I can't, sorry, not with the Globe.
"Common Core divides GOP leaders; Party changing its stance on key education goals" by Jonathan Martin | New York Times April 20, 2014
WASHINGTON — The health care law may be Republicans’ favorite weapon against Democrats this year, but there is another issue roiling their party and shaping the establishment vs. grassroots divide ahead of the 2016 presidential primaries: the Common Core.
A once little-known set of national educational standards introduced in 44 states and the District of Columbia with the overwhelming support of Republican governors, the Common Core has incited resistance on the right and prompted some in the party to reverse field and join colleagues who believe it will lead to a federal takeover of schools.
Conservatives denounce it as “Obamacore,” in what has become a surefire applause line for potential presidential hopefuls.
Other Republicans are facing opprobrium from their own party for not doing more to stop it. At a recent Republican women’s club luncheon in North Carolina, a member went from table to table distributing literature that called the program part of “the silent erosion of our civil liberties.”
The learning benchmarks, intended to raise students’ proficiency in math and English, were adopted as part of a 2010 effort by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to bolster the country’s competitiveness.
Some conservatives, in an echo of their criticism of the health care law, say the standards are an overreach by the federal government.
Yet there is an important distinction: Unlike the health care law, the Common Core retains bipartisan support and has the backing of powerful elements of the business community.
I can't think of a better reason to oppose it.
Its most outspoken Republican defender, Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida, is also the most talked-about potential presidential candidate among mainstream party leaders and donors.
Related: Republican Presidential Candidates Seek Adelson Approval
Looks like he got it.
Bush has called out some Republicans who have switched positions, drawing what will be a dividing line in the campaign if he or other defenders of the Common Core choose to run. He is joined by Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, but theirs is becoming a small club.
The field is already being winnowed, and it looks like Jeb has the lead.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Over the past year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has been buffeted by controversy and criticism. Some of its members were reportedly involved in a New Jersey lane-closing scandal at the George Washington Bridge. It also faced allegations of conflicts of interest in the awarding of contracts, the abrupt resignation of its chairman, and criminal investigations on both sides of the Hudson River."
Christie campaign getting backed up in traffic again?
“I’m a big fan of Jeb Bush; I think he’s an important leader on many issues,” said Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. “But on the question of Common Core, I emphatically do not agree with Common Core.”
His opinion of the program is shared by two Senate colleagues and possible 2016 rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Rand Paul looks like the best of a bad lot, and he can't hold a candle to his father.
Cruz’s view also aligns with that of several Republican governors contemplating presidential runs.
Governor Mike Pence of Indiana signed legislation last month that made his state the first to opt out of the Common Core after having adopted it.
Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin said he wanted his state to establish its own educational goals.
And Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana suggested that he might use executive authority to go around the state Legislature if lawmakers did not withdraw from the group of states developing the standardized test associated with the Common Core.
Jindal’s position, a reversal for him, shows how quickly conservative opposition has grown.
He recently announced his support for a bill that would remove Louisiana from the Common Core, on the same day the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which supports the program, released a video featuring his earlier endorsement of it.
Related: Jindal Jumps Into Presidential Campaign
Well, he is acting like the president.
Also see: Slick Move By Obama
The Republican revolt against the Common Core can be traced to President Obama’s embrace of it, particularly his linking the adoption of similar standards to states’ eligibility for federal education grants and to waivers from No Child Left Behind, the national educational law enacted by President George W. Bush.
It underlines the ascendance of a brand of conservatism notably different from that of Bush.
As long as it isn't the neo-conservatism of Bush.
Less than 15 years after No Child Left Behind passed with just 34 House Republicans opposed to it, the conservative center of gravity is shifting toward a state-centric approach to education.
And everything else, which is better but either way we are f***ed. Feds are the only entity big enough to stand up to corporate power, but are under corporate control. States governments even easier for them to buy.
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Related:
"People with accounts on the enrollment website for President Obama’s signature health care law are being told to change their passwords. The advice follows a review of the government’s vulnerability to the Internet-wide Heartbleed security flaw (AP)."
The problems never stop for that site, 'eh?
That reminds me of something I saw yesterday:
"From Clinton to Obama, push for health care a political risk" by Ken Thomas | Associated Press April 19, 2014
WASHINGTON — Thousands of pages of documents from President Bill Clinton’s White House affirm a longtime adage: The more things change, the more they stay the same.
As Clinton prepared for an August 1994 news conference in which he hoped to build public support for his struggling — and ultimately unsuccessful — health care overhaul, he told his advisers: ‘‘A lot of them want to know they can keep their own plan if they like it.’’ Later that fall, Clinton’s Democrats were routed in midterm elections and lost control of Congress.
We are going to see a repeat this fall after the disastrous rollout.
Nearly two decades later, President Obama sought to reassure Americans about his own plan, which won approval in Congress in 2010, by telling them, ‘‘If you like your plan you can keep it.’’ A spate of private policy cancellations forced Obama to recant his pledge that all Americans who liked their plans could simply keep them.
It was called an inaccurate promise, not a lie. That is costing him more than the rollout.
More than 8 million people have signed up for health insurance under the ‘‘Obamacare’’ law; how the overhaul is perceived could become a deciding point for the fate of Obama’s fellow Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections.
That number is inflated, one might even say a lie.
About 7,500 pages of records released Friday through the National Archives and the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., show the parallels between the Clinton era and the White House under Obama. The documents may also offer a glimpse into a future as former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who led her husband’s health care task force, considers another presidential campaign in 2016.
Notice they always dump the documents on a Friday?
In 1993, Clinton’s advisers estimated that passing the health care bill would require a delicate balance of Democratic and Republican support, needing at least eight moderate Republicans in the Senate and 15 to 20 in the House to win approval.
I don't want to refight the Clinton health care wars.
A strategy memo argued the plan would require support from enough conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans without alienating too many liberal Democrats. But the bill never cleared a House committee.
‘‘The complexity of our bill undermines our chances for success, but without complexity, success is impossible,’’ the unsigned memo said.
It identified several lawmakers as ‘‘swing votes,’’ including Republican Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, who became the GOP presidential nominee against Clinton in 1996, and several House members still serving, including Representatives Fred Upton, Republican of Michigan; Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York; and Frank Pallone, Democrat of New Jersey.
After Republicans swept to victory in the 1994 elections, in part because of the failed health care overhaul, the mood at the White House was sour. ‘‘We got slaughtered,’’ communications aide David Dreyer wrote in November 1994.
Same thing 20 years later?
Obama also had a blunt reaction after Republicans won control of the House in the 2010 elections, in part because of fallout from passage of the new health care law. He described the defeat as ‘‘a shellacking.’’
That's why Democrats are running from it now and not bringing it up.
More recently, Obama has tried to win support in Congress for his plan to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, pointing to it as a way to pull families out of poverty.
They had a filibuster-proof Congress four years ago and we gout nothing but a crappy health law.
The Clinton administration also had internal debates over the minimum wage, which the president signed into law in 1996, boosting the rate from $4.25 an hour to $5.15 an hour by September 1997.
In a 1998 memo from aide Phil Caplan, it became clear there was internal disagreement with a plan from Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, to raise the minimum wage even further, to $7.25 an hour. That proposal had ‘‘no support among your advisers,’’ Caplan told Clinton in his memo.
Instead, the economic team argued for an increase to $6.15 an hour by 2002. Others, including advisers Rahm Emanuel — now Chicago’s mayor — and Sylvia Mathews Burwell — recently nominated Health and Human Services secretary — urged that the rate be increased to $5.55 in 1999 and the issue revisited in 2000.
Related: Sebelius Running For Senate
Time for a mental health check.
Another record shows how Clinton’s team considered ways of addressing the lingering Monica Lewinsky scandal, which some Republicans have cited as Hillary Clinton considers a presidential campaign.
In December 1998, Clinton adviser Benjamin Barber wrote to speechwriter Michael Waldman about the upcoming State of the Union address.
‘‘Will the State of the Union try to grapple with the sordid history of the impeachment and what it has done to American politics and the American political process? Or will it be future-oriented and programmatic, as if nothing had happened?’’ Barber asked.
Related: State of the Union Set the Tone For 2014 Elections
Sorry my tone is so terse.
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Also see: Chelsea Clinton announces she’s pregnant with first child
Related: The Clinton's Political Incest
The way HW adopted Bill as the son he never had is what convinced me. Then there is the dutiful daughter he adopted.
UPDATE: How Jon Stewart made Elizabeth Warren ill
Looks like she won't be winning the nomination.
