Something Truly Terrifying: Chris Christie's Fear-Mongering Over Terrorism

I know many people were focused on the Donald Trump moments from the FOX GOP debate last night, and, given the entertainment value inherent in many of them, I can understand that.

But I found this exchange between Chris Christie and Rand Paul the most electrifying of the night:




That "Get a warrant!" response from Rand Paul to Christie resonated with me.

I'm sick of these politicians fear-mongering, using 9/11 and terrorism to subsume more and more power into the government to control and record every aspect of our existence.

Paul followed that "Get a warrant!" response to Christie with this:

.@ChrisChristie's disregard for the Constitution sets a dangerous precedent & ignores wisdom of our Founding Fathers. http://t.co/U2WCdnkJ1V

— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 7, 2015

.@ChrisChristie will fear monger and violate your Constitutional rights. And for what? pic.twitter.com/jSDompb6h3

— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 7, 2015

We can fight terrorism and protect the Bill of Rights.

— Dr. Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 7, 2015

Indeed we can fight terrorism and protect the Bill of Rights.

In fact, what would be the point of "fighting terrorism" if we have to shred our Constitutional rights to do it?

Christie's wrapping himself in the Twin Towers and 9/11 last night was lame, his attack on Paul backfired (as it gave Paul a chance to launch the "Obama/hug" line) and the exchange over the Fourth Amendment and NSA surveillance between Christie and Paul just one more reminder of what an authoritarian bully Chris Christie is and what a disaster he would be as president.

Want to hear something truly terrifying - imagine Chris Christie with the power to indiscriminately spy on every American without a warrant.

DFER's Ally With Tea Party To Bring Charter Schools To Kentucky

One of the arguments we have heard from education reform groups like Democrats For Education Reform for why progressive educators shouldn't ally with right wing Tea Party types in a common cause against Common Core is that right wing Tea Party types hold views in anathema to progressives on other issues - from vouchers to teaching evolution in schools to sex education and Obamacare - and progressives shouldn't join with these people in common cause against anything.

Back in May, Education Week laid out the blueprint for how the DFER's are employing this "divide and conquer" strategy to try and keep progressive educators from joining with Tea Party types to fight the Common Core:

Stand for Children Indiana, a pro-common-core group, which supports broad early-education opportunities and charter schools, released two different 30-second TV advertisements, one on March 5 and another on April 16, defending the standards. The campaign also included radio spots.

A spokesman for the group, Jay Kenworthy, declined to disclose how much it spent on the ads and said it hadn't decided whether to renew the public relations push when common-core hearings get underway in Indiana this summer. 

That state is also ground zero for a pro-common-core argument aimed at a liberal audience: that many of the loudest common-core opponents hold other political views that the audience would find abhorrent.

For example, Larry Grau, the director of the Indiana affiliate of Democrats for Education Reform, or DFER, wrote on the group's blog April 23 that GOP Sen. Scott Schneider wants schools to teach creationism and has sought to make enforcement of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act a felony. DFER Indiana has also used language that warned about "bedfellows" in the anti-common-core movement that could cause someone to say, "I hate myself for this in the morning." Mr. Grau said he wanted the group's rhetoric to be "a little edgy."

He argued that Democrats suspicious of other policy proposals, like vouchers, should not let those views lead them to lash out at the common core. "They're not thinking before they're saying who they're partnering with on the common core," Mr. Grau said in an interview.

Last week we learned from a reformer at another prominent education reform organization that the reform movement is truly "terrified" that progressive educators and Tea Party types will join together to fight the Common Core, so the reform movement will do anything to divide these groups and make sure they don't join together against the Core.

Thus the argument about "How Can Self-Respecting Progressives Join With These 'Inherit The Wind' types to fight Common Core?" stuff.

The funny thing is, today at Politico we learn that the DFER's are joining with Tea Party hero Rand Paul to try and bring charter school's to Paul's home state of Kentucky:

CHARTER CAMPAIGN – Republican Senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell today kick off a campaign to bring charter schools to their home state of Kentucky. They’ll be joined by various pro-charter groups, including one from across the aisle – Democrats for Education Reform. Why focus on Kentucky? Look at the map, DFER’s policy director, Charles Barone, tells POLITICO. Just eight states in the U.S. block charters from opening, and several of the holdouts are so rural (looking at you, North and South Dakota) that they don’t have the population centers needed to support robust competition in public education. Kentucky, however, seems ripe for reform, Barone said.

It won’t be easy, though. Two other Southern states, Alabama and West Virginia, have rejected charter laws time and again. In another pocket of resistance, Washington state, it took charter backers 16 years, four ballot measures and an $11 million campaign to finally get voters to authorize charters last fall. Barone says he has no idea what a campaign will cost in Kentucky, or how long it will take. “We’re just getting our feet wet,” he said. As for that whole strange-bedfellows thing, Barone says DFER is not exactly allying itself with Republicans Paul and McConnell, though they all share the same goal. “We’re not really doing this with them,” he said. “We just both happen to be there at this event.”

I see - so it's okay for the DFER's to work with (though not exactly ally themselves with) Tea Party types like Rand Paul to try and bring charter schools to Kentucky though it's not okay for progressive educators to work with (though not exactly ally themselves with) Tea Party types to fight the Common Core.

What political expediency and hypocrisy these DFER's engage in, eh?

The next time you hear one of these guys ask how progressive educators can work with Tea Party types against Common Core even though Tea Party types hold views in anathema to many views that progressive educators hold on other issues, ask how it is the DFER's can work with Tea Party types to expand charter schools even though Tea Party types hold views that are supposedly in anathema to ones the DFER's have on other issues.

Rand Paul: Repeal NCLB In Totality

I figured Ron Paul's kid, Rand, would be a "No" on NCLB reauthorization and hate Common Core.

I was right:

I've always been a little bit perplexed by the reaction of many to No Child Left Behind, for example, because I've yet to meet a teacher who's for it and yet the teachers unions say, "Oh yeah, it's broken, we all hate it, but let's double the funding for it so we can fix it." On the other side of the coin you have the Republicans who think it's one of their biggest achievements to have passed it. [Yet], to me, it has a basic contradiction with the Republican philosophy of local control of schools. You know, we doubled the size of the Department of Education during Republican control, doubled the amount of employees there. I just think it's a wrong way to go. [It's] this top-down approach [and it] takes a bludgeon to determine how to teach kids. It tells schools that they aren't succeeding because their overall scores are low when maybe every one of their kids is actually improving.

...

I've talked with superintendents in my state, principals,...[and] school boards and they all have particular fixes. And I told them that, first of all, I will try to get No Child Left Behind repealed in its totality. I won't always get everything I want up here, I realize that, but I still will try. And I will probably support most of the things that they are asking for as long as they're not asking for more money to be spent. [I'm skeptical of some of the proposals] like judging the schools based on the progress of each individual student. Statistically, if you have 20 kids in a class that's not a good sample size. If you have 200 kids in a school, that's still not a good sample size. Four National Merit Scholars could skew a sample like that. And that's the kind of thinking that we have in Washington, where they put schools on probation, where [when measuring performance] they make them include certain kids who have learning disabilities. All of that skews results and really doesn't get to the truth of whether it's a good school or not. There are schools that have waiting lists to get into because they are so popular and are universally acclaimed by the community and yet they sometimes score low.

...

As far as exactly what is taught, I think that there could even be good ideas that come out of federal government on occasion, surprising as that might be, but I think that those decisions should still be made locally. I think a good example of how best to teach is so different from community to community. If you remember [Jaime Escalante] in East L.A., he [had great success] teaching mathematics, but his techniques were probably different than if your kids go to Beverly Hills. We have different problems in Louisville that we might not have in northern Kentucky. And one size fits all is not the way to do it...Communities differ throughout Kentucky but definitely kids in Bowling Green are different from kids in Brooklyn or Queens.

RH: So you think it makes sense to have different academic standards across the states?
RP: Yeah, and that variability should be no federal standards and all state standards. I don't think there's any reason to have it in Washington. The problem with this debate is that certain people on the other side of the debate characterize it as, if you are opposed to the Department of Education, then you are opposed to education.

This may surprise my liberal readers out there, but I'm glad Paul beat the Dem in Kentucky.

The Dem was another neo-liberal, pro-NCLB ed reformer in the Michael Bennet mold.

We have enough of those in power already in both parties.

I may not like a lot of other stands Rand Paul takes on things, especially on union issues, but if it's between some federal funding and lots of federal mandates written by Gates and Broad Foundation people and little federal funding and few mandates, I'll take the latter.

After ten years of NCLB and two years of RttT (with worse to come if Obama's NCLB Jr. is passed and signed into law), give me a Rand Paul education policy over the policies of Michael Bennet, George Miller, or Lamar Alexander.

Scary that I just wrote that, but it's true.

That's how bad things have gotten.

Rand Paul Gets Seat On Education Committee In Senate

Story here.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Paul is a "no" vote on Obama's massive expansion of federal power in his NCLB Jr. blueprint.

Rand Paul Wins Senate Seat

Not a surprise, but still, momentous, I think.

Here is Rand Paul's take on education policy:

“I would have voted no on No Child Left Behind. Decisions on education should occur at the state and local level by teachers, administrators, school boards, and parents.”

...

“Opposed to reauthorizing any federal control of schools. Would work to repeal No Child Left Behind.

...

“I am against any federal funding or control of education. Historically, education was funded and controlled locally. Even now, most funding is local. You can’t have it both ways. Most teachers despise No Child Left Behind. If you want to be rid of it, you must also oppose federal funds!

...

“Revenue for education should be local. Once you allow the federal government in, you lose control.

I guess we can count Dr. Paul as a no vote on a Race to the Top competition for 2011?

Paul's opponent, Jack Conway, was a yes vote for both NCLB ( he likes the law, says it only needs minor tweaking) and Race to the Top.

Sure, Dr. Paul wants to abolish the DOE completely.

And sure, ending federal funding would screw tons of poor students.

But I have to say, I like that there is a "no" vote for NCLB re-authorization and RttT.

Unfortunately he will be a "no" vote on lots of other stuff that is really, really good too - like federal aid for college students.