Darcie Cimarusti, a school board member in New Jersey, reports with disgust that Democratic legislators are helping outgoing Governor Chris Christie punish and replace independent members of the State Board of Education.
http://mothercrusader.blogspot.com/2017/05/dont-like-chris-christie-blame-democrats.html?m=1
Christie, whose poll ratings now hover around 20%, proposed new deregulations for charter school teachers, which would allow uncertified teachers in charters.
The state board voted 5-2 against Christie’s bad idea (with one abstention).
Christie wants to replace three of the five board members who stood up against him, including the president and vice-president of the board.
The Democratic leader of the State Senate, Steve Sweeney, is faithfully supporting Governor Christie’s vengeful power play.
Why? Democrats in New Jersey rolled over for Christie at his last election, abandoning their own candidate, the well-qualified Barbara Buono, who preceded Sweeney as President of the State Senate.
Now they are on the verge of ousting three board members who dared to insist that all teachers should be qualified and credentialed.
Why are powerful Democrats in New Jersey enabling the lame-duck Governor Christie to oust board members who dared to stand up for the importance of having qualified teachers in every public school classroom?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I’m pretty sure we’ve realized, by now, that idiocy is non-partisan.
Just look at Cory Booker–&–PUH-LEEZE!–NOT a viable candidate for 2020.
As your post “Don’t Like Betsy DeVos? Blame the Democrats” reiterated what’s been said all along, too many DFERs, too many DINOs.
Too many legislators (on both sides of the fence) bought–if not by ALEC, then by the likes of the Waltons or the Gates or even more dark money that abounds.
Read & be aware. Support good candidates–all over the country, but if you have limited time/money, act locally. Run for office. Resist ALL of these fools.
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Oh–& BTW (now don’t kill the messenger!)–we do have something for which we can thank Jared Kushner (I know, I know)–getting Christie out of the federal game–& disgraced, to boot.
May he stay hidden away like “Bobby” Jindal.
Farewell, & good riddance!
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The answer to the question? Because Dems want money from hedge funds, Walton heirs and the tech industry?
Without a concern (or, any plan to change), Dem$ lost 1000 seats.
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The intended point of my article is that Democrats can’t blow off their base–teachers, unions, and minorities–and expect to win.
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You are correct to state that the Dims “can’t blow off their base. . .” but they will, just as they have since Billy, aka BJ, Clinton was in office. Until the Dims purge themselves of the avaricious scum sucking up to Wall Street interests, the Clintonites in control of the party and the party itself will continue its downward spiral, even with the Rethugs imploding themselves into a blackhole with the SSM*.
*SSM = Salmon** Swamp Monster
**Color not the regal fish as I wouldn’t denigrate the fish in such fashion.
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That is why teachers, parents and social justice groups should demand support for public education from Democrats. What good is DFER’s money without voters?
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“Democrats can’t blow off their base–teachers, unions, and minorities–and expect to win”
Sure they can. Because OMG TRUMP!!!! So long as we accept the idea that Republicans are worse than Democrats and that we have to vote Democrat to keep out the big, bad Republicans, blowing of their base is exactly what the Democrats are going to do. I spent the six months before the election saying exactly what you’re saying now, but I was told that there were only two alternatives and we couldn’t allow one so we had to suck it up for the other.
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Demand away.
Cash fills the ears of the the people running the Democratic Party . A willingness to sell out American children and communities, without even a sense of responsibility to highlight the issue in the media, is efficient, unredeemable depravity.
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Democrats raise billions fear-mongering about Republicans, and then mimic them when in office.
No wonder their less popular than Trump.
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“they’re,” sorry…
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Their, they’re, Michael
No need to fret.
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New Jersey has a long history of less than honorable Democrats. I voted for some of them like Jim McGreevey before it became known he was a fraud. Senator Bob Menendez has been indicted for accepting bribes. New Jersey is the home of the Abscam scandal on which the movie “American Hustle” is based. Many Democratic mayors of Camden and Jersey City have been arrested for corruption over the years. Here’s a link with the sad details about some of the corruption in Jersey.http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/05/state_of_corruption_njs_most_infamous_political_scandals.html
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“Christie’s In Town”
Protect the bridge
And lock the fridge
When Christie comes around
Cuz traffic jams
And ravaged hams
Are likely to abound
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great laugh.
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I laughed SO hard…thanks, again, SomeDAM!!!
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“Government” in New Jersey is another form of organized crime. Both major parties enjoy criminal looting of the state’s wealth and resources. Degenerate Dems have enabled Christie from the beginning b/c he allows the govt. crooks of both parties to continue making deals from one end of the state to the other. NJ could be the poster boy for why progressives cannot turn to the Dems for good policy and honest governing, but the crooked Dems in NY and CT rival the govt. gangsters here, DINO’s Cuomo and Malloy. No question we need an alternative political force outside the Dems to recover from the bipartisan looting and dismantling of public education in last 30 years.
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I just forwarded this post to the Ohio Democratic Party with a few choice words about the relevance to OHIO and spineless, unprincipled Democrats.
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Been there. Done that. No response.
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Me too. No response. But I intend to keep it up.
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I intend to keep it up, too. Once I was described, by a person who had met a lot of people over his life, as the most diligent person he’d ever known. He was being kind, I’m dogged. And, I think you are too, which makes me like you.
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In other bad news from NJ via NJ Spotlight: Quote: “The legal challenge to New Jersey’s LIFO law for teachers isn’t dead yet.
A month after a state judge dismissed a challenge to the law for what she said was a lack of evidence, the plaintiffs taking on the last-in-first-out seniority rules for teachers in Newark yesterday filed to appeal the decision.” and “We don’t believe the judge gave adequate consideration to the harm that is being done,” said Kathleen Reilly, attorney for the Newark families that filed the initial suit and the subsequent appeal to the appellate division.” end quote
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I guess I’m prepared to say to public officials in the Democratic Party the same thing I have said to the representatives of my union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT): you guys are useless.
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“The Guardin’ State”
The Guardin’ State
Has much to hate
With foxes guardin’ hens
The alpha fox
Is just a pox
Except, of course, for friends
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Good poem! They should put on a plaque in Trenton.
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This is what rank and file Democrats haven’t figured out yet. Democratic Party politicians have been just as bad as the GOP and has schemed with Republicans all across the country to undermine public education. We saw it in NYS when the Assembly voted to put terrible people on the Board of Regents who imposed a test and punish system and a ludicrous teacher evaluation system on all of us. These same people hired John King and religiously supported the charter school movement. Senate Republicans couldn’t have done a thing without the collaboration of Assembly Democrats and our Democrat governor. NYSUT’s Vote-COPE gave millions to these Assembly Democrats and was betrayed when it counted.
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When will the nation finally absorb the message that with all of the fussing and complaining about what the federal/state legislators are doing to public education, it is getting involved with school board elections at all levels which now crucially and essentially matters….
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I agree that there’s not much difference between Dems and Repubs when it comes to corruption. They all need money to fund their campaigns, so they turn to corporate and wealthy private donors for that financing. Thus, all politicians are working, not for American citizens, but for their corporate & wealthy contributors. There is a solution!
All campaigns could be publicly funded. In order to run for any office, the candidate would need to collect verifiable signatures from REGISTERED VOTERS in their district. The number of signatures required would depend on the number of registered voters in the district: a few signatures for dog catcher and many signatures for federal Senator, etc. We can all watch the number of reg voters increase! Each job title would be assigned a fixed amount of money to spend on campaigning. All the candidates who qualified to run for a particular office would divide that fixed amount of money among themselves. This would definitely control the cost of campaigning and allow non-wealthy citizens to run for office. Most importantly, all the politicians would now be working for their constituents: WE, THE PEOPLE! With limited campaign funding, we can hope that the length of campaigning would decrease. If that didn’t happen, 6 -8 weeks is plenty of time for a candidate to fully describe their legislative goals for for their constituents and for other American citizens.
If interested, I recommend the website for < Issue One>.
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How about a campaign finance law forbidding contributions from out of state donors? Impossible now, with Trump in power, and a Supteme Cout that gutted campaign finance reform with Citizens United.
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Or, even better, publicly fund elections.
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And the Democratic Party wonders why so many teachers and retired teachers (who still vote!) sat on the sidelines in 2016, not voting for Trump but also not voting for Clinton? It wasn’t those teachers who were responsible for Trump being elected — it was the Democratic Party and its turncoat minions who have betrayed public schools. The way it looks now, we’ll do the same again in 2018.
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It’s disgusting. He appoints them which means he has ultimate power. The NJEA lobbied to help these members understand the issues with PARCC, but when they started to be sympathetic for an agenda that opposed Christie, they suddenly find they are on the outs. Can’t wait for Christie to be gone.
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I’m surprised no one I saw mentioned this .
Christie obviously couldn’t resist a parting shot because he is term limited Primary for NJ Governor and the NJ state legislature is June 6: https://ballotpedia.org/New_Jersey
“Ballotpedia rates the 2017 New Jersey gubernatorial election as Lean Democrat. This rating is based on our gubernatorial race rating system. In particular, current polls show Democratic frontrunner Phil Murphy with a lead of more than 20% over Republican frontrunner Kim Guadagno and New Jersey went to Hillary Clinton in 2016 with more than 55% of the electorate, fitting our definition of Likely Democrat.[21] However, the sitting governor is a Republican, fitting our definition of Toss-up. Our rating of Lean Democrat will be updated as further polls are released.
…Facing the prospect of a wide-open primary, the Democratic establishment quickly rallied behind Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, ambassador to Germany and Democratic fundraiser. His main Democratic challenger is Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Bernie Sanders supporter who played a key role in the legislature’s Bridgegate investigation. While Murphy could catch some flak for his Wall Street background, he has the edge in organization and fundraising. “
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