What Michelle Rhee Learned About Education Politics

(For those of you who may not associate the name Michelle Rhee to anything let me remind you that she was the education star to reform Washington D.C.  public school system as part of Mayor Adrian Fenty’s determination to improve life in the nation’s capital.  Being a former teacher of a city school system, I regard Ms. Rhee, along with many others a great hero…….along with Mayor Fenty for their efforts.)

Ms. Rhee writes the following which appeared in Newsweek:

“After my boss, Washington, D.C., mayor Adrian Fenty, lost his primary in September, I was stunned. I had never imagined he wouldn’t win the contest, given the progress that was visible throughout the city—the new recreation centers, the turnaround of once struggling neighborhoods, and, yes, the improvements in the schools. Three and a half years ago, when I first met with Fenty about becoming chancellor of the D.C. public-school system, I had warned him that he wouldn’t want to hire me. If we did the job right for the city’s children, I told him, it would upset the status quo—I was sure I would be a political problem. But Fenty was adamant. He said he would back me—and my changes—100 percent. He never wavered, and I convinced myself the public would see the progress and want it to continue. But now I have no doubt this cost him the election.

The timing couldn’t have been more ironic. The new movie Waiting for Superman—which aimed to generate public passion for school reform the way An Inconvenient Truth had for climate change—premiered in Washington the night after the election. The film championed the progress Fenty and I had been making in the District, and lamented the roadblocks we’d faced from the teachers’ union. In the pro-reform crowd, you could feel the shock that voters had just rejected this mayor and, to some extent, the reforms in their schools.

When I started as chancellor in 2007, I never had any illusions about how tough it would be to turn around a failing system like D.C.’s; the city had gone through seven chancellors in the 10 years before me. While I had to make many structural changes—overhauling the system for evaluating teachers and principals, adopting new reading and math programs, making sure textbooks got delivered on time—I believed the hardest thing would be changing the culture. We had to raise the expectations that people had about what was possible for our kids.

I quickly announced a plan to close almost two dozen schools, which provoked community outrage. We cut the central office administration in half. And I also proposed a new contract for teachers that would increase their salaries dramatically if they abandoned the tenure system and agreed to be paid based on their effectiveness.

Though all of these actions caused turmoil in the district, they were long overdue and reaped benefits quickly. In my first two years in office, the D.C. schools went from being the worst performing on the National Assessment of Educational Progress examination, the national test, to leading the nation in gains at both the fourth and eighth grade in reading as well as math. By this school year we reversed a trend of declining enrollment and increased the number of families choosing District schools for the first time in 41 years.

Because of results like these, I have no regrets about moving so fast. So much needed to be fixed, and there were times when I know it must have felt overwhelming to the teachers because we were trying to fix everything at once. But from my point of view, waiting meant that another year was going by when kids were not getting the education they deserved.

I know people say I wasn’t good enough at building consensus, but I don’t think consensus can be the goal. Take, for example, one of our early boiling points: school closures. We held dozens of community meetings about the issue. But would people really have been happier with the results if we had done it more slowly? I talked to someone from another district that spent a year and a half defining the criteria that outlined which schools would close. But when the results were announced, everyone went nuts. They had seen the criteria. What did they think was going to happen? That’s when I realized there is no good way to close a school.

Still, I could have done a better job of communicating. I did a particularly bad job letting the many good teachers know that I considered them to be the most important part of the equation. I should have said to the effective teachers, “You don’t have anything to worry about. My job is to make your life better, offer you more support, and pay you more.” I totally fell down on doing that. As a result, my comments about ineffective teachers were often perceived as an attack on all teachers. I also underestimated how much teachers would be relying on the blogs, random rumors, and innuendo. Over the last 18 to 24 months, I held teacher-listening sessions a couple of times a week. But fear was already locked in. In the end, the changes that we needed to make meant that some teachers and principals would lose their jobs in a punishing economy. I don’t know if there was any good way to do that.

Some people believed I had disdain for the public. I read a quote where a woman said it seemed like I was listening, but I didn’t do what she told me to do. There’s a big difference there. It’s not that I wasn’t listening; I just didn’t agree and went in a different direction. There’s no way you can please everyone.

But it’s true that I didn’t do enough to bring parents along, either. I saw a poll of people who live in a part of the city where the schools experienced a significant turnaround, and everyone agreed that they were overwhelmingly much better now. But when they were asked, did we need to fire the teachers to see this turnaround, they said no. We didn’t connect the dots for them.

After the shock of Fenty’s loss, it became clear to me that the best way to keep the reform going in the D.C. schools was for me to leave my job as chancellor. That was tough for me to accept. I called the decision heartbreaking, and I meant it, because there is a piece of my heart in every classroom, and always will be. To this day, I get mail from D.C. parents and kids who say, “Why did you leave us? The job wasn’t done. Why did you give up on us?” Those kinds of letters are really hard to read and respond to. I loved that job. But I felt that Mayor-elect Vincent Gray should have the same ability that Fenty had to appoint his own chancellor. And I knew I had become a lightning rod and excuse for the anti-reformers to oppose the changes that had to be made.

After stepping down, I had a chance to reflect on the challenges facing our schools today and the possible solutions. The truth is that despite a handful of successful reforms, the state of American education is pitiful, and getting worse. Spending on schools has more than doubled in the last three decades, but the increased resources haven’t produced better results. The U.S. is currently 21st, 23rd, and 25th among 30 developed nations in science, reading, and math, respectively. The children in our schools today will be the first generation of Americans who will be less educated than the previous generation.

When you think about how things happen in our country—how laws get passed or policies are made—they happen through the exertion of influence. From the National Rifle Association to the pharmaceutical industry to the tobacco lobby, powerful interests put pressure on our elected officials and government institutions to sway or stop change.

Education is no different. We have textbook manufacturers, teachers’ unions, and even food vendors that work hard to dictate and determine policy. The public-employee unions in D.C., including the teachers’ union, spent huge sums of money to defeat Fenty. In fact, the new chapter president has said his No. 1 priority is job security for teachers, but there is no big organized interest group that defends and promotes the interests of children.

You can see the impact of this dynamic playing out every day. Policymakers, school-district administrators, and school boards who are beholden to special interests have created a bureaucracy that is focused on the adults instead of the students. Go to any public-school-board meeting in the country and you’ll rarely hear the words “children,” “students,” or “kids” uttered. Instead, the focus remains on what jobs, contracts, and departments are getting which cuts, additions, or changes. The rationale for the decisions mostly rests on which grown-ups will be affected, instead of what will benefit or harm children.

The teachers’ unions get the blame for much of this. Elected officials, parents, and administrators implore them to “embrace change” and “accept reform.” But I don’t think the unions can or should change. The purpose of the teachers’ union is to protect the privileges, priorities, and pay of their members. And they’re doing a great job of that.

What that means is that the reform community has to exert influence as well. That’s why I’ve decided to start StudentsFirst, a national movement to transform public education in our country. We need a new voice to change the balance of power in public education. Our mission is to defend and promote the interests of children so that America has the best education system in the world.

From the moment I resigned, I began hearing from citizens from across this country. I got e-mails, calls, and letters from parents, students, and teachers who said, “Don’t give up. We need you to keep fighting!” Usually, they’d then share with me a story about how the education system in their community was not giving students what they need or deserve. I got one e-mail from two people who have been trying to open a charter school in Florida and have been stopped every step of the way by the school district. No voices have moved me more than those of teachers. So many great teachers in this country are frustrated with the schools they are working in, the bureaucratic rules that bind them, and the hostility to excellence that pervades our education system.

The common thread in all of these communications was that these courageous people felt alone in battling the bureaucracy. They want help and advocates. There are enough people out there who understand and believe that kids deserve better, but until now, there has been no organization for them. We’ll ask people across the country to join StudentsFirst—we’re hoping to sign up 1 million members and raise $1 billion in our first year.

Studentsfirst will work so that great teachers can make a tremendous difference for students of every background. We believe every family can choose an excellent school—attending a great school should be a matter of fact, not luck. We’ll fight against ineffective instructional programs and bureaucracy so that public dollars go where they make the biggest difference: to effective instructional programs. Parent and family involvement are key to increased student achievement, but the entire community must be engaged in the effort to improve our schools.

Though we’ll be nonpartisan, we can’t pretend that education reform isn’t political. So we’ll put pressure on elected officials and press for changes in legislation to make things better for kids. And we’ll support and endorse school-board candidates and politicians—in city halls, statehouses, and the U.S. Congress—who want to enact policies around our legislative agenda. We’ll support any candidate who’s reform-minded, regardless of political party, so reform won’t just be a few courageous politicians experimenting in isolated locations; it’ll be a powerful, nationwide movement.

Lastly, we can’t shy away from conflict. I was at Harvard the other day, and someone asked about a statement that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and others have made that public-school reform is the civil-rights issue of our generation. Well, during the civil-rights movement they didn’t work everything out by sitting down collaboratively and compromising. Conflict was necessary in order to move the agenda forward. There are some fundamental disagreements that exist right now about what kind of progress is possible and what strategies will be most effective. Right now, what we need to do is fight. We can be respectful about it. But this is the time to stand up and say what you believe, not sweep the issues under the rug so that we can feel good about getting along. There’s nothing more worthwhile than fighting for children. And I’m not done fighting.”

New Censorship Called “No Labels” Now Added onto “Political Correctness”!

Comment:  In the world of political correctness racists, Big Business  and the greedy and rich are all labeled ‘conservative’.  In truth most are the New Democrat, the American leftist family: gays, blacks, druggies, peaceniks, feminists, and unionists, and, more recently the global warming hysterics.    The accusations come from these Left, but the real perpetrators of hate are  the base of the Obama leftwing movement itself.    It is Obama who for twenty two years was a member of his father figure and pastor, Jeremiah “Goddamn America” Wright’s church in Chicago. 

Censors always think they are improving the peoples’ conversation.  I have a very good friend, crippled badly by never, ever showing an ability to think beyond the limits of leftwing language control.   She is a nurse, and belongs to a union.    Her entire human beviour beyond voting is conservative….and all the good things which accompany it.  

We cannot talk about anything but landscaping and the weather…..with both at fault, I might add. 

“Why can’t we talk without using ‘labels’ ?”, she had often insisted until I finally decided  to outline what labels were………NOUNS.  So I suggested she begin a conversation in which doesn’t  contain  nouns.   (You remember, persons, places or things.)   She quickly realized she couldn’t speak.

I have a negative associated with David Frum.   When I reduce my vocabulary to primary level, I remember the name “Frum” with “loony”, as in ‘progressive’……so,   RINO comes to mind.  But I can’t remember the issues in which he nourished that noun in my mind.  I think it was during the 2008 political campaigns.

I shall not forget “No Labels” is a dream of David Frum.  It won’t go far, but it may be absorbed by the rules of Marxist speech control,  political correctness.

Mr. Kurtz writes at National Review Online:

“Last week, the distinguished liberal thinker and activist William Galston, along with an equally distinguished conservative counterpart, David Frum, announced in the Washington Post the forthcoming founding of a new organization called “No Labels.” The stated aim of No Labels is to combat the “hyper-polarization” of American political debate by “calling out” politicians, media personalities, and opinion leaders who “recklessly demonize” opponents. Unfortunately, their announcement gives us reason to fear that No Labels will only increase the level of political acrimony by attempting to constrain debate, thereby exacerbating the very polarization the group claims it seeks to combat.

No Labels aims to “expand the space” of public debate in America by reducing the fear of “social or political retribution.” But this expansion is, by the two men’s own account, really a contraction. That is, Galston and Frum intend to moderate public debate by “establishing lines that no one should cross,” as they put it. Specifically, they seek to police the use of labels like “racist” and “socialist,” which they believe are used recklessly in a way that undermines democratic discussion of “legitimate policy differences.”

What this represents, in part, is an attempt to delegitimize and silence the substantial number of Americans who believe, with good reason, that President Obama’s policies are socialist in both effect and intent. Far from reducing the fear of “social and political retribution” in public debate, Galston and Frum mean to engineer an increase in such retribution, and to direct it to their own ends. In a democracy, we ought to be at pains to avoid preemptively drawing bright lines against any substantive point of view. Arguments instead ought to be tested and winnowed in the marketplace of ideas, with citizens judging political advocates on how well they support their own assertions and how effectively (and how fairly) they address counter-arguments.

What exactly do Galston and Frum mean when they say they intend to “call out” those who use labels like “racist” and “socialist” in public debate? I think I can answer that question, since a series of attacks engineered by Frum on my then-unpublished book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, appears to have been a dress rehearsal of sorts for the operation of No Labels.

On July 27, 2010, I announced the forthcoming publication of my book at National Review Online’s blog, the Corner. The announcement made it clear that my book was the result of more than two years of empirical and historical research into Barack Obama’s political past, and would marshal “a wide array of never-before-seen evidence to establish that the president of the United States is indeed a socialist.” Frum, however, didn’t wait to consider my evidence or argument, or even bother to read my book. Instead, he invited a self-described Democratic activist who writes under the pseudonym “Eugene Victor Debs” to attack the very idea of my book — before either had read it.

I would probably not have responded to an anonymous attack on an unpublished book were it not for the fact that I knew and respected Frum, who warned me in advance that Debs’s piece was coming and invited me to respond. I did reply to Debs, after which, to my surprise, the attacks kept coming, both from Debs and from Frum himself . In my responses to Frum and Debs, I finally began to speak more frankly about my dismay and puzzlement at their persistent attacks on a raft of new evidence that I had not yet even had a chance to present to the public. Oddly, since the actual publication of Radical-in-Chief, there has been not a word about the book from either Frum or Debs.

The announcement of the No Labels project by Galston and Frum makes perfect sense of all this. Given Frum’s response to the mere title and description of my book, it’s clear that the purpose of No Labels is not to engage those who call Obama socialist in a serious intellectual exchange, but rather to put their arguments beyond the pale of acceptable public debate. Far from being a recipe for moderation, Galston and Frum have hit on a surefire way to excite the very polarization they claim to oppose.

All Galston and Frum have done is to make explicit — and reinforce — the mainstream press’s existing determination to ignore and silence critics of Obama’s radicalism. Once No Labels gets going, public resentment at these silencing techniques is bound to increase. Contrary to Galston and Frum, the way to reduce polarization is not to suppress disagreement but to invite reasoned debate on the issues that actually divide us. Since a substantial portion of the public views the president as a covert radical, let the topic be debated in the widest and most respectable forums. If the president’s accusers offer mere bluster, or his defenders are living in denial, we shall see it all then. A true public debate on this issue in the pages of the mainstream press would rivet the public’s attention and immediately raise the level of discussion. By further suppressing this debate, on the other hand, Galston and Frum promote distrust and enmity between Left and Right.

None of this is particularly mysterious — or at least it ought not to be to those who have learned from the classical liberal approach to democratic debate recommended by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Mill discourages the creation of implicit or explicit rules banning any substantive claim in public debate, calling on us instead to judge a given argument according to the quality of its reasoning and the degree to which it fairly represents and successfully parries opposing points of view.

On its face, a principled opposition to political labeling is both incoherent and illiberal. Labels can surely be misused. Yet political discourse itself would be impossible without the basic terms through which we name and recognize our own political beliefs and those of others. Abused as they may often be, we can’t even think without labels — which is to say, without categories. Galston and Frum label their own opponents when they decry them for “brain-dead partisanship.” Apparently, Frum consigned my book to that category without even reading it. Who was the brain-dead partisan there? Galston and Frum don’t actually mean “no labels.” What they really mean is, “no labels of which we disapprove.” Their new group might more aptly be named “Shut Up.”

It is not the job of those who cherish liberty of thought and discussion to ban claims of Obama’s socialism or of Tea Party racism, but to subject all of these assertions to the scrutiny of serious debate. While many or most accusations of Tea Party racism are baseless, legitimate complaints are possible and cannot be ruled out in advance. If Tea Party critics have serious evidence of racism, let them present it. If their evidence is tissue-paper thin (as most of it has been), that weakness can be (and has been) exposed.

Furthermore, the equivalence Galston and Frum draw between accusations of racism and socialism is deceptive. Few, if any, people call themselves racists. On the other hand, a sitting U.S. senator, Bernie Sanders, and a prominent Washington Post columnist, Harold Meyerson, proudly call themselves socialists. My book reveals that many of President Obama’s colleagues and sponsors in the world of community organizing secretly saw themselves as socialists. Is it so impossible to believe that a man who was shaped for years by that world — and proudly boasts of it — might share the beliefs of his socialist mentors and colleagues?

By what standard is a lengthy and heavily-documented argument to this effect ruled out of acceptable public discussion? Why should Galston and Frum want to “call out” me or someone persuaded by my book? Why should making or accepting my argument be treated as moving beyond “a line that no one should cross?” And doesn’t that entangle Galston and Frum in exactly the sort of “political and social retribution” they claim to oppose?

I don’t want to imply that the only believers in Obama’s socialism who should get a pass from No Labels are the ones who rely on my book. Two and a half years of research into Obama’s past has left me with a healthy respect for the many Americans who concluded long ago that Obama was a socialist. No doubt some of these folks are intemperate and open to criticism. But I’m struck by how the critics were largely right — and for the right reasons, too. They looked at Obama’s questionable political partnerships, the not-so-hidden hints of radicalism in his memoirs, his own unguarded remarks during the campaign, the general tenor of Alinskyite community organizing, and the upshot of his political program. This yielded a rough-and-ready judgment that was harsh, but by no means unsupported. Two years of painstaking research in archives scattered across the country confirms that, on the whole and in the round, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Joe the Plumber, a host of bloggers, and even John McCain were correct: Obama really is a socialist. These critics are the folks Galston and Frum want to delegitimize and silence, but they had Obama correctly pegged from the start. My book irks Frum because it proves that his favorite targets have been right all along.

I suppose Galston and Frum will now put Jonah Goldberg’s thoughtful piece on Obama’s socialism beyond the pale of respectable public debate as well. What, exactly, other than Galston’s and Frum’s decree, disqualifies it? Among other things, Goldberg does an excellent job of showing how some of Obama’s strongest and most respected public supporters use the word “socialist” to characterize his policies. Will No Labels attack those who praise Obama for his socialism, or only the president’s critics?

And where do we draw the line? Political philosopher and commentator Peter Berkowitz recently published a piece in Policy Review analyzing and exposing the deceptive and illiberal nature of Obama’s progressivism. Berkowitz may not use the forbidden word “socialism,” but his offense, from Galston’s and Frum’s point of view, is arguably greater. Berkowitz takes the currently approved label “progressive” and exposes many of those whom it describes as employing a hypocritical and undemocratic ruse designed to deceive the public into overlooking the real intentions of its practitioners. To be sure, Berkowitz concedes that the deceptions of today’s progressives likely stem from some difficult-to-determine combination of honest self-delusion and intentional stealth. But if it’s out of bounds to call Obama a stealth socialist, why shouldn’t we also reject out of hand Berkowitz’s critique of stealthily illiberal progressivism? We could forgo all attributions of bad faith in public debate — if we could always rely on human honesty and transparency. Yet Galston’s and Frum’s argument actually depends on the attribution of bad faith to their “brain-dead partisan” opponents. It’s only President Obama’s good faith and transparency that they appear to place beyond question.

Berkowitz’s point is that, under the guise of furthering democratic debate, today’s progressives actually scheme to find ways to suppress it. Galston and Frum are up to the same thing.”

— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism.

Comment:  Of course Barack Obama is a socialist.  He’s not a Leninist.   Lenin was a Leninist.   Lenin was also a Marxist, a state socialist, and a communist as well, depending on which term is more preferable at a particular time in his ‘progressivism’.   I am pleased Mr. Kurtz is brave enough to use such a label to describe the president’s political persuasion.     Maybe conservatives should call him an Obamaist and invent a more specific sort of socialism as a label for his politics…..defining  it all as a noun which means big government, big taxes  including an enormous debt and ego to go with it. 

DADT and the Same-Sex Marriage Issue Hit Powerline People

I do not like involving  myself in the American battles against gay politics.  These issues I have faced  personally for many years.  On a list of twenty items of who I think I am as a human being, being  gay would be about number sixteen.  I have no idea what this word mean  to anyone who might be reading this, but the word should be  filled with complexities which run all around a world of possible definitions. 

I fought the proclivity’s feelings successfully until the  end of my 34th year marriage.   I have 3 adult children and can announce often and loudly that the most wonderful life-changing event of my life was becoming a father……As it turned out I would never have discovered my powerful paternal instinct without that first born arriving  home  from the hospital.  

I do not recommend others to fight or not fight their sexual identity.  The broader citzenry should certainly realize that such identities are not limited in their sexual expressions nor are they equal in how they are disciplined.   Looking to the past I believe I was very fortunate to have lived in the  culture of that time; one that neither  advertised nor glorified matters homosexual.  I was allowed to discover my own life’s path by living, not byobeying someone else’s  instruction…..  But, that was then.  Today is now.  

The primary purpose of marriage is to legalize before the  public the unity of man and woman with the societal expectation of an orderly continuation of life as the community knows life.  The role and being of the human female is exceedingly different from the human male……despite what the idiots propagandize today at your local colleges and univerisities  that any differences between the sexes result merely from  socialization. 

 Union of male and female is   needed to offer the best upbringing for the young in the ideal setting.   The union of two males or two females should never compete equally with  the raising of children,  all things being equal.  I don’t see how in a free modern society legal unions between males or females should be outlawed. 

Married folks raising children should receive certain special  considerations

When I was younger I didn’t know there was a gay lifestyle.  If there were, I didn’t want to know.   I didn’t know what gay meant and was well disciplined not to find out.   I felt very male, but was afraid to “hunt’ for females as my buddies did. 

I served in the army for two years in the late 1950s.   I never knowingly came across any gays anywhere when I was in the service, including myself.   I was very disciplined.

I have spent much time considering what a free society’s rules should be regarding not only gays serving  in the military, but more importantly gays as “married” folk.

Paul Mirengoff wrote the following article, “Grounds for Objecting to Same Sex Marriage”, at PowerLine today.

“My post on the contrasting grounds for objecting to repeal of DADT on the one hand, and to state recognition of same-sex marriages on the other has, as expected, generated many comments by readers. I thank each reader who took the trouble to write.

I can’t address all of the comments, so let me focus on two strands. First, one reader points me to an assessment by Stanley Kurtz of the empirical evidence regarding the effects of gay marriage in European cultures. Another discusses experience in Canada.

I wasn’t aware of Stanley’s work on this subject and I take no position on his analysis. For what it’s worth, I’ll observe that In the European culture I’m most familiar with, France, marriage is in a bad way for reasons having nothing apparent to do with gay marriage.

Other readers have said that gay marriage is objectionable because, in the words of one, the essence of marriage is a union between a man and a woman. This is, indeed, a common objection (though not one mentioned in the article by Prof. Eskridge that prompted my post).

Since this argument is, for me, a quintessentially ideological one, it reinforces my thesis that the main arguments against the state recognizing gay marriage differ in kind from the arguments against repealing DADT.

As I tried to say in my initial post, the fact that an argument is ideological does not mean it should be rejected. Personally, however, I am less persuaded by ideological arguments against gay marriage than by pragmatic arguments for retaining DADT.”

The folks at PowerLine mean well, I am sure.   However,  I cannot imagine any conservative more accepting of gay “marriage” than accepting gays in the military, on duty at  the front or in an office or at a motor pool.  I realize there is a generational difference and they likely graduated from a university where marriage was ignored as a ‘sacrement’ and probably ignored in general.

Serving in a tribe’s or nations military has rarely  been a ‘sacrament’.  That historical difference should give a hint to the moderns that  a ‘sacred’ institution has higher status than an institution not considered sacred.   Not to suggest for a moment healthy societies  haven’t honored their  warriors.   Americans traditionally have with the   sordid exception  of  the John F. Kerry-led Leftist druggies spewing and spreading hate against the U. S. military during the Vietnam war.

The historical and religious purpose of marriage is to honor,  before the public, the union of female and male  in legal  spriritual, and sexual  bond to provide offspring to continue the human condition and ‘tribal ‘ or national traditions.   That we Americans have corrupted this ideal doesn’t mean the ideal is flawed.   It might mean, as I believe, and I suggest from their writings the folks at PowerLine believe it means, ‘American culture is flawed and in trouble’.

I haven’t seen many arguments against some legal arrangement   for  unions between  gays or  lesbians.    Marriage should be returned to the ‘sacred’ standard with society’s  special “seal of approval” to encourage the institution as the basis for child rearing……an institution a step higher than the union of gays or lesbians for  ‘legal’ adoptions  except  in special cases.

Regarding DADT, the major problem isn’t working or fighting for ones country beside gays  in the military.   The main problem will be in the process and the discipline with which gays become a normal part of a military unit.    It’s the “openly” part of the gay military world which should strongly limited and “therein lies the rub”….  to quote Shakespeare. 

I believe very strongly that there is an animal instinct within some human males to  be deeply repelled by those they view as  society’s  male sexual misfits.  Some  of them are gay, by the way.  Many might be in the military.   Of course it is irrational, if it does indeed occur as I believe it exists.   The mixing can occur successfully in the military through tolerance and clear  discipline by a determined cadre to insure military performance at its best   when on duty in any of the military services.   The feminized Left’s ‘sensitivity training’ programs should be avoided at all costs. 

If civilized society does not give special status to male-female marriage, no one can possibly doubt that there will be new and newer liaisons to be recognized as marriages….such as marrying ones dolphin or dog as has been done in the old British Commenwealth recenly.   Then bigamy, groups, fourteen year olds,  daughters marrying fathers and brothers…..Why not….In the progressive  society, Anything Goes.

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Videos of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Battle to Return New Jersey to Financial Solvency

Governor Christie has Democrats talking about “tax cuts” for New Jersey!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/12/04/nj_democrats_now_talking_about_tax_cuts.html

Governor Christie  battling the public sector unions for opposing shared sacrifice in New Jersey’s budget crisis:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOF_rvHdd8

Governor Christie explaining the path required for government to return to “reckoning and accountability”  and its  opposition:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evtt-R7Rmdw

Governor Christie meets with New Jersey teachers’ union  president  to discuss an apology for  a labor leader’s note sent to union members to hope  for the governor’s death:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/11/20/awesome-chris-christie-tells-of-apology-from-president-of-teachers-union/

Governor Christie exposing fraud and politics in the New Jersey School Administration system:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/11/christie-makes-it-personal

Governor Christie responds to ‘teacher’ (annual salary $83,000) complaining of low pay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw0aBkt8CPA

Governor Christie responds to “teacher” angrily attacking the governor for allegedly being anti-teacher:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkuTm-ON904

Governor Christie  explaining to Liberal reporter “This is who I am”…..

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/05/13/video-chris-christie-destroys-reporter-for-calling-him-confrontational/

Governor Christie  reviews his family background while announcing his candidacy  for Governor of New Jersey, in 2009:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16p4w9NZX60

Public Unions Anti-American!?! They Seem to Be in New Jersey!

No Volunteers, Please, We’re Unionized

Petaluma is one of those idyllic small cities that dot Route 101 on the way north from the Golden Gate Bridge through the wine country.  But Petaluma, struggling like most municipalities in California under the current fiscal crisis, has found delivering public services — from education to public safety — anything but pleasant, says Pete Peterson, executive director of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy.

• The Petaluma City Schools district has trimmed millions from its budget over the last two years, as the deficit-ridden California state government has decreased its local support by 25 percent.
• The cuts have meant layoffs for district employees at all levels, from teachers to playground supervisors.
• In response, parents and concerned Petalumans have stepped forward to try to fill the nonteaching gaps, volunteering their time to maintain school services.

The volunteers have worked in new roles identified by the school administration, but they’ve also stepped in to perform jobs eliminated by budget cuts.  But those positions are unionized by the California School Employees’ Association (CSEA) — and that’s where the problems started, says Peterson.

• When volunteers began to help answer phones in the office and support the school librarian at Petaluma Junior High School, CSEA Local 212 president Loretta Kruusmagi immediately objected.
• Representing 350 clerical and janitorial staff in the Petaluma school district, Kruusmagi betrays not the least concern for the kids her union supposedly serves when she glowers: “As far as I’m concerned, they never should have started this thing…Our stand is you can’t have volunteers, they can’t do our work.”

Like so many other public-sector unions across the country, the CSEA has proven unwilling to accept the new reality that budget shortfalls are imposing on local governments.  The Petaluma clash and others around the state are illustrating how public-sector unions work against citizens in budget-ravaged times.

What happens in Petaluma will provide a glimpse of whether public sector unions have learned anything from the nation’s ongoing fiscal difficulties.  Are they willing to be part of a collaborative solution, or does their self-interest trump all?

Source: Pete Peterson, “No Volunteers, Please, We’re Unionized,” City Journal, November 30, 2010.

for text:  

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon1130pp.html

To view the battle between the elected governor of New Jersey and the public sector unions, please click here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvOF_rvHdd8

“Time” Mag Man: “Our Job Is Not to Protect the U.S.”…..So, When Is A Traitor A Traitor?

During those dark years at home and abroad during the climax of the Vietnam War,  many of the more  ’modern’ American journalists began to annouce that the journalist’s role was more sacred  loyalty to ones country.   Journalists were into seeking the “truth” they declared.   

These New Age journalists covering the war who would hook up with the enemy, the Viet Cong, to write sympathetically about the enemy’s  superior skills and cause, seeing them as freedom fighters.   That these   “freedom fighters”  from the North’s Communist dictatorhip  had assassinated over 60,000 democratically elected village chieftans throughout South Vietnam  had been  the primary reason President Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson moved to defend the South was quicly forgotten by the American “free” press….for that was yesterday’s news.   After Richard M. Nixon’s election in 1968  these freedom fighting journalists were determined report the war as Nixon’s folly.

Many such  journalists, in order to get closer to their  ”truth”,  joined up  with the Viet Cong for “better” up front reporting  which included participating in ambushings viewing  countless American troops being  killed.  

“Our job is not to protect the U.S.”  was the pronouncement of these American modernists.  Old fashioned American journalists did not play such games of treason.

Today, “Our job is not to protect the U.S.”  is a quote made by a Richard Stengel,  “Time” magazine man.   He is, as you can imagine, opining about Julian Assange’s Wikileaks project.   Click on for the video at RealClearPolitics:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/12/05/times_stengel_defends_printing_wikileaks_our_job_is_not_to_protect_the_us.html

Liz Peek at Fox News: Is Obama Channeling Jimmy Carter?

“Hooray for Amazon. The online giant announced Wednesday that it was booting WikiLeaks off its servers, requiring the notorious organization to retreat. Not that it seems to matter much; WikiLeaks’ site is still going strong. Still, at least somebody is doing something to retaliate against the dumping of U.S. state secrets.

The Obama administration appears inert. Though pledging to forestall any future releases after the devastating leaks of military records last month, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have responded to the recent publishing of hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables by…..what exactly? 

Apparently, people can divulge classified information from our government agencies with impunity.

Americans are understandably angry. Not only are the leaks seriously compromising our military and diplomatic missions, they are embarrassing. They show the U.S. to be powerless; we feel humiliated. 

The American people are proud – proud of our country and our accomplishments. We don’t do humiliated well.

The last president to learn that lesson was Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter was that rare bird — a one-term president – mainly because he made the United States look weak on the world stage. 

He cozied up to North Korea, sending hundred of millions of dollars in aid to the outlier nation, which nonetheless continued to pursue its nuclear ambitions. 

He was mocked by Russia, despite memorably exchanging a kiss with Communist leader Leonid Breshnev to celebrate the signing of the Salt II treaty. The Russians celebrated on their own by invading Afghanistan a mere six months later. 

Where his “love your enemies” program really came unglued, of course, was in Iran. After lecturing the Shah – a long-time ally of the U.S. – on human rights and pressing him to release thousands of dangerous dissidents, he allowed the takeover of Iran by Islamic extremists, who promptly took our embassy staff hostage. In one of the most humiliating chapters in our history, Carter’s administration was unable to secure the release of the hostages. A bungled rescue attempt was the last straw. Americans veritably raced to the polls to elect Ronald Reagan president.

Is any of this sounding familiar? It should. Like Carter, President Obama arrived in Washington naively convinced that he could woo the despots of the world by dint of his winning personality. In North Korea, in Iran, we continue to pander to tyrants who delight in embarrassing us.

The similarities extend beyond international relations. Carter was also defeated because he left the economy in tatters. Inflation during his tenure rose to nearly 15% — a record level – and we headed into a recession. 

His response to a rapid increase in fuel costs was to impose price controls, which naturally magnified the problem, resulting in long lines at the gas pumps and tremendous market dislocations. Just as Obama has produced record budget deficits heeding the guidance of left-leaning economists, so did Carter willingly experiment.

The parallels are eerie. Trying to appease environmentalists and in response to the Three Mile Island accident, Carter banned the transmutation (processing) of nuclear fuel – procedures that have safely taken place in Europe for thirty years – in effect shutting down our nuclear energy program and increasing our dependence on oil imports. (President Reagan lifted the ban in 1981.) 

Just this week the Obama administration, also to curry favor with eco-warriors and in response to the Deepwater Horizon spill this past spring, shut down offshore drilling in several promising (and politically crucial) regions. The billions of barrels potentially available from within our own country will have to wait til the next president, or the next oil crisis.

And there will be a next oil crisis. Both Carter and Obama have pressed for a more even-handed approach to Middle East peace. Carter has famously backed Palestinian demands while Obama presses friendship with the Muslim community. So far, his overtures have resulted in disappointment and frustration in the Arab world and a dangerous chill in our relations with Israel. A more belligerent Iran could well read this fissure as opportune; nothing would better secure the power of Iran’s rulers than a confrontation with Israel.

Presidents Obama and Carter both arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue carrying the slimmest of dossiers, swept into office by a wave of anger against Republicans. Both appear strangely poor at reading the American people. 

On day one of his term, Jimmy Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft dodgers. That did not go over well – it went almost as badly as Obama’s decision to hold 9/11 terror trials in New York City. 

Their personalities overlap, too; for instance, both men are quick to blame others for their shortcomings. 

Carter has famously held the late Ted Kennedy responsible for his inability to pass health care legislation; Obama blames George W. Bush for, well, everything. 

Both Carter and Obama have been criticized for talking down to Americans; both tend to lecture, instead of lead. 

Any minute now we can expect Obama to deliver his version of the famous “Malaise” speech, in which Carter whined about the despair pervading the country. Carter didn’t realize that the despair was emanating from the White House. The minute he was gone, the sun came out, ushered in by Ronald Reagan.

Ironically, former President Jimmy Carter dropped by the White House on Wednesday. He must have felt entirely at home. The nation is reeling from self-inflicted embarrassments that have Americans feeling impotent and humiliated – just like the good old days when he lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Oh – and here’s one more parallel: Presidents Carter and Obama simply hate Fox News.”

Liz Peek is a financial columnist who writes for The Fiscal Times. She is a frequent contributor to Fox News Opinion.

Obama Turns To Courts to Attack New Jersey’s Efforts to Become Solvent

“The US Department of Transportation is demanding that Trenton repay $271 million in federal funds already spent on the proposed Hudson River commuter tunnel — a project Christie scrapped because of spiraling cost overruns.

Adding insult to injury, DOT insisted that Jersey pay the bill within 30 days — or face hefty interest charges and late fees and have NJ Transit reported to bond-rating agencies.

Not so fast, says Christie.

“It’s not surprising that the same federal transit agency that had no clear way to pay for cost overruns of a project already hurt by poor planning and inequitable cost-sharing is relying on bureaucratic power plays to wring even more money out of New Jerseyans,” he said.

Christie notes that other states that have similarly pulled the plug on federally funded transportation projects have not been forced to repay money that’s already been spent.

The strict 30-day deadline reeks of petty vindictiveness aimed at a governor who’s increasingly being spoken of as a 2012 GOP presidential candidate.

Or, as Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg nastily observed, it would be a shame if “taxpayers ultimately have to foot the bill for the governor’s mistake.”

Lautenberg apparently thinks it’s better for the state to spend billions in order to save a fraction of that amount.

Typical Democrat.

New Jersey, after all, was on the hook for $2.7 billion of the tunnel’s cost, originally budgeted at $8.7 billion — plus 50% of any overruns, with the Port Authority paying the other half.

When Christie pulled the plug, the budget had already soared to $11 billion; estimates put the final cost at upwards of $14 billion.

And, of course, it won’t stop there.

Team Obama originally offered to “help” by making it easier for Trenton — already plagued by crushing long-term debt — to borrow more money.”

(The above is reprinted from Opinion Page at the New York Post.)

The Shady Christopher Dodd, Senator from Connecticut

The following article was written by Kevin Rennie at courant.com and was a representative in the Connecticut state house at one time.   The name “Dodd” as in Christopher Dodd is not a treasured name in American finance, and hasn’t been for several years.   This Dodd, a cohort of shady Representative Barney  Frank was involved with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac corruption which generated much of the financial chaos for the crisis of Lehman Brothers collapse in September, 2008 and many of the ensuing ripples damaging the American and subsequently the world financial market.   He also was a major borrower of Countryside.   Mr. Rennie adds more darkness  to this shady Mr. Dodd.

“Shady Dealings Brought Dodd Down”

“Sen. Christopher Dodd  leaves office disappointed and bewildered.

The people don’t trust their government. Even our leaders seem not to like each other much. The U.S. Senate is not nearly as cozy as it was when Dodd joined it 30 years ago. Oh dear, this is troubling.

The ceaseless news cycle dismays Dodd, allowing the public to keep a more searching eye on the governing class. The new media age caused Dodd to come to grief in his final years in office. Forget the speech the five-term incumbent delivered Tuesday if you want to learn the essentials of Dodd’s notion of good governing.

Instead, go to YouTube and watch the short clips from March 2009 of Dodd caught in stark prevarications over his role in protecting $165 million in bonuses for his generous friends at financial giant and albatross AIG. Over the course of two interviews in 24 hours on CNN, Dodd first denied with his trademark vehemence that he had anything to do with inserting a section into the February 2009 stimulus bill that allowed AIG executives to keep their staggering bonuses from a company that required nearly $100 billion in taxpayer assistance.

The next day, after officials at the Treasury Department contested Dodd’s claim of ignorance, the “liberal lion” was caught. He had not told the truth when asked a simple question about an important matter that vexed the public. Pay no attention to the campaign contributions that AIG lavished on Dodd both for the Senate and his 2008 misbegotten bid for president.

It isn’t the news cycle that causes the public to lose faith in political leaders, it’s the news of what they do with their authority. Dodd’s respect for the legislative process was not in view during that squalid episode.

A year ago, Dodd’s beleaguered re-election campaign was peddling an extraordinary poll claiming Connecticut voters were coming back to him in his bid for a sixth term. A few weeks later, he withdrew from the race he was doomed to lose. It was an astonishing fall for the man who had long been the state’s most popular politician.

In the contest between duty and ambition, Dodd made the wrong choice when in late 2006 he launched a bid for the Democratic nomination for president. In the year that followed, Dodd ignored his new responsibilities as head of the Senate Banking Committee. It had taken a quarter of a century for Dodd to rise to the leadership of a powerful committee. When the moment came, he fled to Iowa.

Ah, Iowa. That was the first obvious breach in Dodd’s relationship with Connecticut, the state that sent him to the Senate. How he must pine for life on the Plains. Only three years ago, he moved to Des Moines, enrolled his children in school there (yes, in Iowa), and spent Christmas trying to convince the state’s Democrats to support him in their presidential nominating caucus on Jan. 2, 2008. Of the 2,500 local delegates chosen, Dodd won 1. His $18 million campaign collapsed.

Five months later, Conde Nast Portfolio magazine’s Dan Golden reported that Dodd had been on a secret list of favored customers kept by Angelo Mozilo, the head of failed subprime mortgage titan Countrywide. Dodd denied he knew anything about the preferred customer list, then admitted he did. He said he would release documents related to his mortgage transactions, but bobbed and weaved for months, holding a snap peekaboo press conference one wintry morning in 2009 to flash the documents.

In September 2008, he claimed that he was stymied by Countrywide failing to provide documents related to his mortgages. It had, and Dodd had given those documents to a Chicago firm to review two months before he claimed he didn’t have the information.

A few months later, revelations of Dodd’s lucrative and furtive real estate dealings in Ireland appeared in this column. On Tuesday, Dodd bemoaned this age of partisanship. When I made secret land records from Ireland public, Dodd’s initial response was to denigrate their credibility because they’d been obtained by a Republican.

The people of Connecticut took his measure anew and found Dodd wanting in fundamental ways. The system wasn’t broken — it worked, to Dodd’s disappointment.”

Kevin Rennie is a lawyer and a former Republican state legislator. He can be reached at kfrennie@yahoo.com.