In NYC, Communism Wages War on Children, the Poor and Minorities

Communist New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is certainly blazing a path in New York City. Peggy Noonan has a revealing column in the Saturday edition of the Wall Street Journal. (highlights are mine)

What a small and politically vicious man New York's new mayor is. Bill de Blasio doesn't like charter schools. They are too successful to be tolerated. Last week he announced he will drop the ax on three planned Success Academy schools. (You know Success Academy: It was chronicled in the film "Waiting for Superman." It's one of the charter schools the disadvantaged kids are desperate to get into.) Mr. de Blasio has also cut and redirected the entire allotment for charter facility funding from the city's capital budget. An official associated with a small, independent charter school in the South Bronx told me the decision will siphon money from his school's operations. He summed up his feelings with two words: "It's dispiriting." 

Some 70,000 of the city's one million students, most black or Hispanic, attend charter schools, mostly in poorer neighborhoods. Charter schools are privately run but largely publicly financed. Their teachers are not unionized. Their students usually outscore their counterparts at conventional public schools on state tests. Success Academy does particularly well. Last year 82% of its students passed citywide math exams. Citywide the figure was 30%.

Communists like de Blasio hate the poor, they kids and they hate minorities. Fortunately for the communists, in their efforts to keep people poor and under-educated, the kids, the poor and the minorities never realize what's going on.

This war on children via a war on education is appalling. But why do this? Well, here's why:

But the people who run the public-school system that doesn't work—the one where you can't fire teachers who sexually prey on students and principals who don't even show up for work, which is to say the public schools run by the city's huge and powerful teachers union—don't like the charter schools. And they are the mayor's supporters, a significant part of his base. 

The very existence of charter schools is an implicit rebuke to the public schools. It means they are not succeeding, and something new must be tried. That something new won't be perfect—no charter school is, and some are more imperfect than others—but people still line up to get into them. And there's something to the wisdom of crowds. When a school exists for the students, you can tell. When it exists for the unions, you can tell that too.

It's obvious to observers or participants in the debate over parental choice in education that the unions always care more about their constituency (the teachers) than the students.

In this move more than any so far, Mr. de Blasio shows signs he is what his critics warned he would be—a destructive force in the city of New York. When a man says he will raise taxes to achieve a program like pre-K education, and is quickly informed that that program can be achieved without raising taxes, and his answer is that he wants to raise taxes anyway, that man is an ideologue. 

And ideologues will sacrifice anything to their ideology. Even children.

Bingo! Mayor de Blasio is a loyal follower. There is no reasoning with him. Sadly, he was just elected, so unless there is a recall effort at some point, NYC, and the nation, will have to suffer under de Blasio's iron boot for four years until the next election.

In the meantime, my questions for Mayor de Blasion and his fellow Leftist travelers would be these: Why do you hate the poor? What do you hate Hispanic children? Why do you hate black children?

Ihor From (near) Detroit: The Perfect Democrat

I just recently became aware of these videos, which are nearly two years old. They tell a fascinating story of hope and promise for the Democrats.

Our story starts with this guy, Ihor, from Warren (which is near Detroit). If ever there was a perfect Democrat, one who isn't black, Ihor is it.

First, Ihor has real problems with rule of law, a prerequisite for being a Leftist Democrat.

Then, he doesn't listen to women. Fortunately, the Democrat party has a long list of abusers of women, so this guy fits right in. The Democrat war on women has a new soldier.

And, while Ihor only claims to not listen to women, and he will yell at them to shut up if they're yelling at him, he has never (that we know of) drowned a woman like Ted Kennedy did, abused his wife like Congressman Alan Grayson has, or ever ordered a woman to "kiss it" like Bill Clinton did. "It" being, well you know. And this is the same Bill Clinton that raped Juanita Broaddrick and then told her to "you better put some ice on that." "That" being her lip that he bit at some point during the rape.



Now it turns out, to polish his Democrat resume and make him a full-fledged member of the Democrat Left, Ihor has problems keeping his pants on. On the bright side, at least he was caught and punished for this, before he won elected office, but still.

Ihor is a message machine, and he is a perfect Democrat in the sense that he plays the victim quite well. His pants, that his mom bought him, were too big, and when he went outside to clean up the neighborhood, they fell off of him. There you go Ihor, stick with that story. I would advise you to mention that you were doing the neighborhood clean up "for the children" and you'll be home free. Leftist Democrats just love that lie/excuse.



Ihor doesn't live in reality, which is another Democrat prerequisite, he claims he's from Mars. Perfect.

Finally, Ihor gets sentenced. Like many Democrats before him, he was in a court room, in handcuffs and before a judge, awaiting his fate. Like most Democrats, who are never told "no!" in their lives because it hurts their self esteem, and those Democrats that are never disciplined, this judge put it to Ihor and lectured him how people act in the real world.



Bottom line: I suspect with a little PR recovery and once he signs over his life to DNC, Ihor will be a candidate for office of some sort in 2016. You heard it here first, Ihor S. (D-Michigan).

Daniel Henninger Observes Leftist Opposition To Education Reform

Late last week Daniel Henninger had a really good column in the Wall Street Journal. He was discussing President Obama's latest faux-concern, the issue of "income inequality." In a column which was subtitled "The left will never support the solution to income inequality," Mr. Henninger was looking at the new mayor of New York City, progessive Leftist Bill de Blasio, and he closed his WSJ column this way:

Let's cut to the chase: The real issue in the American version of this subject is the low incomes of the inner-city poor. And let's put on the table one thing nearly all agree on: A successful education improves lifetime earnings. This assumes one is living in an economy with better than moribund growth, an assumption no one in the U.S. or Western Europe can make anymore. 

If there is one political goal all Democratic progressives agree on it's this: They will resist, squash and kill any attempt anywhere in the U.S. to educate those low-income or no-income inner-city kids in alternatives to the public schools run by the party's industrial-age unions. 

Reforming that public-school monopoly is the litmus test of seriousness on income inequality. That monopoly is the primary cause of America's post-1970s social-policy failure. And that monopoly will emerge from the Obama presidency and de Blasio mayoralty intact. So will income inequality.

George Will, Commissar Barry, and Unicorns

George Will recently opened up his weekly column with this:

Barack Obama, the first president shaped by the celebratory culture in which every child who plays soccer gets a trophy and the first whose campaign speeches were his qualification for the office, perhaps should not be blamed for thinking that saying things is tantamount to accomplishing things, and that good intentions are good deeds. So, his presidency is useful after all, because it illustrates the perils of government run by believers in magic words and numbers.

This opening got me to thinking about Commissar Barry and his magic unicorns.

Senate Conservatives Fund Exposing Ditch McConnell

The Senate Conservatives Fund has put together this nice new video further exposing Ditch McConnell. Matt Bevin is the clear choice for Republicans in Kentucky.

Rand Paul Isn't Really Behind Mitch McConnell

In recent days there was an awkward appearance by Senator Rand Paul on Glenn Beck's radio program. Don't just take my word for it, listen to the interview here:



The International Business Times reported the interview with the headline "Rand Paul Is Backing Mitch McConnell's Re-election, But Has No Idea Why."

As I speculated on this blog back in September, I don't think Senator Paul is wholeheartedly behind Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell is a bully and he's worried about his own hold on power, as was demonstrated in Senator Paul's book, The Tea Party Goes To Washington, and I scanned these pages for my dear readers as proof.

Kentucky Republicans: Do the right thing. Vote Matt Bevin in the Republican primary this year.

Happy 103rd Birthday President Reagan

It's not original, but that's ok. For Ronald Reagan's 103rd birthday, let's look back at his 100th birthday and something I wrote at that time.

Enjoy.