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Denis Smith: Take Republicans at Their Word

By dianeravitch
November 7, 2022 //
27

Denis Smith is a retired educator in Ohio. He urges voters to take Republicans at their word. When they say they will cut Social Security and Medicare, believe them. When they say they will enact a national ban on abortion, believe them. When they say they will cut taxes for big corporations, believe them.

He writes:

What Are You (We) Going to Do About It? It’s Very Simple. Take Republicans at Their Word.


According to some recent polling, Americans, concerned about rising energy and consumer prices, are expected to give control to Republicans for at least one house of Congress, most likely the House of Representatives. Yet other polls show that the Democrats are on the rebound, with many House and Senate races still too close to call.
How appolling is this? Pun.


Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post framed the ambiguous forecasting this way:

“Will an issue such as abortion motivate voters who usually skip midterms, turbocharging Democratic turnout? Will unease about the economy tip the scales toward change, boosting the GOP across the board?”


“The fact that we don’t know is unnerving…”


But while the result of the midterms might be in doubt, all of us should have no doubt about what will happen if Republicans regain control of one or both houses of Congress.


In their own words, Republicans have told us what to expect if they are victorious on November 8. We should have learned to trust them by now in looking at what they’ve said as a predictor of what they will do.

Some examples:


Social Security and Medicare. The two most popular government programs may be subject to attempts to sunset them as a way to wreak havoc on the debt ceiling. How ironic that the mastermind of the sunset plan is Florida Senator Rick Scott, who famously took the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a case involving the biggest Medicare fraud in American history that occurred during his tenure as CEO at healthcare giant Columbia/HCA.


Tax Cuts for Corporations. The GOP has promised to make permanent corporate tax levels enacted five years earlier in the first months of the Trump administration, reverting to their modus operandi of starving other programs to pay for such largesse. But to be a Republican means that you are a walking contradiction, driven to revert to past bad behavior by favoring corporations and high-income taxpayers at the expense of everyone else, including seniors.

The Post’s Jeff Stein painted this picture of what to expect in a Republican victory.


“Many economists say the GOP’s plans to expand the tax cuts flies against their promises to fight inflation and reduce the federal deficit, which have emerged as central themes of their 2022 midterm campaign rhetoric.”


Defund the IRS. Republicans plan to curtail plans for increased spending at the IRS to replace 1970s systems and increase customer service levels to avoid future backlogs on processing tax returns. Some of the new funding would go toward
hiring additional auditors to “crack down on high-income and corporate tax evaders who cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars each year.” At least 50,000 IRS staff are expected to retire soon, but the GOP has spread wild
claims that staffing levels will increase by 87,000 when in fact the funding will be needed to replace retiring staff, invest in new technology, and add more robust auditing for tax cheats, both individual and corporate.


Defund Ukraine. From the looks of it, the defense of democracy may be waning in the Republican congressional caucus. In the last month, House Leader Kevin McCarthy has warned about not giving a “blank check” in the future for more aid to
Ukraine, as have other Republicans who want more money to build a wall on the southern border. Never mind that any pullback from support for Ukraine will seriously undermine NATO, something that Donald Trump wanted to do all along by his desire back in 2018 to withdraw American membership from the North
Atlantic Alliance.

“These guys don’t get it. It’s a lot bigger than Ukraine – it’s Eastern Europe. It’s NATO. It’s real, serious, serious consequential outcomes,” said Joe Biden about GOP plans to cut support for Ukraine.

Help Big Pharma – At Your Expense. In the recently enacted Inflation Reduction
Act, you will be shocked, shocked to learn that Republicans want to help pharmaceutical companies at the expense of consumers. The Ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee has vowed to roll back caps on drug
costs allowed in the IRA “because those drug provisions are so dangerous, by discouraging investment in life-saving cures.” The legislation allows Medicare to negotiate its costs for the most expensive drugs and cap out-of-pocket costs for
seniors at $2,000 per year.

Investigations Ad Nauseum. Remember Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi? In an interview on Fox News a full year before the 2016 presidential election, House Leader Kevin McCarthy opined that “…everybody thought Hillary Clinton was
unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”
You can bet your bottom dollar that if Republicans take control of Congress, we won’t have to wait long to discover probes into the Departments of Justice for alleged prosecutorial activism, Homeland Security for border issues, and for the
current president for having the same surname as Hunter Biden. You can also bet that all active congressional probes related to the January 6 insurrection will be stopped as quickly as you can say stop the steal, with the effect of absolving
possible criminal behavior on the part of some members of Congress and White House staff who may have aided and abetted the aborted coup in some fashion.


And we also need to be reminded that if the Republicans take control of the
House of Representatives, the likely new chairman of the Judiciary Committee will be Jim Jordan, the less than urbane resident of Urbana who helped to give us Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi a decade ago. His clownish antics back then may
prove to be his dress rehearsal for wielding a gavel to create more chaos and circus-like behavior in what was in another era referred to as the people’s house. In order to drive home the strong probability of chaos in the new Congress,
consider Jordan’s new 1,000 page report, where he alleges that both the FBI and the Justice Department have been politicized. Hmm, he must have never heard of William Barr. At any rate, the “report” is filled with air, containing hundreds of
pages of letters, signature pages, and only 46 pages of narrative. As is typical with Jordan, there is nothing but hot air and bluster as he wrestles in incessant witch hunts.

And last but not least:


Impeachment. Revenge. Payback. Impeachment will be on the table if the Republicans win in November. Ask Ted Cruz. Ask Marjorie Taylor Greene. For that matter, just ask the lunatic fringe that is now in control of the Republican Party. And the reason for a new impeachment? No, not for a president pressuring the Ukrainian leader to help him with collecting dirt on a political opponent, not for violation of the Emolument Clause in charging the Secret Service more than $1,600 per night for lodging in his properties, and certainly not for being central to a conspiracy for overthrowing a democratic (small d) election that led to the January 6 coup attempt at the nation’s Capitol. And the charges? Details. Details. They’ll fabricate something later because after all, the subject is revenge. Payback. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” Ted Cruz said in September.
For once, Lyin’ Ted, as Trump christened him, was being straightforward.

So if you know all of this now, what are you going to do about it? In 1871, the great cartoonist Thomas Nast posed that same question.
When it comes to the Republicans’ upcoming agenda, we should believe Ted Cruz. And Kevin McCarthy. And all the rest of an anti-democracy, anti-government, election denying lunatic cult that once was identified as a responsible, conservative political party.


But perhaps the scariest part is that what has been detailed here merely represents the short list of Republican objectives in January if they win. After all, that’s what the GOP (Great Obstructionist Party), with no plan for providing principled governance yet having a detailed plan for obstruction and mayhem, is all about.


Yes, that is the GIP.


No, that’s not a typo. The GOP is also becoming known as the GIP, the Great Insurrectionist Party. When you threaten to cut Medicare and Social Security and take funds from Ukraine, a democratic country fighting for its life against an authoritarian onslaught, the result is that we’ve been GIPped.


And never forget that the leader of the rape of Ukraine is a former KGB agent who was defended by Donald Trump in 2018 at a meeting in Helsinki against allegations by 17 American intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.


“No prior president has ever abased himself more
abjectly before a tyrant, the late Senator John McCain said at the time about
Trump’s performance in defending a brutal dictator who murders journalists and
jails those who dare to object to his tyranny.


In the end, if you now know about this agenda that the GOP is expected to unleash but you go ahead and vote for any Republican who denies the validity of elections and supports the authoritarianism personified by Donald Trump, you are guilty of aiding and abetting the dissolution of our democracy.


Election Day is at hand. What are you – and what are we – going to do about it? From the looks and sounds of it, we are running out of time.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Privatization, Republicans

Nora de la Cour: Wisconsin Is a Battleground for the Future of Public Education

By dianeravitch
November 6, 2022 //
5

Journalist Nora de la Cour describes the dire situation in Wisconsin, where incumbent Governor Tony Evers is in a close race with an election denier/school privatizer, Tim Michels. There are many other states where education is on the ballot. Wisconsin was once known for its great public schools and public universities. Former Governor Scott Walker declared war on both. Twenty-five years ago, the far-right Bradley Foundation funded the voucher movement in Milwaukee, which has spread to other parts of the state and to other states. The Trumpist base of the Republican Party has declared war on public schools, based on lies and fantasies spun by rightwing think tanks.

She begins:

New research finds that market-style education reforms, like those pioneered in Wisconsin decades ago, have devastating consequences for students. This election, Wisconsin and the rest of the nation must choose whether to plow ahead or reverse course.

Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers is neck and neck with his challenger, Trump-endorsed Tim Michels, whose campaign has lauded abortion bans, election denialism, and a beefed up carceral–policestate. Robert Asen, who studies political discourse at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Jacobin that because education has gotten relatively less airtime, it is “a bit of a stealth issue analogous to [labor law in] Scott Walker’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign,” which didn’t prepare voters for Walker’s vicious attacks on workers. But make no mistake: this election will determine the existential future of K-12 schooling in the state.

Following the now-familiar Chris Rufo playbook, Michels plans to sign a restrictive “parents’ rights” bill and move up the timeline on a universal school choice plan that would destroy what’s left of Wisconsin’s once-great public schools. Formerly the state’s superintendent of public instruction, Evers has pledged to increase school funding and prioritize the public system. In reality, though, even if Evers prevails he’ll at best continue to be “the man of a thousand vetoes,” given that Republican opposition will prevent him from pursuing his agenda. So as Marquette University senior fellow and veteran education reporter Alan Borsuk put it when speaking to Jacobin, this governor’s race amounts to a choice between treading water and veering hard right.

In many ways, Wisconsin blazed a trail for the rest of the country with market-style reforms that increase competition by weakening teachers’ unions and privatizing schools. Decades later, researchers have mapped the devastating impact of these reforms on Wisconsin students. So, as voters across the United States face grave education questions up and down the ballot, it makes sense to look back at what’s happened in the Badger State.

Please open the link and read this important article.

Categories Education Industry, Elections, Extremism, Higher Education, Privatization, Walker, Scott, Wisconsin

Oklahoma: Prominent Republican Endorses Democrat Joy Hofmeister for Governor!

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2022 //
5

I met Joy Hofmeister a few years ago, in her capacity as superintendent of public education, and I was impressed by her dedication to public schools, her intellect, and her candor. She was a Republican then, but clearly not supportive of the Republican agenda to privatize public education.

If you live in Oklahoma, please vote for Joy for governor!

Former Republican Rep. J.C. Watts (Okla.) has bucked his party to endorse Democrat Joy Hofmeister in her challenge to Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R).

“I was a Republican then, and I’m a Republican now, and, friends, I’m voting for Joy Hofmeister,” Watts says in a new ad.

“All this scandal and corruption is just too much. Joy is a woman of faith and integrity. She’ll always put Oklahoma first. I know Joy personally, and I trust her, and you can too,” the former Oklahoma congressman said.

Hofmeister was elected Oklahoma’s superintendent of public instruction twice as a Republican but swapped parties to register as a Democrat last year before mounting her gubernatorial campaign.

“Conservatives like Congressman Watts see Stitt’s lies about me for what they are — a desperate attempt to maintain power,” Hofmeister wrote on Twitter, sharing the ad.

Categories Corruption, Education Reform, Elections, Oklahoma

Jeanne Kaplan on the Denver Model: Charter, Choice, Chaos, and Churn

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2022 //
11

Jeanne Kaplan served two terms as an elected board member in Denver. She has watched the board’s frenIed embrace of “reform” with dismay. open the link and read the full article, which appears on her blog. I am not putting the post into italics since she uses italics.

She writes:

Reap what you sow and the chickens come home to roost. The elephant in the room.  Aphorisms appropriate to describe what is happening in public education in Denver. 

After 20 years,  more than 5  superintendents, and 11 different school boards, the results of education reform in Denver have become clear, and they aren’t pretty. After opening 72 charters in the last 20 years, 22 of which have closed, the declining enrollments in neighborhood schools have forced the prospect of school closures.  Who knew opening 26 privately run elementary charter schools in competition with district-run schools would ultimately force the district to make some hard financial decisions?  And who knew that ignoring its own 2007 data showing stagnant population growth would lead to less demand for elementary school seats in the 2020s?  Apparently, not those with the power for the last 20 years.  And, as an ironic aside, many of the same people who were the decision-makers in the past and who were unable to make substantive change then, have now decided they will somehow make these previously unattainable changes from their outside “oversight” committee, EDUCATE Denver. In fact one of the co-chairs, Rosemary Rodriguez, was a DPS board member when on March 16, 2017, a Strengthening Neighborhoods Resolution passed, stating:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that a citywide committee be formed to review changing demographics and housing patterns in our city and the effect on our schools and to make recommendations on our policies around boundaries, choice, enrollment and academic programs in order to drive greater socio-economic integration in our schools.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that in the face of the sharp decline in the number of school-aged children in gentrifying neighborhoods, the committee is also charged with how to think about school choice and school consolidation to ensure that our schools are able to offer high-quality, sustainable programs for our kids.

These former school board members and former and current civic leaders have formed a “shadow school board” to evaluate and oversee the current superintendent and school board.  Why?  It appears they don’t like what they are seeing being proposed by the current superintendent. What don’t they like?  It appears they have determined the current superintendent is not committed enough to their reform agenda.  You know – the one that has been in place when they were in power, the one that has produced the biggest gaps in the nation, more segregation, and more resource inequity.

As school closures have risen to the fore this week Chalkbeat disclosed these statistics:

“Over the past 20 years, Denver Public Schools has added a lot of schools. It has added students, too — but at a much slower rate.

  • The number of public schools in Denver grew 55% between the 2001-02 and 2021-22 school years, while the number of students grew just 12%.
  • Denver went from having 132 schools serving about 72,000 students in 2001-02 to 204 schools serving nearly 89,000 students in 2021-22.
  • The number of elementary schools in Denver grew 23% over the past 20 years, while the number of students grew just 4%.”

Through expensive marketing and often false narratives, charter schools have had free reign to prey on susceptible families resulting in DPS losing 7400 elementary school students who would have otherwise most likely attended a neighborhood school. Then add in:

  • a state law that prohibits a district from shutting down low enrollment charters, 
  • a district that has ignored demographic information predicting declining enrollment, 
  • a district that employs “attendance zones” and a secretive CHOICE system to often force place students into heavily marketed, often unwanted CHARTER SCHOOLS, and 
  • a competitive financial model called Student Based Budgeting (SBB – money follows the kid) to fund schools, depending on student needs, the goal of which is to close the achievement and resource gaps.
Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Colorado, Competition, Corporate Reform, Denver, Disruption, Education Industry, Elections, Failure

Michael Hiltzik: The Republicans Have No Plan to Reduce Inflation

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2022 //
34

I have been surprised that Democrats have been so mealy-mouthed about inflation. Yes, inflation is bad, and it hurts everyone, especially those living from paycheck to paycheck. Gasoline costs more than we are used to paying (while the big gas and oil corporations are reporting record profits).

But why don’t Democrats tell the facts: Inglation is a global problem. The Ukrainian war—Putin’s war—has cut off energy supplies and raised prices. Europeans have as much inflation as we do, maybe more. There have been mass protests against inflation in other countries.

To hear Republican ads, Joe Biden is uniquely responsible for inflation. Is he causing inflation around the world or shouldn’t we be talking about the “Putin tax”?

Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times reveals an important truth: the Republicans have no plan to reduce inflation. It’s their biggest issue, by far, and they have not said what they would do to curb inflation.

A look at the GOP’s election manifesto, the “Commitment to America” recently issued by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield), reveals no specifics. Nor have Republican candidates done so during the multitude of appearances they’ve made on cable talk shows, despite specific and pointed questions by the hosts….

Here, for example, is Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) on Aug. 21, responding on “Meet the Press” when Chuck Todd asked, “What is the Republican plan to deal with inflation other than not supporting Joe Biden policies?”

“Well, we have a positive agenda. We have a commitment to America, and we’re going to get back to basics. … We don’t need more IRS agents. We need more Border Patrol agents. And we have a common sense plan to reduce the cost of living, to lower the cost at the pump.”

But what that “common sense plan” was, Barr didn’t disclose.

Nothing is new about this campaign technique from a minority party. It consists of repeatedly citing a problem and tying it to the party in power, assuming that voters’ impulse to “throw the bums out” will deliver electoral victory…

The “Commitment to America” also claims to have a scheme to “regain American energy independence and lower prices at the pump.” A couple of problems with that. One is that the U.S. already is energy-independent — it’s been a net exporter of oil almost every month since the last quarter of 2019 and a net exporter of natural gas since mid-2017, according to government statistics.

When McCarthy says he intends to “maximize production of reliable, American-made energy” as though that will bring prices down at the pump, he’s emitting vapor.

Additional production of energy within the U.S. will simply enter the international market, where it will be subject to global price pressures such as the supply reduction caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and by OPEC’s decision to reduce its own output. Those are the influences driving up gasoline prices here, not the pace of production from U.S. wells….

Republicans would extend the tax cuts they enacted in 2017, when they controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House — a giveaway mostly to the rich and corporations that blew a hole in the U.S. budget estimated at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 10 years — and one without any lasting positive effect on economic growth.

They’re talking about benefit cuts for Social Security and Medicare recipients, which would certainly make it harder for those households to make ends meet. They’ve talked about refusing to increase the government’s debt ceiling next year, using it to extract benefit cuts. As I’ve reported, this is playing with fire….

Undoubtedly, more can be done. President Biden is jawboning oil companies about their huge run-up in profits, but that’s just one industry. Corporate profits have soared since mid-2020 while average worker earnings have remained muted — a little-noticed spur to inflation.

Has the GOP embraced those ideas? Of course not — corporate managements and the big oil companies are its patrons. Instead of pointing the finger at them, Republicans complain that Social Security beneficiaries are collecting too much and the rich are staggering under the burden of the lowest marginal federal tax rates in more than half a century.

If you want to know why that party has nothing to offer on inflation, it’s because anything that really would address it in a way that helps average Americans would hurt its friends. We can’t have that, can we?

Categories Accountability, Biden, Economy, Elections, Republicans

Paul Cobaugh: Moral Courage Is on the Ballot in Texas

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2022 //
8

Paul Cobaugh, a military veteran, moved to Texas in 2005. He registered as a Republican because he considers himself a principled conservative in the mold of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But today, he writes, the Texas Republican Party today is a party of radical extremists who trample on the rights of those who disagree with them.

He writes:

I’m deeply ashamed of the extremists running the TX Republican Party, that control our state, destroy our American/ Texas values and built their 2022 election platform on conspiracy theories and lies. Maybe it’s because I consider myself an, “Eisenhower-Republican” or just for the simple reason that I’ve worked against extremists in combat zones and beyond. There is no difference today between the TX GOP and the Taliban. Yes, please reread and remember that last sentence.

Like most Texans, I’m proud of our state and its accomplishments. Principled conservatives and liberals built much of what we’re proud of. I frankly don’t give a damn if someone is left/ right, Republican/ Democrat or liberal/ conservative. America does better when principled and well-informed “sides” debate issues. When extremism is not only present, but dominates one side, all else fails. For the record, one of my deep, professional specialties is terrorism, extremism and counter-terrorism, that include several combat deployments prior to my retirement.

We see this in TX at every level of state responsibility. I’ve seen the same in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and other less-than-hospitable parts of the world. I refuse to stay silent when extremism rears its evil head here in my home state. The nation I’ve sworn to defend is now threatened by the soul-scorching, extremism of a party with an insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories and fascist ideals. Someone must have the courage to stand up for integrity and truth. I won’t speak for the left’s dysfunction, but I can guarantee that Abbott and his party are NOT the ones to demonstrate moral courage. We all have a citizen’s duty to be well and accurately informed. It was front and center in the minds of our founders….

In plain language, TX, like most of America, the extremists controlling today’s GOP, seek more power for their own personal gain and immorally use an anti-constitutional, social agenda, to achieve it. The opposition has little to no power in TX because they cannot agree on which individual interest has priority, but collectively ignore the big picture that clearly demonstrates the potentially lethal injury, today’s GOP is causing to the soul of our nation and worse, our national values….

The word conservative in TX is a “sacred cow” of sorts. The problem is that the current TX Republican party is now, like the national party, controlled by extremists. They are not, “conservatives.” Principled conservatives have zero voice. America, just like TX 122, is now engaged in an actual war over our unique, lofty and constitutional values versus extremism. That is what’s on the ballot in a few days: Extremism vs. reality

In TX, like most of the nation, GOP candidates run for office on extremist, unconstitutional views, while claiming to be principled, conservative patriots. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Cobaugh lists issues that typify extremism in the GOP. Education is one of them:

Critical Race Theory

a. Nearly every, so-called conservative in the nation is talking CRT, Critical Race Theory. I am yet to have one of these voters or candidates state, what it is and admit that it is not part of public education, K-12

i. Yes, I know this because my wife retired from teaching TX public school last year and… I do research for a living. Anyone that can read and that has integrity knows the truth. Still, Dorazio is willing to publicly lie about this, like his other R extremists

ii. I would also like to point out, that in conjunction with this CRT dishonesty that the TX Republican party wants to put religion into public schools. Yes, it’s written into their platform. This violates some of the most basic constitutional principles of our nation and TX.

“31. Prayer, Bible, and Ten Commandments in Schools: We support prayer, the Bible, and the Ten Commandments being returned to our schools, courthouses, and other government buildings”

– TX GOP Platform/ 2022

Pg. 6

iii. The effort by these nuts is in support of vouchers which would allow public funding to pay for charter schools that could indoctrinate TX kids with extreme religious and political views.

iv. The CRT insanity cascaded into the book banning and burning craze. Yes, the same party that has run TX for 27 years exclusively, all of a sudden decided to ban books that they’d already approved, while blaming it on the left who has had very little say in those years.

Categories Accountability, Elections, Extremism, Republicans, Texas

Los Angeles Times Debunks Rightwing Conspiracy Theories About Attack on Paul Pelosi

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2022 //
17

The Los Angeles Times meticulously debunked the conspiracy theories circulated by MAGA-nuts about the attack on Paul Pelosi in the family home in San Francisco.

Extremists spun a tale in which Paul Pelosi met his attacker in a gay bar, came home drunk, and quarreled with a male prostitute. The perpetrator was not a rightwing extremist, they said, but a follower of Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

The L.A. Times patiently explains that none of these claims are factual.

The Break-in:

DePape told officers in a recorded interview last week that he broke through a glass door in the home using a hammer, according to the criminal complaint. He said Paul Pelosi was in bed at the time and “appeared surprised” by him. DePape allegedly told Paul Pelosi to wake up and that he was “looking for Nancy,” to which Paul Pelosi responded that she wasn’t there.

Police body cameras showed that a glass door in the back of the house was broken.

Paul Pelosi called 911 and said there was an intruder in the house, and the man was waiting for Nancy Pelosi.

DePape told police in a separate interview that once he was inside the home, he wanted to tie up Paul Pelosi so he could sleep because he was “tired from having had to carry a backpack.” DePape allegedly took out zip ties from his pocket so he could restrain Paul Pelosi, but Pelosi moved to another part of the house. DePape allegedly stopped him and they went back into the bedroom.

Paul Pelosi went into the bathroom while they were talking and called 911 on his phone, DePape told police. DePape said he “felt like Pelosi’s actions compelled him to respond” and that there was “no way the police were going to forget about the call.” DePape said he stayed after the 911 call because “like the American founding fathers with the British, he was fighting against tyranny without the option of surrender.”

When police arrived within minutes, they encountered the two men struggling over a hammer.

DePape allegedly pulled the hammer from Paul Pelosi and swung it, hitting him in the head, authorities said. Police restrained DePape; Paul Pelosi appeared to be unconscious.

What was the attacker’s motivations?

DePape allegedly revealed in an interview with police that he “was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her,” according to complaint. He would “let her go” if she told the “truth” but if she “lied,” he would break “her kneecaps.” DePape told authorities that he saw Nancy as the “leader of the pack of lies told by the Democratic Party” and that by breaking her kneecaps, she would have to be wheeled into Congress.

Conspiracy theorists assert that Pelosi and his attacker knew one another, and that when the police arrived, the attacker was wearing only his undershorts.

On Sunday night, former President Donald Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., retweeted an image of men’s underwear and a hammer, a nod to the unfounded conspiracy.

In their investigation, however, police interviewed a witness who was working as a private security guard at a nearby address, and said that they saw someone in “all black, carrying a large black bag on his back” walking towards the Pelosis’ home. The witness also said they heard banging on the door or the car and then sirens a minute or two later.

On Monday morning, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene suggested in a tweet the attacker knew Pelosi, calling him, “Paul Pelosi’s friend.”

But the indictment directly contradicts several portions of this conspiracy theory.

Paul Pelosi told police while he was being transported to the San Francisco General Hospital that he had never seen DePape before that night and he was asleep when DePape broke into his bedroom, according to the complaint. He also told the dispatcher during the 911 call that he didn’t know the identity of the man who broke into his home, but that the man said his name is David.

DePape also confirmed Pelosi’s account, telling them he broke through a glass door to get access to the house.

Right wingers claim that DePape was actually tied to left wing groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, but the reality is that he has posted racist, anti-Semitic, QAnon rants.

DePape is unhinged, like the guy who brought an assault weapon to a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C., believing that Hillary Clinton was a pedophile and had hidden children in the basement. Pure QAnon. Loony Tunes.

But most Republicans believe that Trump won the election in 2020, ignoring the fact that Biden decisively won the electoral college and had seven million votes more than Trump. They believe this even though Trump’s Attorney General told him he lost, as did his White House Counsel.

Where did all these people come from who trash democracy and scoff at free and fair elections?

Categories Accountability, Elections, Extremism, Fake News, Lies, Trump

Doug Mastriano is Dangerous to Democracy

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2022 //
13

Our reader Jersey Joe added this postscript from The Guardian about the Republican candidate for governor of Pennsylvania:

From the guardian, 10-24-22: quote – Doug Mastriano, a retired army colonel who has enthusiastically indulged Donald Trump’s fantasy that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, is the Republican candidate. If he wins, he plans to deregister every single one of Pennsylvania’s 8.7 million voters. In future elections, Mastriano would choose who certifies – or doesn’t – the state’s election results. [snip] As a state senator in Pennsylvania, he said women who violated a proposed six-week abortion ban should be charged with murder. Mastriano frequently attacks trans people, and has said gay marriage should be illegal, and that same-sex couples should not be allowed to adopt children. end quoteThe man is a far right wing nightmare determined to end democracy in this country. According to these maniacs, elections are fair and valid only if the GOP wins.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Fascism

Peter Greene: Doug Mastriano peddles Nonsense for Parents

By dianeravitch
October 30, 2022 //
16

Peter Greene was a teacher in Pennsylvania for 39 years. In this post, he covers Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano’s empty proposal for “parental rights.”

Greene writes:

Last week Doug Mastriano held a campaign event masquerading as a hearing for a parental rights bill so empty and vague that its only possible use could be as a campaign prop.

Mastriano signaled a whole year ago that he was going to wade into the whole “parental rights” thing with his own version of a “legislate the gay away” bill. Soon thereafter, he proposed SB 996, which was turned over to the State Government committee on January 4, 2022.

And yet, the time to hold a hearing on the bill is just before time to vote for Mastriano or his opponent for Pennsylvania’s governor’s seat.

The bill itself is a brief nothingburger. The Parental Rights Protection Act is 41 lines long. 6 lines give its name. 16 lines define the terms “commonwealth agency” and “non-commonwealth agency.” Section 3 in its entirety says:

I

(b) Infringement.–Neither a Commonwealth agency nor a non-Commonwealth agency may infringe upon the right under subsection (a) without demonstrating that the law or ordinance is narrowly tailored to meet a compelling governmental interest by the least restrictive means.

In 8 lines, we get the applicability of the law, and two lines to tell us that the law would take effect in 60 days.

The Mastriano campaign has maintained its unwillingness to speak to the press, and so has offered no clarification of the bill’s intent or function. But the parade of witnesses at the hearing brought the usual list of grievances–mask mandates, trans student using rest rooms, “pornographic” books in the school library, and “pronoun games.” The bill, absent any specifics, allows all of these folks to imagine that it would provide them some relief, without including any language that opponents could point to as objectionable….

More specific parental rights legislation has been proposed in Pennsylvania, such as HB 2813, which follows more closely the national template of other Don’t Say Gay bills forbidding discussion of “gender orientation and sexual identity.”

What would the bill actually do? Nobody really knows. Does this mean I can get satisfaction when my kid’s teacher shows a Disney movie when I don’t allow them in my home? Or when my kid has to use Chromebook and we are an Apple household? Will I be able to do something if the teacher mentions Jesus or God and we don’t do religion at our house? What would qualify as an infringement, and what could a parent who felt the law had been broken do? Call the police? File a lawsuit? Should they report the agency to the proper part of the state government–and if so, which department would that be? What penalty would be imposed?

I wonder if there are limits to parental rights? May they beat their children? May they chain them to their beds? May they force them to live in unsanitary conditions??

Categories Accountability, Elections, Parent Groups, Parents, Pennsylvania

Miami Herald Endorses Val Demings For Senate Over Rubio

By dianeravitch
October 28, 2022 //
7

The endorsement of the Miami Herald matters in Florida. I hope it matters enough to elect Val Demings. Its editorial board gave a resounding endorsement to Congresswoman Val Demings, a former chief of police. Her story is inspiring. She was born to parents who worked as a maid and a janitor. Her first job was as a dishwasher. She is articulate, accomplished, and deeply committed to the ideals this country professes.

The race for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat is the most consequential on the Nov. 8 ballot. Its outcome will determine not only the direction of the state, but could impact which party controls the Senate. Republican incumbent Marco Rubio, 51, Miami’s homegrown son, has been in the Senate since 2011 and has been a politician for 24 years. Despite all the experience under his belt, his intelligence and innate political talent, he hasn’t lived up to the expectations that this son of Cuban immigrants would usher the GOP into a new era. In 2013, Time declared him “The Republican Savior,” calling him the new voice of the GOP.

But today, he appears more comfortable playing the role of apologist for Donald Trump — the newer, dangerously bombastic voice of the GOP — despite being ridiculed by the former president during his 2016 presidential run and more preoccupied with his own political future than representing his constituents.

In 2020, for example, Rubio went so far as to praise Trump supporters in Texas who used their vehicles to try to run a busload of Joe Biden backers off the road. Someone could have been killed. Floridians have a better alternative. The Herald Editorial Board recommends Democrat Val Demings, a Central Florida congresswoman who previously served as the first female police chief of Orlando.

Her voice is grounded in the real world, bringing toughness, yes, but also an empathy for struggling Americans that we have not heard from the more-removed, more-political Rubio. Although Republicans have tried to cast any Democrat as a “socialist,” she’s a moderate with a practical approach to the issues and a rich life and professional experience.

Born in Jacksonville to a maid and a janitor, Demings started working at 14 as a dishwasher, later became a social worker and changed careers to become a police officer. She rose through the ranks of the Orlando Police Department to become, in 2007, a ”police chief with a social worker’s heart” — without losing her “tough on crime” responsibilities, she told the Editorial Board.

Demings, 65, can connect the dots between Capitol Hill’s ivory tower and the real world. She was first elected to the U.S. House in 2016 and, in 2020, was picked to be one of the House managers who argued for Trump’s impeachment in the Senate.

Her policing background should appeal to voters concerned about public safety. Her social-worker roots should resonate with voters looking for someone who understands the plight of Floridians working hard to make ends meet in this economy.

“The best indicator of future performance is to look at past performance,” Demings told the Editorial Board. “My dedication, my commitment to the oath of office as a police officer, a police chief, member of Congress, and certainly as a senator, I take it extremely serious. And I will show up for Florida.”

Demings already has landed some solid wins as a U.S. representative. Rubio speaks dismissively of her bill to name a post office in honor of a police officer in her district who was shot and killed in the line of duty, something she pushed through with bipartisan support and of which she is rightly proud.

But Demings has sponsored and pushed through other, substantive legislation. “The first piece of legislation that I passed — and was signed into law by President Trump — was legislation that would help fund mental-health programs for law-enforcement officers,” she told the Editorial Board. “They see the worst of the worst every day and have to deal with it and then go home to their own families.” Blue lives obviously matter to her.

In 2019, Demings also sponsored, with Republican U.S. Rep Elise Stefanik, of New York, the Vladimir Putin Transparency Act, directing U.S. intelligence agencies to give reports to Congress about the Russian president’s financial assets and hidden networks. It passed in the House. It did not have a Senate counterpart, but was included in Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act sponsored by U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey.

Demings told the Editorial Board the top issue in this race is inflation. She touted her vote on the Inflation Reduction Act this year, which capped the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries and made investments in clean energy. Rubio voted against the legislation. His campaign ignored requests for an interview with the Editorial Board.

Protecting the environment and combating climate change, which is making hurricanes stronger and wetter, are two other priorities for Demings. That requires “not being global-warming deniers, or climate-change deniers, but really taking that seriously and investing,” she said. Rubio has been a staunch supporter of Everglades-restoration efforts. But for years he questioned the scientific consensus that human activity is causing global temperatures to climb. He somehow recognized the issue in a 2019 column for USA Today, writing that Floridians “are right to be concerned about the changing climate” but said that humans can better mitigate sea-level rise and flooding, rather than addressing the source of the problem: our reliance on fossil fuels.

Demings’ other priorities are public safety and protecting “constitutional rights.” This is where you see the sharpest contrast between Demings and Rubio. Rubio called a bill to codify same-sex marriage into federal law a “stupid waste of time,” part of the agenda of “a bunch of Marxist misfits.” The legislation seeks to protect that right should a 2015 landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling be reversed, as Roe v. Wade was in June. The U.S. House passed the legislation with historic GOP support, but needs enough votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. Senators like Rubio stand in the way. Gay marriage isn’t a “Marxist” concoction, it’s a human right that the majority of Americans support.

Demings supports abortions up to the point of viability and wants to codify reproductive rights into federal law. Rubio has pitched himself as “100% pro-life,” but also has said he would support legislation with exceptions for rape and incest, like the 15-week federal ban he’s co-sponsored — if that’s what it takes to get a bill passed.

In other words, such compassionate exceptions are, to Rubio, merely a concession. He told CBS4 host Jim DeFede, “I am in favor of laws that protect human life. I do not believe that the dignity and the worth of human life is tied to the circumstances of their conception, but I recognize that’s not a majority position.”

That is one of the reasons this Senate race is important. It’s about numbers. Whoever controls Congress can either advance or take away reproductive rights if they have enough votes. M

MA longstanding and generally justified criticism of Rubio is that he misses a lot of Senate votes. Demings has said he has one of the worst attendance records in the Senate. By mid-summer this year, Rubio had missed 9.2% of 3,744 roll-call votes since 2011. According to the fact-checking site PolitiFact, that is well above the average of 2.3%, though his attendance improved in recent years. Most of his absences happened during his 2016 presidential run.

Back then, he vowed not to run for reelection to the Senate, then went back on his word. He was reelected with 52% of the vote. Since then, Rubio’s career has been defined by walking the fine line between doing what’s right for the United States and what’s right for his career — most notably, staying on the good side of the mercurial Trump and his base. He hasn’t struck the right balance.

Sometimes we still see in Rubio a glimpse of the smart, eloquent statesman who began his career as a West Miami councilman. In 1999, the Herald Editorial Board recommended him for a Florida House seat, saying he displayed a “thoughtful and idealistic sense of politics.” He won that race and went on to become the speaker of the Florida House. In 2010, we recommended him again for his U.S. Senate seat. We remember him leading the Gang of Eight on a historic bipartisan immigration reform package in 2013 that would have offered a pathway to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally. But when it failed, Rubio couldn’t run away fast enough from the legislation that had pushed him onto the nation stage.

There was the Rubio who warned Americans six years ago about the “reckless and dangerous” Trump, but soon emerged as the Trump sycophant who’s all too eager to rationalize the former president’s attacks on decency and democracy.

He differentiated himself from some of his Republican colleagues when he voted to certify the results of the 2020 election in Arizona and Pennsylvania. When the U.S. Capitol attack was happening on Jan. 6, he tweeted: “There is nothing patriotic about what is occurring on Capitol Hill. This is 3rd world style anti-American anarchy.”

But he returned to the GOP fold when, in a video posted on Twitter two days later, he blamed the “liberal” press, social-media platforms and state election officials — everyone but the former president and his lies — for millions of Americans not trusting the election results.

He has called the Jan. 6 commission to investigate the attacks a “partisan sham.” And he offered an insultingly silly defense of Trump’s removal of classified documents after he lost the election, calling the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago a partisan witch hunt over a “storage” issue.

Rubio was one of the architects of the Paycheck Protection Program that provided loans for small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. as part of the 2020 CARES Act. He said in Tuesday’s debate that the program kept the country out of economic disaster despite significant issues with the backlog of unforgiven loans and the disproportionate impact of the backlog on minority and low-income communities.

He also pushed to double the maximum child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000 in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

With the Pulse nightclub slaughter in 2016 in Orlando and the recent life sentence given Nikolas Cruz after pleading guilty to the Parkland school massacre in 2018, gun control is an ever-present issue in Florida. Rubio even said that the Pulse shooting spurred him to run for reelection in 2016 and that he would support raising the age limit to buy a rifle. Though he has filed legislation to support the expansion of red-flag laws that allow a judge to take away guns from people deemed dangerous, he voted against a common-sense — and timid — bipartisan gun-control law President Biden signed after the Uvalde school shooting in May. Among other things, it funded mental-health services in schools, another issue brought up by the Cruz case. Rubio has scoffed at even popular, moderate gun-control measures like enhanced background checks. He then offered an insulting excuse for it during he Tuesday debate: “Every one of these shooters would have passed the background check that [Demings] keeps insisting on,” he said.

Foreign policy has been Rubio’s strongest suit. He’s the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He has made his opposition to China and the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes a trademark. But Demings still holds her own here. In her interview with the Board, she was well-versed on how events in Latin America are local issues in South Florida. On Cuba, Demings denounced the current island government and said she supports the U.S. embargo. She’s against reestablishing diplomatic ties with the regime. On Haiti, Demings was emphatic that the United States should not intervene militarily, despite the chaos currently engulfing that country. Instead, the United States should name an envoy to Haiti to help stabilize its teetering government. On the issue of the Biden administration turning away Venezuelan refugees escaping their country at the U.S.-Mexico border under Title 42, a Trump-era policy, Demings said that it is “a beneficial tool until we can get some other things in place.” The United States needs to speed up the processing of asylum claims, hire more border-security officers and invest in technology, she said.

We repeat, the race for Florida’s U.S. Senate seat is the most consequential on the Nov. 8 ballot. It is not an overstatement to caution that the winner will either push back hard against those who have our democracy under assault or push our democracy closer to the brink of irreparable damage. Rubio too often shirked his responsibility to push back. We think Demings will stand up for our democratic values.

The Miami Herald Editorial Board recommends VAL DEMINGS for the U.S. Senate.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article267542102.html#storylink=cpy

Categories Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Florida
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