In an earlier interview, Romney says essentially the same thing about cutting the Department of Education and fighting against teachers' unions.

At a private fund raiser in Florida Sunday evening, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told donors that he would likely eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development and that he would cut or consolidate the Department of Education with another government agency.

"I'm going to take a lot of departments in Washington, and agencies, and combine them. Some eliminate, but I'm probably not going to lay out just exactly which ones are going to go," Romney said. "Things like Housing and Urban Development, which my dad was head of, that might not be around later. But I'm not going to actually go through these one by one. What I can tell you is, we've got far too many bureaucrats. I will send a lot of what happens in Washington back to the states."

Asked about the fate of the Department of Education in a potential Romney administration, the former governor suggested it would also face a dramatic restructuring.

"The Department of Education: I will either consolidate with another agency, or perhaps make it a heck of a lot smaller. I'm not going to get rid of it entirely," Romney said, explaining that part of his reasoning behind preserving the agency was to maintain a federal role in pushing back against teachers' unions. Romney added that he learned in his 1994 campaign for Senate that proposing to eliminate the agency was politically volatile.

At that time, Sen. Ted Kennedy ran ads against Romney — then a political neophyte — accusing him of being uncaring for saying he wished to eliminate the agency.

Romney told the audience here tonight (along with the Weekly Standard in an interview in early April) that that experience remains fresh in his mind. It's contributed to his caution in publicly naming federal agencies and programs he would eliminate or dramatically curtail.

In other words, Romney would tell people what he's going to cut, but he doesn't want people to use his actual policy positions against him. Romney surrogate, Sen. Jim Talent, walked backed the candidate's position even further, suggesting Romney was just spitballing ideas:

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Thou Shall Not Suck

Subject: An investigation that was supposed to look into the expenses of first-grade-teacher/plumbing-company-owner turned biologist/zoologist/anthropologist/paleontologist Connie Morris, who averaged $600 a day for a trip to Miami.

Hypothesis: The KBoE has lost it’s collective fucking mind.

Evidence: This is outstanding (use to view).
 
Remarks: You’ve got to read this:

Despite criticism of one member over her expenses during a Florida convention, a State Board of Education subcommittee decided Monday against proposing changes in board travel policies.
 
Board member Connie Morris, of St. Francis, was criticized last month because her trip in April to Miami for a six-day conference on magnet schools cost Kansas taxpayers nearly $3,600.
[emphasis added]

So what’s the problem?

But the subcommittee—whose three members include Morris—decided against recommending revisions to the full board, which was scheduled to take up the issue Tuesday. bugmenot to view).

Remarks: You’ve got to read this:

Despite criticism of one member over her expenses during a Florida convention, a State Board of Education subcommittee decided Monday against proposing changes in board travel policies.

Board member Connie Morris, of St. Francis, was criticized last month because her trip in April to Miami for a six-day conference on magnet schools cost Kansas taxpayers nearly $3,600.
[emphasis added]

So what’s the problem?

But the subcommittee—whose three members include Morris—decided against recommending revisions to the full board, which was scheduled to take up the issue Tuesday.
[emphasis again added]

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. The three-member (insert penis joke here) panel that looked into the expenses included Morris?? That’s like having a trial where the defendant is also one of the jurors.

“There has to be some latitude for different expenses in different parts of the country," said subcommittee Chairman Ken Willard, of Hutchinson, a conservative.

“Not guilty, ya honor!”
 
She averaged $600 a day! How much latitude are you going to give a person? Hell, I’ve had three meals in a 4-star restaurant, drained an entire mini-bar in a 5-star hotel, and STILL not been able to ring up that kind of bill. And we know she wouldn’t do that—according to her bio, she’s a born-again Christian. Of course, that sure does explain a lot.

[…]
Morris' expenses included $339 a night for a room at the hotel where the convention was held. She said no cheaper rooms at the hotel were available when she registered for the conference. She also wanted to avoid walking from another hotel to conference events.
[emphasis again added]

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. The three-member (insert penis joke here) panel that looked into the expenses included Morris?? That’s like having a trial where the defendant is also one of the jurors.

“There has to be some latitude for different expenses in different parts of the country," said subcommittee Chairman Ken Willard, of Hutchinson, a conservative.

“Not guilty, ya honor!”

She averaged $600 a day! How much latitude are you going to give a person? Hell, I’ve had three meals in a 4-star restaurant, drained an entire mini-bar in a 5-star hotel, and STILL not been able to ring up that kind of bill. And we know she wouldn’t do that—according to her bio, she’s a born-again Christian. Of course, that sure does explain a lot.

[…]
Morris' expenses included $339 a night for a room at the hotel where the convention was held. She said no cheaper rooms at the hotel were available when she registered for the conference. She also wanted to avoid walking from another hotel to conference events.

So she fleeced Kansas taxpayers because she: a.) didn’t get off her ass and book her room in time; and b.) didn’t want to walk across the street? After looking at her picture, my guess is that she could probably use the exercise.

She said little during Monday's meeting …

Apparently she’s not totally retarded …

… but in the past has suggested criticism of her is political and part of the board's ongoing dispute over how evolution is taught.

Actually, I think it has more to do with the fact that she ripped off the people of Kansas. Granted, what she did was not technically against the rules, but it sure as hell is ethically questionable. Although, that’s never stopped her before ...

Morris upset moderate board members last month with a newsletter to constituents describing evolution as "an age-old fairy tale" and criticizing other board members by name.

In other words, it’s okay for her to attack other board members, but when the tables are turned, it’s wrong.

So she fleeced Kansas taxpayers because she: a.) didn’t get off her ass and book her room in time; and b.) didn’t want to walk across the street? After looking at her picture, my guess is that she could probably use the exercise.

She said little during Monday's meeting …

Apparently she’s not totally retarded …

… but in the past has suggested criticism of her is political and part of the board's ongoing dispute over how evolution is taught.

Actually, I think it has more to do with the fact that she ripped off the people of Kansas. Granted, what she did was not technically against the rules, but it sure as hell is ethically questionable. Although, that’s never stopped her before ...

Morris upset moderate board members last month with a newsletter to constituents describing evolution as "an age-old fairy tale" and criticizing other board members by name.

In other words, it’s okay for her to attack other board members, but when the tables are turned, it’s wrong.

The subcommittee also was directed to review policies saying that board members are supposed to treat each other with courtesy and not let debates lapse into personal attacks. The subcommittee decided those policies already are clear.

Fucking hypocrites.
 
Conclusion: You would think that the Department of Education would want to teach kids good ethics by example. Of course, you’d be wrong.
 
Solution: Send the entire school board a copy of this.

Debunking Rove Spin         That Colored Fellas weblog

The subcommittee also was directed to review policies saying that board members are supposed to treat each other with courtesy and not let debates lapse into personal attacks. The subcommittee decided those policies already are clear.

Fucking hypocrites.

Conclusion: You would think that the Department of Education would want to teach kids good ethics by example. Of course, you’d be wrong.

Solution: Send the entire school board a copy of this.

(h/t Emma's Mom)

I've said it more than once...I know that bigotry and racism have always been around, but I really miss the days when people (especially in positions of power) were loath to be so open about their irrational hatred. Is it me, or is Arizona proudly embracing the notion of being the xenophobic capital of the country?

The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The crackdown applies to classes deemed to have students who are learning English, mostly as a second language. Federal No Child Left Behind regulations call for students to be taught by persons fluent in English. The determination of fluency is left up to individual states.

Arizona seems to think that includes accents. Of course, they are wrong - accents do not by themselves measure fluency. And almost every person who is a native speaker of another language is going to have an accent when speaking English, unless they learned English at a young age.

"This is just one more indication of the incredible anti-immigrant sentiment in the state," said Bruce Merrill, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University who conducts public-opinion research.

Indeed. Arizona's action against immigrants didn't begin with the recent passage of the "show me your papers" bill, but it emboldened anti-immigrant sentiment in other states around the country, and apparently in the Arizona educational system too.

Arizona's education department has sent people into schools to audit teachers on comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing. Teachers who fail are given the chance to improve, but if not, they must be fired or reassigned.

Oy vey. My in-laws immigrated here from Denmark in the 50s. They never lost their accents. My uncle, who immigrated here in the 60s from the Middle East, has never lost his accent (and how many immigrants who aren't children at the time of do?). My eldest's science teacher in middle school is a first generation American, whose family immigrated here from Mexico and for whom Spanish was the primary language spoken at home. She has a slight accent. All of these people I've mentioned were highly intelligent, highly educated people from whom you could learn much. But not in Arizona.

Makes me wonder if Arizona will ban Kindergarten Cop from the area video stores.

Maine Politics has the story about how this wackiness is spreading:

An overwhelming majority of delegates to the Maine Republican convention tonight voted to scrap the the proposed party platform and replace it with a document created by a group of Tea Party activists.

The official platform for the Republican Party of Maine is now a mix of right-wing fringe policies, libertarian buzzwords and outright conspiracy theories.

The document calls for the elimination of the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve, demands an investigation of "collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth," suggests the adoption of "Austrian Economics," declares that "'Freedom of Religion' does not mean 'freedom from religion'" (which I guess makes atheism illegal), insists that "healthcare is not a right," calls for the abrogation of the "UN Treaty on Rights of the Child" and the "Law Of The Sea Treaty" and declares that we must resist "efforts to create a one world government."

It also contains favorable mentions of both the Tea Party and Ron Paul. You can read the whole thing here.

Dan Billings, who has served as an attorney for the Maine GOP, called the new platform "wack job pablum" and "nutcase stuff."

Despite the document's crazy content, Maine Republican Party Chair Charlie Webster insisted to the AP that all of the elements in the platform are things that Republicans support. He claimed to the Press Herald that these issues reflect the values of working-class Mainers.

Armstrong Williams, Idiot

Only a rag like Townhall would publish a disgraced former employee of the Department of Education.

via Atrios