Things are just super-duper at the Atascadero Unified School District (AUSD). Their search for a new superintendent is going smoother than Barry White singing “Never Never Gonna Give Ya Up.”
“Cause I found what this world is searching for, here, right here, my dear, I don’t have to look no more.”
Well, actually, AUSD school board, you do need to look a little more because your choice of E.J. Rossi as new superintendent ain’t ringing parents’ or teachers’ bells. The question at hand is did he or didn’t he mismanage funds to the tune of $56K from San Ardo Union School District as a district superintendent and principal from 2003 to 2007.
According to a 2010 San Luis Obispo County grand jury report, Rossi misappropriated money by overriding financial controls that led to duplicate and undocumented payments, approved his own payroll and stipends that resulted in overpayment of $16K, and raised his own district credit card limits by at least $40K without authorization and used it for personal purchases. I see you, player!
How did this guy go from San Ardo to becoming Atascadero High School assistant principal and currently the AUSD assistant superintendent with these accusations hanging over his head?
“It’s pretty odd,” sixth grade teacher Jehan Mirzaei said. “In all my experience being a teacher here, I’m having to jump through hoops to get district supplies. But now we are considering hiring a candidate who, based on the evidence I’m seeing, has not been accountable with his school’s money in the past.”
Oh, snap! What’s extra cray-cray is the AUSD spent $25K on an outside agency to find a pool of suitable candidates, and they come back with the current assistant superintendent? Seriously? Who’s this outside agency, where did they look for candidates, and if you have another $25K, can you give me a shot at finding someone? I know a guy who knows a guy.
To be fair, Rossi says this is all a big misunderstanding.
“After starting [in Atascadero], the new superintendent in San Ardo started making false accusations regarding alleged overpayment,” Rossi claimed. “It was not misused funds with misallocations. He was just claiming that I was overpaid. And so, for the next two and a half years, I successfully refuted those false allegations of overpayment. There were never any charges filed against me, there was never any action, never any evidence to move forward.”
OK, but you did agree to personally pay back $32K, right?
“It was not a restitution agreement; it was not a reimbursement of funds. It was just a mutual agreement, or no admission of guilt,” he said.
Nothing to see here. Move along. Not you, AUSD. It’s back to the drawing board for you. Better luck next time.
Is it just me, or does DOGE totally blow? The so-called Department of Government Efficiency seems like a drowsy toddler has been handed a chainsaw to perform cosmetic surgery on an otherwise perfectly healthy and very attractive patient. Thanks to Elon and his pimply minions, the nonprofit Los Padres Forest Association (LPFA) staff is twiddling their thumbs waiting for the gutted U.S. Forest Service to allow it to continue its work assisting trail improvement and wilderness preservation. Really, Elon? The Forest Service is rife with fraud and waste? Can we cut the pretense and just agree you’re the world’s richest asshole who’s weirdly taking glee in hurting the working classes?
“Over the course of any given day, I probably communicate with 10 different Forest Service staff, and I’m on the phone with multiple Forest Service staff each day, and we rely on them just like they rely on us,” LPFA Executive Director Bryan Conant said. “You know, they rely on us to help provide them a service, and we will rely on them to give us the approvals or make sure that we have whatever we have in order to accomplish our work.”
Thousands of Forest Service employees have been laid off since February.
“A lot of the projects that we’ve been working on with Forest Service staff have halted, have slowed down, and have stopped. And, you know, a few of the people that were let go, we were working with on a daily basis trying to get approvals for certain projects,” Conant said. “Not to mention, they’re good friends of ours and nice people—you’d never like to see that happen.”
Thanks, Trump. Is this what you MAGAts signed up for? Vilifying nature and those who care for it?
Speaking of stupid cuts, Cal Poly’s Swim Team could be disbanded because it’s not bringing in enough money. Enough money? I’m surprised competitive swimming would bring in any money! Do college sports have to make money to be of value?
Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong told the swim team that if it raised $25 million in the next couple of months, they could keep the team. Strangely enough, the school is expected to cut $24 million from next school year’s budget thanks to state cuts. Is the swim team being asked to pay for the university’s shortfall?
What’s happening? This is not normal.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk told fellow asshat podcast host Joe Rogan, encapsulating the Trump ethos. Δ
The Shredder is rich in empathy. Blow it a kiss at shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Mar 27 – Apr 6, 2025.
The DOGE team and Trump administration is conducting the controlled collapse of the US. The Education Department is shut down with thousands of fired workers, 10,000 just laid off at the HHS, thousands at USAID, etc. Rather than create the conditions of strengthening manufacturing and receiving the income tax of manufacturing workers and corporate tax, they simply exported our jobs and replaced it with credit cards and money printing. They profited and now are paying the price. They aren’t done. They intend on stealing the money in the social security trust fund and Medicare. The dollar has collapsed and everyone is unemployed. Sounds like a recipe for civil unrest.
This is the equivalent of the Soviet collapse, just add vodka, beat down Yugos, and cigarettes.
We all know Putin is the puppeteer.
He is the puppeteer of musk, trump and all of the maga sycophants and lemmings.
Putin told trump’s criminal enterprise how to dismantle democracies quickly.
He loves them all for being such good “useful idiots.” He is a master of mind fu@#.Watch trump contradict himself in just a few hours, then tell the big lies endlessly, yell about shiny objects, project the crimes he/they are doing onto those that are not doing those crimes, but they are people he says are his enemies, and on and on. Psycho narcissists to the max!
Remember to breathe and tune out their bs and look for the underlying truth they are trying to hide. We can defeat them with peaceful resistance.
Putin is the puppeteer.
The GOP have been lying to us for 50 years.
We can thank Ronald Reagan and the GOP.
Compare what a house and car cost in the late 1970s, and see how the contrived inflation of RR’s trickledown fraud from 1980 over 40+ years, for the profits of the wealthy and corporations.
Along with all of the questionable “recessions” most all caused by the republicans. GHW Bush coined the phrase “recession” as it sounded “kinder and gentler” than the real description, a “depression.”
Reagan caused two “recessions” right after being installed by oil barons, er I mean, elected. They called it a “double dip recession.” But it was not cute…
An Old Merchant Marine told me then that fascism had entered American politics.
Another friend calls those “recessions” “selective harvesting of the wealth of the middle class by the rich and Wall Street.” Over and over.
All those who say Ronald Reagan was a saint are deluded and brainwashed, and helped bring us to where we are now. The GOP since Reagan have always been trying to destroy Our Democracy, and replace it with their Privatized confederate/Russian style of fascist dictatorship.
Protest, take nonviolent action and we can win this if 4% of Americans cause a General Strike, until we beat back this fascist regime, and save our democratic republic.
We also need to recall that Cheney and Rumsfeld and their puppet Dubwa Bush, with their two wars of lies, paved the way for Trump and his fascist regime. The republicans have never cared about We the People, all they want is total power and money.
And one more warning from the renown Reporter in an article and in interviews a month ago, Peter Baker of the NYTs says it looks just like Russia after Putin destroyed Russia’s fledgling democracy, as Baker was reporting from Russia from 2000 to 2004.
I watched then, it took Putin 18 months… Another friend said that it only took Hitler 53 days to destroy democracy in Germany in the 1930s.
And Putin’s puppets Trump and Musk are making record time. Let’s hope the Courts stay strong and that the great groups that are suing Trump’s government continue to keep winning the cases against this dictator wannabe Trump and his MAGAts!!!
“Putin’s puppets?” So tired of that canard. It just makes those who expound that mantra seem silly. It’s easier to find a Putin under every rug than explain why ending the money laundering operation in Ukraine is anything other than logical.
I disagree fly, here are some facts, not Russian propaganda about Ukraine “money laundering.”
Trump has made America a Pariah!
There was an excellent letter writer compared trump with Stalin and his “show trials.”
President Zelenskyy of Ukraine was “valiant” standing up to Trump and Vance, as they ambushed him with their victimhood of not receiving enough “gratitude,” and lying about who began this war, and their usual Russian Propaganda.
President Zelenskyy stood right up to those [hate to say it] liars and nailed them with facts, data and the pain of his people in this war, and called them out for using Putin’s propaganda as fact.
Putin, Trump and Musk are no longer trying to hide that Trump is now working for Putin. Trump and Musk are Putin’s agents. And they are in the white house, doing just what Putin tells them to do.
Their main goal, as shown in Project 2025, is to destroy America’s democratic republic and see how quickly they can destroy our government, to aid in the collapse of the U.S. Economy and society.
The Russians are celebrating. Project 2025 is Putin’s playbook that he shared with DJT.
It is time for the sane Americans to stay focused and become the good opposition. Professor Timothy Snyder suggest we “Do Not Obey in Advance.” That is what President Zelenskyy did. And that is what we all need to do.
That is how we can stop Trump from becoming another Stalin.
Oh, and the TRMS has a report with a truckload of facts of how quickly this new regime is changing America’s “orientation in the world” as Trump and MAGA now support Putin and authoritarian governments, and detests Western democracies and NATO, our allies for over 80 years.
DJT did say “he would be a dictator on day one.” And here we are.
And he’s also coming after the Free Press. And Social Security and Medicare.
Peter Baker of the NYTs says it looks just like Russia after Putin destroyed their fledgling democracy from 2000 to 2004. I watched then, it took Putin 18 months..
Here is a note I send to Trump, with more facts, not Russian propaganda, Fly.
President trump, and I use that term loosely, Did you ever read the book “The boy who cried Wolf”?
In the book “The boy who cried Wolf”?
the boy wanted attention and kept yelling that there was a Wolf. After a few times everyone in town didn’t believe the boy, and when there really was a Wolf, the boy, being stupid again, cried out that there was a Wolf, and everyone quit listening to him, and he got eaten. Lying and/or being stupid usually doesn’t work out.
You talk a lot about how great Tariffs are, yet you keep backing down before you really do your “Tariffs”. Tariffs are stupid and destructive. You have wrecked the stock market and world markets, and as the Wall Street Journal said, you have made America look stupid.
All of the Countries who were our allies now see the USA with a dicktator wannabe as president, taking orders from his boss, vladimir putin.
You are a wuss Mr. Trump, not a strong man.
You, JDV and your GOP sycophants have made America a Pariah to the World, with your lies and voting with Putin and dictators over democracies around the World at the UN, and your bogus hatred for NATO.
The Whole World know that you, Mr. Trump, are Putin’s and Musk’s puppet, along with your maga lemmings.
There are a lot more pissed off highly skilled veterans and midlife healthy people than your small minded white supremacist militias and Our Military; and if you try and touch our Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, we will take the actions in the Courts and on The Streets, and shut down your nazi lies and your desire to be “America’s Hitler”!!!
Hey, Didn’t JD Call you that before the election in 2016? Oh, yes he did.
Fly, are you getting paid by Putin? Many are and are making big bucks. And they are traitors!
Scott:
“There are a lot more pissed off highly skilled veterans and midlife healthy people than your small minded white supremacist militias and Our Military…”
I’ve got a little bad news for you, I am a “highly skilled” middle aged, Caucasian male AND veteran (1/12FA) and I’m not a member of any “white supremacist” militia, I don’t own a gun,my wife and son are Muslim and (very) brown, and the only weapon I own is my intellect.
People vote for candidates or parties for various reasons, I voted for a candidate that said he’d stop a potential nuclear war in Ukraine and, like most politicians, does a flip flop when obtaining office.
Even if a Democrat wave won the last election, our economy would still be collapsing, the rich would still be dodging taxes, upward mobility would still be non-existent, mass layoffs would continue, de facto corporate bailouts would continue, we would still have massive budget deficits, working men, women, and children would continue to go to bed (if they have one) hungry, and our tattered social safety net would still be sacrificed for defense spending and corrupt defense contractors.
Thanks to Citizens United, both parties and their power hungry, money grubbing candidates, put corporate interests ahead of the material interests of working class men and women. It appears you’ve taken the bait and can only see things through partisan eyes.
There are millions of Americans who are wishing our entire society would collapse so we can start over on much more fair terms, rather than be strung along for decades, fed lies by people in suits or wearing pearls, only to get old and die a fool.
So good luck, Scott, with your “revolution” and your hopes and dreams.
As with the Kubler-Ross scenario, the sooner you work through the stages of grief, the sooner you can stop being angry and actually find hope. I have yet to reach that stage myself. I’m simply at the acceptance stage.
No matter what you do, Scott, there is no hope. You can never step foot in a stream in the same place twice. Time has moved on and we live in late-stage capitalism characterized by a hollowed out nation state and mass poverty. Jobs aren’t coming back, our future is anything but bright, our kids are totally screwed, and public spending will disappear. Our prison guards hold nuclear war over our heads and basically threaten to kill us all if we act up. You, Scott, are pining for something that cannot be.
Again, Scott, just keep pissing into the wind.
Well fly, you just proved you main source of “info” is fox Russian state propaganda and falsehoods.
If Biden or Harris had won our economy would be humming. You are still blinding yourself and pushing Russian state propaganda.
Good try passing off putin’s and trump’s lies. You have been bamboozled.
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If weve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. Were no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. Its simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that weve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
The Truth (facts) is:
Trump wants to be just like Pinochet and Putin. Another despot, in the gang of despots who “disappears” his (perceived) enemies! We are living in a putin style dictatorship.
The jack boot thugs, Gestapo, brownshirts and SS are coming out in force. Hopefully they will shoot themselves in both feet. They aren’t the brightest bulbs in the shed. Elmer Stuart Rhodes head of the oat%keepers shot out his own eye because he dropped his gun…
That’s what happens when the state or homeschools teach their confederate spawn lies for 150+ years, along with breeding with the neo-nazis . We are under attack by our puppet president, so he can please his owners, putin & musk. It’s just like a mobster crime syndicate!!!
Sorry you have been bamboozled! With Russian propaganda!
Fly, if you read some of Professor Timothy Snyder’s books like On Tyranny, Unfreedom, and On Freedom; along with Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen, you could learn some real Facts about what t he heck is going on with the fascists that too many Americans were bamboozled by. Also Thom Hartmann and Robert Reich can give you huge amount of factual history and the truth of how closely trump and hitler and putin are in their actions.
Then you might have something Truthful to say. All the rest is fox russian propaganda!!!
America is moving B2 bombers into the Indian Ocean. What a great way to default on national debt. Our economy has collapsed.
And all the blame is on the GOP and their tax cuts under Reagan, Cheney and GW Bush, and the doozy of them all, the one by trump in 2018.
Not to mention the wars of lies started by Poppy Bush and then Cheney and his puppet Dubwa Bush that tanked our economy when they left in 2009. The rich made lots of money off of those wars.
Here’s a link to an informative video by Robert Reich showing how our tax system is rigged for the rich.
They don’t care about me or you.
And please to tell us the lie that it’s all the dems fault, because it factually is not.
Check the video, it’s good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkiO0_uSJA…
Oh, and bye now. this convo is over. And you may want to wash that illiberal ointment out of your eyes.
Liberal is much more desirable, free-thinking, honest, caring, empathy, helpful. All action words.
Better than cheating and falsehoods, in most people’s opinion, from my experience.
Bye now.
You may want to wash that illiberal ointment out of your eyes, it blurs the vision.
Conservative is illiberal. Hungary, Russia and Turkey are illiberal countries.
Most of us will not live in trump’s putin style dictatorship. we all will be censored and more…
Joe Scarborough coming out of Covid once told the truth, he said “republicans are treacherous.” Treachery means betrayal. The GOP has been betraying truth and all those morals that liberal democracies try to espouse to be for 50+ years.
It almost sounds like you want to live in a dictatorship fly. I hope that is not the case.
Take care.
bye now. this convo is over.
If everything you say is just so obvious, why did over half the country reject your party? Formerly blue districts and states flipped red. Again, you still seem to think a person who could barely speak (Kamala) and Tim could have turned this ship around. There is NO way your party offered anything other than more of the same. You are so stressed out, I’d suggest throwing your TV out. I haven’t owned one in over 15 years. The only people watching TV are Boomers. The whole system is corrupt and you are just a pawn, Scott.
Scott:
While you twist yourself into a pretzel, the CCP just surrounded Taiwan, the US has parked 25% of its fleet of B2 bombers in the Indian Ocean, and Iran has loaded their missile tubes. The important thing is that when we all get vaporized, Scott Jenkins is vindicated, folks.
Again, the Democratic Party, acting through its Commander in Chief, was bombing Russia with American weapons (MLRS) and intelligence. Let me say it again, the Democratic Party was bombing Russia (a major nuclear power) three months ago ladies and gentlemen.