Politico has an article today about Joe Biden and the 2020 presidential race.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/10/joe-biden-2020-trump-244757
It ends by noting that he met with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
Did Rahm crow about closing 50 public schools in one day?
Did he advise him about how to bust the unions?
Did he tell Joe that opening charter schools would bring in hedge fund money for his campaign?
What did Joe learn from Rahm?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Biden’s presence might be tempting to a younger, more practical centrist candidate—-in which case a genuine progressive—if there is such an animal, might have the math working for him. There are maybe a dozen scenarios different than this one—I might think about it for a couple of minutes anyway.
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Oh please Rahm, just stop. Please don’t advise the Democratic Party on what to do next!
“…he met for coffee with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the former Obama chief of staff who’s renewed his role as a behind-the-scenes strategist for what the Democratic Party should do next.”
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“Out with the Old”
Out with the old
And in with the new
Biden should fold
Emanuel too
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Joe Biden is yet another neoliberal. What makes him think he can pull it off? For that matter, what makes him think he’s any different than Rahm, with the exception of the fact that he’s smart enough not to use the word “retard”?
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Amid all the news reports about offshore banking/tax evasion in countries like Panama, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Luxemburg, etc., what usually goes unmentioned is that Delaware is in fact a global repository of dark money, largely as a result of the efforts of Mr. Biden.
Combine that with his subservience to the banking industry in drafting the current bankruptcy law, which he helped shepherd through congress, along with his hypocrisy in posing as a defender of working people, and the only response by voters should be “Goodbye and good riddance!”
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Joe Biden should also steer clear of his wayward brother that operates a for profit charter chain called ‘Mavericks.’ Frank Biden is tangled up in a mess of outrageous “management fees” and other questionable activities associated with this charter chain.http://www.phillymag.com/news/2012/01/27/vice-presidents-brother-sports-bars-school-vouchers-dwyane-wade/
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Incidentally, I will point out that Joe Biden was Vice President the day Rahm closed 50 schools. I paid pretty close attention and I don’t recall Biden registering any kind of concern or protest regarding that move. Nor did his boss. I mean, I know they both had other issues to be thinking about, but that was a pretty huge deal. You’d think they could spare a sentence or two.
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That’s because they were both interested in privatizing schools then and still are now.
No brainer.
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Chicago leaders: City can afford shiny new police academy, just not schools or community services
What can Chicago afford?
The city couldn’t afford to keep 50 of its public schools open in 2013, Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) decided. The previous year, he deemed six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics didn’t have a seat at the table either, pushing thousands closer to the prison system one local sheriff has described as the city’s new last-resort clearinghouse for people who belong in treatment.
Emanuel’s schools raid shaved about $800 million off the city’s expenses. Shoving the clinic patients into a chaotic transition of delicate care regimens saved another $3 million.
But now he’s getting a green light to build a brand new $95 million police training facility. City aldermen voted 48-1 in favor of the plan Wednesday, after hours of angry public comments from citizens who attended the hearing.
The city will finance the new project in part by selling existing public properties. Even after those conversions, the project will need close to $40 million in cash from the same budget Emanuel insisted could not bear the demands of educating kids in his city’s blackest neighborhoods or maintaining mental health care for more than 5,000 people. He has continued to privatize mental health facilities around the city in the years since….
https://thinkprogress.org/rahm-emanuel-cop-academy-chicago-565014ca2135/
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The US Department of Education is going to yet another “summit” where public school supporters aren’t invited or welcome:
“DeVos will face a friendly audience of mostly like-minded reformers at the Nashville summit”
Since 90% of US students attend public schools shouldn’t the US Department of Education meet with people who work for or support public schools?
I get it- they’re completely captured by the ed reform echo chamber, but at what point does this become “not doing their jobs”? Can they exclude 90% of families and schools and work for “education”? Seems ludicrous to me.
In order to speak to any of these public employees I suppose one has to crash an ed reform cheerleading meeting.
Ridiculous.
https://chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/2017/11/10/betsy-devos-to-address-jeb-bushs-education-summit-in-nashville/
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“Organized by ExcelinEd, the annual National Summit on Education Reform is the nation’s premier gathering of education reformers. It provides state and local policymakers, education leaders and advocates with comprehensive information on evolving laws, new trends, successful policies and the latest innovations that are transforming education for the 21st century.”
Public schools need not apply. Pearson is one of the funders.
Are the people at Pearson aware that public schools buy the vast majority of their products? They know Pearson would go out of business without public schools, right? That every single one of the overpaid executives attending this shindig survives on public school funding?
Public schools are good enough to buy Pearson product but not good enough to make the cut for attendance at these “summits”.
The same is true for the ed tech industry. They lobby AGAINST the public schools that buy the vast majority of their products.
They take you and your schools and your business for granted. Find better vendors.
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Isn’t Joe Biden’s brother, Frank, a major charter operator in Florida? We need a break from the Democrat party of the past. The party needs to go forward with a new much more progressive trajectory I believe is best exemplified by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
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Neither Berne nor Warren opposes charters.
Berne supports public charters, he said in a 2016 Debate. Warren opposed expansion of charters in Mass but praised the good work of existing charters. I would like to hear a strong clear statement against privatization of public funds.
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I heard a report on the radio today, that stated that Joe Biden is sorry that he is not president. That makes at least two of us!
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Rahm, Booker and Cuomo delude themselves if they think they are potential presidential candidates. They have disqualified themselves by their demented education policies and won’t gain traction no matter how much their hedge fund cronies chip in
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Biden is ROTTEN to the core. His brother owns a charter chain, and Biden’s apples fell never far from the Obama tree.
Do NOT trust this smiling false democrat. He deserves the crap that has happened to him in the last four years.
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“He deserves the crap that has happened to him in the last four years.”
What in God’s name are you saying he deserves?
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Not to obsess over this, but the only “crap that has happened” to Joe Biden in the last four years I’m aware of is his son dying. Saying that somebody deserves to have his child die is the most disgusting thing I can recall reading in the comments section here, or anywhere else.
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I agree FLERP. Having a child in the tortuous throws of cancer until the end has to be the worst thing any parent can endure.
I heard VP Biden speak at a wealthy donor’s home near where I live. It cost $250 to come but I wanted to see Biden. His speech was right on target as to what ills the country is facing.
I realize that giving a speech is much easier than standing up for something when it comes to a vote. However, Biden can’t be worse than the ignorant Orange IDIOT that now runs our government.
Trump talked with Putin in Vietnam and now reassures us, once again, that Putin said Russia was not involved in the US elections. tRump believes Putin. Putin’s honesty is just as trustworthy as the Orange IDIOT’s.
I have never spoken this blatantly against anyone in politics. It is frustrating to hear lies repeated enough times that they become ‘facts’. That is what Fox ‘news’ does. Our Great Leader gets his ‘facts’ from Fox.
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Referring to his political career. How could you refer to his poor son? THAT’s horrible, and shame on you….It shows where YOUR mind is at.
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That’s the only inference I draw when I hear “the horrible crap that has happened to him.” I don’t think anything that’s happened to Biden politically in recent memory has been “horrible.” He didn’t run for President, he wasn’t on any ticket. And when you lose a child, nothing else in your life—and certainly not any political setback—can be considered to be a “horrible thing that has happened to you.”
If you say that’s not what you were referring to, I’ll accept that and apologize for my rather heated reaction.
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Please elaborate on the horrible things that Biden did in his political career. Not supporting public schools seems to be something that most politicians do these days so that doesn’t count. What else are you referring to? I respect your opinion.
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Apology accepted, FLERP . .. .
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http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1895156_1894977_1846619,00.html
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Carol Malaysia,
Biden has only given basic lip service. He has remained silent during many controversial, majority-expressed concerns, and is not up for the presidency or governorship. People are not interested in him as a major player politician any more. He can go for a seat in the House at most, which is, of course, no small gig. But still, there will not be a President Biden in the horizon, and there’s no love lost there.
Also, he makes statements that are not clearly thought out because he attempts to be more of an orator (not so successfully , obviously) than a substantive activist politician.
Joe Biden is what MLK described as the type of complicity that adds invisibly and silently to the fires of injustice and inequity.
Biden is as rotten as Obama, and they are in the same rottenness camp as Schumer, Pelosi, Booker, Ryan, McConnell, Trump . . . . They are all rotten when it comes to fiscal justice and equity with equal intensity, just in different styles with different angles and rhetoric and levels of obviousness. Follow ALL their rhetorics, and you’ll see them all willfully knotted up in a thick rope that can be traced straight back to Wall Street and Corporate America. Biden is tethered by that very rope, and he enjoys every single rope burn he gets . . . .
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Thank you.
I do believe that average people, and even more so the poor, are not being treated decently. Politicians have been bought out by money and no longer serve. The big question is will it ever get better or will it continue to decay. I do believe Trump is a sign of huge decay. It is hard to get much worse than him.
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Probably thanking Joe for delaying the LaQuan McDonald tape until after the election. I’ll never forgive Obama for this cynical political move.
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