The two men running for President and Vice President on the Republican ticket have proven time and again that they are not afraid to tell a lie. Lies that have been debunked on numerous occasions and we are sure there will be many more lies debunked in the future.
But it seems lies are not the only hallmark of the Republican ticket. They are also good at stealing, as the two are parading around asking a question they stole from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, “are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?” The question suggests that since President Obama took office, things in America have gotten worse.
In honor of back-to-school time here in the Garden State (I know that schools in other states might have started in August), it’s time for us to recognize the unparalleled job that New Jersey’s public school teachers do year in and year out.
We consistently rank in the top 3 nationwide in student outcomes on most available measures; SAT, AP and NAEP scores, college acceptances (too many graduates go out-of-state, though), writing achievement and overall performance. We have some significant gaps between how suburban students perform and how their urban counterparts score, and that is a sore point both economically and politically.
But even with that huge caveat, we are the envy of other states. How do I know? Because this past July I attended the National Education Association convention in Washington, D.C., and many of my colleagues around the country told me so.
I spoke with delegates from Tennessee, and they told me that their statewide tests dictated their curriculum to the point that they had to jettison most enrichment material from their classrooms to make sure they covered the test material. They also said that for the two months before the tests, they did nothing but review and drill.
And just in case you think this is professional bias, I sat next to a family from Tennessee on the train down to DC, and their daughter, a high school senior from a town near Nashville, told me how ridiculous (her word) the tests were and how they made the teachers stop teaching fun stuff (her words) and worry about the tests. Her parents seconded her remarks, then went out of the way to tell me that they were Republicans, but didn’t agree with Governor Christie’s attempts to impose a Tennessee solution on New Jersey. It’s amazing what people will tell you if you look them in the eye and just listen to what they say.
Anyway, when I told the Tennessee teachers where I was from, they told me that they loved the NJEA because it had a backbone and stood up, as much as it could, to the governor.
I got the same treatment from Idaho. The president of the Idaho Education Association also professed admiration for New Jersey’s public school teachers because she said that Idaho was moving towards a state salary system and that the state had appropriated money that should have gone to teacher’s salaries to pay for a misguided technology venture that has no research behind it. I asked if the teachers had any say in the decision, and of course the answer was no. So much for professional respect.
From California’s delegation, I heard the most distressing stories of administrative overreach, even to the point where an entire elementary school’s faculty was being replaced because two teachers were accused of lewd acts with students. The administration’s rationale? “We don’t want any more surprises.” I am not condoning anything the accused teachers might have done, but where are the due process protections promised to teachers as citizens of the United States? As I spoke to the California delegates about these and other occurrences, they said they thought that this could not happen in New Jersey because of its strong association. I certainly hope so.
Other teachers I spoke with consistently said the same things about New Jersey once I identified myself from the state: They admired and respected the NJEA for standing up for member’s rights in a state where teachers still have strong protections and a unified membership. Even the new tenure law, signed by Christie in the dog days of August, keeps due process and tenure protections for all teachers who earn it, even as it takes longer to procure and streamlines the process of firing a teacher who doesn’t meet local standards.
So as we begin another school year, I am proud to say that I am a New Jersey public school teacher.
I am proud to say that I am committed to educating children and young adults so they can become productive members of society. And I am proud to be a member of NJEA, an organization that has a national reputation as one that fosters a pro-education ethic, and one that has the best interests of its members at heart.
I’ve focused primarily on public schools here, but it’s been my pleasure and honor to have worked in private schools and to have trained teachers who work in a wide variety of educational settings. Colleagues, remember that we do one of the most important paid jobs in the country. We have earned honor and respect and we show it through our deeds and actions. Have a great school year.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech before last week’s Republican National Convention generated the lowest approval rating among surveyed adults since Gallup began polling this question in 1996.
38 percent of respondents in Gallup’s poll rated Romney’s speech as “excellent” or “good.” 10 percent of respondents rated Romney’s speech as being “terrible.”
In contrast, 47 percent said the same of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and his 2008 GOP convention acceptance speech. Only 5 percent said McCain’s speech was “terrible.”
President Barack Obama’s 2008 acceptance speech in Denver, Colorado, was the most well received of all speeches since 1996. 58 percent of respondents rated his speech as “excellent” or “good” while only 7 percent found it to be “poor” or “terrible.”
Gallup’s telephone survey was taken between August 31 and September 1, 2012, of 1,045 adults. The survey has a +/- 4.0 percent margin of error.
Did you hear the one about the Republican presidential candidate who told someone who lost her home to a storm, “go home and call 211.!?” No, you didn’t hear about that? Well it actually happened.
Over the weekend after accepting his Republican party’s nomination, Mitt Romney boarded a brand new plane and flew off to meet Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. The cameras were on, people were watching to see how this potential president (God forbids) would handle a natural disasters, (no, his campaign cannot be considered a natural disaster).
Mr. Romney met with 42 year old Jodie Chiarello, who lost her home to flooding from Tropical Storm Isaac. Jodie had this to say of her meeting with Mr. Romney, “He just told me to, um, there’s assistance out there,” Chiarello said of her conversation with Romney. “He said, go home and call 211.”
Steve Benen puts it this way;
Of course, if someone has lost their home, telling them to “go home and call 211” isn’t exactly a compelling suggestion since most of us don’t have multiple homes. Then again, given Romney’s general worldview, what Chiarello should have done is pick wealthier parents.
Obama adviser David Plouffe didn’t mince any words this morning, charging Mitt Romney’s campaign is built “on a foundation of absolute lies.”
Plouffe denounced the GOP presidential nominee’s recent attacks on President Obama about welfare, Medicare and the role of government in job creation. Plouffe appeared on ABC’s This Week.
“Right now, their campaign is built on a tripod of lies,” Plouffe said. “A welfare attack that is just absolutely untrue. The suggestion we’re raiding America — absolutely untrue. And then this whole ‘we can build it’ nonsense.’ ”
Plouffe and other Obama advisers and top Democrats fanned out across the networks, appearing on Sunday talk shows as their party prepares to formally nominate Obama and Vice President Biden. The Democratic National Convention officially begins Tuesday in Charlotte.
Also, Ezra Grant outlines three of these lies as told by the Romney campaign in the Republican Convention.
Republicans are doing all they can to suppress and in some cases, take away the voting rights of ordinary Americans. Their latest efforts includes requiring voters IDs and a new low in Ohio, where a Republican led assault is on the way to reduce the amount of time voters in Democratic districts have to cast their ballots.
In some of these cases, the courts have ruled that these forms of suppression – or “maintaining the integrity of the voting process” as the Republicans have called it – are illegal and should not happen on American soil.
But now another voice considered highly favored in the Republican circle is trying to change the rules. Ann Coulter wants to increase the voting age.
According to a recent interview on Fox News, Mrs. Coulter said, “I think we ought to raise the voting age. You can’t drink until you’re 21. We don’t have a draft anymore. Why are we letting infants vote? Their brains aren’t fully formed.”
It’s just amazing that before Barack Obama won the 2008 election, there was no need to change anything. After 2008 however, Republicans have manufactured every conceivable reason to change the process in their favor.
Imagine two runners competing in a race and after the winner crosses the finish line, the loser claims victory because during the race he (the loser or today’s Republican party) decided that the last person to cross the finish line wins.
Side-note: Barack Obama overwhelmingly won the youth vote in 2008.
They’re all politicians, regardless of what Mitt Romney wants to call himself. But what does it say of the Romney campaign and the Republican leaders when they chose three major lies to base an entire convention on?
Lie Number 1. – “You Didn’t Build That.”
Those were the words President Obama used at a campaign event. The President was talking about all the different factors that contribute to all successful businesses. But Republicans are only focusing on the you didn’t build that phrase and they are telling their followers that President Obama is against businesses.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you have a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Anyone with a hint of common sense can look at that quote and conclude that the President was correct. Somewhere along the line, somebody gave entrepreneurs some help. Yes, business owners formulate a business plan, some invested every dollar they had and put in the long hours. But doing that alone does not make a successful business. It helps to have a proper education and good teachers. It helps when customer have access to a business whether it be through roads, public transportation or the internet. And yes, it helps when there is a system already in place that facilitates the business plan and allows that plan to be successful.
So Republicans can focus on the “you didn’t build it” part of the President’s speech all they want. The facts… the simple facts show that the president is correct.
Lie Number 2. – “Obama increased the deficit by $5 Trillion”
This lie is another example of what Republicans and the Romney campaign is famous for – placing a laser focus on one part of a political argument and enlarging that argument to a point where it becomes the whole story.
Yes, $5 Trillion dollars were added to the deficit under the Obama administration, but that’s not the whole story. For anyone who is genuine and want to know more, the full story is about where this $5 trillion comes from.
Here are the facts on the $5 trillion:
The George Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were conducted on a credit card. In his infinite wisdom, George Bush did not include these wars in any budget. Mr. Obama on the other hand chose to bring this information to the American people and $853 billion – the price of both Bush wars – were added to the deficit.
The George Bush Tax Cuts – Another Bush policy that the Bush administration chose not to add to the deficit. In an effort to be transparent President Obama budgeted this cost and $2.2 trillion appeared on the deficit, thanks to Bush.
Other Bush Credit Card Policies – The costs of these Bush policies were also hidden from the American people, and these cost were finally budgeted by the Obama administration:
Defense – $616 Billion
Non Defense – $608 Billion
Entitlements – $293 Billion
Troubled Assets – $294 Billion
Prescription Drug costs – $180 Billion
And there you have it. The whole story on the $5 trillion deficit increase, all items from the George Bush-era.
How much did Obama’s policies add to the deficit? According to the chart below, when the expenses and revenues are taken into consideration, the Obama policies adds just about $983 billion. It breaks down like this:
And the Republican’s claim in itself makes no sense. A recent article by MarketWatch details that spending under President Obama is at a 60 year low. How can he “increased the deficit by $5 trillion if he’s not spending? The graph below explains:
In addition to the study by MarketWatch, PolitiFact did their research and agrees – spending is less under Obama. From PolitiFact:
Obama has indeed presided over the slowest growth in spending of any president using raw dollars, and it was the second-slowest if you adjust for inflation. The math simultaneously backs up Nutting’s calculations and demolishes Romney’s contention.
Lie Number 3 – “Obama removed the work requirement in Welfare.”
This particular lie was told (and will be told again and again) by the Republican Vice President candidate Paul Ryan. This lie was, like I’m sure you all know by now, debunked by every respectable fact-checker in the field. But the fact that this lie is already debunked did not stop the vice president candidate and he mentioned it in the biggest speech of his career – his speech to the nation.
The lie is based on a memo from the Obama administration to the states, where the states are granted a waiver from the federal program if they (the states) can show better more effective way to transfer welfare recipients from welfare to better training and work. But unfortunately, many in the Republican base choose fiction over facts and the Romney campaign is feeding this lie to these people.
And now that we’ve come to the end of the Republican convention, what can we really say we’ve learned?
Although a tad more of the Republican candidate was revealed to the American people, it was hard to believe what I was seeing and what I was hearing from the Convention podium. How can we believe anything coming from these Republicans when the very foundation of their Convention was based on lies?
During a trip to Epcot at Disneyworld, Pennsylvania delegate Mark Harris and his wife were shocked and offended to find a Mexican employee working at the amusement park’s American pavilion, which showcases the different cultures in the United States. According to the couple’s blog, Harris complained to staff that he was “highly offended” that a “person from Mexico” was working in the American pavilion when other nations’ pavilions were staffed by people from each respective country:
According to their website, “Mark and Irene are both pro‐life, believe marriage is between one man and one woman, are for open records and transparency, believe in very conservative principles and the Republican platform.”
Voter ID laws have become a hot-button issue leading up to the November presidential election, pitting state legislatures proposing and sometimes passing such laws against civil rights advocacy organizations who argue the laws are designed to keep minorities from the ballots.
In issuing their 56-page opinion Thursday, the judges wrote that the Texas law likely would have a “retrogressive effect” on the ability of minority voters to cast ballots and said the “implicit costs” of obtaining necessary ID “will fall most heavily on the poor.” The three-judge panel also noted that a disproportionately high percentage of African Americans and Hispanics in Texas live in poverty.
Texas and other proponents of voter ID laws say the measures are necessary to prevent voter impersonation or fraud. Last year, Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Wisconsin passed new voter ID laws while Texas,South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee tightened existing laws.
Governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina vetoed strict new voter ID laws. This week, South Carolina’s law is on trial in front of a three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse where the Texas law was struck down.
So we all know that the Republican Delegates are the ones who picked and solidify Mitt Romney’s position as their Nominee. And we all know that in their Platform, the Republicans have included language making no exceptions for abortions. But Mitt Romney recently changed his position on abortions, saying he would allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest, or if the mother’s life depends on it.
Which brings us to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Sent out to interview these Delegates, Samantha Bee asks how they plan to support Romney when he doesn’t agree with the Republican Platform. And in the process, these Delegates – who are trying to take away a woman’s right to choose – reveals something very interesting. Their hypocrisy.
“You can’t force Mitt Romney to choose,” said one Delegate.
“He is allow to choose. This man is not a robot,” said another.
And another, “we live in a free society, we live in America. It is up to any human being to choose. To decide what’s best for themselves.”
On and on, the Delegates continues to proclaim Romney’s right to choose. But when Samantha Bee shows the hypocrisy of their position when it comes to a woman’s right to choose, it seems that’s where the choice stops. When it comes to a woman’s right to choose, Government (a Republican government) has to step in and make that decision for a woman.
Samantha sums it up by telling one Delegate, ““Say hello to my uterus,” she said. “You own a little piece of it. ‘Hello! I belong to everybody!’”
Appearing on Fox News’ Your World on Tuesday afternoon, Congressman Ron Paulreiterated to host Neil Cavuto the reasons why he has not officially endorsed the Mitt Romney / Paul Ryanpresidential ticket and why he does not view vice presidential candidate Ryan as a serious budget cutter.
Cavuto began the conversation asking the outgoing Texas congressman: “You are backing but not wholeheartedly enthusiastic?”
“I have not endorsed the ticket,” Rep. Paul clarified. “I endorsed the principles I have been talking about … I endorse peace, prosperity, individual liberty and the Constitution. I am more intent on that than on the politics.
Asked whether he could leave the Republican National Convention without officially endorsing the Romney ticket, Paul said, “I am not intending to endorse anybody.” Cavuto pressed him on whether he has any “dog in the fight” between Romney and Obama, to which the libertarian congressman replied that he has no intention to endorse, and to put him down as “undecided.”
If you haven’t seen or heard about this one yet, then have no fear! We have the video below.
Chris Mathews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball sat down with the hosts of Morning Joe and Republican Chairman Reince Preibus for a ‘friendly’ conversation. But anyone who’ve seen Chris Mathews’ show knows that when he gets going, there’s almost no stopping him. And having the Republican Chairman just a few feet away was enough to get Mr. Mathews going.
The ‘friendly’ discussion started with Mathews asking Preibus about some of the “questionable” ads the Romney campaign has run. Ads that many independent sources have called misleading or straight out lies. But what really got Chris going was a recent statement by Mitt Romney at a recent campaign event, where Romney said that no one had to ask for his birth certificate because everyone knows he was born here. To Chris and many others (including me), this statement from Romney was not “just a joke” as Romney and his supporters are calling it. Mr. Mathews saw Romney’s statement and the racial undertones it carried.
The conversation that started out fairly calm ended with the word “garbage” being thrown around, and in once instance, garbage was used to describe the Republican Chairman.
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