The state of Texas, ever the testing ground for horrendously bad policy, has in one of its school districts decided to allow teachers to carry guns in the classroom.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080815/ts_nm/texas_guns_dc

Texas school district to let teachers carry guns

Fri Aug 15, 3:32 PM ET

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A Texas school district will let teachers bring guns to class this fall, the district’s superintendent said on Friday, in what experts said appeared to be a first in the United States.

The board of the small rural Harrold Independent School District unanimously approved the plan and parents have not objected, said the district’s superintendent, David Thweatt.

School experts backed Thweatt’s claim that Harrold, a system of about 110 students 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth, may be the first to let teachers bring guns to the classroom.

Thweatt said it is a matter of safety.

“We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, ‘What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?” he said. “It’s just common sense.”

Teachers who wish to bring guns will have to be certified to carry a concealed handgun in Texas and get crisis training and permission from school officials, he said.

Recent school shootings in the United States have prompted some calls for school officials to allow students and teachers to carry legally concealed weapons into classrooms.

The U.S. Congress once barred guns at schools nationwide, but the U.S. Supreme Court struck the law down, although state and local communities could adopt their own laws. Texas bars guns at schools without the school’s permission.

(Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio; writing by Bruce Nichols in Houston, editing by Vicki Allen)

Here’s an accompanying link courtesy of SmirkingChimp.com:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/16482

Nearly any time we put on any kind of public event, the NRA would send its hired-gun “PR firm,” the Mercury Group, to stake out our press conferences, report releases, or fundraisers with their camerapeople. And just like Bill O’Reilly’s ambush producers, they would try and disrupt the event by shouting leading questions based on studies from their favorite researchers. Quite often they would yell things like, “Considering John Lott’s study that the availability of guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens reduces crime, why do you . . . ?” And then the president of our organization, at the time a savvy guy named Bob Walker, would have to sidetrack the issue at hand in order to point out how Lott’s studies had been discredited by legitimate academic researchers, and that, as Matt Bai of Newsweek once wrote, Lott had “been shown the door at some of the nation’s finest schools.”

After a TV appearance, Lott once chased my immediate boss down a hallway, shouting at her that she’d have “blood on her hands.” He has been famously exposed as his own sock-puppet. He logged onto Amazon.com under a pseudonym, “Mary Rosh,” and gave his own books five-star ratings, claiming that Lott was “the best professor I ever had.” But what do you expect from a guy who has published articles that claim that crime goes up when there are more black officers on a city police force, and that allowing teachers to carry concealed handguns in schools will deter school shootings?

How much do you want to bet that the Harrold Independent School District based its decision in large part on the basis of Lott’s deceptive and unsubstantiated claims?  Here’s another bit from the Smirking Chimp column:

You see, no matter how much the NRA spends each election season to tilt the scales, or how many politicians whose offices it can “work right out of” (as it said about Bush in 2000), all it takes is one loon with a lot of firepower, and the NRA retreats back inside its bunker and offers “no comment.”

When 58-year-old Jim Adkisson got tired of all the liberals he felt were taking away jobs and wrecking society, he allegedly loaded up with 76 shells and a shotgun he bought at a pawnshop and headed for a liberal Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tenn., to shoot it up. It’s the sort of crime the NRA, months from now, will argue that could be prevented “if you let law-abiding citizens carry guns to church.” I’m sure even Mary Rosh would agree.

Anyone care to disagree?

If there’s one thing that should have been learned by the Democratic Party over the last thirty or so years, it’s that running against the base is a recipe for failure in elections.  This lesson, however, has been repeatedly ignored by most of the party’s politicians.  When one goes over the electoral cycles since 1980, it’s clear that the DLC’s “run-to-the-right” ploy has never actually won an election.

“But,” you tell me, “Bill Clinton won in 1992 and 1996.”  This ignores the fact that independent candidate H. Ross Perot pulled enough votes away from the Republican nominees those years to swing the elections in the Democrat’s favor.

After Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, the party was unable to win it back until public disgust with the GOP had grown to such proportions that their defeat in 2006 was inevitable.  Since winning back the Legislature, however, Democrats have for the most part continued to piss away any chance they might have had for shoring up their victory and securing a lasting majority.  They’ve kept funding the illegal occupation of Iraq, have continued to rubber stamp the shrub’s dismantling of the Constitution–even going so far as to protect him from impeachment for high crimes including treason, and basically let down the public on every issue of importance.

Barack Obama isn’t even trying to win vital states such as Ohio; in the heart of the state’s Democratic stronghold, the campaign hasn’t even bothered to set up telephones for phone-banking–volunteers have to use their own devices to call voters.  Furthermore, instead of going after frequently voting Democrats, Obama has his people reaching out to Republicans, most of whom have stated flat out that they have no intention of voting for him.  I know this through several Democratic volunteers who’ve put their efforts into Obama’s campaign.  They are the eyewitnesses on the ground.

There’s a reason Ohio’s GOP voters did not deign to put J. Kenneth Blackwell in the governor’s mansion: he’s technically black.  It didn’t matter to them that he supported every bug-eyed insane policy and social position they did; his skin color was darker than theirs, so he could not be allowed to become governor.  That Obama insists on trying to reach the still-strong bigot bloc, forsaking his own party’s base in the process, is absolute stupidity.  He’s going to blow it for us again, just as John Kerry and Al Gore did before him.  McCain will cheat his way to the dictatorship created by the shrub and his gargoyle, all because Obama wants to “play it safe” by running to appease the very wealthy.

How long shall Progressives continue to hold on to the fantasy that we can somehow reform the party from within?  Yesterday I happened upon a diary at you-know-where that states flat out what I’m sure a majority of Americans are thinking: that it is foolishness to continue remaining a registered Democrat as long as the party’s conservative wing controls it.  And make no mistake, Obama is very much part of that conservative wing despite whatever denials his followers choose to engage in.

Sooner or later the Progressive base of the Democratic Party has got to wake up and realize that it is pointless to remain with people who always denounce, marginalize, and campaign against its interests.  One might say that now is not the time to dump the Democratic Party, that there is too much at stake.  To that I say that it’s never going to be the “right time,” because there’s always going to be “too much at stake.”  Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said:

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach. We need enthusiasm, imagination and the ability to face facts, even unpleasant ones, bravely. We need to correct, by drastic means if necessary, the faults in our economic system from which we now suffer.

And:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

I agree with the Kos diarist: it’s time for the Progressive base of the Democratic Party to face the unpleasant truth that we cannot and should not continue to waste our energies trying to reform from within a political party that long ago decided it wants to be something that runs contrary to everything we stand for.  The stakes are indeed high, but we have to ask ourselves if it’s worth another four to eight years of frustration as we watch our beloved country and our world fall further in the hellish pits of fascism and ruin.  If Democrats as a whole will not represent Progressives, then we need to break away and form our own party so that our movement has genuine representation.  If nothing else, it will send Democrats a wakeup call: they cannot continue to dismiss and ignore their party’s base with impunity.

RTA’s board of directors, along with general manager Joe Calabrese, want to eliminate two dozen bus lines – including all community circulators, drastically reduce service on twenty-seven other routes, and raise fares to ridiculously high levels.  The service cuts, scheduled to take place in October, would bring to an end the sole means of vehicular transport for thousands of workers, students, and patients in the Greater Cleveland area.  This is unacceptable.

Compounding the decision, Calabrese lied to riders who attended several meetings held the week of August 4th, citing bogus numbers about ridership, national fare averages, and other subjects.  This he did in an attempt to blame a projected $20-29 million deficit for 2009 on cuts in state funding and increased fuel costs.  The numbers, however, do not add up.  For one thing, according to research by the American Public Transportation Association, ridership has not going up for the last five years.  For example, a comparison of December 2006 and December 2007 shows that ridership actually declined from 4,607.1 to 3,882.0.  What’s more, ridership dropped from 4,423.2 in January 2008 to 4,141.3, then went back up again in March to 4,260.2.  That last number is lower than figures for March 2007, which was 4,982.

Sources:

http://www.apta.com/research/s…

http://www.apta.com/research/s…

As to average fare rates, according to the following link:

http://www.apta.com/research/s…

Average fare paid per unlinked trip was $1.12. For bus, it was $0.89, commuter rail $4.22, paratransit $2.45, heavy rail $1.10, and light rail $0.72.

The proposed fare increase for RTA riders?  From the current $1.75 to $2.25, more than double the national average for 2006.  Unfortunately, I don’t have the 2008 average, but I’m certain it’s not even close to what Calabrese and his fellow goons stated at the public hearings.

That Joe Calabrese is lying is evident.  The question that must be asked is, “Why?”  Why lie about these things?  One theory suggests that decreased state funds and rising fuel costs are not the primary reason for the projected deficit.  My guess is that the Euclid Corridor project, which is costing taxpayers around $200 million – 80-83% of which comes from the federal government, leaving the remaining $40 million or so to come from somewhere else, probably the operating budget – is the primary culprit.  Another factor for consideration is the expensive replacement of the nineteen years-outdated fare boxes which, according to many riders, are experiencing numerous glitches.

Something fishy is going on, and I suspect it has to do with fiscal mismanagement at RTA by the administrators.  This is worth looking into, as it affects the lives of thousands of people whose lives depend on the routes up for elimination and reduction.

If you haven’t read Smirking Chimp writer Eric Boehlert’s excellent column regarding the shameless double standard in media coverage of John McCain, now is the time to do it.  There are some grammatical errors, but beyond those, the piece does a superb job of pointing out the tepid criticism of just one of the Republican candidate’s endless series of lies – compared to its record of pouncing on nearly everything, no matter how innocent, uttered by Democratic candidates as pathological deceptions.  Boehlert systematically dismantles the new Lie being promulgated that the media has somehow “turned” on McCain.

Barack Obama does not support the return of the Fairness Doctrine.  He should, if for no other reason than it would place some restraints on media goons who play favorites during electoral cycles.  Please use the comment feature for ideas on how we can get the Democratic candidate to change his mind.

According to Yahoo News, Barack Obama backed away from an earlier challenge from McCain to debate.

WASHINGTON – Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday backed away from rival John McCain’s challenge for a series of joint appearances, agreeing only to the standard three debates in the fall.

In May, when a McCain adviser proposed a series of pre-convention appearances at town hall meetings, Obama said, “I think that’s a great idea.” In summer stumping on the campaign trail, McCain has often noted that Obama had not followed through and joined him in any events.

Obama’s reversal on town hall debates is part of a play-it-safe strategy he’s adopted since claiming the nomination and grabbing a lead in national polls. Advisers to the Illinois senator, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss strategy, say Obama is reluctant to take chances or give McCain a high-profile stage now that Obama’s the front-runner.

This is just plain unacceptable.  Obama’s crafty enough to know that whether you’re playing chess or political games, sometimes you have to risk losing in order to win.  Other times you simply need to make a move.  It’s another lost opportunity, for it represented a chance for a gifted orator to show up an opponent who can’t even display publicly an understanding of his own policy proposals.

No wonder the Democrat can’t close the gap.  This was the latest round in a political game of chicken, and Obama swerved when he should have remained steady.  If he’s going to remain this timid, the media is going to help McCain walk all over him by November.

There’s got to be something we can do about this.

Barack Obama has clinched the Democratic Party’s nomination to run for president, and because this is a crucial election year it is only natural for Democrats to try to win over progressives — especially the disaffected variety turned off by your candidate’s hard right turns.  If you plan to do this, choosing to ignore Obama’s strategy of pandering to right-wing and bigot voters who’ll never cast ballots for him, good for you.  But there are a few tips you’ll want to keep in mind as you venture forth.

1.) Whatever you do, don’t threaten people with a McCain victory if they don’t vote for Obama.  For one thing, people don’t like to be threatened; for another, if a voter isn’t convinced that your candidate will govern any better than McCain, it’s a fairly useless thing to do anyway.  It’s best if you avoid doing this altogether.

2.) Whatever you do, do NOT bash Ralph Nader or any third party candidate.  Criticize if you will, but do NOT attack.  The reason for this is that true progressives, while partisan in a broader ideological sense, are not so in terms of supporting specific political parties.  More often than not, we vote for individual candidates who have the records to back up their rhetoric than we are to vote along party lines.  If you must criticize Ralph Nader, focus on this argument: “it takes an organized political party to win power, starting from the ground and working up, and though I respect Ralph I don’t think he’s going about this the right way.”  Don’t mention ego or stealing Democratic votes (ballots belong to no political party), even if that’s what you think, because neither argument is true and it has a tendency to turn people off who might otherwise consider your candidate.

3.) Listen to what people’s concerns.  Remember, Obama is running as the pseudo-change candidate.  Even if true progressives feel compelled to vote for him out of misguided notions of pragmatism, they still care about the issues that matter.  Don’t brush them off or try to convince them that once Obama is elected they needn’t worry, because they have every reason to worry.  Don’t be condescending; listen to people.

4.) Finally, talk about the issues, know them by heart, and have solid responses to questions — especially those coming from Nader or McKinney supporters.  Obama MUST be able to address their concerns.  If he can’t, and if you can’t, you’re better off not bothering.

That’s pretty much it.  If you follow these steps, you might succeed in swaying a few progressives.  If not, don’t complain when you receive the proverbial cold shoulder.

I have here three clips from a wonderful little film called My Dinner with Andre, wherein the main characters discuss the breakdown of human society.

I just got done reading Keith Olbermann’s tortured excuse for not calling out Barack Obama on his FISA cave, and frankly, it’s as lame as it can get.  Sorry, Keith, but you’ve sold out to the far right without even realizing it.  Here’s why.

Throughout this campaign, you’ve been doing little or nothing but bash Hillary Clinton for all the wrong reasons.  While the senator supposedly representing New York has undoubtedly made plenty of verbal gaffes and has a poor record of defending the Constitution against the shrub and his gargoyle, you focused your rage exclusively upon her, and for all the wrong things.  One example is her suggestion that the bigot bloc might not vote for Obama, which is true: no matter how much he panders to the far right, no matter how often he bashes blacks to their faces, the bigots in this country simply are not going to vote for a black man for president; they’d sooner cast their ballots for a white woman.  You, however, joined in with those who relentlessly attacked her for pointing out this fundamental truth.

I haven’t been disappeared into a CIA torture chamber, if those of you concerned for my wellbeing have been wondering.  I started college again late last month, and it’s taken up a lot of my free time.  I’ll probably be doing my updates primarily on the weekends for a while.  Anyway, on to business.

Leave it to Paul Krugman to state what should have been obvious from the start:

Maybe I’m wrong, but my sense is that Jason Furman has become a proxy target for some Obama supporters who, now that the Great Satanness has been defeated, are suddenly starting to have the queasy feeling that their hero might be a bit of a …. centrist. I’m tempted to say I told you so; in fact, I guess I just did.

Although Krugman actually likes Furman, I think his remarks are — as usual — spot on.  The Obamamaniacs got the presidential candidate they wanted, but now that they’ve begun to realize they put their hopes in a fraud they’re getting nervous.  I would be too, if I suddenly realized I’d thrown my support behind another DLCer and in so doing, helped Democrats lose the White House again.