Teachers Unions Again

This opinion piece by Bob Ewing is heartbreaking. A successful, school choice program in DC is being shut down because teachers unions are corrupt.

The Washington DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP)

targeted 2000 of the poorest kids in DC who were stuck in some of the worst schools in the country. It gave their parents a $7,500 scholarship to attend a private school of their choice. The response was immediate. Four applications were filled out for every slot available. Parents loved the program, considering it a lifeline for their children, a way to escape failing schools and enter safe, functional schools.

Even better - OSP was a bargain. The article conservatively estimates that DC spends $17,542 per child. And the program has born results. Reading is better and graduation rates are up. These kids can now get jobs. And "each additional high school graduate saves the country $260,000.

More important than numbers, though, is that these kids now know that they are important enough to be educated. All our kids are. We can do this. There is no reason why this program should have been scrapped. There is no reason why families in New York City should rely on a lottery for the destiny of their children.



We have to reform the teachers unions so that we can pay our teachers well and educate our children better. All of our children.

Oil Tragedy

Here is a detailed article about what is still wrong in the Gulf Coast. It is a tragedy. And a travesty.

I admire the fire chiefs who don't care whether they will be arrested for breaking some irrelevant law in their attempt to protect their rivers and marshes.

A couple of fire chiefs from the Magnolia River and Fish River communities in Alabama got tangled up in five weeks’ worth of red tape just to bring in equipment to block the oil from getting into their rivers. “They can arrest me and Jamie if they want to,” one of them said, “This is the biggest damn mess I’ve ever seen.”

Common sense is such a forgotten virtue.

You Can't Say One Thing and Do Another

Or at least you shouldn't. And there are consequences if you do. Legal Insurrection has this post about Charlie Crist being sued for return of donations. Former donors have filed a class action lawsuit demanding the return of donations to Crist given while he was running as a Republican. Instead, he actually ran against the Republican candidate. The post includes a copy of the complaint.

Helen Thomas "Retires"

CNN reportshere.
I'd say.

Go Home . . . to Poland and Germany??

Helen Thomas, of the White House Press Corps, had this to say about Israel, at the WHITE HOUSE JEWISH HERITAGE CELEBRATION on May 27, 2010. Who, exactly, was invited to this "celebration"?



Victor Davis Hanson has this response:

[A] million thoughts spark: well, Helen, that’s where 6 million were gassed. Or, Helen, some Jews have been in “Palestine” from pre-antiquity. Or, Helen, some 3rd-generation Israelis have been in Israel as long as your family has been in the United States. Or, Helen, exactly how do you envision the process of removing them? Trains to Haifa, where boats head to “processing centers” in Bremen and Gdansk? Perhaps the Iranian quick way?

I realize Ms. Thomas is in her dotage, but had anyone else voiced anything similar about any other particular group, they would be banned from the White House press corps, rather than feted. Case closed.

The article, A Memo to the Turkish Ambassador, is actually in response to the Ambassador to Turkey's op-ed insisting that Israel apologize to Turkey for the flotilla incident, and encouraging the United States to pressure Israel to do so. Mr. Hanson argues that it is Turkey that should be offering the apology. Assuming that an apology would actually help, I agree. But since it won't, I like this idea.

In Support of a Second Holocaust (Not Me!)

This is chilling. It gives me a pit in my stomach.

Race to the Top

David Kopel has this post about how the President's Race to the Top program, which awards grants to a states that show plans to implement dramatic reform in education, has encouraged Colorado to pass legislation that reforms its tenure system for public school teachers.

In brief, the bill would replace the current system of gaining tenure (work three years without getting fired) with a requirement for three consecutive years of teaching success. Tenure could be lost, however, based on two consecutive years of teaching failure. After that, a school district could choose not to rehire a teacher for the next school year, but if so, the teacher would be entitled to an appeals process.

I agree wholeheartedly with Kopel's conclusions (emphasis mine):

Generally speaking, I favor much less federal involvement in local education, which is why I disagreed with Bush’s No Child Left Behind, even though NCLB had many good features. In fact, I would prefer that the federal Department of Education be abolished. But President Obama wasn’t elected to abolish the DOE. He was elected to deliver Change We Can Believe In, and in the Race to the Top program, President Obama and Secretary Duncan are providing the leadership for constructive change.

Arizona Is Not About Race

The new Arizona law is not about race to its proponents. This LA Times article cites a Rasmussen poll finding that

among angry Arizonans only a tiny fraction (10%) are angry at work-seeking illegal immigrants themselves. The overwhelming number (85%) are angry at the federal government for its failure to secure the state's border with Mexico.

And this LA Times article cites a Pew Research Center Poll finding that "73% of the country thinks police requesting immigration status documents is fine" and that, overall, "59% approve of the law's broad provisions."

The only people mentioning race are the opponents of the bill. That is telling. And nefarious. The law is about borders and order. And incompetence.

Bennett and His Funeral

This interview of Bob Bennett reacting to his recent loss by NRO is the most interesting I've read thus far. He seems to blame the Club for Growth rather than the Tea Party.

"While there was a great deal of tea-party activity, it is never accurate to attribute a win or loss to any one, single factor. Politics is much too complicated for that.” In many ways, he says, he shares the tea partiers’ conservative values.

The article mentions that he has still not yet decided whether he will "retire" or launch a write-in campaign. I guess that's why he's trying to cozy up.

“The anger out there is against Washington and the federal government,” Bennett says, “as if the federal government was some monolithic, single institution. And I’m in Washington, so with many of [the voters], I’m seen as part of the federal government, the government they want to throw out and punish. They tell me the only way they can punish the federal government is by voting against you — nothing against you, nothing personal, you understand. Voting me out, they say, is the only way we can send the message to Washington that we hate them.” The Obamacare debate, he says, generated most of “the hatred . . . it became a lightning rod.”

Senator Bennett has a message for Senator Hatch - don't worry. "It's entirely too early." I don't think Bob got the message.

Johan Goldberg got the message.

The conventional Beltway interpretation is that Bennett fell victim to the growing right-wing "extremism" of the Republican Party, fueled by those Huns, the "tea partyers."

This is not an altogether crazy interpretation, but it is an insufficient one. It assumes that those who voted him out at the state GOP convention were irrational ideologues who cannot grasp their own interests. . . .

Another way of looking at this is that the GOP rank and file is actually serious about what it says.

And, as Goldberg notes, "this time we mean it."

The Tea Party Didn't Oust Senator Bennett

I know that many groups and news outlets, notably the DNC (DNC Chairman Tim Kaine: “Today the Tea Party strengthened its hold on the Republican Party by ousting Utah's Senator Bob Bennett from the primary."), have opined that the move to oust Bennett proves that the Tea Party has taken over the Republican Party and moved the party to the far-right. I don't believe that's correct, for two reasons:

(1) Tea Partiers weren't the only ones that wanted him out. And the delegates weren't all Tea Partiers. People here lost faith in Senator Bennett - he has been there for 18 years and has failed to make strong stands for anything. And delegates here felt that he, as our Senator, needed to be accountable for what has happened over the last 20 years.

(2) The Tea Party is not far-right. Since when were fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free market far-right principles? It's my understanding that Tea Partiers are tired of big government and deficit spending and secret deal-making. That doesn't seem far-right to me. People are tired and angry and desperate for smart, responsible, and accountable leaders. And if I'm just mistaken and the Tea Party really is far-right -- then the left should ask itself, "Why are our moderates, our centrists, our base, drinking tea?"

The Tea Party didn't oust Senator Bennett. People disaffected with government ousted Senator Bennett. The Tea Party is just the loudest at the moment. And we are thankful for them. The scare-mongerers out there who are trying to convince the nation that the far-right is coming to get them might make a few headlines, but that's all.

Why? Because we, the people, are disaffected with government - and we know we're not crazy.

Utah Republican Party Will Have a Primary for a NEW Senator

After a long day of elections at the Utah State Republican Convention, delegates determined that Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee will face off in a Primary to see who will be the Republican nominee for Senate. After the 3rd round of voting, Tim Bridgewater received 57.28% of the vote and Mike Lee received 42.72%. Bridgewater almost reached the 60% threshold that would have given him the nomination.

After the 2nd round when Bennett was voted out, the candidates were allowed a 1 minute speech. Mike Lee ceded his time to a pre-recorded endorsement speech by Senator Jim DeMint (here's the video). The audience cheered in response, but I don't think it helped sway many votes (it was shown after most of the delegates had already marked their ballots and were waiting in line to vote - I only saw 1 or 2 ballots in my stack with Bridgewater's name crossed out and Lee's name circled. That is, of course, not a scientific analysis.) I was surprised Mike hadn't played the video earlier, but I suspect that he didn't have the endorsement until Senator Bennett was out. I don't have any personal knowledge of that, though.

Senator Bennett was voted out in the 2nd round. This is big. This sort of thing - an incumbent being booted out at a party convention - hasn't happened in Utah in 70 years. As the pre-polling had shown, he didn't receive more than 26% of the delegate vote at any time. He did, however, I believe, succeed in souring some of the delegates on Mike Lee. And he did that because Mike was the first and only candidate to show that Bennett was actually vulnerable.

And Mike was right. And I think he'll fare better with the general electorate.

Bennett is out!

There will likely be a primary between Lee and Bridgewater but we won't know until last round is counted.

Utah Senate Race

Moving on: Lee (1st 29%) Bridgewater (2nd 27%) Bennett (3rd 26%).

Utah Convention

Round 1 Senate vote done.

Cherilyn Eager

You've disappointed women everywhere by starting with your soft, quiet voice and moving to sarcasm. Tears in the eyes of Reagan? Good strong end but first impressions are everything.

Mike Lee

Mike didn't need a fancy spokesperson to open for him - just some good old Constitution.

We can do hard things. Today.

More on Convention

Three speeches in on Senate candidates and three mentions of Arlen Specter's party switch. Who knew events in Pennsylvania would resonate so strongly in the intermountain west. I wonder how Orrin Hatch's relationship is with Specter these days.

The party is regrouping.

Goodbye Senator Bennett

I'm at the Utah County Convention now. A Bennett supporter just stole my pen and gave it to someone he deemed needed it more. Mitt Romney was scripted and partially booed. He is tan though.

I support Mike Lee because he's against stealing pens in the first place.