This is the world we live in now, folks. One where conservatives think students borrowing money from the government is an "entitlement." Back in the days when people were sane, we used to believe paying for our young people to be educated was an obligation of a healthy democracy. Now, it's all up to kids who are expected not only to pay for their college educations, but to bury themselves deep in debt to do it. Listen to George Will's arrogant pronouncement:

TAPPER: And, George, you and I were talking about this earlier. You think that we're witnessing the birth of a new entitlement, with the president's push on -- on student loans.

WILL: Well, look what happened. It's a slow-motion, almost absentminded creation of a new entitlement, exactly at the moment when the entitlement state is buckling under the weight of its already existing commitments. Five years ago, Congress says, well, let's cut in half the interest rate on certain student loans, from 6.8 to 3.4.

Wow, no brownie points to Jake Tapper for just repeating that nonsense without so much as a raised eyebrow. Entitlement? Really?

From the time our kids are in kindergarten, parents, teachers and society alike hammer home the value of their education. By the time they're freshmen in high school, they're expected to know what they want their career to be and forge a pathway to college. If they want to get into something other than a community college, they're told to stress out for the next four years, take all the AP or IB classes they can, volunteer in their communities, participate in extracurricular activities, work a part-time job, and make sure they maintain their straight As in the process.

Those who actually manage to do these things are then rewarded with acceptances to the colleges of their choice and immediately presented with a bill for anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 per year. If they're really lucky, they might win one of the few scholarships available to shave some of the pain off that bottom line, but there are no guarantees.

If they're not, they're told they can borrow around $5,000 per year from the government, and if their parents qualify, mom and dad can borrow about $25,000 from the government to send them to that school. Here's what happens: Those kids who we pushed to achieve and qualify for those public and sometimes private university educations land in community college for a couple of years while they try to save enough money to go to a 4-year university and not go broke in the process.

If they choose the 4-year university/tuition loan route, they leave school with debt, hazy job prospects, and the sense that everything they just worked toward was a farce. Which it will be, if Will has his way.

TAPPER: 6.8 to 3.4, yeah.

WILL: We'll do it, they said, temporarily. Well, now we're coming up against the expiration of that, and they're saying, well, let's temporarily move it on yet again.

TAPPER: But Romney supports that, as well.

WILL: I understand that. And that's why this is a bipartisan example of how entitlements -- because once you do this, once you extend it again, you'll never go back to 3.4 percent.

SMILEY: But when -- but when -- but when student loan debt now exceeds credit card debt, and we want to label that an entitlement, we don't call corporate welfare an entitlement. I just -- I don't see...

WILL: Of the two-thirds of the people who graduate from college with debt, the average debt is something under $30,000 total. That is just about the one-year difference in earnings between a college graduate and a high school graduate. We're talking about a pittance a month (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

SMILEY: But, George -- but if we give interest-free loans to bankers, why not interest-free loans to students, George?

WILL: Let's not give interest-free loans to anyone.

At last! Something I agree with George Will about. Truly, let's not give interest-free loans to the banks, and let's not make students and their struggling middle class parents break under the weight of student loans. Instead, let's recognize that this country has always believed that educating our children is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy, and start paying for it again the way we have in the past.

The reason Will and his ilk argue against student loan interest rate breaks is simple: They want to control which students have access to a college education. Their preferred flavor of student is a conservative one. They truly believe educating those librul ingrates who show up at Occupy protests or dare to question the status quo are unworthy of an education. If conservatives could choose which students got a college education, they'd be the very compliant sons and daughters of fine, upstanding, churchgoing types. The ones who qualify for Koch scholarships.

The ones like people in my family who protested the Vietnam war, went to college in the days when the University of California was tuition-free, and then dedicated themselves to public service for their entire career? They need not apply if their voter registration says "Democrat."

I'm completely serious about the need to return to the values that made this country great, and those values include assuming the costs for educating our young people and making sure they have the finest education possible in order to innovate, create, and shape a new, better, more equal world. Enough of the philosophy of educating only caretakers for the oligarchs.

Not only should there be no interest charged on student loans, there should be no student loans. It's as simple as that.

What an exciting time to be on campus—Mitt Romney is reaching out to college students! He's got all sorts of ideas about how to help students out with loans, and the kind of support that only comes from a GOP candidate.

But, even as Mitt thrills college students with his message it's vitally important to keep a level head and not completely freak out. Unless you're doing so ironically, in which case the Mitt Romney For President College Outreach Program 2012 will officially understand.

So if you find yourself seated at a Romney event, know that you're front and center! The whole world is watching, and like these folks you want to respond appropriately. Otherwise Josh Marshall will totally make fun of you, and you seriously do not want that—dude is trenchant as hell.

Oh, poor Rick Santorum. You think St. Stephen, Christianity's first martyr, had problems? Not compared to Rick, who says he was "singled out" and "ridiculed" in college for his conservative views -- although no one actually remembers him having them. Here he is, lying on today's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me get back to education. We were talking about that at the top of this interview. You had -- you talked about President Obama and education yesterday. I want to show what you said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANTORUM: President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.

(LAUGHTER)

SANTORUM: You’re good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to tests that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now getting to college has been part of the American dream for generations, Senator. Why does articulating an aspiration make the president a snob?

enlarge

Much like St. Stephen, first Christian martyr, Rick Santorum has suffered oh, so much.

SANTORUM: I think because there are lot of people in this country that have no desire or no aspiration to go to college, because they have a different set of skills and desires and dreams that don’t include college.

And to sort of lay out there that somehow this is -- this is -- should be everybody’s goal, I think, devalues the tremendous work that people who, frankly, don’t go to college and don’t want to go to college because they have a lot of other talents and skills that, frankly, college, you know, four-year colleges may not be able to assist them.

And there are other -- there’s technical schools, there’s additional training, vocational training. There’s skills and apprenticeships. There’s all sorts of things that people can do to upgrade their skills to be very productive and --

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: -- and build their community.

STEPHANOPOULOS: All he said was he wants, quote, "every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training." In your interview with Glenn Beck this week, you seemed to go further. You said I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because they are indoctrination mills. What did that mean?

SANTORUM: Well, of course. I mean, you look at the colleges and universities, George. This is not – this is not something that’s new for most Americans, is how liberal our colleges and universities are and how many children in fact are – look, I’ve gone through it. I went through it at Penn State. You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed, you are – I can tell you personally, I know that, you know, we – I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views. This is sort of a regular routine (ph). You know the statistic that at least I was familiar with from a few years ago -- I don’t know if it still holds true but I suspect it may even be worse – that 62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort of faith commitment leave without it.

In other words, don't educate kids because they might come out questioning their faith. And Rick, I seriously doubt you were "ridiculed" for your conservative views while in college, because you didn't have any. I mean, you were president of Students for Heinz, and John Heinz was a moderate-to-liberal Republican. You also interned for a pro-choice congressman. One of your friends is quoted as saying you "shunned" the Youth for Reagan chapter on campus, calling them "right-wing fringe." Oh, the social ostracism you must have suffered!

Continue reading »

Maybe this silly story appeals to me because I have one kid in college and another one contemplating a liberal arts major when she enters college next year. Or maybe it's just because Rick Scott strikes me as someone who views liberal arts as something alien and useless. Whatever it is, his recent statements about how kids who go to college shouldn't choose a liberal arts degree just prove he's pretty alien and useless to me.

In an interview with the Sarasota Herald Tribune, Scott outlined what he plans to do to Florida state universities:

Scott said Monday that he hopes to shift more funding to science, technology, engineering and math departments, the so-called “STEM” disciplines. The big losers: Programs like psychology and anthropology and potentially schools like New College in Sarasota that emphasize a liberal arts curriculum.

Then he repeated that refrain Tuesday, while speaking to a business group in Tallahassee, but with some embellishment.

“I got accused of not liking anthropologists the other day,” Scott said. “But just think about it, how many more jobs do think there are for anthropologists in the state?

“Do you want to use your tax dollars to educate more people who can’t get jobs in anthropology? I don’t. I want to make sure that we spend our dollars where people can get jobs when they get out.”

Turning to a veteran Tallahassee reporter, Scott also questioned the value of a degree in journalism.

“There’s a lot of jobs in journalism?” Scott rhetorically asked the reporter. “No, it’s tough.”

Ok. Anthropologists are out. Check. Journalism is out. Check. What's in? Well, according to Scott, more science and technology degrees, because not enough students choose those majors. And to that end, he would push funding away from liberal arts and into those areas.

Continue reading »

The violation of the no-fly zone Wednesday led more than 30,000 people to quickly leave the White House complex, the Capitol and the Supreme Court and triggered an eight-minute "red alert" at the White House.

At the time, Bush was riding a bicycle at a wildlife center in suburban Maryland and wasn't told of the alert until after he had completed his ride at 12:50

According to the latest campaign finance report, Wal-Mart has spent more than $280,000 trying to overturn one local ordinance. This makes this little local election the most expensive in Flagstaff's history. The Wal-Mart money is spent on full-page newspaper ads and mailings, both full of vicious Orwellian rhetoric implying that a zoning ordinance that limits store size is somehow the same as burning books. Yeah, go figure.

So, when H. Lee Scott Jr. says that Wal-Mart doesn't do that sort of thing anymore, he's a liar....I'm so surprised.

Immigration is the hot button issue of the California campaign, and Meg Whitman takes the hard stance while still courting Latino voters. But for a candidate who claims to be 'pro-family', she has a really strange and weird attitude toward the achievers who, through no fault of their own, came to California illegally and have not been able to resolve their immigration status.

Yesterday's debate between Brown and Whitman in Fresno highlighted one of the clearest-cut cases of our unfair immigration policies and how stupid Whitman is about these students.

From debate transcript at Fresno Bee:

Continue reading »

The General has a few snap shots of Paul Gorley, the new chairman of the College Republicans taking communion.

I cross-posted at Operation Yellow Elephant on 8/4

Mismanagement by Objective Eyewitness Muse

Why am I not surprised that the Bush Administration has discovered 22 “ineffective” federal initiatives that they want eliminated and that among these programs’ intended beneficiaries are preschool children, displaced workers, at-risk youth, migrant agriculture workers, low-income college students, the disabled and families that cannot afford housing. After all, if anybody deserves to feel the pinch, it’s a grimy lot like that. Read More

I agree with Karl Rove The Next Left

Whoa. This is kind of scary. At a forum on the press at a college in Maryland, Karl Rove said of the press, "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional."

"Reporters now see their role less as discovering facts and fair-mindedly reporting the truth and more as being put on the earth to afflict the comfortable, to be a constant thorn of those in power, whether they are Republican or Democrat," Rove said.
His indictment of the media -- delivered as part of Washington College's Harwood Lecture Series, named for the late Washington Post editor and writer Richard Harwood -- had four parts: that there's been an explosion in the number of media outlets; that these outlets have an insatiable demand for content; that these changes create enormous competitive pressure; and that journalists have increasingly adopted an antagonistic attitude toward public officials. Beyond that, Rove argued that the press pays too much attention to polls and "horse-race" politics, and covers governing as if it were a campaign.

I would not, however, say journalists are increasingly antagonistic towards anything. The "horse-race" coverage of politics, is decidedly un-antagonistic. During the election coverage this year, NPR and the NYT, the outlets from which I get most of my news, were just spin machines: "Kerry said this. Bush said this. Blah blah blah."
Nevertheless, I gotta give Rove credit for actually being honest about the media, instead of taking the standard Republican line.

Via Washington Post

Whoa. This is kind of scary. At a forum on the press at a college in Maryland, Karl Rove said of the press, "I think it's less liberal than it is oppositional."

"Reporters now see their role less as discovering facts and fair-mindedly reporting the truth and more as being put on the earth to afflict the comfortable, to be a constant thorn of those in power, whether they are Republican or Democrat," Rove said.
His indictment of the media -- delivered as part of Washington College's Harwood Lecture Series, named for the late Washington Post editor and writer Richard Harwood -- had four parts: that there's been an explosion in the number of media outlets; that these outlets have an insatiable demand for content; that these changes create enormous competitive pressure; and that journalists have increasingly adopted an antagonistic attitude toward public officials. Beyond that, Rove argued that the press pays too much attention to polls and "horse-race" politics, and covers governing as if it were a campaign.

I would not, however, say journalists are increasingly antagonistic towards anything. The "horse-race" coverage of politics, is decidedly un-antagonistic. During the election coverage this year, NPR and the NYT, the outlets from which I get most of my news, were just spin machines: "Kerry said this. Bush said this. Blah blah blah."
Nevertheless, I gotta give Rove credit for actually being honest about the media, instead of taking the standard Republican line.

Via Washington Post

NBC Sports Chief Survives Plane Crash

By P. SOLOMON BANDA, Associated Press Writer

DENVER - A charter plane carrying NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol crashed and burst into flames during takeoff from a southwest Colorado airport Sunday, killing at least two people and seriously injuring Ebersol and one of his sons. Rescue crews were searching for another son.

Dick Ebersol, 57, and son Charles Ebersol survived the crash at the Montrose Regional Airport outside this southwest Colorado town, NBC said in a statement through its Denver affiliate KUSA-TV.

Eyewitness Chuck Distel told The Associated Press by phone that Charles, a college senior, helped his father out through the front of the plane, whose cockpit had been ripped off by the force of the crash. read