Bobby
Jindal entered the 2016 race yesterday afternoon at a rally just outside of New
Orleans. Welcome to the race, Bobby! With your background on vouchers, charters
and the world famous Recovery School District that has yet to recover from your
damage, we are pretty excited to start schooling you.
Let’s
start here with this #ThrowBackThursday from our friends at Mother Jones who
put together this awesome list of the craziest things
being taught to children from real text
books thanks to Bobby Jindal’s voucher programs, considered the most
sweeping in the country. Our favorites include: humans and dinosaurs walked the
earth together; dragons are real; and the Red Scare is still a threat. #TBT
14 Wacky “Facts” Kids Will Learn in Louisiana’s Voucher Schools
via Mother Jones
Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out
Dragons were totally real
“God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ.”
Africa needs religion
Slave masters were nice guys
The KKK was A-OK
The Great Depression wasn’t as bad as the liberals made it sound
SCOTUS enslaved fetuses
The Red Scare isn’t over yet
Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson were a couple of hacks
Abstract algebra is too dang complicated
Gay people “have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists.”
“Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world’s richest nations.”
No society that regulates firearms suffers from the absence of any liberty at all, save the liberty of lunatics to murder their neighbors as they choose.
Jeb Bush had quite the op-ed in the New York Post this morning. It didn’t make today’s cover, or the homepage, but we’ve pasted it for you below. Jeb makes more than a few claims about his expertise in education, but clearly this needed some #Fact checking. Jeb’s greatest education hits just got remixed.
First, the good news. The ratio of CEO pay to that of a typical worker has fallen below its astronomical high of 376-to-1 from 2000. But the current ratio is still more than 300-to-1. The figure was 20-to-1 in 1965, and even as recently as 1978, it was less than 30-to-1. Over the past decade, however, as a report from the Economic Policy Institute shows, the wages of most workers have stagnated or even declined as chief executives have enjoyed extraordinary pay increases.
Because news cameras are apparently only there if looting and protests are mentioned, here are some shots from the march for peace in Charleston yesterday. In case you missed it, thousands marched to Ravenel Bridge, holding hands in prayer and unity. Yet this doesn’t make news, but an interview with the killer’s friend does.
all photos from Twitter
“I urge Congress to finally do the right thing and give America a raise.” —President Obama applauding Rhode Island for raising its minimum wage, and calling on Congress to do the same
#11. WHY MEDICARE ISN’T THE PROBEM; IT’S THE SOLUTION
Again and again the upcoming election you’ll hear conservatives
claim that Medicare - the health insurance program for America’s seniors - is
running out of money and must be pared back.
Baloney. Medicare isn’t the problem. In fact, Medicare is more
efficient than private health insurance.The real problem is that the costs of health care are expected
to rise steeply.
Medicare could be the solution – the logical next step after
the Affordable Care Act toward a single-payer system.
Please see the accompanying video – #11 in our series on ideas to make the economy work for the many rather than for the few. And please share.
Some background: Medicare faces financial problems in future
years because of two underlying trends that will affect all health care
in coming years, regardless of what happens to Medicare:
The first is that healthcare costs are rising overall - not as
fast as they were rising before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, but
still rising too quickly.
The second is that the giant postwar baby boom is heading
toward retirement and older age. Which means more elderly people will need more
health care, adding to the rising costs.
So how should we deal with these two costly trends? By making
Medicare available to all Americans, not just the elderly.
Remember, Medicare is more efficient than private health
insurers whose administrative costs and advertising and marketing expenses
are eating up billions of dollars each year.
If more Americans were allowed to join Medicare, it could become
more efficient by using its growing bargaining power to get lower drug prices,
lower hospital bills, and healthier people.
Allowing all Americans to join Medicare is the best way to
control future healthcare costs while also meeting the needs of the baby boomer
and other Americans.
Everyone should be able to sign up for Medicare on the
healthcare exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act.This would begin to move America away from its reliance on
expensive private health insurance, and toward Medicare for all – a single
payer system.
Medicare
isn’t a problem. It’s part of the solution.
Scott
Walker has proposed forking over $250 million in taxpayer money to help
construct a new arena for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, a team owned by
billionaire hedge fund managers Marc Lasry
and Wesley Edens. While supporting the home team
usually sounds like a great idea, Walker’s extremely controversial (even with Republicans) allocation to the team doesn’t look
so good when the state is facing a $283 million dollar
deficit.
So,
where will Walker get the money to throw at a new stadium for the Bucks, who haven’t won a league
title since 1971?
He’ll just cut it from higher education—no brainer. The University of Wisconsin
system, one of the best research institutions in the world, is also funded by
tax-payer dollars. But thanks to Walker’s stellar math, instead of funding the
additional $95 million the university asked from the state legislature, which
is absolutely critical for maintaining the system at a bare minimum, he has
decided to go with a $250 million cut. #Facts
And,
this isn’t the first time. In his first term, Walker cut a total of $400
million from the UW and state technical colleges, reduced financial aid for
eligible students, and imposed a double-digit tuition hike that cost students
over $200 million over four years. #Facts
But
surely a new stadium is a good long-term investment, right? Economists disagree. A host of academic reports over the
years have found that using public financing for professional sports venues is
a bad investment that rarely lives up to the lofty numbers brandished by the
projects’ boosters and often incurs sizable cost overruns. You know what is a
good long-term investment and key to state prosperity? An educated workforce.
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