Chronicle: Teachers Strike, Children Suffer

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Patriot Headline Report » For News That Matters Most The Right Opinion » The Web's Best Columnists Grassroots Commentary » Strictly Outside the Beltway Chronicle · September 12, 2012 The Foundation "No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders." --Samuel Adams Editorial Exegesis Chicago's children aren't learning "Labor Day may have passed, but in Chicago school is still out for the summer. That's because, for the first time in more than 25 years, the brothers and sisters of the Chicago Teachers Union are striking. Though they are already among the best-paid educators in the country, making an average of $76,000 per year in salary -- plus benefits -- the union is unsatisfied with an offer from the city's board of education that provides them a 16 percent raise over four years, worth a total of $400 million. (The CTU's original offer was for a 30 percent raise over two years.) Accounts from both sides indicate that the sticking points are the maintenance of the union's lavish benefits structure and a teacher-evaluation system that labor officials worry could -- horror -- result in the firing of large numbers of its most ineffective members. On the merits, the case isn't close. Chicago teachers currently pay just 3 percent of their own health-care costs, and nearly three-quarters of new education spending over the last five years has been gobbled up by their retirement costs. ... The proximate consequence of the union's intransigence is that a mass of youths won't be in classrooms, but on Chicago's increasingly murderous streets. The contrast with the city's 45,000 charter-school students, along with its parochial- and private-school enrollees -- all of whom remain in their classrooms -- is stark. The benefits of school choice are manifold, but not least among them is that your child's education needn't be held hostage by the whims of public employees who finance and staff the campaigns of their putative bargaining 'adversaries.' That sort of thing doesn't happen in competitive markets. ... Political reality alone ought to force the Democrats to push labor for a quick agreement that maintains most of the cost-saving concessions, at least cosmetically preserves the teacher-evaluation model, and, most important, gets Chicago kids back to school. Whether this happens will say much about who wears the pants in the liberal coalition." --National Review Post your opinion Upright "Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis walks, talks and barks like a rootsy Occupy Wall Street activist. ... When she's not urging other teachers to ditch the classroom or organizing traffic blockades to impede everyone else in Chicago from getting to and from their jobs, Lewis spends her time trashing public charter schools and business leaders trying to reform our Soviet-style monopoly in education. The results speak for themselves: While CTU members earn an average of $74,000 a year and are now spurning 16 percent pay hikes, 71 percent of the third-largest school district's 8th-grade students can't attain the most basic level of science proficiency, and nearly 80 percent are not grade-level proficient in reading. ... It bears repeating often: The goals of the teachers union radicals are not academic excellence, professional development and fairness. The goals are student indoctrination, social upheaval and perpetual grievance-mongering in pursuit of bigger government and spending without restraint: 2, 4, 6, 8! One agenda: Agitate!" --columnist Michelle Malkin "[Yesterday], the U.S. embassy in Cairo was attacked, stormed, and the U.S. flag was torn down by a bunch of crazy Egyptians emboldened by the Arab Spring. Yet Barack Obama felt he needed to issue an apology. ... On the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. ... According to CNN, Obama's Administration issued a statement saying that it 'condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims -- as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.' America is apologizing for those who would 'hurt the religious feelings of Muslims?' Did Buddhists kill 3,000 Americans on September 11? How about Hindus? Or, Zoroastrians? Or any of the other 21 major faiths that exist on the Earth? ... Even though everyone believes this election is going to be about the economy, a few more boneheaded days like yesterday might well make Obama's inept handling of foreign policy a major issue. If I have hurt your feelings ... I'm so sorry." --columnist Rich Galen Editor's Note: Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three embassy staff were killed by al-Qa'ida jihadis in Benghazi late yesterday in retaliation for a film they decided insulted Mohammed. In other words, their religious feelings were hurt, so someone had to die. This is the barbarous enemy we face. "[Sandra Fluke] completed her education a few weeks ago -- at the age of 31, or Grade 25. Before going to Georgetown, she warmed up with a little light BS in Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies from Cornell. She then studied law at one of the most prestigious institutions in the nation, where tuition costs 50 grand a year. ... Sandra Fluke has been blessed with a quarter-million dollars of elite education, and ... is entirely incapable of making a coherent argument. ... Sexual liberty, even as every other liberty withers, is all that matters: A middle-school girl is free to get an abortion without parental consent, but if she puts a lemonade stand on her lawn she'll be fined. What a bleak and reductive concept of 'personal freedom.'" --columnist Mark Steyn Essential Liberty "The problem with Medicare is not just that its current formula is unsustainable, or that Obama diverted a staggering amount of projected future spending on it into yet another bank-breaking entitlement. It is that the national government is innately incapable of running an entitlement program. ... As constituted, our government offered two visions of 'providing for the general welfare.' First is the Madisonian principle that Congress's capacity to tax and spend is strictly limited to its enumerated powers -- which do not include running social-welfare programs. The second is a Hamiltonian gloss, giving Congress additional latitude, provided that its schemes benefit all Americans equally -- which would preclude welfare programs that take from A for the benefit of B. Once you abandon these moorings, once you accept a wealth-redistribution system in which government becomes the arbiter of 'social justice,' the ball game is over." --former DoJ attorney Andrew McCarthy Insight "Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom." --economist Friedrich August von Hayek (1899-1992) Demo-gogues Easy for him to say: "We are absolutely better off than we were when I was sworn in and we had 800,000 jobs being lost in a month." --Barack Obama Nothing but debt as far as the eye can see: "My plan would reduce our deficit without sticking it to the middle class. Independent analysis has shown that my plan would cut deficits by $4 trillion. And I've already worked with the Republicans in Congress to cut a trillion dollars' worth of spending, because those of us who care about what government can do to help people give them a ladder up." --Barack Obama Regulator extraordinaire: "Just yesterday my opponent called my position on fuel efficiency standards extreme. I don't know, it doesn't seem extreme to me to want to have more fuel efficient cars. Maybe the steam engine is more his speed." --Barack Obama Math is hard: "What they're proposing, and this is a fact. I say to the press, 'Fact check me.' What they're proposing will actually cause the Medicare trust fund that pays for the benefits when you go to the hospital, the doctor, etc., to run out of money, a sufficient amount of money by 2016. That's when it would hit the wall." --Joe Biden Making it up: "Seniors would be kicked out of nursing homes. What are we going to do? A lot of those folks are moms and dads. They come from middle-class families. Even worse some have no families, nowhere to go. What's going to happen? They don't tell you that their plan would immediately cut benefits for 30 million seniors." --Joe Biden Dezinformatsia Blame Bush: "Could the 9/11 attack have been stopped, had the Bush team reacted with urgency to the warnings contained in all of those daily briefs? We can't ever know. And that may be the most agonizing reality of all." --New York Times columnist Kurt Eichenwald politicizing the 9/11 anniversary Blame Republicans: "For 44 days last summer, Barack Obama was hostage to events outside his control. The Republican Congress newly dominated by the Tea Party threatened for the first time in history to have America default on its debts. ... But is that the president's fault?" --ABC's Diane Sawyer Star struck: "Years from now we may look back ... and remember Bill Clinton's [DNC] speech as one of the greatest in convention history. No one, including President Obama himself, has made a better case for Obama than Bill Clinton did." --MSNBC's Chris Matthews Race bait: "Part of my job when I speak about politics is to speak up for black people and say things black people need said. This mission has rarely felt so necessary as it has when racial code words recently entered the Presidential election. .... Using certain words to invoke racialized fear and scare white working class voters is a long-established part of the Republican playbook." --MSNBC's Touré A little overstated: "What is riskier than living poor in America? Seriously! ... I am sick of the idea that being wealthy is risky. No. ... Being poor is what is risky. We have to create a safety net for poor people. And when we won't, because they happen to look different from us, it is the pervasive ugliness." --MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry Newspulper Headlines: That Can Mean Only One Thing: It's a Day Ending With 'Y': "Tonight, Obama Gets Backing From Hollywood" --NPR.org This a Sentence if Verbs Not Missing: "Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Career Path Hazy" --Politico.com God Bummed by Atheist Flip -- Now That Would Be News: "Atheists Bummed by Democrats' God Flip" --Politico.com News of the Tautological: "Less Hiring Probably Kept U.S. Jobless Rate Elevated in August" --Bloomberg Bottom Stories of the Day: "No Reports of Damage After Two Light Earthquakes Strike California" --Associated Press (Thanks to The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto) Village Idiots Compulsive liar: "I've heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this -- that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel." --DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz who accused conservatives of misquoting her -- except they didn't Stuck on stupid: "[Republicans] think lying is a virtue." --Obama's deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter Left-theology: "I think we measure how Godly we are by Medicaid, by Medicare, by access to the lease of life of people who's backs are against the wall." --"Reverend" Jesse Jackson Likely story: "[Obama] cleaned up half the s--- in four years realistically. It ain't like you gave him a clean house. Y'all gave him a house with a TV that didn't work, the toilet was stuffed up; everything was wrong with the house." --rapper "Snoop Dogg" Anything goes: "I have no experience with incest. We started thinking about that. ... I'm not saying this is an absolute but in a way, if you're not having kids -- who gives a d---? Love who you want. ... If it's your brother or sister it's super-weird, but if you look at it, you're not hurting anybody except every single person who freaks out because you're in love with one another." -- film director Nick Cassavetes on his upcoming incest-promotional movie, "Yellow" Short Cuts "GOP ad shows Obama using exact same words in 2008 & 2012. So much recycling, 'presidential speechwriter' should count as a green job." --former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson "Barack Obama walked onstage to thank Bill Clinton after his barn-burning speech Wednesday. As they walked off together, someone up front shouted how nice it was to have God back on the platform. They both spun around and said that it was nice to be back." --comedian Argus Hamilton "Bill Clinton said that President Obama inherited a deeply damaged economy. And if he's re-elected he'll inherit an even more deeply damaged economy." --comedian Jay Leno Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis! Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team Click Here Show Your Patriotism and Support With These Great Garden Flags!   Made in the USA, these patriotic and military themed garden flags are a great addition to your yard!     (To submit reader comments click here.)   Patriot Headline Report » For News That Matters Most The Right Opinion » The Web's Best Columnists Grassroots Commentary » Strictly Outside the Beltway (Please pray for our Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.) Follow The Patriot Post:

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