CHICAGO FIGHT OVER CLOUT
CHARLES LANE
WASHINGTON POST
In Chicago, 85 percent of the roughly 400,000 public school students are either African American or Latino. A similar percentage receives free or reduced-price meals, which means these students live at or near the poverty line: $27,214 for a family of three, in a typical case. The average public-school teacher in Chicago earned almost triple that amount — $76,000 per year, according to the school district. In contract negotiations this year, Chicago Public Schools offered an average total pay increase of 16 percent over four years. The Chicago Teachers Union, 26,000 strong, rejected the offer and went on strike Monday, sowing chaos among children and parents. No one can say how long this walkout will last, but even if it ends tomorrow it has already harmed poor minority children, upon whose education the future of Chicago, and the country, depends.
JUST ANOTHER DAY?
DANA MILBANK
WASHINGTON POST
Nine-eleven just isn’t what it used to be. Residents of the capital will awaken to what is forecast to be another clear Tuesday morning, just like that one 11 years ago, and they will find that the day that changed the nation is becoming more and more ordinary. In some ways, this is a good thing: Osama bin Laden is dead, al-Qaeda isn’t as scary, and Sept. 11, 2001, is on its way to joining Dec. 7, 1941 — more historical, less raw. Yet it’s also unsettling that the day is losing its power to make Americans pause. This is part of the general amnesia that led Mitt Romney to deliver his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination without mentioning a country called Afghanistan.
MITT ROMNEY'S UPHILL CHALLENGE
MICHAEL GERSON
WASHINGTON POST
With less than two months until the election, Romney is left with dwindling opportunities to reshape the dynamic of the race. This places extraordinary pressure on him in the presidential debates that commence on Oct. 3. He was an able debater during the Republican primaries. Obama is a weaker debater than his reputation — often professorial and elliptical. But Romney has the harder task. He must do more than hold his own. He will need to shake and shift public attitudes. And it is not easy to be aggressive during a debate without appearing overbearing or desperate.
THE 9/11 TAX-CUT DISCONNECT
MATT MILLER
WASHINGTON POST
Since that awful morning eleven years ago, the United States has been continually at war. But never before in our history has a political party made it a national priority to cut taxes for wealthy Americans at a time of war. ... Something snapped in the Republican mind after 9/11. We’ve now put a trillion dollars of war on our kids’ credit card, with Republicans leading the charge for tax cuts for the top the entire time. ...What were Republicans thinking? What is Mitt Romney thinking now? Only they know for sure, but what’s clear is that Republican leaders see no moral disconnect between the sacrifices borne by the tiny fraction of Americans who serve in the military (and their families), and repeated tax windfalls showered on a relative handful of well-to-do families at the same time.
THE SHALLOW END OF THE CAMPAIGN
EDITORIAL
NEW YORK TIMES
If the first weekend of Mitt Romney’s general election campaign is any indication, the country is in for eight weeks of wild, often random answers to some of the most important policy questions. Voters trying to understand the positions of Mr. Romney and Representative Paul Ryan are going to have a harder time than ever. On issue after issue raised in the first weekend of interviews after the conventions, Romney and Ryan actively tried to obscure their positions, as if a clear understanding of their beliefs about taxes, health care or spending would scare away anyone who was listening. Aware that President Obama’s policies in these areas are quite popular once people learn about them, the Republicans are simply sowing confusion.
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Talk about shallow...
Very recent polling indicates that of all registered Republican voters in North Carolina, only 39% know that President Obama was the one that ordered Osama Bin Laden killed.... 15% believe it was Romney, and a full 46% aren't sure who did. In another nearby state, the percentages were almost identical. These people either have no awareness of what's happening in the world, or worse, just believe whatever comes within earshot.
"...recent polls also show that an average of 40 percent of Republican voters in some Southeastern states do not believe that Obama was born in the United States (and not eligible to be president) and more than a quarter of all Republicans still believe that Obama is a Muslim.
"...the GOP and their media echo chamber engage in a multi-pronged assaults against Obama in an effort to paint him as "radical," "foreign" and "different than the rest of us." He was "Muslim," "associated with terrorists," "of foreign birth;" a "Black militant," "not a loyal American..."
The corrupt Republican Party, having lost the moral compass it once had, knows this and its current leaders use deceptive methods and intent, to spread a divisive mistrust, taking advantage of the stupidity of their own constituents.
A segment of the electorate is simply too dumb to vote. If these people don't know, or are too lazy to find out the truth for themselves... they don't deserve to impose their ignorance on the rest of America... If there are to be laws made to prohibit people from voting in our elections, skip the ID nonsense and make it IQ instead.
For the first time since 9/11 happened I could not listen to the media's accounts of that tragic day. It seems as if so many things have happened in our country since that day when so many people came together to try and help one another. We had heroes who were simply doing their job. We had men and women coming together to try and help one another. We were truly a "United" country, and we were filled with pride and admiration for our country. I feel so much of that is lost today. The Republicans and Democrats are anything but united. We have class warfare on both sides. No one wants to compromise for the good of our country. We have so many people unemployed, so many people looking and hoping for a well paying job. Both parties criticize each other and the only ones being hurt are the middle class trying to hold on to what little we have left. We are working harder then ever, more hours for less pay just to keep a job to make ends meet. Does anyone ever think that if both parties came together and "Unite" for the common good and put people back to work; we would not need to worry about the deficit or cutting Medicare and Social Security. I for one do not care how much money the wealthy pay in taxes, I don't even care anymore how much CEOs are paid. At the end of the day they have to decide if they are doing right by the rest of the country. I feel one of the biggest wars we are in right now is with ourselves. We no longer deserve to be called the United States of America; because until our elected leaders stop arguing about who is right and who is wrong and start working for good of ALL the people in this country we should call ourselves the Divided States of America. We are not a third world country, but we are on our way to becoming one. Maybe that is why the Republicans are so bent on cutting Medicare and Social Security, because they know that corporations are never going to offer jobs with a living wage as they did in the past. Why should they, we need to compete globally now and of course we need to think of the shareholders and the CEOs profits.
I sometimes wonder if similar events of 9/11 happened today, if we would still see the same bravery, compassion, pride and need to help our fellow Americans. I still believe in the U.S.A., but it is getting harder to do each day. It is getting harder to tell my children to work hard and their labor will be rewarded. It is getting harder to tell my children that if you follow the rules and laws of this country you will be rewarded. We are a different country today then we were 11 years agao, and if everyone, Democrat and Republican are honest with themselves, they will agree.
Wake up Denise. Our embassies are under attack and the right wing talkers and Fox are attacking the President as much as the terrorists are. Many of the Republicans leaders are as well as Mitt himself.
Unity in this country only exists when the Democrats support a Republican President because Democrats do have respect for the office and the country. Republicans don't. They have lost their way. You have fallen for the old "both sides do it," mantra. The Republicans attacked Clinton mercilessly for eight years accusing him of over 70 different crimes none of which were true (except the one) even accusing him of murdering Vincent Foster in the White House and of things he did thirty years before he was President.
Of course now they have falsely accused Obama of being foreign born and of being a traitor who is trying to overthrow our country.
Both sides don't do it. The Dems never did anything like these things to Bush I or II or anything like this to Reagan. The Republicans have lost their way. Wake up Denise.