We have to sift through soft-ball interviews and watch campaign ads to get even a broad sense of what a Romney Presidency might be like, but if you’re genuinely curious, I thought I’d bring you a small piece of information that concerns your children that I was able to tease out of a hard-hitting Good Housekeeping piece:
AR: I’ve been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people’s lives if they don’t get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.
Wow. The Romney’s are going to throw out the public school system. As a parent and public school supporter I’m grateful she saw fit to reveal this tantalizing clue.
Put the K-12 public education system on the pile along with Medicare, Medicaid, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We’re getting rid of these things, to bring “real change.” It will be a real change, no doubt. That part of the (latest) media-Romney marketing campaign is true.
I’d like you to imagine the response if First Lady Michelle Obama had said she wanted to “throw out” the public school system. You’ll recall Michelle Obama came under heavy media scrutiny for telling kids to eat their vegetables (in a nice way). Had she announced she wanted to “throw out the system” I could have heard the screeching from my desk.
TR
Wait an hour and the Romney campaign will say they want “double the system”!
FonzieScheme
Shorter rightwing outrage machine: How dare a Black woman tell us what to do? Everyone knows that’s a Billionaire white woman’s job?
Ben Franklin
Sorry Kay, OT (a little) as Kasich just said on MTP that Ohio has the toughest laws on fracking using some common sense. This is the type of regulation we can expect from Romney.
http://ecowatch.org/2012/ohio-passes-one-of-the-worst-fracking-laws-in-the-u-s/
Todd
Ever notice that everything that C word advocates involves amplifying the class differences in the status quo?
BGinCHI
Imagine if Michelle Obama said she wanted to throw out the charter school system.
Anti-free market! Anti-choice! Union thug!
Someone should ask Ann Romney what k-12 teacher unions in Utah, or the surrounding states have been holding back all those kids. Maybe a few examples?
Do they teach follow-up questioning in journalism school or not?
matt
the press doesn’t see it as their job to defend the status quo from radical right wingers, just moderate left wingers.
The Dangerman
I’ll provide a shorter version of their agenda:
Privatize EVERYTHING
Can’t afford (fill in the blank)? Tough shit; there’s the factory (surrounded by barbed wire to “keep the unemployed out”).
Kay
@TR:
No they won’t. They’ll say she meant “it’s up to the states”. It’ll work, too. It hasn’t failed them yet.
Kay
@Ben Franklin:
Kasich’s state environmental protection agency is run by a former energy industry head. Now we just hire them directly, rather than relying on lobbyists to write regulations. It saves time.
Davis X. Machina
Pace Asimov, the three Laws of Romneybotics.
Anything that is, can be bought and sold.
Anything that cannot be bought or sold, is not.
Anything that can be bought or sold, must be bought and sold.
Baruch atah ha shuk, ha dayan emet.
cat48
Hi Kay, The Unions in OH know he’s going to make the US Right to Work, right? I don’t want our schools thrown out. I never had to worry that much about schools b/c I only had one daughter long ago & I just don’t understand what they’re doing with schools 25yrs later. The school system we lived in was a good one. I live in a different state now & they’re shabby in SC.
Kay
@The Dangerman:
Romney actually plans a federal Right to Work law. True. He ran on it, in “quiet rooms”. We were busy discussing the deficit, so we never got to that. We’re going door to door and passing out flyers, but it’s a big country.
Mike in NC
Don’t forget privatizing the VA and getting rid of Planned Parenthood, also too.
22over7
Stratifying education is a sure route to the capitalist dream of the 19th century. Of course they wouldn’t advocate slavery, except for the women of course, but everyone else who can’t afford Phillips Andover and Harvard can work in their glorious factory for a dollar a day.
Kay
@cat48:
Yeah, they do. No one else does, though.
WereBear
@Davis X. Machina: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that one.
Victorian attitudes, Victorian moral scolding, Victorian labor relations, and now Victorian schooling priorities!
What, indeed, will be next?
Southern Beale
Have you heard of the deadly meningitis outbreak linked to a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy? Seems problems with that pharmacy go back to when Romney was governor, and state regulators let the company off the hook. Now 24 people are dead around the country. Because when government gets out of the way of business, people die.
I don’t know what, if any, role Romney had in letting this company face no consequences for its negligence but I do find it odd that no one is even asking the damn question.
Mark B.
Privatising government services is a way for favored actors to extract profit from those services, but usually it decreases the quality of the services and increases the cost. Charter schools are a good exemplar of this principle.
TR
I can’t wait for President Romney to liquidate and outsource a couple underperforming states.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
This is puzzling. She was speaking to Good Housekeeping, a magazine for women. many of the readers will have kids in school and will be heavily invested in the school’s success. Seems like that’s the wrong audience to be telling that the school system isn’t working. GH’s readers are informed and involved. The ‘toss the system’ message woruld work better on older voters who don’t have kids in school and want to stop paying for them through their taxes. Not soccer moms.
Tactical error.
PreservedKillick
I’m sorry, this is surprising…why?
The republicans know this is their last throw at national power.
They are going to push through every idea they’ve ever had, if Romney is elected. Just line them all up. Put them in a row. All of them, with a couple of nutjob supreme’s on top.
Then they are done, for probably 10-20 years.
It will probably take this country about that long to unwind the damage.
The Dangerman
@Kay:
I need to add to my cheat sheet on Romney:
1) Privatize EVERYTHING;
2) If it’s unionized, bust it.
It’s plutocracy run amok.
Davis X. Machina
@22over7: There’s no point in having a tree-house if you can’t pull up the ladder. The ladder is the point — tree-houses qua houses aren’t very good.
The percentage of freshman students at UVA, e.g. who come from no-college-families is now under 10% — and that’s a state school.
Southern Beale
Why is my comment awaiting moderation? Dag nabbit.
scav
@WereBear: You missed the Victorian workhouses (for the undeserving poor, aka the poor). They were an early feature
Kay
@Mark B.:
In Ohio, we hire for-profit operators to run the charter school systems. That way there’s a profitable layer of lawyers, executives and consultants cashing in before anything trickles down to the actual children. Skim it right off the top. The only thing “public” about the for-profits is the funding.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
speaking of Kasich, I see he’s on to “never mind the polls, we’re winning!“. Rarely a sign of actual confidence.
I know among a lot of rich old anti-intellectuals, teacher bashing is a favorite sport. A few friends of my father’s, blue collar guys who got rich (not Romney rich, but couple of Cadillacs and condo in Florida comfortable) with small businesses, they loved to sarcastically chortle about how they’d love to have “three months paid vacation every year”. But even in that group they were a minority. The growing hostility to teachers’ unions, mostly from people whose kids go/went to good public schools, bewilders me.
Southern Beale
Okay what fucking ever. I’m in moderation.
Just read this. And then tell me why no one is asking what role (if any) Romney had in this company still being allowed to stay in business.
I mean, I don’t know. But the question isn’t even being asked.
SiubhanDuinne
For my sins, I clicked on the GH link and read the “interview.” I loathe that woman and the horse she danced in on.
And the “interviewer”? “It’s okay, I’m crying too, we’re both messing up our makeup.” BARF. I mean, fine to cry when relating or hearing about a struggle with MS or breast cancer, but reporter-lady, you don’t have to insert your fucking tears and melting makeup into the story. GAG BARF VOMIT.
Also too, I loathe Ann Romnmney. Oh, did I say that already?
Southern Beale
@Kay:
Winning!!!!!
Yeah, Tennessee is headed in that direction, too … because Freeeeeeedom!
Schlemizel
Says the woman who millionaire parents sent her to one of the finest private douche producing endeavors in the country.
BGinCHI
I cannot fucking believe that Mitt Romney has paid no political price for not releasing his tax returns.
If he wins, I hope the beltway media reap the whirlwind.
pseudonymous in nc
The truth here is that wingnuts in general, given that their concern for children ends at birth, are much more concerned about destroying the teachers’ unions. Anntoinette Romney is a special case, in that public schools are for the poors anyway.
bornfree
@The Dangerman: Spot on. Thanks for sharing
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It’s going to be close. I think O’s ahead two points. Two points is a lot in Ohio, it’s a 50/50 state, but if people don’t come out, we don’t win. It’s really and truly “on us”.
Also, can we make a pact to stay on the same page if there’s recounts and litigation? Here’s Our Message: “count the votes”. Three words. Keep it simple. We hate it, but we goddammned well know how much media narrative matters. Count The Votes. I assume they’ll go to the tried and true Florida 2000 plan of making shit up about military ballots, and we’re familiair with that scam.
SiubhanDuinne
@Southern Beale:
I suspect it was because you used the “ph” word.
RSA
When I think about how to improve, say, a third grade classroom, deregulation doesn’t spring immediately to mind.
Davis X. Machina
@RSA: The Market, ha kadosh baruch hu, will provide. And then the classroom will improve.
Kay
@RSA:
Preventing what “things” from happening? She doesn’t say. Oh, well. I just trust her, don’t you? I don’t know her from Adam but I think I’ll turn my second grader over to her, rather than listen to the public school teacher who lives on my block. She’s so rich, Ann Romney! She must be really, really smart.
Jeremy
@Kay: I really think Obama is going to win 4-5 points. Right now he is doing better in Ohio than 2008. Some of the best pollsters have indicated that Obama is doing better there than last time and Obama has had the state leaning his way from the start.
Kay
@BGinCHI:
He’s running an ad in Ohio where he tells the lie about moving auto production to China. I saw it last night. At this point they’re just fucking with us, because they can.
dmsilev
We were talking about this bit in the previous thread:
A mother getting a gold star carries a very specific connotation, and unless you’re a completely heartless sociopath, it’s rarely associated with laughter. I’m sure she was trying to evoke school children getting a star for doing something good, but she apparently completely doesn’t realize that in the context of mothers and their children there’s another meaning.
And again, let’s play “in an alternate universe, Michelle Obama said the same thing”. The Fox News “Michelle laughs at the mothers of dead soldiers” headlines would be running 24/7.
SiubhanDuinne
Speaking of women’s issues, as we kind of are (as POTUS says, they are really “family issues”) — is this getting much play in Wisconsin? Can’t remember who all are the Badgers around here — Omnes, I think, but I’m sure there are others — but I’d be interested to know how the local/state media are covering this.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/10/28/sen-ron-johnson-abortion-not-even-an-issue-in-wisconsin/
Kay
@Jeremy:
I hope you’re right. I’m an optimistic person, but I don’t you you should underestimate how tough this is, and will be. Five points is a LOT in Ohio. It always was.
Jeremy
@PreservedKillick: True !
If Hillary runs I believe she will win and in a big way in 2016. Her stature has grown and she has very high favorable ratings. Obama appointing her SOS was a great thing for her. Her running would be somewhat like Eisenhower running in 1952 who was widely respected with high stature.
The GOP is going to have to look in the mirror and re-evaluate because the southern strategy will continue to become more ineffective over time as the country becomes more diverse.
gelfling545
@Mike in NC: I think Romney might have outsmarted himself with his privatize the VA & general disregard for Vets. I’m doing some work for a NPO that serves veterans & most of the folks who work there are vets or have other military connections. They tend to be politically conservative on the whole but the thought of Romney messing with Tricare has them pretty riled up, as well as his failure to acknowledge their service in any meaningful way. Votes he might have pretty much had for the asking have gone over to the Obama side.
WereBear
@Southern Beale: I saw your first comment, loved the post, and put it in my political Facebook page.
BTW, for any bloggers out there who also have another job (like me) this program is wonderful:
Bufferapp.com
It allows you to send a bunch of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or App.net posts to be spaced out over the day.
I was always trying to update these social networks from my blog on my lunch hour, in the evenings, and blowing it off if I got busy or trying to keep track of things I wanted to link but ran into too many at once.
It has a free level.
Davis X. Machina
@Jeremy:
She’s a Democrat, a woman and a Clinton. And there will never be a Presidential election — either way — where the two-party vote breaks more than 54.5%-45.5% in our lifetimes, regardless of the candidates.
gbear
@Davis X. Machina:
Anything that is, can be bought and sold.
Anything that cannot be bought or sold, is not.
Anything that can be bought or sold, must be
bought and soldmanipulated for profit.HRA
I am an older voter. All of my children are grown up and out of school. I do care about my grandchildren’s education. At times now and then, I am asked for my opinion on education issues by my children and grandchildren. It’s really annoying to have anyone assume older voters are not interested in educational issues.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: I don’t see anything on either the Milwaukee or Madison newspapers’ websites. Of course, it looks like the interview was this morning and, since it is Sunday, the most important thing in the news is today’s Packer game.
Jeremy
@Kay: I’m looking at the math. A little over 1/3 of Ohioan’s already have voted and over 2/3 of that vote has gone to the president. People planning to vote on election day are going 45 % for Obama 45 % for Romney.
Looking at the numbers I can’t see Romney coming close to pulling off a victory there. The same is happening in other states as well. My estimate is around 4 points.
Hill Dweller
@Kay:
I saw that over at ThinkProgress. The commercial cites the Detroit News endorsement, but fails to mention they rip him for his positions on the bailout in said endorsement.
Did the China lie get a lot of play there when Willard initially got called out for it?
Rosie Outlook
@dmsilev: Most of her audience is probably too young and too poorly educated to know what a Gold Star Mother is. She may not know herself. “rich” does not equal “has a clue.”
Jay in Oregon
@scav:
I think their solution for that will be the draft, once we’re at war with Iran.
JCT
Gosh, Lady Ann, and how many of your princelings went to public school? I may be wrong but I’m betting none of them. So nice of you to want to throw out “everyone else’s” education system. All based on your deep well of personal experience like everything else that comes out of your priviledged
pieholeASS.Just the thought that these two “people” could end up in the White House is making me physically ill.
Southern Beale
@JCT:
Because LOOK! Shiny-sparkling privatization thingie over there!
Jeremy
@Davis X. Machina: I agree. But winning in a big way I don’t mean getting 60 % of the vote. I’m talking about putting states in play and running the table with the EC. Getting around 52-53 percent of the vote. I recall people saying Obama couldn’t win in a EC landslide in 08, that he couldn’t pull off victories in states that went republican in 2004 and 2000. Those people were wrong.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: The Jeep story? He’s actually running an ad on that? Jesus. Even in a post-BUsh world, it’s astounding what that fucker gets away with.
Nutella
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah, most of the interview was pretty nauseating but the interviewer did nail AR’s hypocrisy at one point:
One hit like that is better than your average MSM stenographer interview.
BGinCHI
Anyone actually see Gingrich defend Mourdock’s rape comments? Apparently he did so this morning.
What was his logic? God sometimes has to break a few
vaginaseggs to make an omelet?Davis X. Machina
@Jeremy: What states does Clinton get that Kerry doesn’t? That Obama doesn’t? And does Clinton make the difference, or does demographic drift?
scav
@Jay in Oregon: They’ll have to get tricky so that the vital hawk-supportive missionaries on loan to France and campaigning for their dad (et cetera) don’t get tangled up in the more drafty aspects of the draft.
Keith
It goes back to some quote about right-wingers, and I am paraphrasing, “For people who love America so much, they sure don’t like much about it”
Mr Stagger Lee
@TR: I can see the National Parks go Bye-Bye. The Cascades mined and the stuff goes to China while Pinchot National Forest gets chainswed to the nub. Mass Mining at the Grand Canyon while Yellowstone gets the drill baby drill treatment. Oh their may be some parks spared, but they will be privatized and the charges to get in will exorbitant.
Jay in Oregon
@scav:
Perhaps they’ll subject the draft it to means-testing; if you can afford to, you can opt out of it.
cat48
This election makes me physically ill daily. I need to quit reading. There are 2 Super Pacs running ads against Obama in Minnesota & a poll yesterday showed Obama +8 in MN & today another showed him +3. I really can’t take this, plus Wisconsin is +3 plus PA is tight. Super Pacs GO AWAY!
scav
@Jay in Oregon: Clearly, the Saving All the Very Important jOb creatoRs act to be signed on that very bust first day of his.
Eta deciding between Saving and Supporting in the title might be the only tricky part for him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and Balloon Juice is festooned with Jeep ads. Verily these intertoobz are a modern wonder.
Spatula
Kay, why wouldn’t the congressional Dems, even if in a minority, be able to stop any horrible actions like this from Romney, just as the minority Republicans mostly shut down Obama, as his supporters claim?
Why aren’t you confident that the Democratic party will prevent these kinds of disasters in a Romney presidency?
JPL
@Spatula: I’m not Kay but past experience has taught us that democratic members tend to be more bi-partisan and if you think the republicans will keep the filibuster, you are deluding yourself.
EconWatcher
Des Moines Register endorses Romney? WTF?
Chyron HR
@Spatula:
Hey, Tim, have you stopped beating your husband for being an Obama supporter yet?
Davis X. Machina
@EconWatcher: Obama didn’t fix the economy yet, so Romney. (This is the socially-acceptable way for newspapers to embrace the Crazy…)
JPL
By covering up Romney’s lies, MSM has forever changed elections, imo. Republicans know they can say anything..
Hill Dweller
@EconWatcher: Did you read the actual endorsement? They couldn’t even make a case for Willard. It reads and feels forced.
Kirbster
@Mr Stagger Lee:
No, Yosemite and Grand Canyon are far more valuable as residential real estate. Imagine how much 5 acre ranchettes in Yosemite Valley could sell for! And luxury condos overlooking the South rim of the Grand Canyon? Mega-millions! It’s a
dirt pimp’sdeveloper’s wet dream.IowaOldLady
@EconWatcher: I was really disappointed in the Register. It’s inexplicable.
Davis X. Machina
Endorsements here.
Two interesting big-paper changes: The Chicago Sun Times no longer endorses, it went for Obama in ’08 and is widely read in northern Indiana. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, also has stopped endorsing after going Obama in ’08.
Washington Monthly piece on endorsements here.
Spatula
@JPL:
I was being facetious of course.
Yes, they certainly have been, which is one of the reasons I keep hammering the question as to why so many here have sold their soul to the Democratic party when it stands for almost nothing when it really matters.
For instance…why didn’t the Dems help Obama out by doing away with the Filibuster? “We caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan’t” is not a reason.
As we saw during the hellish Bush years, all enabled by cooperative Dems.
Hill Dweller
@IowaOldLady: I’ve seen some speculate that the new ownership “influenced” the decision.
Again, their case for Willard is laughably thin.
PeakVT
QFT.
mk3872
I can’t wait for President Romney’s video recording for school students in 2013 and how they will no longer be considered “indoctrination” by the media. Probably because it’s a nice white guy talking to school students, which is okie-dokie.
Marshall
@Southern Beale:
If he signed the consent decree (and it looks like he did), he is responsible.
JPL
@Spatula: True.
Davis X. Machina
Romney Uses Debunked Strory About Chrysler to Undermine Obama’s Story About the Auto Industry Rescue
.
max
Gallup: LV – Romney loses one, ahead 50-46. RV – Romney loses 1, Obama up 48-47. (Obama up a point in Ramussen, also.)
Hunh. Will this trend continue the next couple of days? We’ll see. (I suspect it will, since certain thumbs may be needed for other tasks. ;) )
And WaPo voice interviews say Obama 51-47 in VA, almost exactly the same as the 2008 margin.
max
[‘Gosh.’]
Marshall
@Kay:
I have some personal experience with billionaires, and the biggest trouble with billionaires is that there are an amazing number of people who assume and believe that anyone with so much money must know what they are talking about. Yes, the rich tend to insulate themselves and surround themselves with yes-people, and that is a problem, but I actually regard this as a more serious problem. People know how to deal with sycophants. It’s the otherwise sensible (and independent) people who are snowed by the cash that can really get an organization in trouble.
RSA
@Kay:
Applied to Mitt, that’s his campaign in a nutshell. And putting rich people in charge of everything has worked out so well in the past.
nellcote
FOCUS PEOPLE! Forget about 2016. We have a week+2 to win this thing. Eyes on the Prize!
Marshall
@max:
Rasmussen will almost certainly converge to the other polls just before the election. They have a habit of doing that. (See, we got the election right ! Look at our final polling!)
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@Kay:
There can be no simpler explanation as to why privatizing every damned thing (not just schools) is such a stupid idea. A profitable business, by definition, will never be able to provide the needed service at-cost, because of executive compensation and profit margins.
Yet so few seem to get this, simple as it is.
Why are so many so eager to begrudge some teacher $80K/yr, but don’t care if some grifter CEO makes $20 million/yr off their backs, with their tax dollars?
I do not understand most people.
smith
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
The only thing that I can think of is that most people want to be rich and envy the rich. Or they think they will be rich one day and want all the breaks and advantages that the rich get to still be there if/when they get rich.
JPL
OT did the lady friend kill the boss? The Steelers are playing and no tweets.
PurpleGirl
Hey Cole (or Anne Laurie/DougJ/whoever)
People are getting restless, they need a football thread. Toute Suite. kthxbai
Yutsano
@JPL: Death by sex. I can think of worse ways to go. I just hope lady friend is up for the Tunch tuna buying duties.
@PurpleGirl: Oh SoonerGrunt! A weary BJ nation turns its eyes to thee! Salvatore mea!
JPL
@Yutsano: I’m watching the Falcons game and they just showed a clip from the Steelers game. He’s probably in hiding after seeing their uniforms.
dww44
@Jeremy: Like Kay, I do so hope you are right about this, not only about the election outcome in Ohio, but that the future of the GOP and its southern strategy is going to become increasingly ineffective.
As someone who lives in a state that literally was taken over by the GOP in 2010( (which wiped out the state Dem presence in one fell swoop), I’ve been saying since GWB that the GOP was out to gut public education, even tho Republicans I know long denied that objective.
Well, the evidence is in their legislative efforts, so we’ve got Option 1 on our ballot which seeks to add additional power at the state level to create charter schools via a governor appointed committee. Another way to bypass local control and co-opt local school boards/ It’s gotten very heated and has divided the GOP itself, and has resulted in all sorts of suits.
The sad thing is this is how the amendment is explained on the ballot.
It sounds just so good and positive to voters who don’t bother to become really informed about what’s behind the ballot initiative.
WaterGirl
Hi Kay, I sent you kind of a desperate email this morning about voter shenanigans in my county, asking who/how to contact someone – OFA or DCCC – to let the know about this.
After poll watching for an hour I then talked with the county clerk and it became clear that he is just interpreting everything in such a way as to make everything terribly difficult. For instance, instead of grace voting (walk in, show two IDs, fill out application form and then filling out your ballot) he has you coming back 3 times if you want to get your ballot by Nov 6.
I loathe this man, and he is suppressing the vote for sure, but I imagine nothing can be done about his “interpretations”. So frustration, but I doubt if it’s illegal. Ergh.
Redshift
@Jeremy: We were talking last night about some undecideds breaking for the candidate they perceive as “winning,” and that’s who Romney’s “momentum” talk is aimed at. But it occurs to me that in addition to banking votes and avoiding Election Day shenanigans, Obama’s vote-early strategy provides much more tangible evidence that they are actually winning. And news stories about lines for early voting just add to that.
JPL
@dww44: If they only told the truth and mentioned that the funds will come from public education. One of the charter schools in No. Fulton fire teachers at will and replace them with friends.
IowaOldLady
My first job out of grad school was teaching in a business college that was supposedly non-profit but ran an “overage” of $1 million/year, which meant the college president got a bonus.
Every library book, every class made smaller, every dollar to a teacher was money out of several someone’s pockets. Human nature being what it is, that’s not what you want to incentivize.
It’s always at taxpayer expense too, because those college students are all using govt guarantees loans and Pell grants to pay the ridiculously high tuition.
Thank the FSM I got out of there.
Corner Stone
What in the ever love of fuck are the -Bumblebees- Stillers wearing?
It’s like they are escapees from Bumblebee Prison Chain Gang.
nellcote
I don’t know enough about the charter school movement except that for the most part it seems a way to privitize (aka rip off) public education funding. I have a couple of questions: Are union teachers not allowed to work at charter schools? Why doesn’t the teachers union form some charter schools as examples of why unionization isn’t the problem? What’s the difference between charter schools and magnet schools?
Raven
@Corner Stone: So some clown says I’m sposed to slap the shit out of you whenever you show up. Consider yourself slapped.
JPL
@Corner Stone: Tunch would look so sexy in that outfit…
Eric U.
I care about the education of other people’s kids as much as I care about the education of my own kids. I don’t want to live in a country where most of the kids aren’t educated. My son went to a charter school, and it was ok because it was non-profit, with lots of parental involvement. But that isn’t the way they are envisioned by Republicans. I have always seen them as a way to de-fund public schools.
Corner Stone
@Raven: I didn’t feel like dignifying Clayton with a response last night.
Corner Stone
@JPL: He’d look like one of those construction “Dead End” road signs.
PeakVT
@nellcote: Magnet schools are usually specialty schools that operate within an existing school system (or as a collaboration between systems). They operate with basically the same personnel rules as the existing system(s). Charters operate outside existing systems. Charters can be specialty magnets, but they can also operate as neighborhood schools.
Corner Stone
How is a defensive lineman going to cover Heath Miller?
Poorly.
Davis X. Machina
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
The CEO is protected by several layers of intermediation, so you don’t know you’re paying him, or what you’re paying him, or how you’re paying him. And it’s a him. A white him. He’s not in the crab bucket with you…
Plus no one’s child first heard the word ‘No. That’s wrong.’ from a CEO.
Yutsano
@nellcote: They don’t even need to go that far. Where there have been charter schools, there have been no improvements in student performance. The evidence gets buried in the noise about what charter schools are all about: profit and busting the teachers unions.
Raven
We got a football thread eight hours after the games started yesterday. Oh yea, GO DAWGS!
Raven
Julio and Matt are making mincemeat of the Iggles D.
JPL
@Yutsano: That’s not a fair assessment. Charter schools do extremely well when they only have ten in a classroom against public schools who have thirty in a classroom.
Years ago while waiting in a hallway during jury duty, some young man was reading Stoessel’s book on education and spouting out results and I mentioned that when you actually compare apples to apples the results favor public education. Of course, I gave him a few examples. The rest of the group snickered and he walked away. I truly didn’t mean to insult him but facts are dangerous things.
PurpleGirl
OT: I read at Making Light that NYC will be shutting down the subways starting at 7:00 PM. The buses stop running at 9:00 PM. I just checked the MTA website and it’s confirmed.
http://alert.mta.info/
A Humble Lurker
@Spatula:
Because Dems aren’t the party outlawing unions and writing up forced ultrasound bills perhaps?
You know, instead of depending on us mindless cultists, you could always just keep abreast of the news.
kay
@WaterGirl:
I’ll read it and respond Monday- but your 1st call should be to his supervisor. Call the county and then the state, not a campaign. You’re absolutey within your rights to ask them what the rules are, and why he is “adding steps”
I send faxes because I want a record of correspondance, which I highly recommend. Call, ask, get a name, and then send a FAX confirming the conversation, that it occurred and what was said.
JPL
@Raven: True but I hated seeing Philly score. I’m greedy.
Omnes Omnibus
Green Bay just blocked a punt and pounced on it in the end zone for a TD.
Corner Stone
Colts and Titans in a real barn burner.
3-3 with a couple minutes before half.
kay
@Raven:
I am (now) in a bowling alley so can’t give you a thread. I can’t access the FP posting site on my phone.
You have to ask the SECOND you see me posting :)
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Most people have had bad experiences with teachers as kids. It’s not an 24/7 sort of thing, but enough instances to leave a negative impression.
You act up in class or you see your friend break some rules and the teacher rides you to turn stool pigeon or whatever it is, we spend an impressionable period of time as kids being told we’re wrong by teachers or treated in ways that aren’t fair.
I think a large percentage of Americans no longer out grow their youthful resentment and now want to act it out as adults by sticking it to teachers.
Also, too many Americans are now of the mindset that “now that my employer no longer gives me nice things, why should other workers get them…it’s not fair and they should lose their benefits just like me”
nellcote
So the idea of charter schools isn’t the problem as long as they’re non-profit and adhere to the same educational standards as public schools? I’m trying to get at whether it’s the idea or the execution that’s the base problem.
dww44
@JPL: Yes, exactly true. Now, if, somehow the Republicans pushed right to work/fire at will at the nearby Air Force base of its huge number of civilians employees, then just maybe we’d see the voters backing off the gutting of our public schools.
In our local paper on Oct 24 was this bit from a very good piece by a longtime teacher in a nearby rural school system. He was rebutting a piece by Erick Erickson writing in support of Amendment 1:
http://www.macon.com/2012/10/24/2223953/amendment-1-a-modern-trojan-horse.html#storylink=cpy
PeakVT
@PurpleGirl: Closing the system so soon seems like an over-reaction to me, but maybe the storm surge will arrive in NYC well before the projected landfall, which isn’t until 2 AM on Tuesday. I think shutting down public transit is going to create massive traffic jams around the area, as everybody who thinks they’re important and/or is afraid of losing their job will still try to get to work. I’d consider doing the opposite – banning private cars on Monday and keeping the public transport operating as long as possible.
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108:
I think this is it. Instead of saying, “Hey, they have nice things: I want them too;” it doesn’t make sense to me.
Mustang Bobby
Speaking as someone who works on a daily basis with charter schools, I know why the Republicans love them… at least here in Florida. There is zero accountability for federal grant dollars that they get, usually in chunks of $250,000 a pop, there is precious little external auditing, and in order to set one up, all you need is a shell corporation and a board that says they’ll be good stewards of the taxpayers’ money. And when they get caught misappropriating funds, the worst thing that happens is that they lose their contract with the public schools. So they just turn around and go private. It’s a GOP wet dream.
JPL
@nellcote: Teachers should be hired and should sign a contract. Charter schools can fire at will without cause and replace teachers with cronies. At least that is the case in GA.
rickstershierpa
Basically, the privatization of schools and prisons means funneling hundreds of millions of tax dollar through private hands. The CEOs and private equity types will make tens of millions dollars annually. And basically, the white, black, and brown children fed into the system will just be fodder.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mississippi-school-charged-arresting-kids-141159562.html
Further, the more people with “felony” convictions, the fewer potential voters to retake the system.
Davis X. Machina
@gene108:
Everybody’s been to school, but not everybody’s had major surgery. So everybody’s an education expert, but not a health-care wonk. The politics follows.
RossInDetroit, Rational Subjectivist
My best friend lives in Detroit. The public schools are crap so they put their daughter in a charter. She went for one year, then they closed up shop 10 days before school was to start the next year. Left everyone holding the books, uniforms and supplies they bought. Mad scramble to find spots in other schools and enroll.
Public schools don’t do that.
rickstershierpa
@rickstershierpa: I meant “billions.”
JPL
Most parents think their child’s school is good to excellent but on average public schools fail. That is because of the news media. When is the last time you heard about high performing public schools? When is the last time you heard about failing schools?
roshan
This is off-topic but election related.
Kinda wondered how many drafts of “The election has shown that America is a center right country and how Obama didn’t win a mandate.” has BoBo written so far, in case of an Obama win on the 6th.
I’m thinking that he has a solid start on the article and will debut it as soon as Obama wins, just so that the media narrative gets going about how Obama didn’t get any mandate at all and now has to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and abolish social security.
FlipYrWhig
@Spatula: hey, here’s a thought. Maybe The Democrats as a party are a motley coalition comprised of a relatively even match of liberals and moderates-who-are-really-conservative, clustered such that the center-right ones outnumber the liberals on most parts of the map. If non-liberal vaguely populist Bill Halter can’t best non-liberal corporate-friendly Blanche Lincoln in a Democratic primary, why would you expect that all Democrats could/would/should toe a liberal line? There’s only so far left a Democrat can go and still have a shot at winning, and in the Sun Belt, it ain’t that far. In other words, The Democrats are bound to disappoint liberals until there are more liberals. How soon do you expect that to happen?
Raven
@kay: Ah, it doesn’t really matter to me, I babble on about whatever I want to unless I think it’s a particularly important or sensitive topic anyway. I admire all the hard work and effective communication you do.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
The GOP has convinced the public that America is completely bankrupt – that the nation can’t afford nice things – unless you’re rich, of course, and can buy your own Big Bird.
rikyrah
KAY,
did you see that excellent segment last week on Rachel Maddow about how OFA never really left Ohio.
and, oh yeah,
fuck Ann Romney’s entitled ass.
JPL
The southern strategy relies on an uneducated electorate and low wages. What better way to achieve this, than tanking public education.
Omnes Omnibus
@? Martin:
That is another thing that makes no sense to me. The US is only as broke as it chooses to be.
PurpleGirl
@PeakVT: One reason to start early is that it permits trains and buses en route to get to their terminal stations, which can take 2 hours or more.
What Bloomberg should do and hasn’t is encourage companies to close tomorrow and/or Tuesday so people don’t try to get into work.
At the MTA website they have pictures of openings (construction or other) to the subway being covered with plywood to cut down on the flooding of the subway tunnels and stations.
Davis X. Machina
@FlipYrWhig:
Tomorrow.
See, if you just suck it up and offer liberal enough candidates — and by ‘liberal enough’ I mean Bernie Sanders, or whoever the US version of Michael Foot or Tony Benn is these days — in every constituency, the silent majority of voting-age people who now either don’t register, or register but don’t vote, with their prayers answered, their voices finally heard, will flood into the arena, and deliver crushing progressive victories at all levels of politics. The First Hundred Days will feature the creation of an NHS/USA, for example
The trick is just getting our message heard. Once heard, the rest must follow. It’s just illogical for it not to. Voter self-interest demands it.
JPL
@Raven: OT… It’s unfortunate the Eagles scored though. I hope the Falcons leave the stadium quickly to return home.
Raven
@JPL: Unass that AO most rickey tic!
Spatula
@FlipYrWhig:
So…yeah. Thank you for summarizing why even though I am a registered dem at the polls, I don’t really support the Democratic party. Why would I?
It’s a mess and I see no one, least of all, Barack Obama, doing anything to LEAD it. He’s a weather vane kind of guy.
kay
@Raven:
Please feel free, because I never remember to do open threads. I’m watching ten year old boys bowl. I’m not even sure they should be in here. This is a bar disguised as a bowling alley :)
PeakVT
@nellcote: It’s the notion that the best way to address any failings of a school system is to fragment that system which is the problem. Proponents of charters almost always have an ulterior motive that they can’t state publicly – extracting profits, re-segregation, taking public money for religious schools, breaking unions, etc. So instead they’ve managed to convince far too many people that all American school systems are failures (entirely false), the problems are with the system itself (wrong in the vast majority of cases), and that both systems with isolated failures or entirely failing systems are un-reformable (it’s definitely hard to change a very broken institution, but it can be done). And their solution is always charter schools.
Omnes Omnibus
@kay:
Aren’t they all?
JPL
@Raven: Yes sir!
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nonsense. Brown people are an anchor on our productivity. They mooch all of our tax dollars and refuse to work. It’s simply not enough for the good, hard working white people to overcome. Remember, once you cast 47% of the country as dependents on the remaining 53%, it means that each of us that works has to work twice as hard.
Sly
@nellcote: biggest issue is open enrollment. If a charter isn’t forced to take all comers, then it’ll only take students that have the fewest academic liabilities.
In other words, lets take the very worst practice in the private health insurance market and let it set the standard for educating children. What could go wrong?
Raven
@kay: Get your kids out of the streets and into the alleys!
A Humble Lurker
@Spatula:
Yeah. Weather vane? Totally Obama. Not that other guy. No way. Sticks to his convictions, that one. Whatever they are this week.
JPL
@Raven: The weather is going to deteriorate so the second half should be interesting.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Nope, there is a big alley here in Athens that has been dry ever since I’ve been here.
Raven
@JPL: I’ve been looking at a Facebook page from the Outer Banks, it’s intense.
JPL
@Raven: Last time I read Masters at Wunderground..it was omg, omg, omg… That’s a shorter version but I believe to be accurate.
Cassidy
This is why we can’t have nice things.
Raven
@JPL: This is a clearing house for info and pics.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: I am in Wisconsin, so my polls may be skewed.
Mr Stagger Lee
@gelfling545: I work on a military base and the vets especially the older ones are going for RobbedMe(go to the gym and all you see is Faux News on the TV and when I go on the elliptical the ones with the TV is tuned to Faux). They do not believe that the Republicans will privatize their VA benefits, nevermind that the GOP has F–cked with the vets every time especially those who came back from Iraq and Afganistan, as well as Vietnam. And you can’t reason with these numbskulls. Oh well I hope the view is good from the petards when the GOP hangs them there.
Raven
@Omnes Omnibus: I doubt if there are many others.
Raven
@Mr Stagger Lee: Keep in mind that the “older ones”, Vietnam era like me, were in a military that took 100,000 a year from 66-69 that could not meet basic military requirements. Combine that with deferments for college students and, as much as I respect my fellow vets, the military wasn’t exactly a mensa meeting.
Raven
@Mr Stagger Lee: Keep in mind that the “older ones”, Vietnam era like me, were in a military that took 100,000 a year from 66-69 that could not meet basic military requirements. Combine that with deferments for college students and, as much as I respect my fellow vets, the military wasn’t exactly a mensa meeting.
Chris
@gene108:
Sweet Jesus! Yes, we have bad experiences with teachers as kids, because we’re kids and we want to go play and that goddamn teacher just won’t let us which makes her the meanest person in all creation, but most of us eventually grow up and realize that it’s a damn good thing the teacher made us stay indoors and learn our multiplication instead of letting us go out and kick a ball around!
I used to think they were all stuck at the teenage I’m-angry-at-my-parents syndrome, but apparently they never even made it that far.
Omnes Omnibus
Did the hamsters just go on strike?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
Any kind of advanced penicillin for that?
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: One can hope. This is one of the reasons Obamacare is so important.
nellcote
Thanks for the responses. Another question…Is it possible to have national standards without “teaching to the test” and what would that look like?
PeakVT
The SpaceX capsule will be splashing down in about 15 minutes (12:20 PST). Here’s the video of Dragon being released by the ISS. I think the closest thing to live coverage is here.
NotMax
@PurpleGirl
Also too, the storm is capable of speeding up and arriving in force earlier than predicted.
Beyond that, sea surges can (and do) precede the body of the storm by a goodly time frame.
Most of the subways in Manhattan and Brooklyn (less so in The Bronx and Queens) are below sea level (and some of the tunnels run through areas created by landfill, which are more prone to water, mud and slurry intrusion and structural damage than those running through non-landfill acreage). The expected surges are probably at or a little past the worst case scenario the pumps are designed to handle. Part of the severity is dependent on any confluence of the protracted storm surge, the tides and prevailing winds.
If, at on-paper peak efficiency, the pumps and drainage systems can handle X amount of water, should X plus 5% occur, the result is self-evident. Securing the system and moving equipment to safer positioning takes time. Doubtless there will also be teams of workers deployed throughout the closed system after the shutdown time checking pumps and drains and a whole lot of other service-related stuff, something that is more cumbersome and a LOT slower to accomplish when the system is up, fully-powered and running normally.
JPL
@nellcote: Sure .. you want federal funds then teach evolution and keep creationism out of the class room.
FlipYrWhig
@Spatula: In that case, I’m not sure who you think does actively support The Democratic Party as an entity. I guess it comes down to the meaning of “support.” I want the local Democrat to win, even when he or she is awful, because the alternative is far worse. But I don’t think Tim Kaine or Claire McCaskill or Joe Manchin is going to usher in a golden progressive dawn. And, for that matter, I don’t think a person needs to think Obama is going to do that to want very much for him to beat the bejeezus out of the other guy. The median Democrat is well to the right of most of us ideologically, but that’s still a lightyear to the left of the median Republican. I don’t see why it’s even a conscience-pricking issue. Is there one Democrat office-holder who is worse than his or her Republican opponent? I’d guess that Lieberman vs. Lowell Weicker may have been the last time the Republican was better.
gex
I will have no fucking sympathy for the fiscal conservative voting whiners that will complain about the Romney/Ryan platform should they win. I think H.L. Menken’s adage about them getting what they want good and hard will be fitting.
I do not want that to happen. I will do everything I can to work towards Obama’s reelection. But I will relish telling all my fiscal conservative and libertarian friends “I told you so” if they get what they want good and hard.
FlipYrWhig
@Mr Stagger Lee: To millions of voters, no matter what they do, Democrats will always be the party of hippies, wusses, and queers.
FlipYrWhig
@gex: They’ll still blame Democrats, or “the government,” either for being actively malicious or for hogging all the resources that could have been used to prevent the Bad Thing that happened to them.
Mr Stagger Lee
Thank goodness I am taking the week off, because the masturbation on Seattle sports radio will crackling over Seahawks QB situation.(nothing else exists whether it is the Huskies, Coogs or even the Sounders) Wilson threw an interception.
NotMax
@FlipYrwhig
While the Dem is not an office-holder, in the case of Clayton and Corker in Tennessee this election, the D is absolutely worse.
FlipYrWhig
@NotMax: Ah, yes, I was vaguely aware of that one…
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Chris: I teach English at the junior college level; my sister is a public high school history instructor. Sure, there are bad teachers at every level. But it’s curious to me how we don’t hear the wingnuts bashing other professions. I hear nothing from them about bad doctors, trash collectors, veterinarians, bakers, bankers, firefighters, electricians… It’s those damn teachers who keep trying to educate people in the ways of Satan and commu-Islamo-socialistic-atheistic-elitist-feminist ways!
Chris
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
I think (not to diminish the assault on teachers) any profession that depends on the government without wearing a uniform is fair game as far as they’re concerned – listen to all the generic whining about “bureaucrats” and that covers a lot more ground than just teachers. Social workers, postal workers, the IRS, the EPA… there’s no shortage of institutions and professions that they put up on their wall and throw darts at.
Corner Stone
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): It’s all that money. They want the money cut from their taxes and then all the public money spent on private schools.
There aren’t a lot of mixes as lucrative as the whammy of making schools privatized.
FlipYrWhig
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): IMHO the issue is only secondarily that they are teachers — it’s more the overarching category of “public employees with generous benefits.” As I think it was Martin pointed out, when the economy is not functioning well, people get even more susceptible to ideas about how their Hard Earned Money is being squandered on perks for the undeserving. I.e., if I’m hurting, you’d better be hurting too. It’s basically the “welfare” argument in a slightly different key.
wrb
@EconWatcher:
Because Democrats will work with him and more will get done.
They just validated the obstructionist strategy.
wrb
@EconWatcher:
Because Democrats will work with him and more will get done.
They just validated the obstructionist strategy.
Lojasmo
@JPL:
Actually, all the (nonprofit) charters in my town overperform the public schools, and class sizes are similar.
/dunno.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lojasmo:Do they get to pick their students or must they take everyone?
nellcote
@EconWatcher:
Their first gooper endorsement since Nixon. They have a thing for secret plans.
Yutsano
@nellcote: Obama hurt their fee fees, so they’re throwing a temper tantrum.
Ohio Mom
@nellcote: The best site on what’s happening to public education is http://dianeravitch.net/ You’ll find the answers to most of your questions there, if you just follow along for a while.
Ravitch is a education historian — that is, she has studied the history and development of public schooling her whole career. And it’s been a long career, she’s in her seventies.
She used to be very conservative and she served in the Bush Admninistration. Then she saw the light. All the things she’d been advocating — especially charters, vouchers and NCLB — were causing a lot of harm. She quit the right-wing think-tanks she belonged to, wrote a book (The Life and Death of the American School) and is now the unofficial figurehead of the movement to stop the dismantling of public schools.
Interestingly, Ravitch is agnostic on national standards, or what’s been titled The Core Curriculum. She points out that it’s never been field tested and it’s a big risk, rolling it out every where at once.
nellcote
@Ohio Mom:
Thanks for the link. I always hesitate to ask questions for fear of being taken for a troll.
James E. Powell
@nellcote:
If you give the students a test and you tell the teachers that if their students do not do well on the test the teachers will lose their jobs, then every teacher will ‘teach to the test’ no matter what they tell you they are doing.
James E. Powell
@FlipYrWhig:
To millions of voters, no matter what they do, Democrats will always be the party of hippies, wusses, and queers.
You forgot “n-lovers”
Cacti
Did any of the Romney sprogs attend public school?
Spatula
@FlipYrWhig:
Good god! Did you really just use “Democrat” the way you just used it?
Way to promote Frank Lutz’s framing…jeez…
You sir, are a republipuke ratfucker!
JustWondrin
The sad thing is, that the Repubs DO want to shut down the public school system. Look up the Devos family. They and others like Great Hearts academy are the forefront of ending public, open to all education. They knew that shutting down public ed would be hard, so they are starting with charter schools and vouchers to make it sound as if they’re trying to give you a “choice”. That way they get to segregate and take funds from the public system, and in time drown it in a bathtub.
Then creeps like Romney would be able to say, “no educated citizens”, so they’re not qualified to earn minimum wage. Can’t pay those illiterates more than 50 cents a day!
JustWondrin
@James E. Powell: And those tests that are used in NCLB are in the software required by NCLB. The company that owns the software is owned by Dubya’s brother. See how that works? He makes millions, and dumbs down the kids.