As we learned yesterday, nothing says “I’m hip” in libertarian circles like a smirk and a Jack Germond reference, but Fagin Nick Gillespie has upped his game today with this post:
“When It Comes to School Choice For Low-Income DC Residents, Obama Offers Crumb (And Is One)”
This is better than what he announced via Education Secretary Arne Duncan, which was simply to tell the voucher participants to take a hike. However, it still amounts to little more than an aristocrat flipping a coin out of a carriage window after running down a child in the street.
Poor Obama. Yesterday, Kim Jong Il, today, a Dickensian villain. It is early in the month, I am betting we can go full Godwin by June.
BTW, for a pretty interesting profile/fluff piece on the Chancellor of the DC Schools, Michelle Rhee, go to Time. I read that a while back while in a doctor’s office waiting for something.
LD50
Concern for poor people? Haven’t these shitheads been telling us for decades that that’s ‘class warfare’?
Kind of hard to take it seriously when a libertarian gets All Concerned about the quality of education in America.
Lev
The only thing I know about Jake Germond was that John Goodman played him in an hilarious classic SNL sendup of The Maclaughlin Group. Good times.
WTF is up with Reason anyway? Dave Weigel leaving really sent that place downhill, didn’t it?
Comrade Darkness
At least the Dickensian villain could be construed as sexy.
superking
You know, it sure would be nice if there were a shred of scientific evidence showing that voucher programs improve academic success for low-income students. I dunno, maybe it’s just me.
jake 4 that 1
Heaven forbid we improve D.C. public schools!
I’m convinced they’re trying to smother us in thick gooey layers of stupid.
C Nelson Reilly
I bet Jack Germond would click on that “Meet Your Meat” ad
Comrade Darkness
@C Nelson Reilly, that dratted ad is the reason I’ve been craving a steak all week. The presentation ain’t so hot, but man, someone cooked that baby to medium rare perfection.
Zifnab
@jake 4 that 1: This issue at hand isn’t improving DC schools so much as it is the cost-benefit of vouchers. The general question is whether private schools are worth the money, and the answer almost always varies from private school to private school.
Maybe the DC voucher program is a solid system and its being killed on ideological grounds. But given Obama’s track record in administration and the wingnut track record in lying through their teeth about literally everything, I’m willing to bet the funding is being cut because the private school options are either massively inefficient or so incredibly exclusive as to be inaccessible to the majority of the student population.
Napoleon
@LD50:
They don’t give a f–k about the education system. Vouchers always have been and always will be about trying to screw teachers who join teacher unions, which is somewhere near 100% in public systems. If they did they would apply testing standards and the like to voucher schools like they do regular schools but that is nearly never the case.
PeakVT
@superking: Even if there was evidence of improvement in student outcomes, the question remains as to whether the success could be widely replicated. My impression is that most of these programs depend on young teachers working insane hours. That kind of input just can’t be scaled up.
John Cole
@Comrade Darkness: I hear you. I keep seeing that ad and thinking “this is supposed to make me not want meat?”
Dennis-SGMM
@Comrade Darkness:
Glad I’m not the only one. All that baby needs is some mushrooms and onions.
p.a.
This is an excellent twist on the Obama as Islamist/Socialist/Fascist smear. As many noted then, the Republicans seemed to be moving back in time; the next smear would have been Obama as feudalist, or maybe Hun. Using literary villains opens wonderful new territory. Obama = Sauron, anyone?
Mike P
@Lev:
Weigel has been killing it at the Windy. He was the only reason I ever checked out Reason in the first place.
C Nelson Reilly
@Dennis-SGMM:
Obama would put fancy foreign mustard on that steak
Laura W
@Comrade Darkness: The president likes his ground beef Medium WELL.
I’m stunned nothing more has been made of this egrigious culinary violation. Yet?
Tsulagi
Unpossible. The little beggars scamper too fast to be run over by horse-drawn vehicles. The conservative Sandbox Analysis Institute would confirm.
@Comrade Darkness:
Yeah, plus the sucker looks really tender. Okay, they sold me, we’re having steak tonight.
Bootlegger
Because if we gave every kid a school voucher they could *all* go to private schools! There’s room for everyone, amiright?
Also, check out this travel ad for a libertarian paradise.
Hunter Gathers
Obama is our first class 5 mutant president. Only a class 5 mutant could possible be an anti-christ/half-breed muslin/Islamist/fascist/so-ci-a-list/Kenyan/liberal/baby killer. His X-factor is off the charts.
Dennis-SGMM
@C Nelson Reilly:
Republicans would demand that the steak be battered and deep fried as a gesture of conciliation to the Red States.
Bootlegger
@p.a.: No, its Obama as Ottoman Turk invading the Greater White Christian Europe.
Comrade Darkness
@Dennis-SGMM, @John Cole, yeah and that juice that I suppose is supposed to remind me of blood or something (as a recovered catholic, good luck getting that to fly) is pleading for some garlic mashed ones to soak it all up.
@Laura W: I’m with him on that one. Commercial ground beef is a mystery meat. Too many animals pushed through a continuous process raises the odds to a level my analytical brain cannot suffer. Meat not raised by someone I can talk to, and ground in my kitchen with my nice shiny clean equipment. I’m afraid, not rare in that case. Otherwise it’s cold in the middle for me and a bit of a travesty otherwise.
canuckistani
@Comrade Darkness:
You know, I’ve been thinking that looked pretty tasty as well. I’m sure some vegan somewhere was thinking “This will show them – it’s all meaty and juicy… ewwwww!!!”.
Seanly
ooh, my head is spinning. The libertarians want the government to give vouchers to all the poor people? But isn’t the invisible
clawhand of the free market supposed to help them pull up their bootstraps. Or dangle them from a window or something?Is it just me or does it seem like everything Obama does is teh most evilest thing ever? It’s some kind of reverse on Sgt Harman’s verbal game with Pvt Joker in “Full Metal Jacket” wherein liberals as Pvt Joker just need to know that any action we take will be a step towards soc1alism and totalarian.
Oh, speaking of the meet ur meat ad, I was happy to see that finally leave Sadly, No! only for it to show up here. It’s a bit undercooked for my taste. Like my fellow comsympfacisthomoislam Obama, I like my meat thoroughly cooked. Medium well for steaks & well to blackened for anything ground. No mustard for this liberal though!
Dennis-SGMM
@canuckistani:
One of my house mates up in Morro Bay was a vegan of the scolding/shaming variety. I was just getting ready to cook up a steak (Mmmmm, Slo-Fed Beef) when she popped into the kitchen and began lecturing. I just naturally took a big ol’ bite out of that raw steak and gave her a smile that would have made Bela Lugosi proud. Oddly enough, she moved out a few days later.
Nindid
@Dennis-SGMM:
This made me cringe at the inhumanity of it all!
LD50
I love the closing lines:
“I have cholera!”
“What?”
Bootlegger
MMMM, beef. I get mine from a guy down the road, grass fed, no hormones or antibiotics. A steer gets sick and its culled from the herd. The hamburger is the best I’ve ever eaten, period. The roasts and steaks are also better than the local grocer. Price is roughly the same too since he doesn’t ship it.
Dungheap
@Hunter Gathers:
As someone pointed out yesterday, you may have to add Mormon into the mix though I’m not certain what the rules are on adult children of women posthumously baptized by proxy into the Mormon church. Perhaps someone could draw up a flow chart.
Michael
Dennis-SGMM
That is just plain fucking wrong – a violation of a perfectly good piece of meat.
joe from Lowell
When people like Nick Gillespie feign this concern about students in poor cities, they know that their voucher fantasies will never encompass any more than a tiny fraction of the students in the school district, and will screw over everyone else.
And they’re perfectly ok with that. They have no deeper concern for these kids than their capacity to serve as poster children.
someguy
Fixed.
Comrade Darkness
@canuckistani, as a former vegetarian (until soy started to kill me) I am sympathetic to notions about production quality and the treatment of animals. But I think they are missing the mark there with that picture. There is a middle ground that they could be speaking to that carries with it some other nice notions about small family business and biodiversity of livestock breeds.
If I were them, I’d go for a positive message and help getting hooked up with better producers. But, what do I know?
Added: What bootlegger said. Once you have “met your meat”, or at least the farmer, it’s very hard to buy an anonymous package at the supermarket.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Laura W:
You’re overlooking the real scandal. Obama prefers beef as opposed to pork, which surely is a sign of where his true faith lies.
Jon H
OT: the pathetisaddest thing ever, on the internets, from a forum dedicated to the 12-years-late game Duke Nukem Forever, upon the news that the company is shutting down and Duke Nukem Forever will most likely never see the light of day:
“What a load of bullcrap. This forum has been my home for 7 years, 7 ******* years. Where the hell am i supposed to go now? “
Dennis-SGMM
@Dungheap:
Posthumous baptism of anyone just by submitting their name? Who says that Mormons don’t have a sense of humor?
joe from Lowell
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks that steak looks fantastic.
That ad is the vegan version of Republicans saying Obama wants to “Spread the Wealth.”
Flukebucket
I had no idea that meat ad was supposed to make me not want meat.
Kinda like lookin’ at a Penthouse magazine to curb your sexual appetite.
John Cole
@Jon H: Link?
And if you have an account, send him here. He’ll fit right in and we won’t even put ***************** over the naughty words.
Evinfuilt
@Comrade Darkness:
Its seared and its juicy… I don’t think that group understands us meat eaters, we like our dinner still mooing.
Though on second thought, looks like they cut it too early. Look at all the juice that got loose, 5 minutes under foil and it would have been even better.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@Jon H:
Hehe, so you’ve been following that game too, huh? Have you seen this?
DNF Development Conspiracy
TenguPhule
June, nothing. I’m putting bets next week already.
Jon H
@John Cole:
Forum post Here
Slashdot story Here
Evinfuilt
@Laura W:
I thought one of Reasons complaints was that he went for the “Politically Correct Medium Well” while real Americans eat theirs medium rare.
Jon H
@John Cole: “And if you have an account, send him here. He’ll fit right in and we won’t even put ***************** over the naughty words.”
Sorry, no account. And since he likes hopeless causes, he might feel more at home at Malkin’s.
Bill E Pilgrim
Okay I’m starting to think that Peak Wingnut may exist after all, and I don’t mean the tallest mountain in Alaska.
After all, the idea is that after maximum extraction, the commodity is in permanent decline, right? Well, nothing could be in more of a decline right now than the Republican Party and its core of wingnutty goodness.
We tend to think that the nuttier they get, it just proves that there’s more and more there, but I think it’s more like some heightened pressure as what they’re tapping becomes smaller, and harder, and more compressed, retreating into a singularity unimaginably small until eventually nothing can escape, not even Republicans, without being distorted out of all recognizable shape in the process. I mean, look at Arlen Specter.
TenguPhule
Sick sick bastard.
“If it’s not red, you’re better off dead!”
Sear the outsides, dripping with hot juices on the inside.
Soak up with starch of your choice.
Mmmmm.
TenguPhule
You have to remember, Southern Fried Steak uses the pieces of meat that don’t qualify as real steak in a normal sense.
jake 4 that 1
This is one of the things that’s always puzzled me about the voucher system. All of the private schools I’ve heard of have two things: 1) A waiting list and 2) Admissions tests. (Some also have scholarship programs.) Given local demographics, I don’t see Repubs arguing that kids with vouchers should be moved to the front of the line so unless there’s something I don’t know about the system, the voucher is only potentially useful to a very limited number of people.
Common Sense
That’s kinda the point of frying it. When it’s a good piece of meat a Southerner grills it, smokes it, or does anything other than frying.
Evinfuilt
Southern Fried Steak is breakfast anyways (at least in Texas.) Its not that its a bad cut of meat, but you have to put it through a specific machine that doesn’t just tenderize it, it kills it. Flattened and punctured with holes, then dredged and deep fried. Serve with a couple eggs, white gravy (from pork sausage drippings) and some Tabasco.
Common Sense
There is actually such a thing as chicken fried bacon. Typically it’s served with ranch dressing so as to keep it salady.
TenguPhule
It’s almost Zen, isn’t it. :O
James Gary
Rich Gentleman Have It Boys, Indigestion!
Just letting you know someone caught the “Oliver” reference. (Unless it’s so obvious the previous fifty-one commenters have let it go unsaid.)
FYI, I find that “Meet Your Meat” photo sort of disturbing–so I guess it had its intended effect on at least one reader, although I have absolutely no desire to click the link.
Comrade Kevin
@Jon H: Duke Nuke’m ForNever, as someone called it on that Slashdot thread.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Common Sense
Really? I heard that once and just thought it was someone stringing fattening words together for shock value.
Next I’ll find that “Roast Leg of Rump” actually exists, when I thought I had just made it up.
TenguPhule
Well yes. That’s the point of having loyal minions.
TenguPhule
Yes, but hunting Rush Limbaugh is a waste of time since he yields so little edible meat.
Laura W
@Evinfuilt: Oh, well, I “rarely” (ha! Get it?) click through any of the links in the front page posts. Don’t have the interest or the sanity to spare.
I just assumed someone somewhere was asserting that his preference for medium well over medium rare was another sign that he likes dark skinned people better than light.
Common Sense
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Fer realz. Apparently I had an abberrational lo-cal version with Ranch as the classic is served with cream gravy.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Common Sense:
Hmm. I prefer to take artery-clogging supplements and just eat regular bacon.
Common Sense
OT: These blue dogs might be tougher to contain than y’all think.
—
The state of Montana has drawn a line in the sand, challenging the federal government to decide whether to follow the U.S. Constitution with a new gun law that exempts from federal regulations any gun, gun accessory or ammunition made in the state and intended for use there.
“What this boils down to is:
* “Guns and ammo made, sold and used in Montana do not require any federal forms.
* “Silencers made in Montana and sold in Montana would be fully legal and not registered.
* “There would be no firearm registration, serial numbers, criminal records check, waiting periods or paperwork required.
Comrade Kevin
On another subject entirely, Manny Ramirez suspended 50 games for “performance ehancing drug” use.
HA!
Common Sense
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Why not just go vegan you pinko?
(and it really is that good I have to admit. I wouldn’t exactly suggest it as a daily dish but my god it’s a treat every once in a blue moon).
Third Eye Open
The South: A place where pork is considered a condiment
American by birth, Southern by the breakage of a condom, and one-too-many beers
Common Sense
@Third Eye Open:
Fixed
Bill E Pilgrim
@Common Sense:
You should see how people eat where I live actually. Rail thin, low rates of heart disease, and I’ve never seen so much pork, beef, and duck consumed in my life.
Of course, wrapping pork around a steak and stuffing into a duck would be sort of the equivalent of grease-fried-fat, or whatever it was, but I swear I’ve seen some dishes that weren’t so unlike that actually, not at the regulah places but at some tonier joints. Small portions though.
Small portions, red wine, and taking the time to actually taste it are my theories as for the difference. Dinner that lasted 45 minutes would be seen as some sort of nervous disorder.
Third Eye Open
@Common Sense:
For as much as I joke about my upbringing, southern cooking is such a joy if only for its resourcefulness.
Mustard greens.Fat-back.Hot Sauce. ‘Nuff Said
Interrobang
Count me as another one among the “medium well” tribe, but I plead protein-digestion problems that give me some serious indigestion if I try to eat rare beef… Rare beef is tasty enough (except for that squishy raw meat texture; don’t know how y’all get around that), but the subsequent stomach cramps are not so cool. I eat a lot of chicken.
Evinfuilt
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Oh great, now I’m in the mood for Turduckin. At least down here you get it year round, and deep fried if you want.
Actually, this is where I plan to go out to eat next. That’s a restaurant that could put a Vegan into a coma by just walking by. For me, I don’t like the idea of waste, so that’s the place to eat. It does help that it’s proper British food, and not as bad as its made out to be (well, now that we know how to season food.)
AhabTRuler
There is range of proper done-ness, depending on the cut.
This range extends from still twitching all the way to merely bleeding.
gwangung
@Interrobang: Yeah, same here. I’d actually prefer it a bit rarer, but my digestion can’t handle it.
*sigh*
AhabTRuler
@gwangung: I am clinically depressed and have a crummy spine, but I could digest “tire rims and anthrax” if I had to.
And that’s gotta be worth something.
Groucho48
In Washington, a handful of the voucher kids got to go to very exclusive private schools, including two to the same school Obama’s kids are going to. The vast majority of the voucher kids, though, are going to the same kinds of private/charter schools as kids in other places with vouchers go, with the same kind of mixed results.
But, it’s the half dozen or so kids going to the very exclusive schools that are the focus of all the anti-Obama attacks. “He doesn’t want ordinary kids to have access to the same education his daughters are getting” is the argument. it’s a stupid argument, but, I suppose it does resonate with its target audience.
Elie
The Libertarian tax revolt — Proposition 13 in California took a state that had the # 1 Public Schools in the nation and put them way way back. That virus spread across the country and helped pave the way, (along with other stupid policy such as busing, standardized testing rather than teaching kids how to think and reason) to complete destruction of our public schools.
That short sighted policy, designed to reduce the tax burdens on homeowners is a perfect illustration of how it sometimes takes years to see the full effect of bad policy. The other sad point is that even after seeing the bad effects, it would be almost impossible to reinstitue the tax or to fix the situation without a massive rededication of effort and will — something of which we are in short supply..
I remember when that stuff was passing in the 80’s and thinking what a problem this was going to be and how my gut knew we would be unable to fix it — that we were watching a very important resource to our country — a good public education system for all — pass out of existence to give a bunch of folks a couple of dollars more per month to go run up their debt on credit cards. That money, that spelled the difference from where we are now to what we could have been represents a loss much larger than anyone could have dreamed at the time —
jenniebee
Unforgivably on-topic, but Roy Edroso found RedState’s reaction. It contains the words “Dear American Blacks” and then informs its “audience” that Republicans are the real friends of African-Americans because unlike Democrats, Republicans are willing to practice “tough love” by lecturing black people about how the real root of their problems is not pervasive racism, it’s that black people are stupid, shiftless and lazy. If only black people would just eat their vegetables, get educated and earn a good job, they would be Republicans, but they vote Democratic because they’d rather just stay on welfare (otherwise, why would African-Americans not vote Republican? QED!)
Coalition building – ur doin it rong.
TenguPhule
Redstate’s crew really should be forced to do community service in Harlem.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Evinfuilt:
Proper British food??
“Cassoulet confit de canard”
“Coquille Saint Jacques”
” French fish soup”
“Albondigas” …?
Sounds more like my neck of the woods than yours ;)
Ah okay, actually it says “Cassoulet confit of duck, pork and beans” that must be it.
I suppose there are a few others on there too.
This place is in Texas? Nice. At least if they secede they’ll have good food.
TenguPhule
Feature, not a bug.
When that juicy red goodness is masticated and delivers rich meaty juice to the tastebuds, that is the essence of good steak.
That brown/grey well done stuff-might as well be eating stew meat or pot roast.
Ed in NJ
I offer, without comment, a picture of Ms. Griffin:
Ed in NJ
Not sure where the link went. Here it is again:
Christine Griffin
asiangrrlMN
Gah, vouchers. Gah, charter schools. My best friend is the director of an alternative at-risk high school here in MN. She is part of the public system. She told me the reason charters do so well at first is that they get a shit-load of money upon start up. Then, they don’t get so much, and most of them fail.
As for private schools, they aren’t held to the same standards as are public schools, so comparing the two are really apples and oranges.
As for steak–I don’t eat it at all. I don’t like beef, for the most part. I do like innards, though. A friend of mine grossed out her FB vegan friends by having her status contain calf’s heart and liver and such. Her sister has a farm and raises cows. All natural.
Anyway, my friend’s vegan friends requested that she change her status so as to not offend her vegan friends. I wrote, “It’s HER status”, but I thought that was too pointed. I changed my comment to, “Mmmmmmm, liver,” which was probably meaner in the long run.
Shell Goddamnit
@Common Sense:
Yeah, that shit melts in your mouth all right, leaving the vague mouthfeel of lard and the taste of rancid frygrease. I do NOT get the appeal, and I am one of those people who would eat dogshit if it was wrapped in bacon.
TenguPhule
So to get TARP II passed, we need to cover the bill in bacon?
Shell Goddamnit
@Elie: Well, all might have been well, if we’d had the societal stones to come up with another way to fund schools; property taxes suck as the means to that end, they vary too much and are often lowest where the need is greatest. But of course we did not, and will not.
Xanthippas
Look, some of us are trying to stay on a diet here, okay?
Elie
Shell Godammit —
You are so right. No stones — thats us..
Still — call me a stupid optimist — sometimes things have to have a certain path of despair before we get energized…
The world will not wait and those of us who see will push and keep pushing for our young’uns to catch up —
Real estate taxes — who thought that up? Someone who wanted to kill public education and almost has..
But I am ready and I think a lot of folks are…
Elie
I just have to say — I love this site and love the people who post here. Have learned and gotten so much from it –Thanks
Rob
I’ll admit, Reason isn’t quite as solid as it used to be, but it’s always been fairly up front about vouchers as long as I’ve been reading them. It’s about choice. And not having where your kids go to school mandated by the state. Vouchers are one way out of that.
Combine that with Obama’s talking about evaluating voucher programs case-by-case/success basis, then canxing a program while burying a report of its success at the end of a Friday news cycle, it seems like a pretty legitimate beef.
mmm… beef.