Last Call For Chartering A Course

I don't think enough has been said about Democrats losing black votes because of their refusal to support charter schools.  I know that they are a scam to take even more money away from broken urban schools and then close them in droves the way Rahm Emmanuel did in Chicago, which was a disaster that resulted in the conviction of the CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

But that hasn't stopped inner-city black voters with broken schools from wanting to try something radically different. And one of the reasons Matt Bevin won here in Kentucky was because of his charter school plan for Louisville and Lexington in a state that has held firmly against charter schools for years.  Conway didn't get the votes he needed to win from those areas because Bevin and his running mate Janean Hampton pushed charter schools for black neighborhoods.

Democrats haven't done a good enough job of stopping charter schools, and a big chunk of that is that the Obama administration has supported charter schools across the board.  Only now has that changed with the planned exit of Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

And that leads us to Hillary Clinton in South Carolina over the weekend at a town hall meeting with black voters at Claflin University.

Education and training programs came to dominate the hour-long meeting at the historically black university. 

Clinton said education would be a top priority in her administration, pointing to the education reform she spearheaded when her husband occupied the governor’s mansion in Arkansas. 

But she also refused to endorse plans to build more charter schools and expand school choice for parents through voucher programs, despite the overwhelming popularity of such policies among African-American voters. 

“I have for many years now, about 30 years, supported the idea of charter schools, but not as a substitute for the public schools, but as a supplement for the public schools," Clinton said. 

She said charter schools can have a “purpose,” but added that “there are good charter schools and there are bad charter schools,” and charter schools often aren’t willing to take the students who pose the biggest problem to educators.

That last distinction is what we have to make as Democrats, but we're not doing a very good job of it. Too many Dems have gotten on board the charter school train, and Republicans are selling the idea that Democrats don't really care about education because if they did, they would allow charter schools.

The problem is of course that with school choice, there are winners and losers.  And in this game, the losing schools get shut down so there's nowhere to go but the charter schools that are making a profit and leaving poor black kids in the cold.

Welcome To Bevinstan, Con't

The Matt Bevin Screw The Ni-CLANG! President tour continues, as Bevin tells Glenn Beck that the government agencies like the EPA have no authority here because of the Tenth Amendment.

Bevin, a Tea Party favorite who became only the second Republican in four decades to win Kentucky’s governorship Tuesday, vowed to stand against the EPA when it comes to protecting his state’s large coal industry.

“Why it is that we in Kentucky — that sit on two extraordinary basins, the Illinois basin and the Central basin, an abundance of this — how are we not participating in something that the world wants more of than they ever have?” Bevin asked. “And so, from my way of thinking, we will tell the EPA and other unelected officials who have no legal authority over us as a state, to pound sand.”

Bevin, a self-described “staunch conservative,” told Beck he believes the 10th Amendment is “one of the most powerful tools” and that power not expressly given to the federal government is the responsibility of the states.

The incoming Kentucky governor said the EPA has “no authority” and that its only recourse would be to “take us to court.” Bevin said that, in the past, the agency has “bribed us with our own money,” but he insisted that will not happen anymore under his leadership.

“The EPA, for example, they don’t have an enforcement arm,” Bevin said. “They use federal dollars. They use our own money. They bribe us with our own money to stick it to ourselves. And we will not do that anymore in the state of Kentucky.”

Hey, serious Southern nullification had to start somewhere, and it looks like in 2016 Bevin will be leading that charge.  I wonder how much of my state taxpayer dollars he'll give to mining companies and power companies that violate EPA regs here, since the feds will happily fine them millions.

It's the people of Kentucky who are going to lose this battle, and Bevin knows it.  And he can blame Obama for another year at least.

University Of Hard Knocks

A rash of racist incidents has plagued the University of Missouri campus so far this year, and University President Tom Wolfe's response to the incidents has not been enough to satisfy students on campus.  Things have gotten so bad that the unheard of has happened: the school's black college football players have gone on strike until Wolfe is removed.

More than 30 football players at the University of Missouri will not participate in any practices or games until Missouri System president Tim Wolfe resigns or is terminated. Several black team members announced their decision to strike on social media Saturday night and Missouri's Legion of Black Collegians posted a statement on behalf of the team with a picture of players unified in support of the boycott.

Wolfe's response to a series of racist incidents has been considered inadequate by many students who believe racism has poisoned the campus. A graduate student, Jonathan Butler, announced earlier in the week he was going on a hunger strike until Wolfe was removed. The most recent racist incident came Oct. 24 when a swastika was drawn with human feces on a college dorm's white wall. 

Sophomore defensive back Anthony Sherrils tweeted: "The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe "Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere" We will no longer participate in any football related activities until president Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students' experiences. WE ARE UNITED!!!!!!"

Several more African-American players, including senior running back and team captain Russell Hansbrough, followed with a series of passionate tweets. Missouri’s student body is 77% white and 7% black, while 58 of the school’s 84 scholarship football players are African-American.

The students have the support of their coaches and fellow white players, and it's powerful to see this happen in the middle of the season like this., but let's be honest about what's going on here:

In the 15 months since African-American teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo., universities around the country have become home to protests. Missouri's campus in Columbia sits about two hours west of Ferguson.

And considering that we have problems with black church burnings in the area, it's good that these students are taking the incidents and drawing attention to the University of Missouri.

Good for them.

StupidiNews!

• A pair of new reports on the impact of climate change suggests it could impoverish 100 million people worldwide by 2030 and leave half a billion homeless through coastal flooding.
• Despite protests and boycotts by Latino activists, Donald Trump's appearance on Saturday Night Live over the weekend received the best ratings in years as millions tuned in.
• Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Barack Obama at the White House today, the first meeting between the two since the Iranian nuclear deal was passed by Congress.
• At least five are dead after two female suicide-bombers attacked a village in western Chad, officials suspect Boko Haram as Chad withdraws 5,000 troops from neighboring Cameroon.
• A new Senate bill would provide financial incentive for federal agencies to give up unused frequency spectrum space to the mobile industry, hungry for more capacity for smartphones.