at http:/usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/subscriptions and look for "NASS Data User Community."
USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer and lender. To file a complaint of discrimination, write: USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Ave., S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272 (voice), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).
Area planted to safflower increased less than 1,000 acres from 2016, to 162,000 acres in 2017. Despite the slight increase, this is the third lowest planted area for the Nation since records began in 1991. Area for harvest is forecast at 154,800 acres, up less than 1 percent from last year. Growers in California, the largest State in terms of planted area in 2016, planted 52,000 acres this year, a decline of 16 percent from last year.
For a full copy of the Acreage report please visit www.nass.usda.gov
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