American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten’s new line is, “suddenly, everyone’s an education expert.”

She first trotted this phrase out in response to a positive review of the upcoming documentary film, “Waiting for Superman,” posted on the liberal Huffington Post.  Produced by the director of Al Gore’s, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the new movie and the education reform movement has now breached the teachers unions’ Bastille: the American Left.

Weingarten’s objective seems to be to dismiss anyone outside of the Education Blob as little more than a naysayer who obviously doesn’t know what they’re talking about.  She’s attempting to insulate herself and the education system from increasing criticism over spending habits and flatlining results.

From Weingarten’s recent AFT convention speech:

And I never thought that I’d see a documentary film about helping disadvantaged children in which the villain wasn’t crumbling schools, or grinding poverty, or the lack of a curriculum, or overcrowded classrooms, or the total failure of No Child Left Behind.

No, the villain was us.

Look, I can take it. It’s part of my job.

But taking abuse shouldn’t be in the job description of more than 3 million public school teachers who work hard every day to do right by their students.”

She also dismissed the critics of the bloated system:

And I remain hopeful. Hopeful that we can overcome the formidable obstacles before us: an economy that has battered families and state budgets, an energized and concerted movement to tear down public service and public institutions, and a growing pundit class that has engaged in the browbeating of unionized teachers and public schools in other words, affixing blame rather than fixing schools.”

So to the Queen of Gall, I say this: yes, everyone IS an education expert.

(more…)

Context is everything.

As the Left (including the NAACP) has tried to brand the Tea Party movement as ‘racists’ over the last year, they’ve engaged in racial politics at their worst using the tactics of Saul Alinsky to try to “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it” [see Alinsky Power Tactic #13].

Now that the very same tactic has been brilliantly used on the NAACP (and unintentionally caught the White House in the net as well), they’re attempting to pose as victims to some nefarious trickery.  The flaw in their argument though is that they did it to themselves.

The fact is, those who capriciously take words out of context for political purposes were warned about “context” at the beginning of Breitbart’s Monday post, were never told that Ms. Sherrod caused harm to the farmers (except through Ms. Sherrod’s own words), and were even given the proper context:

In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.

The problem for both the NAACP and the White House was that they took it out of context on their own and reacted as any victim of an Alinsky-style tactic might—by overreacting.  However, in so doing, they also threw Shirley Sherrod under their bus.  In other words, they got beaten at their own game, with their own bat, and they chose the politically expedient way out of it.

That was their fault, not Breitbart’s.

(more…)

For months, we have been told that ShoreBank deserves a bailout because it serves poor communities. We have been assured by ShoreBank’s patrons, such as Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), that allowing the federal government to take over the bank will put borrowers in those communities at risk.

Now, as the truth has begun to emerge, it is becoming clear that ShoreBank’s troubles did not begin in poor communities at all.

Robin Sidel of the Wall Street Journal reports that ShoreBank’s financial problems may partly stem from loans made to condominium developers and builders in parts of town beyond its traditional focus on the city’s South Side.

If ShoreBank deserves help because it is the “iconic community development bank,” as Schakowsky recently claimed, what was it doing lending money to condo kings, and why should taxpayers bail it out?

If the ShoreBank is taken over, Schakowsky claims, “the losers will be these low-income communities and the businesses and the homeowners that they serve.”

That was never true.
(more…)

Today, in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Sadly, NASA has shifted it focus away from such aspirational moments. Still, the memory of what was-and what could have been-is valuable.

Yesterday Andrew Breitbart appeared on Hannity and CNN’s John King USA to discuss NAACP racism and the firing of Shirley Sherrod:

***

Breitbart’s argument is simple and straightforward:  Regardless of what else is in Sherrod’s speech, the first video released on BigGovernment.com features Sherrod telling a tale of racism that is received by the NAACP audience with laughter and cheers.  They weren’t cheering redemption; they were cheering discrimination.  Upon hearing the cheers, Sherrod fails to offer any immediate clarification and even smiles right along with them.

Breitbart’s main objective by releasing the video was to call out the NAACP, an organization who has recently gone to great lengths to condemn the Tea Party’s alleged racism, for sanctioning racism in it’s own organization.  Sherrod immediately became the scapegoat for the embarrassed NAACP and USDA, but she was never the target, the NAACP itself was, and the delight the audience took in the racist part of Sherrod’s speech leaves them exposed. (more…)

The scandal surrounding the firing of Shirley Sherrod is getting weirder by the second. Now the NAACP is blaming Fox News and Andrew Breitbart for the NAACP’s own overreaction to the release of the video of Ms Sherrod, released on Big Government yesterday.

From Politico:

Agriculture Department spokesman Chris Mather said Sherrod was let go because of what she said in March that was captured on the videotape, not due to her actions in regard to the farmer two decades ago.

“She was asked to resign because of the comment she made when she was a political appointee. It’s not what happened decades ago. It’s the comments she made in March.”

Mather also said that the White House played no part in Sherrod’s resignation. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asked for her resignation and he accepted it when Sherrod gave it, Mather said.

“This is the Secretary’s decision. There was no pressure from the White House,” Mather said.

“Our policy is clear,” Vilsack said in an earlier statement. “There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA and we strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person. We have a duty to ensure that when we provide services to the American people we do so in an equitable manner. But equally important is our duty to instill confidence in the American people that we are fair service providers.”

(more…)

Politico finally gets around to reporting on the Shirley Sherrod incident:

The Agriculture Department official who has resigned after a video surfaced showing her saying she withheld assistance from a white farmer insisted on Tuesday that she really lost her job over the tea party’s clash with the NAACP.

A video of Shirley Sherrod, the department’s Georgia director of rural development, telling an NAACP audience that she didn’t give a white farmer the “full force” of what she could provide, went viral Tuesday and prompted Sherrod to leave the department.

The NAACP condemned Sherrod’s comments in a statement, calling them “shameful.”

(more…)

It’s official. There is now a Tea Party Caucus in the Congress of the United States of America.

Representative Michelle Bachmann filed the paperwork late last week, and the approval was granted almost immediately:

They will be holding their first meeting tomorrow at 9am Eastern, followed by a 10am Press conference.

Response from the Left has been about what you might expect. Steny Hoyer took the opportunity to repeat the race-libel against the Tea Party:

“The Tea Party per se I don’t think is racist.”

(more…)

A few months back I wrote a story about Veterans for Congress, focusing in particular on Marine Gunnery Sgt. Nick Popaditch, who is running for Congress in San Diego’s 51^st district. “Gunny Pop” as he was affectionately known in the Corps, was grievously wounded in the first battle for Fallujah, Iraq, when he was hit in the head by an enemy RPG. Medically retired, he lost one eye and retains 8 percent use in his second eye, only because of the medical staff’s heroic efforts and Nick’s indomitable spirit.

Nick earned the Silver Star for his battlefield bravery and innovation. Nick is also widely recognized as the Cigar Marine, who sat atop his M-1 Abrahams tank triumphantly smoking a cigar while members of his unit helped topple Saddam’s statute when the Marines liberated Baghdad in 2003. He wrote a book about his experiences, Once A Marine, which made the Commandant of the Marine Corps recommended professional reading list for all ranks, won The Military-Writers Book of the Year for 2009, and was a national book club selection.

Contrast this with his Democrat opponent, Bob Filner. One of the most radical leftists in the House of Representatives, Filner is spawn of Joe Filner, one time head of the Pittsburg, PA, Communist Party. (NOTE: thanks go to Trevor Loudon for the Filner profiles, among thousands of entries Loudon has put together for his seminal encyclopedia of the Left, KeyWiki. Check it out!)

The nuts don’t fall far from the tree. A longtime member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Filner has close ties the Democratic Socialists of America. He has been staining the halls of Congress since 1992, and has been foursquare behind the Obama deliberate trainwreck agenda since his fellow socialist was elected President.

(more…)

Shirley Sherrod defended herself today from charges of racism stemming from the video  released on Big Government yesterday.

The video showed Ms Sherrod, USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development, speaking at an NAACP Freedom Fund dinner in Georgia. Ms Sherrod, who is a  federally appointed bureaucrat lays out in shockingly lays out that how race played a part in executing her duties.

Sherrod was forced to resign almost immediately after the video was posted. Incredibly, it  seems however that her firing was less about what she said in the speech,  and more about the story being broadcast on Fox News.

In interviews today, Ms Sherrod describes what was behind her speech and how, after the video cuts off,  she explains that moment was a turning point in her life where  she learned to beyond race.

She said the whole video would reveal that she eventually came to work closely with the white farmer and that she was trying to impart a lesson about how important it is to get “beyond the issue of race.”

“I went on to work with many more white farmers,” she said. “The story helped me realize that race is not the issue.”

(more…)

Nevada’s Democratic attorney general, Catherine Cortez Masto, is moving forward with a criminal prosecution of ACORN even though the financially anemic group has dissolved its national structure and reportedly slashed its workforce from 250 to four employees. Trial has been scheduled for Nov. 29.

The charges relate to ACORN’s crime of choice: voter registration fraud.

ACORN allegedly enforced voter registration quotas with its employees and offered bonuses for extra registrations. Nevada law forbids the use of such incentives on the theory it encourages canvassers to file fraudulent registrations. No wonder: ACORN and its election fraud subsidiary Project Vote, which used to employ President Obama, registers “Mickey Mouse” and various celebrities, out-of-state residents, and dead people, every election cycle.

Conrad Hafen, chief deputy state attorney general, was quoted in a news report saying neither bankruptcy nor dissolution would “necessarily protect (ACORN) from prosecution” in Nevada.

If ACORN is convicted it would send shock waves through leftist organizing circles across the nation and might embolden more prosecutors to take on ACORN and similar groups. Until it was charged by Nevada last year, ACORN had boasted about its ability to duck prosecution for election fraud.

(more…)

These days, any time unions go all out to push anything, you can bet there’s a hidden agenda.  Take for example the newly enacted “financial reform legislation” that gives unions the ability (through their pension funds) to put union activists onto the boards of publicly-held companies.

Under the recently signed financial reform legislation, there is also a newly created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and, lo and behold, it will be headed by another presidential appointee (read “czar”).

Yes, the President gets to hand pick another czar, which is what makes the fact that the SEIU and AFL-CIO are lobbying hard for a lefty named Elizabeth Warren so interesting.

The labor community is going to lend its considerable political clout to the effort to get Elizabeth Warren confirmed as the first head of the newly-created Consumer Protection Agency, going directly to the White House official who may stand in her way.

On Tuesday, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry will “raise the point that Elizabeth Warren would be an excellent head of the newly created Consumer Protection Agency” in private talks with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, according to a senior source with the union.

The AFL-CIO’s Richard “the Fifth” Trumka has also weighed in on Ms. Warren:

In our view, there is only one candidate who is uniquely qualified and equipped to head this new agency. Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren originated the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and has proven as Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel to be a strong and fearless advocate for the American public.

Apparently, though, Ms. Warren is getting some opposition from Treasury Secretary Geithner (as well as the bill’s co-sponsor Chris Dodd) even though the agency was her idea to begin with.

(more…)

“How Health Care Reform Affects You.” Chances are you’ve seen an article along these lines pop up in your magazines of choice lately. I certainly have. Chances are the articles gloss over the major problems inherent in ObamaCare — if they’re not a straight out endorsement of the takeover.

Stephen Spruiell takes the latest incarnation of this problem to task over at NRO with “Real Simpletons: A popular magazine ignores the downside to Obamacare.”

My wife subscribes to Real Simple, a women’s-interest magazine specializing in articles on how to make life more organized. I often joke that our lives would be more organized if we didn’t have eight copies of Real Simple floating around the apartment at any given time. But since they are around, I’ll flip through them occasionally to see if there’s anything worth reading. And today, in the latest issue, I saw a short feature titled “How Health-Care Reform Affects You.”

The article reads like an advertisement for Obamacare. One would be forgiven for thinking it a part of the administration’s campaign to improve the legislation’s popularity. Here is a complete list of the article’s subheads:

More services will be paid for in full.
Lifetime limits are history.
Your children can remain on your policy until age 26.
Kids with preexisting conditions cannot be denied coverage.
Insurers have to spend more money on care.

That’s it: All good, no bad, and the only two sources quoted in the article represent non-profits who supported the legislation.

(more…)

If only they were as determined to cut spending.  Alas, Congressional Democrats are hell-bent on taking care of their friends in the teachers unions.

The original $23 billion “Education Jobs Fund,” or “public schools bailout,” in the words of American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, fizzled, despite earnest lobbying by both the AFT and the larger National Education Association.

That number was trimmed to $10 billion and inserted into the Afghanistan war spending bill in a cynical maneuver cooked up by Big Labor.

While that passed the House, word is emerging that the pork-laden war bill isn’t going anywhere in the Senate.

But Big Labor’s pals aren’t giving up.  They’re a tenacious bunch that will find one way or another to continue spending oodles more on a bloated system that’s underserving America’s children.

(more…)

Nobel Laureate Vernon Smith in The Daily Beast:

The case for government deficit spending was that idle unemployed labor and capital would be put to work to increase the output of goods and services. Hence, a dollar of government spending would produce more than a dollar of new output because of the “multiplier effect.” Robert Barro of Harvard has studied wartime and defense spending, and found a multiplier of only 0.8. But those were better times, when businesses, banks, and consumers were not primarily concerned to use new income to pay down debt or save to protect against income loss. Even in better times there wasn’t much bang for the buck.

So what has been the government’s response in the current crisis? Besides spending stimulus, it was tax incentives for new home buyers and cash for clunkers if you bought a new car. All three are programs for borrowing output, homes and cars from future production and sales. Using subsidies to pump up home sales beyond what people could afford was the problem that led to the crisis. Now the problem is touted as the solution.

(more…)

That sound you hear is the White House’s credibility bubble bursting. CBS reported last week that 74 percent of Americans believe the Obama stimulus either damaged the economy or had no effect.

The wisdom of the crowd turns out to be true.

The White House boasts that the $862 billion Stimulus is performing like a well-oiled machine, ensuring that 3.5 million jobs have been “created or saved” because of it. At $246, 285.71 per job, that’s a hefty claim were it true. Since February of 2009 the U.S. economy lost a net 2.35 million jobs.

What is true is that the administration’s confidence-crushing economic policies are, according to National Federation of Independent Business Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg, “scaring us to death”. What’s happened here is that a White House sorely lacking in private-sector experience has, for almost two years now, been broadcasting a clear message: “Business: beware.”

(more…)

I’m mad as hell, and I’m going to do something about it.

I’ve been to Missouri quite a few times since becoming “Joe the Plumber”: Rolling hills, farmland, beautiful rivers, vibrant cities, honest people. So I’m not in the least surprised that the rural town of Caulfield has produced a true statesman. A statesman that all freedom-loving Americans have searched for since the Reagan years.

I AM surprised and disgusted that these same “conservatives” who have been shouting fiscal conservatism from the mountain tops are now throwing a true statesman under the bus instead of rallying to his side.

Chuck Purgason is a State Senator for a portion of southern Missouri. He’s worked his way up from the House to the Senate ever since his “Tea Party” moment in 1996. He has proven the hard way that you actually can be a man of integrity in a government full of wolves. When liberal U.S. Senator Kit Bond (R) decided to retire, he anointed RINO Congressman Roy Blunt (R) to be his heir apparent. After Roy Blunt’s votes for the TARP Bailout, Cash for Clunkers, No Child Left Behind, taking the most lobbyist money, etc. (I really could go on and on and on . . . ) Chuck said there was no way he was going to let Blunt represent Missouri in the US Senate.

State Senator Chuck Purgason threw his hat into the race for US Senate against mega power broker Roy Blunt.

Now this is where the story begins to get interesting. Just a week or so ago, Democratic Governor Jay Nixon ($170,000+ donations from unions) called for a special session to pass a $150M “tax cut” to Ford Motor Company. Every Republican started lining up like good little bees because tax cuts are good – right? Besides, Missouri has a lot of unions – they wouldn’t win their re-elections if they didn’t vote for this bill.

(more…)

THINK PROGRESS IS BUSTED AGAIN!

The far left Soros-funded outfit does not just produce bogus films…They write bogus articles, too.

The horrible far left hacks at Think Progress once again were caught lying about supposed racism in the tea party movement. On Monday they posted some random editorial – from early July – published in a New Hampshire paper – by some lone racist and try to link him to the tea party…. But if you read the whole editorial you see that “tea party” is not even mentioned in the racist editorial! The tea party is not linked to this racist in anyway.

Think Progress just took an editorial written by some random racist and then they threw tea party on the title of their post. What horrible dishonest cranks.

(more…)