Santorum - Party of One

By Jeff Simpson

I normally would not care at all about the clowns in the clown car that is mislabeled in the media as the Republican race for 2016 Presidential nomination.   However, this story caught my eye:

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum showed up at a campaign stop in Iowa to find only one voter waiting for him, but he called the event a success anyway.

The Des Moines Register reported that Santorum decided to order lunch when he saw that Audubon County Republican Party Chair Peggy Toft was his entire audience at a restaurant in Hamlin.

What do you do when only one person shows up  to your event?    Order some food and discuss the danger of gay marriage of course. 

By the time his meal of tenderloin and onion rings showed up, so had three other voters, according to the Register.
At a small table in the restaurant, Santorum explained to Pastor Glen Meyers and the other listeners that same-sex marriage was threat to the family and religious liberty.

Scott Walker - Homeschool Hero

By Jeff Simpson 

There is a story today on the Daily Beast about Scott Walker's Homeschool army.  

Perhaps more than any other 2016er, Walker is consistent and vocal in acknowledging that homeschooling is a valid form of education—and this support could pay huge political dividends in the Republican primary.
He mentioned it in his 2015 budget address, in his 2014 State of the State speech, in his 2015 inaugural address, and all over the campaign trail, as well as at Gov. Rick Scott’s invite-only event in Disney last week for business power brokers.
This is by design.
In an exclusive Q&A with The Daily Beast, Walker expressed deep affection and support for parents who teach their kids at home.
The governor’s relationship with the homeschool community is complex, and—given his presidential ambitions—extremely important.

Even though homeschooling is not the place to get a good education, Scott Walker cares much more about Scott Walker's career than your child's education, so he will continue courting homeschoolers.

However, there was one paragraph in this story that really stood out.  

    Homeschool families have long been a political force in the all-important Iowa Caucus. They helped propel former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee to a surprise win there in 2008 and were heavily courted by Iowa Caucus winner Rick Santorum in 2012.

Yes President Huckabee and President Santorum should be able to give Mr. Walker some very good advice on how to take an Iowa Caucus win, and a homeschool army all the way to the White House!

Santorum Speaks to the Republican Base

This is Rick Santorum.

Rick Santorum was brought to WI, during the last election as a headliner by Americans for Prosperity and Luke Hilgemann, in their defending the American Dream summit. 

On Saturday, March 24, Americans for Prosperity Foundation-Wisconsin will host the Wisconsin Defending the American Dream Summit.

AFP Foundation-Wisconsin is proud to announce presidential candidate Rick Santorum, Senator Ron Johnson, and Congressman Paul Ryan will speak at the Defending the American Dream Summit.

This is who Rick Santorum is:

That Americans for Prosperity in Wisconsin feature Mr. Santorum as a "conservative" speaker and that Paul Ryan and Ron Johnson enjoy sharing the stage with him, tells you what you need to know about them.  

Its only post racial America when we hold people accountable for their racism.  

*Edit note - This speech was not given at the AFP-WI summit, but shortly before it.    Santorum was still allowed to speak.   

Some Things Are Meant To Be

By Jeff Simpson

Perpetual Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum(dont Google him):

Rick Santorum announced his endorsement of state Sen. Glenn Grothman for U.S. Congress Thursday afternoon in a short statement. 

“Glenn Grothman’s bold leadership in Wisconsin is exactly what we need in Congress,” said former U.S. Senator and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Santorum. “Our country is at a turning point, and we need a principled conservative like Glenn Grothman to return our country back on the path to prosperity. Glenn has the courage and the conviction to stand up for conservative values.”

The love and affection was returned:

 

During a Thursday conference call with reporters, Grothman and Santorum praised each other for their devotion to conservative principles. Grothman talked about how Santorum won him over when they first met during Santorum’s unsuccessful bid to become the 2012 presidential nominee.

“When I met him, I felt we were almost soulmates,” Grothman said. “It’s kind of an odd thing.”

 

   

Common Clowns With No Standards!

By Jeff Simpson

For those of you who have and have not been following the state of education in the country and in our state, one of the debates right now is a set of Common Core State Standards, that every state is trying to adopt so kids graduate high school with a basic understanding of how the world works.  Whether you grow up in Janesville, WI, Detroit Michigan, Rockland County, New York, or South Alamo, Texas there are basic math, reading writing skills that everyone will have.

The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.

The theory is that we as a country have too much invested in our youth that when someone graduates West Bend high school and thinks that dinosaurs lived with man only a few thousand years ago that kind of ignorance harms us all.   

It seems as though anti-intellectualism has become standard practice in politics today.   Some of it can be attributed to the education vampire profiteers like former convicted felon Scott Jensen who prefers public education money in his pocket instead of your kids classroom.  We can also contribute it to the failed state of our politics when we have serious candidates for president say things like this:

A little refresher course on Common Core, it originated as a republican idea: 

 On the face of it, Republicans should love the Common Core State Standards. Eisenhower called for higher education standards in response to Sputnik. Reagan decried that U.S. standards were too low. Conservatives have railed against lax standards, zero accountability and bloated education budgets for decades. We want measurable results, bottom-line solutions, and we don’t want them come from Washington.

Common Core does that. Developed by teachers, created by the states, it provides the kind of education that big business and colleges are demanding.

 The initiative started in 1989 when President Bush (the elder) hosted a summit of governors to develop higher standards for public education. The idea came to fruition in 2007 when the National Governors Association (led by Sonny Perdue) created standards for English and math.

The goal? To create graduates with the necessary skills to be employable by businesses or go to college. Funded by big business, with 10,000 different inputs by ordinary parents and teachers, developed by teachers, benchmarked against competitive foreign countries, the group created a yardstick that could measure every student across the nation.

 Up until that point, Republicans who knew about Common Core were unified behind the zero-budget, state-led initiative to an education system we’ve been trying to fix for generations. We welcomed these standards because they’d finally make all schools across the nation equally accountable – not to the meddlesome feds – but to 46 of our fellow states.

Then something devastating to Common Core happened.  President Obama endorsed it!  As "tea party" republican school board member Dan Belton from Rural Georgia says:

Then Obama endorsed the initiative, and conservatives turned against it.

 I wish they’d look closer. I’d be annoyed if Obama announced he was suddenly a Braves fan. But that wouldn’t make me cheer for the Mets. That is the kind of backwards logic that some are now employing.

 Obama did not develop Common Core. It is not a federal program. Not one federal official was on any of the teams that created these standards.

 “But, wait!” you say. “The feds are controlling Common Core by using Race to the Top money!” Yes, that is one way federal money can be earned, but it is not the only way. Virginia, for example, won that money while rejecting Common Core.

 “But the curriculum tells teacher what to teach!” Actually, Common Core isn’t even a curriculum. It is a set of standards that each child needs to know. One teacher put it this way, "It's not about how to teach; it's about where students need to be by the time that teaching is done."

 It’s the end zone - home plate - the goalie’s net. It’s a yardstick that nearly every state agreed upon; a goal that is much harder than before.

 Now let's bring it back to WI where a group of "tea party" laggards are foaming at the mouth upset that we would even think about implementing anything the current President of the United States would endorse.  They pressured the extremist elements of the current republican party(which is most of them) and they forced statewide hearings on common core.

Unfortunately, for the children of Wisconsin, these hearings turned out to be as big of a sham as everything the republicans have done in the last three years.   It was so bad that Rep. Christine Sinicki quit the common core committee because nothing was being accomplished but a bunch of paid goons from out of state were the only ones being allowed to talk!

The John Birch Society, a conservative political advocacy group, paid experts to testify against the controversial Common Core academic standards in public hearings last week, which Sinicki called “immoral” in her resignation letter to committee chairs Sen. Paul Farrow, R-Pewaukee, and Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, R-Fond du Lac.
“It has become painfully clear that this committee and its activities are occurring at the behest of interested parties outside of this Legislature, and even this state,” Sinicki said in her letter.
Sinicki said in her letter she would not sit on a committee that involves itself with “extreme” interest groups during legislative hearings but does not pay attention to the teachers and administrators affected by the standards.

(Edit Note: In case you don't know the history of John Birch Society - it is not pretty)

After the right wing extremist were able to force the republican party to hold sham hearings, that was not enough.  Now somewhere around 60 of these extremist groups and their laggard heads all signed a letter asking Governor Walker to display his "unintimidated" principles and not implement it!  

Nor could they better embody the principles that must guide you, Wisconsin’s chief

executive, in boldly rejecting Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in this state

.

Governor Walker, we ask that you match your bold words with decisive leadership and action on the most important issue that will ever be before you in your current office: the future of the children of Wisconsin

Yes a sane person would think they were talking about the devastating effects of his voucher school program on Wisconsin Students. but they are talking about Common Core.  

As HuffPo points out:

The Common Core State Standards have been adopted in more than 40 states and are being taught to the same benchmarks. While the standards are typically seen as more rigorous than what most states previously used, in Wisconsin, some critics are arguing the standards are too mild and represent an example of federal overreach.
On Tuesday, the groups sent Walker a letter asking him to encourage the legislature to pass a bill rejecting the Common Core Standards, even though the state adopted the voluntary benchmarks in 2010.
 Schools in Wisconsin have already spent about $25 million on the standards’ implementation process, the AP notes.

Whats $25 million in Wisconsin taxpayer money to the "tea party" anyway?  they have proven that no amount of money matters when it comes to their agenda.

Their hilarious, yet scary letter can be found here.    

A couple quick thoughts on their letter:

* The people that loved No Child Left Behind now are upset with testing in schools?  Huh?

*  Don't tell us about Wisconsinites are against it when you have a letter signed with "expert witnesses" from Utah.

*   Anytime the cowardly Orville Seymour's name is attached then you know its a joke. 

*   The Southern Poverty Law center, who tracks domestic terrorist groups, tells us that one telling sign of an American dangerous hate group is the word "patriot" in their title.

Finally why do we need Common Core? Back to Ben Belton:

 Why is this necessary? Nationwide, only 75 percent of ninth graders graduate from high school. Only 19 percent of our graduates are ready for college, only 44 percent enter college and only 21 percent earn a degree. Shockingly, 35 percent aren’t educated enough to enter the military. The United States is 25^th among developed countries in math and 21^st for science.

Over 600,000 jobs remained vacant last year because no one was educated enough to fill them. If you think those stats are good enough, then, yeah…Common Core is a horrible idea.

 Common Core gets rid of No Child Left Behind. The dirty little secret is that although the feds administered that very unpopular reform program, they let the each state decide what their individual standards were.

The result? Some states made their standards hard and others quite easy, making it impossible to compare one state to another.

 Common Core isn’t mandatory. State leaders, accountable to their constituents, can withdraw at any time. Which states opted out? Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Virginia -- evenly matched between Red and Blue.

Common Core only involves English and math. It does not include social studies or science and probably never will.

 In a nation like France, where people rarely move much from place to place, having national standards isn’t a big deal. In America, where children commonly move thousands of miles from state to state, it’s absolutely essential. Our tiny, rural system has dozens of children moving from out of state every month. Finding that your child is one or two years behind another state is extremely common. 

 I’ve talked to a lot of teachers about Common Core. Their biggest concern? That we’ll scrap it and start over (yet again) with something else. Georgia DOE is famous for rolling out plan after plan without sticking to anything more than a year or two. Teachers have been using these standards over a year. It would be a crime to derail them yet again.

 Some parents complain it’s too hard or too confusing. Welcome to the 21^st century! Our students will either rise to the challenge of the ever-competitive global marketplace or America will fail. Staying the course towards pale mediocrity is not a plan.

 Measuring performance is the cornerstone of accountability. Imagine if the Crimson Tide refused to play anyone outside the state of Alabama! How could they possibly say they were the best team in the nation? States must be able to compete and measure themselves against other states. Every Republican knows that.

Sorry Ben, the republican party of your youth is no longer around. The logical conservative elephant is as extinct as the Zanzibar leopard!  

If Scott Walker listens to this surly group of half wits, anti intellectuals, radicals, subversives and antagonists then it will prove that Scott Walker is not only out of touch with what Wisconsinites truly feel, but that he is completely unfit for duty!









  

PS:  To our friends on the right who signed the letter:  Keep Writing them!  PLEASE!

Republican Fantasyland!

Nuff Said:

The Colbert Report
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Quote of the Week - Part 2

H/T Buzzfeed:

 "We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country," Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator and republican presidential frontrunner, told the audience at the Omni Shoreham hotel. "We will never have the elite, smart people on our side."

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

We all know the Chik-Fil-A flap caused much controversy recently:

  Take the recent comments by Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy in the Baptist Press, in which he pleaded "guilty as charged" for his company's advocacy of traditional marriage based on biblical principles:

We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. We operate as a family business ... our restaurants are typically led by families; some are single. We want to do anything we possibly can to strengthen families. We are very much committed to that.

The fast-food chain's commitment has included millions of dollars donated to anti-gay groups and causes, including the Marriage & Family Foundation and the Family Research Council, according to Business Insider. The company's WinShape Foundation also has refused to admit gay couples to marriage counseling. Last year, Chick-fil-A cosponsored a marriage conference with the Pennsylvania Family Institute, which lobbied against a state effort to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. In another interview on the Ken Coleman Show, Cathy suggested that the nation could face God's wrath for supporting gay marriage. That's pretty strong, incendiary language.

 This led to many celebrities speaking up against such hatred: 

Roseanne Barr struck a differing tone, tweeting that anyone who dines at the restaurant chain “deserves to get the cancer that is sure to come from eating antibiotic filled tortured chickens 4Christ.” She later clarified her sentiments, saying she did not actually wish cancer on anyone. “I should have been more careful in choice of words,” she said in a follow-up tweet.

Also invoking medical conditions was celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who tweeted, “I heard #ChickFilA gives you diarrhea!”

Atlanta native Ed Helms, the actor of “The Office,” “The Hangover” and “Jeff, Who Lives at Home” note, tweeted: “Chick-Fil-A doesn’t like gay people? So lame. Hate to think what they do to the gay chickens! Lost a loyal fan.”

Some celebrities(term used loosely):

Financial guru Dave Ramsey, a bestselling author and talk-show host who sells out stadiums all across the country with his live events, tweeted his support: “I LOVE Chick-fil-A food and Dan Cathy is a personal friend. I will be buying a biscuit on Aug. 1 to tell them I love them. Join me.”

He was referring to a movement spearheaded by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is encouraging people to dine at Chick-fil-A on Aug. 1. Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum is actively supporting “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” as well. In a statement, the Rev. Billy Graham said he will participate as well.

Then two insignificant douchebags felt the need to weigh in:

'Nuff Said! 

Sunday's Discussion

This week former republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, defended Penn St and Joe Paterno's handling of allowing an assistant coach prey on young boys for twelve years.  

SANTORUM: I actually read the Freeh Report. I don’t know if you did or not, but I did. And, my concern with the Freeh report, a lot of the conclusions in the Freeh report aren’t matched by the evidence that they presented and so I’ve been talking to a lot of folks at Penn State and they say, ‘you’re just gonna have to wait for the criminal trial of these two guys at Penn State.’ I think there is going to be a whole new line set on what really went on there. So I’m sort of sitting back and waiting for the facts to come out as opposed to at least I’m being told is a version of the facts. … Let’s get the truth. So I think we’re going to see some things come up a little different in the next six months. I just want to make sure we get it right.

I actually voted for Rick Santorum in the presidential primary.   Not because I felt he was the best person, but because I see the republican party as insane these days(and I am not alone).   The problem with primaries is only the true believers pay attention and many have no idea how extreme this party is.   I felt that putting Rick Santorum(understanding I only had one vote) on the national stage would help to show their true colors to the vast majority of independents in this country.

I now realize I was wrong, because(as we see with the support of Mitt) that if Santorum would have been the candidate it would not matter how crazy he is, many people would vote for him anyway.  Is he that much worse than Mitt?  Is it better to swim with crocodiles or alligators?

The question is, was I wrong for voting for Santorum?  Do people even care that the republican party has become so extreme?  is there anything that would make the republicans NOT vote for the candidate with the R after their name?  While I have admitted the error of my ways, what about the people who actually voted for Santorum as a real candidate? or Newt?   DO not forget Rick Santorum was American for Prosperity's Poverty's candidate of choice!  

The GOP Love Triangle

So, Rick Santorum apparently chose not to heed the advice of family and friends, Googled his own name, saw what it meant, realized he couldn't support his candidacy and has suspended his campaign.  This leaves Mitt Romney has the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

But Romney still has a major problem.  There are still a lot of teahadists that don't feel Romney is malevolent enough and don't want him as president.  To counter this image problem, he needs to find someone who is extraordinary maleficent to counter his image of being too moderate.

There's been a lot of buzz about Paul Ryan - who wants to screw over the elderly, the disabled and the poor in order to give big tax cuts to the nation's millionaires and billionaires - being a top candidate to being Romney's running mate.

There is some plausibility to this notion.  As noted, Ryan is a callous, arrogant jerk, which would balance Romney's image of being a moderate.  They both love money and those that have a lot of it.  The national Republican chairman is Reince Priebus, who is from Wisconsin, and is a master fundraiser, would smile and bless this union.  I'm also sure that Romney is acutely aware of how much a swing state Wisconsin is now, and Ryan as a running mate might make Romney feel he has a shot of winning the state.

Leading up to last week's primary, Romney and Ryan were gushing all over each other. So much so that the Democrats felt inspired to set this political romance to music:



But I've noticed in the last day or so, Ryan has been more assertive and more plaintive in his promoting himself in Romney's eyes. It's like watching an insecure lover try to primp and preen and do whatever to appease his love interest and keep them from leaving him.

And there might be some merit to that feeling.

Before the primaries, not only was Romney singing Ryan's praises, he was also in full-throated support of Scott Walker.

However, Walker was unable to return this public display of affection.  Facing a recall, Walker did not want to dare alienate his rabid teahadist base, by schmoozing up to a perceived moderate.  So, instead of openly expressing his love for Romney, he sent his campaign chair and controller, Michael Grebe, to show his love for him.

Now, one might very well intuit that Walker, who is the target of Walkergate, a John Doe investigation into his illegal campaigning and other acts of corruption, would be too toxic for Romney to consider as a partner.  But who knows? Maybe Romney has a weakness for bad boys.  And Walker's been working on that tough biker image for years now.

In fact, I heard Mordecai Lee opine that Walker might be a better choice as a running mate.  And there is a certain logic to that as well.  Walker is as every bit as malicious as Ryan, maybe even more so.  Plus Walker isn't as boring as Ryan is.  And I'm sure Priebus would smile and give his blessing to this partnership as well.

One advantage that Walker might give Romney as a running mate is that he's not holding onto the third rail of destroying Medicare like Ryan is.

The way I see it, if Romney picks either of them as a running mate, it's a win-win-win scenario.

If Romney picks Ryan, it opens the door for Rob Zerban even wider and gives that district a chance to have someone that will actually represent them and not Big Money.

If Romney picks Walker, that will give the state a chance to reach some closure as we rid ourselves of the person who caused so much mayhem and chaos in his wake.

And as long as Romney picks either the would be Medicare-destroying Ryan or the recalled and/or indicted Walker, it will all but guarantee a second term for Barack Obama.

In the meantime, it will keep Ryan and Walker busy trying to out-woo the the other that they might forget to do any more damage to our state and our country.

We just have to make sure we have enough hankies on hand for the swain who gets spurned.