Tea party groups mobilizing against Common Core education overhaul

Why does the Tea Party dislike the bipartisan Common Core standards? Common Core is a wonderful plan, focusing on understanding rather than memorization. It's not so surprising, however, that the teachers union is against something new.


Bruce Ackerman / Ocala Star-Banner /Landov
Tea Party members like Beverly LaCross, right, hold signs to protest the Common Core in Florida.

Ohio Teachers Union Worried About Common Core Tests
May 1, 2013
By Ida Lieszkovszky
NPR

From the East Coast to the Midwest and beyond a backlash is developing to the Common Core – a new set of national education standards that schools in many states are already in the process of implementing.

Opposition began with Tea Party groups.

But now teachers unions in Ohio say they have their own concerns, mostly about the tests that will accompany the new curriculum.

Ohio Teachers Union Worried About Common Core Tests Many on the right have criticized the Common Core. Now teachers unions are expressing their own concerns.Download

“People have no idea” what the new Common Core standards mean, says Glenn Newman. He’s the founder of the Marietta 9-12 project, an anti-tax and pro-small-government group, and he says Ohio should back off from the Common Core.

The ABC’s of the Common Core in Ohio

Newman is concerned about tracking student data as part of the Common Core, and that students won’t read books like Tom Sawyer anymore and will instead read manuals.

(By the way, as far as we know, the Common Core does encourage schools to give greater emphasis to non-fiction texts in English classes, including manuals, but teachers will still be allowed to teach books like Tom Sawyer too.)

In fact, some on the right, fearing a loss of local control of schools, refer to the new standards as “ObamaCore,” and they want to stop its implementation.

Now some on the left are worried about the Common Core.

Teacher unions don’t want to get rid of it, in fact they say it’s a good idea. But they do want to slow down parts of its implementation.

“Our ask is that there be a moratorium on the high stakes decisions attached to the testing that goes along with Common Core,” says Ohio Federation of Teachers President Melissa Cropper.

Those tests will replace the existing tests starting in 2014-2015, and will be used to assess schools and teachers on their performance. Cropper is worried about decisions tied to those scores – like teacher evaluations and state voucher programs.

“It seems like we’re putting the testing out there before we’ve worked on some authenticity in implementing the Common Core,” she says. Instead, Cropper suggests implementing the tests but just as “field tests” for the first few years.

Other states are moving ahead with hitting the pause button – like our neighbor Indiana.

The Obama Administration, which encouraged states to move towards the Common Core through its Race to the Top competitive grant, is none too happy about the newfound resistance.

Here’s how Secretary of Education Arne Duncan framed the choice: “If any state wants to lower their standards, dummy down their standards they have the right to do that. They can do that tomorrow. I don’t see how that educates children or helps to bring good jobs to a state.”

The Education Committee in the Ohio House will hold hearings later this month on the Common Core, but Republicans who agreed to those hearings indicated it’s mainly to dispel some misinformation about the new curriculum – not to reverse course.

“It’s not going to happen with my assistance, I can tell you that,”says House Education Committee Chair Gerald Stebelton. ”We’ve worked too hard to get to this point, we’re not going to back up.”


Tea party groups mobilizing against Common Core education overhaul
By Peter Wallsten and Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
May 30, 2013

Tea party groups over the past few weeks have suddenly and successfully pressured Republican governors to reassess their support for a rare bipartisan initiative backed by President Obama to overhaul the nation’s public schools.

Activists have donned matching T-shirts and packed buses bound for state legislative hearing rooms in Harrisburg, Pa., grilled Georgia education officials at a local Republican Party breakfast and deluged Michigan lawmakers with phone calls urging opposition to the Common Core State Standards.

The burst of activity marks the newest front for the tea party movement, which has lacked a cohesive goal since it coalesced in 2010 in opposition to Obama’s health-care initiative.

The movement has a renewed sense of purpose and energy following revelations that many of its groups were improperly targeted by the Internal Revenue Service, and members consider dismantling what some deride as “Obamacore” their newest cause. Unlike the health-care fight, though, organizers say the Common Core battle is winnable and could be a potential watershed moment.

“This is the issue that could change things for the tea party movement,” said Lee Ann Burkholder, founder of the 9/12 Patriots in York, Pa., which drew 400 people — more than twice the usual turnout — to a recent meeting to discuss agitating against Common Core.

Lawmakers have responded by introducing legislation that would at least temporarily block the standards in at least nine states, including two that have put the program on hold. The Republican governors of Indiana and Pennsylvania quickly agreed to pause Common Core, and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), a vocal supporter of the plan, is nevertheless expected to accept a budget agreement struck by GOP legislators that would withhold funding for the program pending further debate.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal (R) — who, like the other targeted governors, is facing reelection next year — said, “We didn’t see it coming with the intensity that it is, apparently all across the country.” Deal has responded by signing an executive order “reaffirming state sovereignty” over education matters, but that hasn’t stopped conservatives from trying to undo the standards.

The White House has promoted Common Core, written by governors and state education officials in both parties and largely funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to create consistent math and reading standards from kindergarten through 12th grade. Academic standards vary widely among states, and that patchwork nature has been partly blamed for mediocre rankings of U.S. students in international comparisons.

The standards do not dictate curriculum. Rather, states decide what to teach and how to prepare children for standardized tests based on Common Core.

The standards have been fully adopted by 45 states and the District and are scheduled to be in place by 2014. Supporters fear that an eleventh-hour drop in state participation could dilute some of the potential benefits, such as the ability to compare student test scores across many states, while also creating logistical hurdles for school districts that are developing curriculum and training teachers.

Gabrielle Giffords, targeted by Sarah Palin and Tea Party over health care reform, shot along with federal judge and 9-year-old

Health care for six people permanently repealed by gunman in Tucson.

Evidence Points to Methodical Planning
By MARC LACEY
New York Times
January 9, 2011

Evidence seized from Mr. Loughner’s home, about five miles from the shooting, indicated that he had planned to kill Representative Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, according to documents filed in Federal District Court in Phoenix.

Special Agent Tony M. Taylor Jr. of the F.B.I. said in an affidavit that an envelope found in a safe in the home bore these handwritten words: “I planned ahead,” “My assassination” and “Giffords.” ...



Hospital: Ariz. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords expected recover after Tucson shooting that killed six including a 9-year-old and a federal judge
Washington Post
By Shailagh Murray and Clarence Williams
January 8, 2011

Arizona Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot and critically wounded Saturday morning while hosting an event outside a Tucson grocery store, according to local news reports, a tragic turn of events after an unusually heated campaign season.

President Obama said in a statement that some people had died in the shooting, and that Giffords was "gravely wounded." However, she survived surgery and hospital officials said they were optimistic about her recovery.

Federal law enforcement sources said that John M. Roll, the senior U.S. District judge in Arizona, was shot and killed in the incident. The Pima County Sheriff's office said that five others including a nine-year-old child had died, and a total of 18 people were injured.

A 22-year old man was taken into custody after being tackled by people on the scene after the shooting. One pistol was recovered and it had what police described as "an extended clip."

The man was identified as Jared Loughner of Tucson, according to the Associated Press.

Giffords, who in November narrowly won reelection to a third term, was hosting her first "Congress on Your Corner" event when a gunman ran up and began shooting her and others in her entourage with a Glock handgun, according to law enforcement sources.

According to a local news report, Giffords was shot in the head at point-blank range. She was taken to University Medical Center in Tucson, but was reported to have been responsive immediately after the shooting. Earlier in the afternoon, CNN and NPR reported that she had died.

"We do not yet have all the answers. What we do know is that such a senseless and terrible act of violence has no place in a free society," Obama said. "I ask all Americans to join me and Michelle in keeping Representative Giffords, the victims of this tragedy, and their families in our prayers."

Last March, Giffords was one of ten House Democrats who were the subject of harassment over their support for the national health care overhaul. At the time, the front door of Giffords' Tucson office had been shattered in an early morning incident.
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Giffords had been a top target by Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections, but managed to win a tough re-election battle against a tea party candidate.

The up-and-coming lawmaker, known as a moderate Democrat who paid close attention to constituent concerns, had been singled out by Sarah Palin's SarahPac as one of the 20 Democrats on the ballot in November who represented states that supported Sen. John McCain for president in 2008. "It's time to take a stand," Palin's fundraising appeal said of Giffords and the other Democrats, who had all supported the health-care bill...


08 Jan 2011
Federal Judge John Roll Among Victims in Arizona Congresswoman Shooting
By Elie Mystal
Above the Law

...Some more details on Judge Roll…

Roll was appointed to the federal bench by George H.W. Bush in 1991, and was unanimously confirmed by the senate. He had served has Chief Judge since 2006. He was also a graduate of the University of Arizona College of Law, class of 1972.

I want to be very clear that I think it is way, WAY too early to start speculating on why some man opened fired on a crowd of people, seriously injuring a Congresswoman and killing a federal judge, and a little girl among others. However, it appears that Judge Roll did receive death threats in 2009 after he certified a case brought by illegal immigrants.

Here’s a July 2009 report from the Arizona Republic:

In February, when U.S. District Judge John Roll presided over a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit filed by illegal immigrants against an Arizona rancher, the Marshals Service was anticipating the fallout.

When Roll ruled the case could go forward, [U.S. Marshal David Gonzales] said talk-radio shows cranked up the controversy and spurred audiences into making threats.

In one afternoon, Roll logged more than 200 phone calls. Callers threatened the judge and his family. They posted personal information about Roll online.

“They said, ‘We should kill him. He should be dead,’ ” Gonzales said.

Roll, who is the chief federal judge in Arizona, said both he and his wife were given a protection detail for about a month.

Obviously, the authorities are not now in a position to tell us if these shootings were politically motivated, or if any specific person was the target of these attacks.

UPDATE: The T.V. people are saying that Congresswoman Giffords read a part of the Constitution during the little stunt put on by the House earlier this week. Her section? “…or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

UPDATE: It shouldn’t surprise any lawyers that the Judge was not “participating” in the Gabrielle Giffords supermarket meet-and-greet where the shooting took place. Instead, television reports say that Judge Roll happened to live a couple of blocks away from the supermarket. He decided to drop by to say hello to the Congresswoman.

UPDATE: For what it’s worth, in 1994 Judge Roll ruled that background checks for handguns under the Brady law were unconstitutional:

In Arizona, U.S. District Court Judge John Roll has become the third federal judge to agree that part of the Brady Law violates the Tenth Amendment. He is the first to say that part of the Brady Law also violates the Fifth Amendment.

Judge Roll’s opinion does not knock out the waiting period for handgun purchases, but it does strike at the very concept of the federal government requiring local law enforcement officers to conduct background checks…



We're not convinced he acted alone'
By Shailagh Murray, David A. Fahrenthold and Sari Horowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
January 8, 2011

Authorities are seeking a second person in connection with the shooting in Tucson Saturday that killed six people and wounded a dozen others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.)...

...Last March, Giffords was one of ten House Democrats who were the subject of harassment over their support for the national health care overhaul. At the time, the front door of Giffords' Tucson office had been shattered in an early morning incident.

Giffords had been a top target by Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections, but managed to win a tough re-election battle against a tea party candidate.

The up-and-coming lawmaker, known as a moderate Democrat who paid close attention to constituent concerns, had been singled out by Sarah Palin's SarahPac as one of the 20 Democrats on the ballot in November who represented states that supported Sen. John McCain for president in 2008...

Arizona has been a political hotbed in recent months, especially after the state approved last April restrictive immigration laws that became a conservative rallying cry.

Giffords is a member of the House Blue Dog Democrat coalition, a bloc of moderate and conservative Democrats whose ranks were ravaged by losses in November. Her husband is astronaut Mark E. Kelly.

Her 8th congressional district borders Mexico, and Giffords was judicious in her response to the Arizona immigration law, describing it as a "clear calling that the federal government needs to do a better job."

This was not the first time someone brought a gun to a Giffords event. A protester in August brought a gun to Giffords' Congress on Your Corner event in Douglas. Police were alerted after he dropped the firearm.

"When you represent a district that includes the home of the O.K. Corral and Tombstone, 'the Town Too Tough to Die,' nothing's a surprise out in Cochise County," Giffords, D-Ariz., said Tuesday in an interview with The Arizona Republic Editorial Board.

The man in question shouted "some pretty disparaging comments," Giffords said, but "at no point did I ever feel in danger and at no point did I ever feel there was a problem."

Giffords is a former Arizona state senate and house member who had previously served as president of a tire company founded by her father. She was a top recruit in 2006 by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Rahm Emanuel, viewed as the type of young, middle-of-the-road candidate with crossover appeal. She is a Spanish speaker whose hobbies include motorcycle racing.

Giffords beat a crowded Democratic primary field in 2006, and won 54 percent of the vote in the general election against immigration opponent Randy Graf, to succeed retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). She easily won re-election in 2008.

But the immigration debate sparked by the legal crackdown in her home state became a defining issue in Giffords' campaign last year. She denounced the law as "extreme" and has supported legislation to provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrations. But she supported a Republican effort to add National Guard troops along the border, and opposed a crusade led by her homestate colleague Rep. Raul Grijalva (D) to boycott Arizona businesses, in protest of the state law...

Rand Paul Supporter Steps on Woman's Head (Video)

October 26, 2010
Rand Paul Supporter Steps on Woman's Head (Video)
Posted by Brian Montopoli
CBS News

Before the start of last night's Kentucky Senate debate, a supporter of Republican Rand Paul stepped on the head of a woman who tried to approach the candidate. You can see raw video of the incident at left.

The woman, Lauren Valle, is affiliated with the liberal group MoveOn.org. As the Louisville Courier Journal reports, she said later she was trying to give Paul a satiric award from "RepubliCorp," which was meant to sarcastically thank Paul for merging political speech and the interests of big business. She was trying to get her picture taken with him while presenting the award.

As you can see in the video, Valle had her blond wig pulled off and was wrestled to the ground, apparently by a support of Paul. As she lies on the ground, a man holding a Paul sign steps on Valle's head and shoulders. As this happens, a third man can be heard saying, "no, no, no, no - come on."

Valle, who reported the incident to the police, appeared to be OK afterward, though she said she was left with "a bit of a headache." She said she "just wanted to get out here with a sign, but I got my head stepped on."...

Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams expelled over 'Colored People' letter

Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams expelled over 'Colored People' letter
BY Helen Kennedy
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
July 18th 2010

Racism is tearing the Tea Party movement apart.

The National Tea Party Federation has expelled a prominent activist group, the Tea Party Express, because it wouldn't rebuke and fire one of its leaders for writing an offensive blog post.

Mark Williams, a California radio host who is leading protests in New York against a proposed mosque near Ground Zero and has drawn Sarah Palin to his rallies, had previously called the President an "Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug" and said Muslims were "animals" who worship "a monkey god."

But when he posted a satirical letter this week from "the Colored People" to President Lincoln about how little they want to work, that apparently crossed the line - especially after the NAACP called on Tea Party leaders to oust racists from their ranks...

J. D. Hayworth – AZ snake oil salesman

J. D. Hayworth – AZ snake oil salesman
Steven Rockford
La Dolce Vita
JUNE 22, 2010

J. D. Hayworth, currently campaigning for John McCain’s Arizona senate seat, has been touting his ultra conservative stop-government-spending credentials to the Arizona Tea Party crowd for several months. However, it appears his views on this issue were considerably different three years ago when he shilled for an “Easy Money Scheme” promoted by a now-defunct Florida-based company.

In a 2007 infomercial for National Grants Conferences (see YouTube video below), Hayworth said the following about the potential for individuals being able to receive “free (federal) money grants:”

"Now, you may think what you've heard is too good to be true, but let me assure you, it is real, it's available, and it's something you should take advantage of.

You should come to one of the National Grants Conferences. Because there, you receive information, information that equates with power. And knowledge to make you a better business owner, to make you a wiser investor, to make you, perhaps, a first-time homeowner."

None of this was true, of course. As noted on the U.S. Government website grants.gov:

"We have all seen them: late night infomercials, websites and reference guides, advertising 'millions in free money.' Don't believe the hype! Although there are many grants on Grants.gov, few of them are available to individuals and none of them are available for personal financial assistance."

Rand Paul wants to take us back to the days of sit-ins at lunch counters/No to health care

Refusing to allow entire groups of people to participate freely in our economy is bad for everyone, and it's a worse crime than punching someone in the face and taking their money.

Rand Paul and his Tea Bagger friends seem not to understand that a civilized society must rein in the most base human behavior. Or perhaps they just have an odd definition of what base behavior is. How about subjecting people to abusive treatment based on the color of their skin? That's a formula for degraded human interaction if there ever was one. I would rather be punched in the face (which is obviously a crime) than to be exposed every day of my life to the possibility that I might be locked out from ordinary experiences that people with a different color of skin take for granted. I think refusing to serve people of a given race is a serious offense to basic human decency, and should continue to be a crime.

Perhaps more to the point, it would be a burden on our economy--and protecting the economy is another obligation of government.

And then we have arbitrary laws which have nothing to do with baseness. For example, the President of the US must be native born. That seems like a reasonable law to me. The problem is that Tea Partiers believe that their own arbitrary beliefs should have the same power as law(such as their irrational idea that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii despite newspaper announcements at the time of his birth and his often-produced birth certificate). This belief is plain nuts and is based on simple racism.


Paul Remarks Have Deep Roots
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Wall Street Journal
MAY 22, 2010

Republican candidate Rand Paul's controversial remarks on the 1964 Civil Rights Act unsettled GOP leaders this week, but they reflect deeply held iconoclastic beliefs held by some in his party, and many in the tea-party movement, that the U.S. government shook its constitutional moorings more than 70 years ago.

Mr. Paul and his supporters rushed to emphasize that his remarks did not reflect racism but a sincerely held, libertarian belief that the federal government, starting in the Roosevelt era, gained powers that set the stage for decades of improper intrusions on private businesses.

Mr. Paul, the newly elected GOP Senate nominee in Kentucky, again made headlines Friday when he told ABC's "Good Morning America" that President Barack Obama's criticism of energy giant BP and of its oil-spill response was "really un-American."

That followed a tussle over the landmark civil-rights law, which Mr. Paul embraced after suggesting Wednesday that the act may have gone too far in mandating the desegregation of private businesses...


Rand Paul's American Mistake: Taking 'New' for 'Unconstitutional'
Garrett Epps
The Atlantic
May 25 2010

..."[W]e've never done it before" by itself is never a good argument that something is unconstitutional.

Today, almost no one can imagine the United States without the Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- not even "little" Dr. Paul, who has disowned his theoretical musings. The Civil Rights Act completed the creation of a continental economy, where any citizen can go anywhere. Without it, America would be a different country, one that is missed only by those who write for websites named "Stormfront" or "Whitehonor.com."

A generation hence, I suspect, we are likely to be bemused that people ever thought the Constitution would block a modern nation from creating a modern health-care system.

The Tea Partiers: Older, richer and more resentful

Apr 15, 2010
The Tea Partiers: Older, richer and more resentful
We're learning more about the people who are a part of the Tea Party movement -- and what's really motivating them
By David Jarman
Salon.com

Slowly but surely, a demographic profile of the Tea Party movement – which began just over a year ago and is now dominating the news as Tax Day arrives – is emerging.

A comprehensive poll conducted for the New York Times and CBS News and released late Monday CBS News/New York Times essentially found what anyone watching a couple minutes of news footage of a rally would intuit: the 18 percent of the nation that identifies with the Tea Party movement tends to be white, male, older than 45 and Republican. And also hypocritical: despite their anti-spending rhetoric, Tea Party supporters told pollsters that two of the federal government’s most money-consuming programs, Social Security and Medicare, are worth the cost to taxpayers (maybe not a surprise, given the Tea Partiers’ average age)...

Are some angry parents-- and teachers--actually motivated by other problems?

What's up with the nasty anti-Obama emails I've been receiving? I think sometimes people are actually angry about something different from what they're talking about, whether it's health care or the local elementary school.

ANGRY PARENTS, TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS: TOO MUCH IN COMMON?

A lot of kids have been given less-than-stellar educations by our local school districts, and many of their parents are angry. I agree entirely with these parents' demands for better treatment for students. I also agree that many parents who complain have been bullied shamefully by school lawyers. Some of these lawyers have violated professional codes of conduct and state law to the extent that they deserve severe reprimands, even disbarment or jail time. Of course, these lawyers are unlikely to be called to account for their unethical and illegal actions.

But some of these parents are too angry, in my opinion.

I suspect that some parents are angry about situations that have nothing to do with schools, but they unleash this anger on a handy, accessible target: their kids' school. Sometimes it's really hard to keep track of exactly what these people are furious about.

Recently one of these parents sent me, for no apparent reason, an email claiming that President Obama was "first born"* in Kenya. Apparently the theory is that he was first born in Kenya, then born for a second time in Honolulu. (Sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what these "Birthers" are trying to say.) The email I received included a photo of Obama's elementary school application to an Indonesian Catholic school. Very clearly on the application, right after his name, Obama's place of birth was listed as Honolulu. The person who filled out the form, Obama's Indonesian stepfather, was in no way trying to make his stepson sound more American. Obama's birthplace was a matter of record, and no one had yet cooked up a plan to pretend otherwise. Yet this email was sent to me, as the sender indicated in the subject line, "to fuel the debate over Obama's qualifications." How does the human brain malfunction so spectacularly?

If anything, this San Diego parent should be angry at her own teachers for not training her adequately as a critical thinker.

But I must say that many teachers and administrators were not taught how to be critical thinkers, either. During my years of teaching I saw plenty of teachers and adminstrators spewing anger (at kids, parents and each other). Many of them made no more sense than the confused parent who emailed me. To top it off, I heard teachers make disparaging remarks about high intelligence itself. Smart people were not considered cool by the most popular and powerful teachers at my schools.

My suggestion? Critical thinking classes for school professionals.

Everyone involved would benefit from better decision-making by school personnel, and students would benefit from the improved thinking skills of their teachers.



------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Full quote from email:
"This document provides the smoking gun that many of Obama's detractors have been seeking - that he is NOT a natural-born citizen of the United States - necessary to be President of these United States . Along with the evidence that he was first born in Kenya , here we see that there is no record of him ever applying for US citizenship...Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation has released the results of their investigation..."

It's disturbing that there are so many people who have so little respect for democracy that they believe they have the right to use any means, including dishonesty or violence, to bring down the elected leader of the United States, just because they're feeling angry. See Tea Party and Christian Militia posts.

Next installment: Muslims versus Mormons: whom do Americans trust less?

__________________________________________________

Here's another story about a nasty email. The woman who first sent this racially offensive email was angry that a recipient forwarded it to the NAACP, and caused that recipient to be fired. This is just the sort of thing that happens in schools, in my experience. School officials want bad behavior covered up, and they take action NOT against the bad actors, but against those they fear might reveal the truth about the bad actions to the public. That's what Chula Vista Elementary School District and its lawyers did to cover up the crimes of Robin Donlan and Linda Watson. In the end, the district committed felonies like perjury and alteration of documents to cover misdemeanors. Things really get out of control once the cover-up starts. What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

The angriest administrator? The Jenny Mo case at WCCSD.


NAACP: SunTrust Mortgage worker fired over e-mail
CHRIS I. YOUNG TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
March 18, 2010

The NAACP says a 14-year employee was fired from SunTrust Mortgage Inc. in Richmond after she was accused of sending a chain e-mail she received at work that ultimately was forwarded to the NAACP.

The fired African-American employee said she found the e-mail offensive.

The e-mail contains pictures of 40 bumper stickers such as, "Clinton ruined a dress, Obama ruined a nation," "So I guess we're even on that slavery thing eh?" and, "Diversity -- It killed 13 at Fort Hood."...

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People released a copy of what it said was the e-mail sent by a SunTrust official to 13 office employees and one outside recipient under the subject line "FW: Bumper Stickers that Make Sense."...

Russ, an accountant, said SunTrust conducted an internal investigation and then brought her into a meeting. There, she was told she was being terminated because her supervisor had "trust issues" with her and because of the e-mail, she said in a telephone interview.

She said SunTrust accused her of trying to go public with the e-mail by forwarding it to someone who would give it to the NAACP.

The official who sent the e-mail collected Russ' belongings and escorted Russ out of the building immediately after the Feb. 18 meeting, Russ said. She said she was paid through March 4...

Too much tea party racism

Mar 20, 2010
Too much tea party racism
As protesters call Dem leaders "nigger" and "faggot," it's time for Republicans to denounce them.
By Joan Walsh
Salon.com

When the tea party movement began last year I saw it as right-wing reaction, but given the economic turmoil across the country, I tried to understand it. Maybe there was populism within the movement that the left needed to recognize. I attended a local tea party last April 15, tax day, and while I didn't find folks whose minds seemed mutable by liberal populism, at least it seemed possible to have a conversation. I wrote about a former banker and a Democrat who made common cause with some of the protesters around the bank bailout and Goldman Sachs's overall influence on government. She had some good conversations. I saw closed minds, but I didn't see violence or overt racism. Of course I was in San Francisco, so it probably wasn't representative of the tea party movement, but I still think the effort to understand the economic anxiety that's part of what's motivating the tea partiers was worth my time.

A year later, though, it's worth more of my time to say what many resist: The tea party movement is disturbingly racist and reactionary, from its roots to its highest branches. On Saturday, as a small group of protesters jammed the Capitol and the streets around it, the movement's origins in white resistance to the Civil Rights Movement was impossible to ignore. Here's only what the mainstream media is reporting, ignoring what I'm seeing on Twitter and left wing blogs:

* Civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis was taunted by tea partiers who chanted "nigger" at least 15 times, according to the Associated Press (we are not cleaning up language and using "the N-word" here because it's really important to understand what was said.) First reported on The Hill blog (no hotbed of left-wing fervor), the stories of Lewis being called "nigger" were confirmed by Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones and Democratic Rep. Andre Carson, who was walking with Lewis. "It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis," said Carson, a former police officer. "He said it reminded him of another time."
* Another Congressional Black Caucus leader, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, was spat upon by protesters. The culprit was arrested, but Cleaver declined to press charges.
* House Majority Whip James Clybourn told reporters: "I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus."
* There were many reports that Rep. Barney Frank was called a "faggot" by protesters, but the one I saw personally was by CNN's Dana Bash, who seemed rattled by the tea party fury. Frank told AP: "It's a mob mentality that doesn't work politically."
* Meanwhile, a brick came through the window at Rep. Louise Slaughter's Niagara Falls office on Saturday (the day she argued for her "Slaughter solution" to pass health care reform, though it was rejected by other Democrats on the House Rules Committee).

On Thursday MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews grilled tea party Astroturf leader Tim Phillips of Americans for Prosperity about supporters who taunted a man with Parkinson's disease at a tea party gathering in Ohio last week. Phillips insisted the bullies just didn't represent the tea party movement. But such demurrals don't cut it any more. At the Nashville tea party gathering last month, a proponent of the kinder, gentler tea party movement, Judson Phillips, tried to distance himself from crazed and racist elements – but later endorsed racist speaker Tom Tancredo even after he told the convention: "People who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama." Tancredo blamed Obama's election on the fact that "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country." He got some of the loudest cheers of the weekend.

So I'm having a hard time tonight trying to believe almost uniformly white tea partiers are anything other than a racist, right-wing reaction to the election of an African American president who brings with him feminists and gays (even if he doesn't do as much for them as they would ideally like)...

Coffee Party brews up rival for Tea Party

We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will.
--Coffee Party mission statement

Coffee Party brews up rival for Tea Party
By Madeleine Morris
BBC News, Washington
14 March 2010

Tea Party demonstration in Glenside, Pennsylvania - 8 March 2010
Tea Party supporters want to cut government spending and influence

A grassroots political grouping that has emerged in recent months in opposition to the conservative Tea Party movement has been holding its first national day of meetings in the United States...

Saturday saw over 350 Coffee Party events held in cafes across the United States and abroad, bringing activists together in person for the first time for a national day of conversation and, of course, espressos and cappuccinos.

"If our children acted like our politicians are acting right now they would be grounded for a very long time," says Ryan Clayton, a Coffee Party spokesperson in Washington DC.

...Unlike their Tea Party counterparts, who want a smaller government with less influence, coffee partiers believe government can provide solutions, and they want politicians to work together in a more civilised way.

"We need to get together as citizens and show them [politicians] that we can sit down and talk about these issues; that we can solve problems and develop solutions; that we may not agree on everything, but that we can agree on a lot," says Mr Clayton.

Founder Annabel Park, who began the Coffee Party on her Facebook page out of anger at the Tea Party and its growing influence, has seen it rapidly gain traction on the internet.

Its Facebook page has picked up over 138,000 fans in less than two months.

Healthcare: Why do people often vote against their own interests?

Turkeys Voting for Thanksgiving

30 January 2010
Why do people often vote against their own interests?
BBC News

The Republicans' shock victory in the election for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts meant the Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. This makes it even harder for the Obama administration to get healthcare reform passed in the US.

Political scientist Dr David Runciman looks at why is there often such deep opposition to reforms that appear to be of obvious benefit to voters.

Last year, in a series of "town-hall meetings" across the country, Americans got the chance to debate President Obama's proposed healthcare reforms.

What happened was an explosion of rage and barely suppressed violence.

Polling evidence suggests that the numbers who think the reforms go too far are nearly matched by those who think they do not go far enough.

But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help.

In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%.

Instead, to many of those who lose out under the existing system, reform still seems like the ultimate betrayal.

Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?

Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?

It might be tempting to put the whole thing down to what the historian Richard Hofstadter back in the 1960s called "the paranoid style" of American politics, in which God, guns and race get mixed into a toxic stew of resentment at anything coming out of Washington...

There is nothing voters hate more than having things explained to them as though they were idiots.

As the saying goes, in politics, when you are explaining, you are losing. And that makes anything as complex or as messy as healthcare reform a very hard sell.

Stories not facts

In his book The Political Brain, psychologist Drew Westen, an exasperated Democrat, tried to show why the Right often wins the argument even when the Left is confident that it has the facts on its side.

He uses the following exchange from the first presidential debate between Al Gore and George Bush in 2000 to illustrate the perils of trying to explain to voters what will make them better off:

Gore: "Under the governor's plan, if you kept the same fee for service that you have now under Medicare, your premiums would go up by between 18% and 47%, and that is the study of the Congressional plan that he's modelled his proposal on by the Medicare actuaries."

Bush: "Look, this is a man who has great numbers. He talks about numbers. I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the internet, but he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math. It's trying to scare people in the voting booth."

Mr Gore was talking sense and Mr Bush nonsense - but Mr Bush won the debate...

For Mr Westen, stories always trump statistics, which means the politician with the best stories is going to win: "One of the fallacies that politicians often have on the Left is that things are obvious, when they are not obvious...

Reverse revolution

Thomas Frank, the author of the best-selling book What's The Matter with Kansas, is an even more exasperated Democrat and he goes further than Mr Westen.

He believes that the voters' preference for emotional engagement over reasonable argument has allowed the Republican Party to blind them to their own real interests.

...The result is that many of America's poorest citizens have a deep emotional attachment to a party that serves the interests of its richest.

...authenticity has replaced economics as the driving force of modern politics. The authentic politicians are the ones who sound like they are speaking from the gut, not the cerebral cortex. Of course, they might be faking it, but it is no joke to say that in contemporary politics, if you can fake sincerity, you have got it made...