Have you noticed that the candidates soppnsored by the charter industry say they support public schools and never say they want more charters.
Voucher supporters never say the V word. Instead they call vouchers “scholarshipsl or “tuition tax credits” or something else.
Suddenly, the biggest enemies of public schools proclaim their love for the very schools they have defunded and called “government schools” (ALEC’s term) now declare that they LOVE LOVE LOVE public schools. It must be election time.
Don’t be fooled!
Our reader Chiara writes about Ohio, where the mood has changed. Ohio Republicans authorized charters and vouchers and sent $1 billion to a failing virtual charter school, which went bankrupt. The same people who stole hundreds of millions from public schools are now asking you to trust them.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
She writes:
“It’s like the politicians are rusty in Ohio- out of practice. They’re so used to lock step public school bashing as a campaign tactic that they’re having trouble even pretending to support public schools.
“Mike DeWine doesn’t know what to say. He’s torn between his donors, his ideological opposition to public schools and his urgent need to get elected. You can see the struggle on his face as he casts about for something, anything to say to the 85% of families in this state who attend public schools. They haven’t spoken to us in years, other than to suggest we all enroll in the charters and private schools they prefer.
“I watch the debates and I expect one of them to revert to the last 15 years of training and start yelling “government schools!”, involuntarily. Public school bashing was such a surefire political winner for so many years they all look like they’re lost without it.
“No longer can Ohio politicians dump every problem they haven’t addressed on public schools and dodge accountability. The 15 year free ride is over.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
#45 is saying anything he thinks people need to hear in order to win. Right or wrong, truth or lies are all equal in Trumplandia. Another big lie in Republican political ads is that they suddenly want to protect people with preexisting conditions in health care while they simultaneously sponsor legislation to do the opposite. If anyone believes this nonsense, I’ve heard the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale too.
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Paul Krugman makes the same point about the party of destruction: What Republicans truly stand for, and have for decades, is cutting taxes on the rich and slashing social programs. Sure enough, last year they succeeded in ramming through a huge tax cut aimed mainly at corporations and the wealthy, and came within one vote of passing a health “reform” that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would have caused 32 million Americans to lose health coverage.
The G.O.P.’s problem is that this agenda is deeply unpopular. Large majorities of Americans oppose cuts in major social programs, while most voters want to raise, not reduce, taxes on corporations and high-income individuals.
But instead of changing their agenda to meet voters’ concerns, Republicans have resorted to a strategy of deception and distraction. On one side, they have gone full black-is-white, up-is-down on policy substance. Most spectacularly, they are posing as defenders of protection for people with pre-existing conditions — protection that their failed health bill would have stripped away, and which they are now trying to take away through the courts. And they’re claiming that Democrats are the ones threatening Medicare. End quote
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Yep. Looks like we were writing at the same time.
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retired teacher,
at the very time that the GOP candidates are promising to protect what they sought to repeal, the state attorneys general in Republican states are in court arguing that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Squaring the circle.
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It’s not just schools. It’s also health care. DeWine’s latest ad almost had me convinced that deep down, he’s a liberal. OK, “almost” is a lie on my part. But not nearly as big as the multiple lies that Republicans feel comfortable to run on. We’ve invoked the names of Orwell and Huxley a lot in the past few years. Even they couldn’t have come up with this garbage.
I’ve met DeWine a couple of times in his office when he was senator. He comes across as a colorless, somewhat affable guy. This campaign demonstrates that his core belief is prepackaged hypocrisy to promote his political career.
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It is very odd. Republicans this year are running as faux Democrats, promising to protect healthcare for pre-existing conditions even though the very same people voted repeatedly to eliminate “healthcare for people with pre-existing conditions,” aka Obamacare. The most egregious example is in Arizona, where Congresswoman Martha McSally loudly proclaims her devotion to voting like a Democrat after voting to repeal Obamacare many times. But it is happening everywhere. Of course, Trump also claims to support the very thing he has sworn to repeal.
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Unfortunately, the Republicans also have a loyal cadre of brainwashed, tribal conservatives that always show up to vote against their own self interests. These are the ones that would rather vote for a Russian than a Democrat.
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The same people who used to say in the 1950s, “better dead than Red,” now say “Better Red than Democrat.”
Bizarre.
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Two Ohio school systems that filed a lawsuit this autumn (State News) to recover money lost to ECOT make it clear in the suit, that they can’t trust Dewine to get the tax money back from the fleecers.
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Chiara is an astute observer and informed critic of all things absurd in Ohio.
The Republicans are running on lies and really shameful repeats of the “liberal mob” is coming to get you…the aliens in our midst are dangerous. Even this haired woman getting about with the help of a rollator must be feared.
Last evening I watched The National Geographic Channel presentation on the several versions of the SS enlisted by Hitler, the loyalty oaths required, and their dutiful fulfillment of orders to kill Jews with the gas chambers coldly viewed as more efficient than other means.
The program had interviews with three still alive members of the SS. Two knew they had been seduced and duped. One was still unrepentant and spouting the white nationalist line. This true believer was not unlike some of the followers of Trump.
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Loyalty oaths like those required of conservative law students who were promised that in return they’d get the backing of wealthy donors.
The info. reached media and the Heritage Foundation shut down the program. It was in the news last week.
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