John Kasich was portrayed by the media in the 2016 as the last Republican Moderate. Critics in Ohio had a different idea. They called him John the Vindictive. They remember that his first effort in Ohio was to try to kill collective bargaining. It took a referendum to roll back his Senate Bill 5.
Stephen Dyer says that Vindictive John is back.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Don’t all the ALEC and/or Dominionist reformers pretend to be something they are not because they know they can’t succeed unless they fool people because the vast majority of Americans do not agree with their fascist, racist, hate-filled, greed-based agendas?
LikeLike
There is no such thing as a moderate today. There is progressive, conservative, far right Corporate Libertarian, and far right xenophobic nationalist. The “center” is neoliberal, in other words, Corporate Libertarian in disguise.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I disagree. I think of myself as a moderate.
And I am not alone. More than third of American voters call themselves neither liberal or conservative but moderate. And I think most of those voters are independent like me and refuse to join either party. In fact, independents voters are the largest group out there today.
I will admit that it is probably impossible to find an elected moderate in the Republican Party.
“What the poll found is fascinating. Moderates, according to the poll, aren’t tuned-out or ill-informed, but they tend to see both sides of complex issues—for example, they want the government to do more to help the economy, but they worry that it may be ineffective or counterproductive. They see both parties as overly ideological and wish politicians would compromise more. A plurality are Democrats, but they see themselves as slightly right-of-center ideologically, and one-third say they vote equally for Democrats and Republicans. And they are surprisingly young and diverse: Self-described moderates represent a 44 percent plurality of Hispanic and nonwhite voters and a 42 percent plurality of the Millennial generation. …
“The poll finds that 40 percent of moderates consider themselves Democrats, while just 21 percent are Republicans and 39 percent are independents.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/moderates-who-are-they-and-what-do-they-want/370904/
LikeLike
It’s always a stitch watching the MainScreamMedia, even the so-called liberal media, try to gloss over each new day’s reality warps faster than XLV and the GOP can spin them out.
LikeLike
The mainstream media that attempts to balance the news would do a better job if they ignore Trump’s obvious grandstanding circus act for what it was — a diversion.
LikeLike
Yup, like Roman “bread and circuses.” only the Repubs want to cut SNAP benefits, so it’s Less Bread and More Circuses.
LikeLike
It’s interesting in Ohio this year, though. Democrats are actively running against ed reform and Republicans (those who are running) are too.
They’re going after the auditor on his refusal to regulate ECOT and that will spread to the attorney general, who also didn’t do his job and is now running for governor.
Ed reform is a political liability in this state now. Kasich may not care because he’s been running for President for the last 5 years, but Ohio state politicians care a lot.
LikeLiked by 1 person
While it would be wonderful to believe that candidates are running against ed reform by honestly understanding the entire privatizing/gentrifying/segregating/criminalizing mess, over and over in our city whenever the anti-reform element has a success, they then end up getting on board with the next newly disguised Big Money reform. We’re always looking to treat the outward (and specifically local) symptoms of the cancer, but seldom see anyone going after — or even understanding — the deep and growing cancer itself.
LikeLike
Betsy DeVos used her invitation to a PTA meeting to promote charter and private schools:
“Now, as you may have seen over the past couple of days, that seems to be a controversial sentiment — but it shouldn’t be. So, now that I have the opportunity to speak unedited, I’m not afraid to call out folks who defend stagnation for what it really is: failure.
That’s why I joined many parents in Michigan and fought hard for more choices. And Michigan families were among the first in the country to exercise their right to enroll their children in charter schools.
But even today, choice is highly limited in Michigan. Where options do exist, students often do better. In Detroit, for example, students who attend charter schools perform twice as well as their traditional public school counterparts on state achievement tests.
But that’s still not good enough. Michigan hasn’t embraced further reforms and hasn’t yet offered parents robust choice. As a result, students have suffered. That’s borne out in the data. 4th grade reading and math scores are essentially a flat line, while states surrounding Michigan offer parents more choices and see improving student achievement.”
It’s really shameful that we have this entire federal agency devoted to privatizing public schools.
Other than these garbage “school security” plans they threw together no one in the federal government has done a lick of work on behalf of public school students which constitute NINETY PER CENT of students.
The US federal government is opposed to the schools 90% of Americans attend.
It’s ludicrous. They should be ashamed to accept a paycheck for this.
LikeLike
Charter schools in Detroit are doing twice as well as public schools. But the charter schools are also failing:
LikeLike
http://www.samchaltain.com/if-you-care-about-the-future-of-public-education-read-this-interview?utm_source=March+2018&utm_campaign=March+2018&utm_medium=email
LikeLike
I have a question as a citizen and taxpayer. How did we end up with a federal government packed with people who have absolute contempt for the schools our children attend?
Why are we paying these people? They offer absolutely no added value to any public school, anywhere.
LikeLike
“How did we end up with a federal government packed with people who have absolute contempt for the schools our children attend?”
I think the answer is the long relentlessness of the Koch brothers to subvert the U.S. Constitution through ALEC (a super secret, subversive organization with about 2,000 very wealthy members that was launched 45 years ago), and the rest of the Kochtupus toxic terminal cancer.
This is an old video that was posted in 2011. Since then the twins, Charles and David Koch have doubled their wealth and are well on their way to turning the United States into a Dominionist Kleptocracy.
Many of Trump’s cabinet members and appointees in the federal government belong to ALEC.
“Trump’s Koch administration”
“Despite past clashes — and looming policy disputes — the Koch brothers’ operation has allies in key positions on Trump’s team.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/trump-koch-brothers-231863
The term is “infiltration”. Through Trump’s lack of real friends and connections of his own and decades of supporting ALEC minions in the GOP getting elected to local, state and federal positions, the Koch brothers have become more aggressive in fulfilling their end goal. Their recent boldness shows that they think they have won their 45-year war to destroy the republic the U.S. Constitution was written to create and protect.
Getting rid of them. Getting rid of ALEC. Getting rid of the Koctopus, and that machine’s subversive, hate-filled, fascist, racist agenda would probably not die but it would suffer a huge setback. Easier said than done?
LikeLike
I have a question. Why is the federal government even involved in public school education? States did not delegate that authority to the federal government in the Constitution. Get out and leave education of our children to local school districts.
LikeLike
This is really nice:
https://twitter.com/jointhefutureOH?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
It’s pictures of kids in public schools all over Ohio protesting against gun violence.
I’m proud of them. Good job!
LikeLike
Kids today!
The smartest generation!
LikeLike
John Kasich is a old time fool, a grumpy bumble mouth typical politician. I did not know that this creep tried to break collective bargaining in the state of Ohio as I live in NYC. Any human being who pushes for the destruction of collective bargaining should not, I repeat, should not be working in any type of government position let alone Governor.
The fact of the matter is this: As Chiara says, why are we paying people who do not care about us or our kids or the schools that our kids go to? Why are people like Scott Walker, John Kasich out to ruin the lives of hard working people who pay taxes that pay these politicians salary. We as people clearly need to start to vote and pick people who will work for our benefit and our good contributing to a better quality of life. Look at the people in Wisconsin who lost their collective bargaining right to wimpy Scott Walker and the devil Koch Bros. Politicians who want to take away need to go away and it starts with us the voters so remember and do not forget these people.
LikeLike
Kasich holds a grudge and has made a gigantic mess of Ohio. What Kasich really wants is to lead the DOE. Really? No way!
LikeLike
I’ve been telling my friends not to be fooled and have so far been stonewalled. He’s gotten good press.
Besides: in today’s day and age, “right wing moderate” isn’t saying much. It’s like the difference between a machete and a cleaver.
LikeLike
Isn’t Kasich the same guy who wanted all teachers in the state of Ohio to attend a business for one day. Yep, this old time grumpy politician wanted all teachers to visit a business and work there for one day……The teachers came back at Kasich and said come to a school and work for one day. some how Kasich pulled back on his desire for teachers to work in a business. To the people of Ohio, get this guy out of office as soon as you can, he is delusional, angry and needs to get out of town otherwise he will instill more damage.
LikeLike
He’s been campaigning for the 2020 nomination since the day he dropped out of the 2016 race. He was smart enough to see Trump for what he is and the effect he would have on our country but not being Donald Trump doesn’t make you good for our country and Kasich has a lot of dangerous positions.
I’ll let him take pot shots at 45 all he wants and I’ll cheer him on while he does it but I’d never in a million years accept him as a leader of this country.
LikeLike
If Kasich thinks he is going to run again and spew his bumbling bull crap he better think again. This guy is a real creepy politician in that he wanted to eliminate collective bargaining in the state of Ohio.
So, what you have here in kasich is Scott Walker in disguise trying to pull another koch bros mission to erode the people of this country. Voting for kasich would be like voting for Scott walker or worse yet voting for any one of the koch bros
LikeLike