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The Most Important Election of Them All

Well, yes and no. Aren’t all presidential elections the most important election in history? It certainly feels that way, especially if you listen to the media buzz that emanates every four years. The future of the country is at stake. The direction of our foreign and domestic policies will be set by the voters in this election.

So it shall be in 2016, but this time there is some truth to the hype. We’ve just witnessed a few Supreme Court decisions that have profoundly changed the country’s political and social landscape. We are still suffering from the after-effects of the Great Recession. Race has roared back as a flashpoint issue. The world situation is critical (as it always seems to be). And by the end of this month, we’ll likely have over 20 people who’d like to run this government formally declare their intention to do so. Impressive. Or foolish.

Right now I would say that the edge in the race has to go to the Democrats, if for no other reason than they have a clear front-runner in Hillary Clinton and control of the electoral college map. The Republicans are far more split than the left and the remnants of the Tea Party are forcing some of the more moderate candidates to run farther to the right than they’d like. Of course, Bernie Sanders might have that impact on Clinton, forcing her to the left, but she has the advantage of being a known quantity for the past two decades. In addition, more of the Republican candidates are nationally known than are Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb, which means that it will be more difficult for their messages to find daylight.

The Republicans will have the burden to show that they can run the country more effectively than President Obama has during his term. The problem is that more Americans favor the Democratic position on most major issues. Most of the GOP candidates have come out against the court’s marriage equality ruling and want to enact religious freedom laws to protect those people who oppose that decision. These laws might be popular in certain states, but when Indiana tried to enact such a law in March, it met with intense opposition from the business community, the NCAA, and other groups who are committed to a diverse educational and workplace environment. Plus, moderates favor marriage equality, and the GOP will need those voters in key states if it wants to win next November. Rolling back the major civil rights issue of our day will likely be a self-inflicted wound from which the Republican Party will not likely recover.

The same is true, to a lesser extent, on the issues of health care and immigration. The American public is still split on whether the ACA is good policy, but most people want the law to be fixed, not repealed. That the Supreme Court saved the law will provide fundraising fodder for the right, but the GOP cannot afford to take health insurance away from those who already have it under the exchanges. They have floated a fix, but it would repeal the personal mandate, and that would cause havoc because those premiums are  keeping the law afloat. And the health care industry is changing so rapidly because of the law that companies and hospitals would probably oppose anything that cuts into their profits or practices. Remember that the ACA was based on conservative principles. The GOP should recognize that. If they can’t find a way to fix the law, they might find that public opinion turns more to the left, and towards a public health care system that’s the dream of most Democrats.

Donald Trump notwithstanding, the Republicans have a big problem when it comes to immigration. Any candidate that echoes Mitt Romney’s “self deportation” policy in 2016 will lose badly. Marco Rubio supports an immigration plan that is more progressive than the other candidates and he’s paying for it by losing support among conservatives. One of the candidates is going to have to convince the faithful that a new immigration law is in the best interests of the party and the country. That candidate will then have chance at winning the general election.

The Democrats have their own problems because they can’t run too far away from President Obama, but they can’t be too close either. Americans like the idea of more forceful environment action, but don’t like executive orders. They want higher wages and less income inequality, but don’t want higher taxes or government regulation of the economy. And I suspect that most people don’t want the government to punish banks, as Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have advocated.

The Republicans need to present a more positive message to the country about what they’re going to do if elected, not continue to be against everything that the Democrats are for. They have to realize, as the Democrats did in the 1980s, that their policies are not connecting with enough voters for them to win a national election. This election, though, like most, will be fought on economic and security grounds. Again, the GOP is on the defensive as they are seen as the protectors of the wealthy and against spending on infrastructure, public education, and health issues. An arch conservative, like an arch liberal, will not win in 2016. Pragmatism and a vision to move us forward will.

Because this is the most important election of them all.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Express Yourself Healthcare News ObamaCare Politics the supreme court

The Conservative Court Turns Left

The same court that brought us corporations as people, unlimited political money, abortion restrictions, a step backwards in voting rights, and unequal pay has now thrown some serious bones to the left in the form of a stronger Affordable Care Act and a right to gay marriage. I’m sure that wherever they are, David Souter and Sandra Day O’Connor are smiling just as broadly as President Obama and millions of formerly marginalized United States citizens are across this land.

It just goes to show you that handicapping Supreme Court decisions based on the justices’ questions and demeanor during oral arguments is a dangerous, unpredictable sport. Remember that the Chief Justice asked only one substantial question during the health care arguments, but he surprised almost everyone by writing a rather forceful decision upholding the law. Justice Kennedy was widely seen as the bellwether on marriage equality, and he provided the fifth vote to recognize that dignity comes in many forms.

The Originalist Triplets from Different Mothers–Scalia, Thomas and Alito–certainly didn’t disappoint their right wing adherents by pointing out to us that laws should be read as written and that if marriage was a right, then why didn’t the nation recognize it until now? Never mind that the country didn’t recognize civil rights for African-Americans for over 100 years after the Civil War, and that was with an amendment specifically crafted to remedy that injustice. Justice Thomas’s career-defining quote about how slaves did not lose their dignity because the government allowed them to be enslaved was not only a jaw-dropping bit of incongruity, but also a shocking misunderstanding of what the word means.

But this is the danger of the originalist doctrine. It presumes to know exactly what the Framers meant not only in their time, but in ours. I’m no legal expert, but I’ve committed my professional life to teaching history and my reading is that those men who gathered in Philadelphia were a bit more flexible on legal interpretations than the originalists give them credit for.

Rather than be shocked at what American society has become, I think they would be pleased, perhaps even giddy, at the idea that we’ve become as multicultural, open, democratic and accepting as we are now. I would be disappointed if Madison, Washington, Hamilton or any of the others came to our century and said that we had completely misread the meaning of their words. After all, they included both the elastic clause and the ability to amend the constitution.

Meanwhile, Scalia, Thomas and Alito (and sometimes Roberts) would roll back civil rights laws and would have us believe that the Fourteenth Amendment, the one that guarantees every citizen equal protection of the law, has nothing to say about guaranteeing LGBT Americans, well, the equal protection of the law. or that four words in the health care law were meant as grenades that would blow it up rather than mechanisms to guarantee that less-well-off Americans could get affordable health care. Scalia especially seems to believe that the only rights that Americans have are the ones granted in 1787. How thoroughly regressive.

It’s worth noting that another group, Confederates, also believed they knew the true meaning of the Republic. They wanted to live in a country that allowed states to decide almost all aspects of public policy, protect slavery and Jim Crow, and to nullify federal laws they didn’t agree with. That’s why they broke away and were almost successful in creating such a country. Their loss still resonates in the south and it’s time to bring that era to a close. We shouldn’t destroy every vestige of it, but it’s past time to take down the flags and statues (and put them in museums where they belong), and to rename some streets. We’ll be a better country for it.

What history will more likely remember is the rock-solid support for humanity and progress that the four liberals–Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg–continue to fight for. Their opinions were subsumed under Kennedy and Roberts, but they should rightly be proud, and thanked, for their steadfast support for the citizens of this country.

As we move forward from last week, we need to remember that many states will be required to recognize marriages, but off the alter those states can continue to discriminate based on sexual orientation and use religious belief as a hammer against full equality. I certainly support religious values, but it’s time to recognize that Biblical prohibitions that discriminate, marginalize and promote hate are…wrong.

Bu that’s a discussion for the future. Right now I’m going to buy some rainbow sherbet, kick back, and celebrate America.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies dylann roof Gun Control News Politics Racial profiling Racism racist Racists shooting South Carolina

The Race Confronts Race

Racial politics is sometimes like the weather. Everybody complains about it or has an opinion about it, but there’s precious little that we can seemingly do about it. Here we are again, having the same conversation about the same issue and the politicians are crafting their statements and the sociologists are telling us about how the Internet is the problem and the gun enthusiasts are telling us that it’s a mental health issue and there’s a debate about whether this is only a hate crime or is it home-grown terrorism. And then there’s that darned Confederate flag flying over Charleston. Which seems to be causing a bit of angst in the Republican Party.

The race is on and race is now a major part of it. This time, though, it feels different.

Nine African-Americans were killed in their church simply because they were African-Americans. Yes, I know that many people say that Walter Scott and Eric Garner and Michael Brown were killed because they were African-American, but they were also involved in activities that brought them attention from the law. The victims in Charleston were doing no such thing. They were being good citizens, were praying, were welcoming a stranger into their world as many other Americans would. Such a terrible tragedy.

What we know for sure is that the shooter did not like black people, and he said so explicitly. He grew up in a country that’s supposed to be post-racial with a more enlightened group of young people who did not experience the Civil Rights movement or institutional segregation. They’re supposed to be more welcoming, more open, more accepting. We now know about one of the exceptions to that interpretation.

But we are also at the beginning of a presidential election cycle and we need to measure the candidates and potential candidates against their words and actions. The initial reactions were sober and immediate, with quick condemnations and expressions of horror and disbelief. That sentiment soon turned to the issue of why Dylann Roof perpetrated this crime. Many on the right called it an attack on religion. Some said worse things.  President Obama looked anguished and sad when he addressed the news media the day after the killings, and his inclusion of the gun issue showed that he truly regrets not being able to get any kind of meaningful background check legislation through the Congress.

I want to know specifically what the candidates plans are in reaction to this event. They all say that we need to bring the country together, but how will they do this? I understand that I might have to wait a good long time, but now is the moment when we need to push anyone who wants to occupy the Oval Office in 2017 for answers. Specific answers.

Right now we’re asking questions from our homes and places of worship. Next time, we’ll be in the streets.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Fifteen Days In June

Ready for the summer? Well hold on because the next 15 days will be key to determining the shape of the presidential race.

First up is Jeb Bush. The smart one. The able one. The one who thinks through his actions before taking them. The one with the long-term policy proposals that are not exactly aligned with the conservative wing of the Republican Party. The one who is daddy’s favorite.

The one whose brother absolutely ruined the Bush name. Dang.

Jeb is not a bad candidate and he’s making an effort to separate himself from George W. The extent to which he can do that will determine whether he successfully fends off more base-friendly candidates like Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Right now, it looks like many Republicans are wary and might be looking elsewhere. If Jeb can raise enough money and scare off some other candidates, he can win, but he’ll have to convince many right wing voters of his commitment to their cause.

Governor Chris Christie is also getting ready to announce his run fresh off a victory courtesy of a New Jersey State Supreme Court ruling in his favor on the landmark state worker’s pension and benefits bill he negotiated with the Democratic legislature in 2011. He’s running on his ability to work with the opposite party, but the problem is that he’s repudiated his own law and the court ruled it to be unconstitutional. Now the Democrats have sworn not to negotiate further with him. Will he mention any of this?

Of course not. Christie will shamelessly repeat that he can work with Democrats, but that train has left the station. Plus, he has the Bridgegate scandal to answer to and a problem making himself stand out from the rest of what will probably be a 15 candidate field. His first job is to make sure that he’s polling high enough to be included in the first GOP debate in August. He’s good in debates and in front of crowds, so I wouldn’t count him out yet. But he’s got a tough race ahead of him.

Hillary Clinton also began her push for the presidency yesterday. She gave a good speech and is clearly focusing on the middle class and income inequality. She’s a bit farther to the left than her husband, but the Democratic Party is also more liberal these days. Her problem is similar to Jeb’s in that we know a great deal about her and her past. She has a clearer road to the nomination, but she does need to be mindful about giving too much to the Sanders-Warren wing of the party.

And don’t forget that we have two big Supreme Court decisions yet to be announced between now and June 30 on marriage equality and ACA subsidies. By July 1 we’ll have a good idea of how the candidates will need to adjust their messages in light of whatever the court decides.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Education Express Yourself News Politics Wisconsin Union Bashing

Education By Dummies

Politicians can talk all they want about how changes to the American education system such as the Common Core, new testing rubrics and teacher evaluation systems will vault us into the top tiers of learned nations over the next few years, but, really, that’s not going to happen if what’s happening in Arizona and other states doesn’t get fixed.

Consider:

At least 30 states spent less per student this school year than in the year before the economic downturn began, and 14 states, including Arizona, have cut per-pupil funding by more than 10 percent over that period.
The drop is not simply a reflection of state economies still struggling to recover. Experts say politics and policy have also played a role.
Of the seven states with the deepest cuts in education from kindergarten to 12th grade, six — Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Wisconsin — also cut income tax rates, leading to a series of vigorous protests and public disputes between lawmakers and educators that are still playing out.

The Great Recession was terrible, but that part about cutting taxes and school funding is reprehensible. There is simply no excuse to give money back to taxpayers when the schools have a library that nobody can use or that run out of supplies before the end of the school year.

But that’s not the only problem. Here in New Jersey, Governor Christie recently did an about-face and said that he no longer supports the Common Core Curriculum Standards but does support the PARCC tests that are based on…the Common Core. This neat bit of contradiction, endemic to Republican politicians, not only makes no sense; it invites testing students on skills and content that they will not learn in their classrooms. Couple this with the Governor’s previous bashing of teachers and their association, and his severe education budget cuts and you have the scary proposition of someone sitting in the Oval Office who supports testing, but not the people who will be delivering a curriculum that is yet to be determined.

Christie has good company in another soon-to-be Republican presidential candidate, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Not only did he and the GOP-led legislature end collective bargaining for public employees, now he’s proposing a bill that would significantly affect tenure in public colleges and universities. That law would repeal the idea of shared governance when it comes to tenure and is best explained this way:

Shared governance gives powers to faculty, staff and students over such matters as instruction, personnel matters and student services. The shared power is not the adversarial relationship many think of, Fair said. “It’s a conversation across the different bodies to reach consensus on what is best for the institution,” she said.

And while the employment protections conveyed by tenure can seem self-serving, Compas said, that is not what it is about.

“Tenure doesn’t protect anyone who breaks university rules or doesn’t do their job. Instead, it is a cornerstone of academic freedom,” he said. “It provides protection for faculty to challenge conventional notions and present ideas that often are unpopular,” said Compas, who has tenure.

What Walker wants to do is to take tenure decisions away from the shared model and transfer authority to a state body that is–surprise!–appointed by the governor. I’m guessing that the makeup of the body will be sharply different than the people making tenure decisions now. And I can see great mischief in how it will be applied should this bill pass. Which it most likely will.

These are but three examples of how terribly education policy is made and implemented in the United States. After 2016, it could get even worse.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Death Penalty News Politics

The New Kansas-Nebraska Acts

It’s been an interesting week in the conservative heartland. Nebraska legislators overturned the governor’s veto and abolished the death penalty, while in Kansas, the state legislature is thinking about raising taxes  because, well, that old conservative orthodoxy that says you can cut taxes and spur economic growth doesn’t seem to be working. Even would-be conservatives like Governor Chris Christie are paying the price for slow growth, and Christie still wants to cut taxes.

But there’s more. In a new Gallup survey, the number of people who consider themselves socially liberal has caught up to those who say they are socially conservative, a large jump from previous polls. Couple this with the news that younger Evangelical Christians are more socially progressive than their elders and you have the beginnings of the swing back to the middle this country so desperately needs.

The fever, it seems, might be breaking after all.

This was inevitable, as social and political shifts have been occurring approximately every 30 years. What began in the 1980s as a swing to the right, with Ronald Reagan’s presidency and gained momentum and roots with the conservative takeover of the Republican Party during the 1990s has evidently peaked and is now poised for a slow decline that will gain speed as a new generation of voters – who tend to be more progressive – participates in greater numbers. I certainly remember moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats in the 1960s and 70s, and I look for them to return sometime soon.

The main problem for the Republicans is that this new attitude might not save them for the 2016 presidential race. Social conservatives who vote in large numbers tend to be older than the new progressives, and they turn out for primaries. That’s why somewhat more moderate candidates, such as George Pataki and Chris Christie, will find it difficult to gain traction. But that movement away from the far right will also doom Rick Santorum and Rick Perry. Rand Paul could benefit, but my sense is that he’s ahead of the GOP curve. By 2024, he could be the mainstream nominee.

What we are seeing is the beginning of a new alignment that will take a couple of election cycles to define itself. How each party reacts to this is key, but the effects on the country will be real.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Foreign Policies Healthcare News Politics Wisconsin Union Bashing

Afraid of Rubio? They All Scare Me.

Ooohhh! Scary!!! Yes, The New York Times reported last week that many Democrats are most afraid of a presidential match-up between Hillary and…Marco Rubio.

Scary!!!

And why? Because…he has a story! Scary!!! And he’s good looking. And he’s a good speaker. And he’s Hispanic and his father came here from Cuba and he won big time races in Florida. And he was once friends with Jeb Bush who might or might not have promised not to run for president in 2016, which would have opened a spot for Rubio but Jeb evidently doubled back on that maybe promise and now Marco’s really really really scary angry.

Scary!!!

So why am I so, you know, cool about this whole thing? One reason is that once GOP primary voters wake up they’ll realize that Rubio represents everything the Republicans oppose in…Obama. Scary!!!

One term Senator. Check
Makes a good speech. Check
In his 40s. Check
Supports an immigration overhaul that, scary, would lead to a path to legal status. Check
Not a lot of foreign policy experience. Check

Another reason is that the GOP base wants a bona-fide conservative with a record of tax cutting, union-busting and border fence building and that’s not Rubio.

But aside from that, Democrats should not be singularly afraid of any one candidate. They should be quaking in their boots at the thought of any of the announced or near-announced candidates becoming president. All of them have pledged tax breaks for the wealthy and lower taxes for corporations. They’ve all pledged to repeal the Affordable Care Act with no credible plan to replace it, keep health care costs down, or to continue to cover those who have already signed up for care. Each one would either strongly advocate for, or at least tolerate, religious objection laws for marriage equality and contraception coverage. They would all mandate government interference in women’s reproductive health issues. They oppose higher minimum wages and believe that public workers pensions are negotiable or expendable. And none of them has any credible plan for world order other than genuflecting in front of Benjamin Netanyahu and calling for American troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria. Not to mention climate change denial and the unwavering support of the NRA.

That’s a frightening collection of misguided and misbegotten policies that were derided in the 1980s as outlandish pipe dreams, the subjects of journal articles in the 1990s, adopted as the GOP platform in the aughts and now, as mainstream political thought in the teens.

Making any of them a reality? Scary.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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The Foreign Policy Election

First it was Jeb Bush. Now it’s Marco Rubio. For other Republicans, it’s all about Hillary Clinton and Benghazi. Meanwhile, Scott Walker has tripped over his own feet while discussing the world and Chris Christie, who has something to say about everything, has little to say yet on foreign affairs.

Why is this important? Because 2016 is shaping up to be a foreign policy election. Yes, there will be talk about taxing the wealthy, cutting taxes to the wealthy, what to do about entitlements and the middle class, abortion, immigration and health care, but right now, the world seems to be blowing up and countries are looking to the United States to help fix what ails them.

President Obama has wisely not gotten us involved in a foreign adventure despite calls by the hawkish neocon crowd over on the right to send troops to Syria. And Lebanon. And Iraq. And other places. Which sounds like the good-old-fashioned response that George W. Bush followed and that was a terrible mistake. And it all sounds heroic and noble until the body bags start coming back and the soldiers return with severe damage to their bodies and minds.

What 2016 presents for the country is an opportunity to be creative with our foreign policy. The Cold War has been over for more than 20 years, but the mentality remains, this time with China as the Soviets and North Korea as the Cubans. ISIS is a tremendous threat to Middle East stability, but they are alienating other countries in the region, who are showing more of a propensity to fight on their own. We can support our friends, but right now there is little reason for us to get more soldiers involved.

It will be interesting to see where the debate goes from here. Rand Paul has been championing a more isolationist foreign policy as a basic belief. Hillary Clinton certainly has the experience, but she hasn’t enunciated a specific policy yet. Can Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Rick Perry, Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders come up with credible ideas? Perhaps, but I’ve come to a conclusion that’s even more true now than it was in 2004.

We should have elected John Kerry as president when we had the chance.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics

Christie: It’s Not My Fault. Elect Me President

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie looks on while giving his State of the State address in the assembly chamber in Trenton, New Jersey, January 8, 2013. Christie renewed his calls to the U.S. Congress on Tuesday to quickly pass the full $60.4 billion Superstorm Sandy relief package, saying victims in New Jersey had been short-changed. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR3C83X
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie  REUTERS/Carlo Allegri (UNITED STATES – Tags: POLITICS) – RTR3C83X

It’s one thing when you have something to run on. It’s quite another when you have to run away from your record. That’s the position Governor Christie finds himself in on the eve of his long-awaited announcement that he will run for president. Most candidates have a signature issue or can point to improving conditions in their state. What can Christie run on?

  • There’s no New Jersey economic miracle.
  • His attorneys argued in court that the one significant legislative achievement of his term, a state workers pension and benefits reform bill, was, in fact, unconstitutional, which will require another round of pension cuts and significantly higher health care premiums for state workers.
  • Property taxes continue to rise.
  • Funding for education has been cut.
  • Businesses and the very wealthy continue to enjoy the governor’s protection from tax hikes while middle class workers have seen their wages stagnate to erode further.
  • He created an atmosphere of fear and contempt in his administration and hired aides who shared his vengeful attitude, which resulted in the Bridgegate scandal that is still rocking the Statehouse.

But you know what? None of this Governor Christie’s fault. How do I know? Because he said so.

On the economy, Christie is taking credit for slowly improving conditions in the state, where  unemployment still lags behind the national rate. What he isn’t saying is that job growth during his tenure is 48th nationally, ahead of only Mississippi and New Mexico. His reaction?

“We inherited a wrecked ship,” he said, “and we’ve now made it sea-worthy.”

Arguable, but the bigger issue is where the Governor is steering that ship. Right now it’s going in circles and is perilously close to the rocks. The truth is that after more than 5 years, Christie’s economic plan is dead in the water. The state budget chief said as much in 2013 and Christie mocked him as a fiscal Dr. Kevorkian. And thankfully, the Democratic Legislature killed his proposed tax cut. That really would have sunk the ship. Christie now wants to take his fiscal genius to a national level. For anybody making under $100,000, that would be real suicide.

His proposed national economic plan, just released, calls for the highest tax rate to be cut from 39.6% to 28%. That’s an enormous tax break for the wealthy that will redistribute more income to the upper class and require cuts to the programs that most Americans want and that many desperately need.

As for hiring the best and brightest for his administration, the governor is now saying that he can’t be held responsible for what his aides did on his behalf. Says he:

“I obviously spent time thinking about that, because it’s an obvious question,” the governor said. “But no, I really don’t think so. I think, unfortunately, there are going to be times when people that work for me do things that are completely out of character.”

“I’m accountable for what happened because I’m the governor,” he added. “But you can’t be responsible for the bad acts of some people who wind up in your employ.”

The buck, obviously, stops…there, but never here.

My Ouija Board just spelled out, “I am not a crook.”

Governor Christie has spent a good deal of time during his term in office criticizing people who don’t recognize that he’s telling us the truth on taxes, on pensions, on the role of government and, mostly, on being responsible for our future. His hypocrisy knows no bounds.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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News

Jesse Matthew Indicted in the Murder of Hannah Graham

FILE - In this Nov. 14, 2014, file photo, Jesse Matthew Jr. looks toward the gallery while appearing in court in Fairfax, Va. Matthew, accused of abducting and killing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham has been charged with capital murder and a prosecutor said Tuesday, May 5, 2015, she will seek the death penalty if the case goes to trial. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – In this Nov. 14, 2014, file photo, Jesse Matthew Jr. looks toward the gallery while appearing in court in Fairfax, Va. Matthew, accused of abducting and killing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham has been charged with capital murder and a prosecutor said Tuesday, May 5, 2015, she will seek the death penalty if the case goes to trial. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via AP, Pool, File)

The man accused of abducting and killing a University of Virginia student has been charged with capital murder and a prosecutor said Tuesday she will seek the death penalty if the case goes to trial, the NY Post reports.

The indictment accusing Jesse L. Matthew Jr. of capital murder in the death of Hannah Graham is based on new forensic evidence, Albemarle County Commonwealth’s Attorney Denise Lunsford told reporters after a hearing in which new defense attorneys with experience in death penalty cases were appointed. She declined to elaborate on the evidence.

Matthew, a former hospital worker and taxi driver, already was charged with first-degree murder and abduction with intent to defile and is being held without bond.

Shackled and handcuffed, Matthew showed no expression at Tuesday’s hearing. He had been served the new indictment earlier in the day, Lunsford said.

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics Wisconsin Union Bashing

Pensions in the Age of GOP Math

Things are getting a bit complicated in New Jersey for Governor Christie, and that’s having a major effect on when (and it will be when) he announces his bid for the presidency. Yes, he is waiting for the economy to improve and the George Washington Bridge scandal to go away, but now he’s added what could be a signature accomplishment for him to run on: another public employee pension reform bill. This time, however, he won’t have as many Democrats to help him.

Christie has been traveling the state telling some marvelous half-truths and outright lies about the history of governmental pension neglect since the 1990s. He’s even saying that the legislature is blocking pension funding when it’s actually the good governor who took out the full funding from the 2015 budget with a line-item veto. When the legislature then passed a bill to have the state pay quarterly payments, he vetoed it and the Republicans who supported it the first time around would not vote to override. At a legislative dinner in March, State Senator Joe Pennacchio (District 26) was asked why that happened. His answer: “Christie is going to run for president. We didn’t want to embarrass him.”

So much for fiscal responsibility.

Now comes word that State Senate President Stephen Sweeney is saying the the legislature will include a full pension payment in the 2016 budget, which starts on July 1. That battle will define the struggle for the next two months, but Christie will veto anything that even smells of a tax increase or else he’s going to be burnt toast in Iowa and South Carolina. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousand of public employees will have to sweat it out and worry that the pensions they were promised will not be paid in full, although they have made their payments reliably their whole careers.

But even if Christie doesn’t win the nomination, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who is now attracting gobs of Koch Brother money for his campaign, would be an even worse choice. He’s been able to do what Christie has not when it comes to public employees, and that is to strip them of their collective bargaining rights. Imagine the nightmare scenario of a President Walker with a Republican Congress slashing taxes for the wealthy and slashing public programs and benefits for the middle class. Never mind that the number of working people who qualify for public assistance has increased in the last 10 years. The GOP loves to blame those lazy burger-flipping door-greeters (because many have two jobs) for their own problems while catering to the upper crust.

Blaming public workers and the working poor for America’s fiscal problems has worked well for the GOP. It’s time to fight back.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

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Domestic Policies Education News Politics

CCRAP! More Testing Ahead

If you’re a regular American, you know, like the kind of person Hillary Clinton is trying to appeal to, you probably think that the PARCC tests are over and that the education system has moved on.

Not so.

This week marks the return of the standardized tests that no one likes, and are based on the Common Core standards that are unpopular across the political spectrum. And since the federal government has given schools until early May to give the tests, schools across the country will be testing for the next four weeks. Never mind that there are precious few weeks of instruction left in the academic year, especially in the South, or that Advanced Placement tests are administered during the first two weeks of May. PARCC tests must be given and school districts must stop everything in order to meet the testing mandate.

The effects on schools have been profound. Students have missed, and will miss more academic classes, extra-help sessions, Advanced Placement test reviews, band practices and basic skills instruction. In most schools, the tests are taken in the library, which makes that resource unavailable for part or all of the school day. In other schools, the entire academic day stops for the tests and some districts have prohibited homework for the duration of the administration. This is not efficient education.

Meanwhile, in New Hampshire where the GOP had its first substantive discussions about presidential policy, Ted Cruz is promising to obliterate the Common Core, Chris Christie is blaming his predecessor for the standards, Bobby Jindal is running away from the standards despite  promoting them two years ago, and Jeb Bush, who supports the Common Core, is not mentioning that fact because the GOP base hates them. Hillary hasn’t said much, but she can bide her time and let the Republicans fight amongst themselves.

My sense is that the Common Core standards will survive because most educational publishers and programs, such as the AP, have modified their curricula to mirror the standards. In and of themselves, the standards are beneficial and having national benchmarks will allow us to compare our students across the United States and with students from other countries. State standards might reflect local priorities, but we live in a global world and economy. Students need to be proficient in specific content and academic skills and, quite honestly, not all states are proficient at delivering them.

In addition, not all states and localities can afford to implement programs that students need. Federal involvement in education is a point of contention in many areas, but without equality of resources we can’t have equality of outcomes. And that’s what we desperately need.

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