Joe Lieberman: Hypocrite of School Choice

I can't believe this is still an argument. If it wasn't for the power of the National Teachers Union which is only rivaled by the other two public union powerhouses, The International Brotherhood of Police Officers and The International Association of Fire Fighters, this would have been settled ages ago.

But I was reminded of a bit of hypocrisy just now when I read an article by none other than Former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman advocating for, of all things, school choice.

And I had to laugh.

NOW, he's the advocate for school choice...

Again!

Oh, old Joe WAS a champion for the school voucher system right up until the moment he was picked to be Al Gore's running mate for the Presidency back in 2000.

Then nothing, not a word about it was mentioned and nobody asked.

But I remembered.

Joe Lieberman remained in the Senate for 14 years after Al Gore's failed run for the presidency but until now we have not heard anything from the former senator advocating for school choice.

Since that time the voucher system was instituted in the District of Columbia and working well until the Teacher's Union finally managed to squash it, forcing the school kids back to their sub-standard district schools. They could have used a champion then. Now , with nothing to lose, nothing on the line and perhaps looking for some sort of relevancy in a new age, good old reliable Joe Lieberman is again advocating school choice.

After 19 years of silence, is anybody going to ask, "Where you been all this time, Joe?"

Fox news won't be asking that question, you can bet on that. They ran the article. What gall this guy has! Even for a former pol and lawyer. This sudden rekindled interest makes me wonder at what angle he's trying to play. Perhaps we'll find out in the near future.

School Choice

This is the system where each family gets a voucher for the money they pay each year towards their school system or per student funds allocated to each child at any rate that then can be put that towards a different school of their choosing. The money follows the child. 

Two-Tiered Education System

It has been argued that the voucher system will create a two-tiered school system and allow the wealthy to pull their kids from public school or that there will be a migration from public schools. 

The wealthy have already pulled their kids out of public school. THEY have the money to pay twice. Once for the sub-standard public school they don't use and again for the private school they actually send their kids to.

It's the poor people who can't afford to send their kids to an alternate or private school who get the short end. They can only afford the sub-standard.

Without a school voucher program to even the field, the people without the means are also without the choice. The lack of school choice hurts THEM, the people who can't afford to send their kids any place else.

The lack of competition for the monopoly of public schools means no challenges and no innovation or improvements. They never have to pay for their mistakes. Only the children will.

So here's hoping Joe sticks with it the second time around since School Choice was and is a good idea. Introducing competition into the educational marketplace will make all the schools stronger. They will either change or be emptied out.

But Joe Lieberman could have been fighting for this change for the last 19 years but abandoned his principles for the chance at glory and fame.

He thinks everybody's forgotten it.

Obama Channels Al Gore

Whoever gets to write the History of our nation 200 years from now will most likely highlight the idea that way back when, people who controlled the major governments of the world also were so self-possessed and so enamored of the power they possessed that they actually thought they could also control the weather.

And so here we are watching the President of the United States kick off his new career as the next big “thang” in climate change. And why not, after watching Al Gore compile not just a small fortune but quite a big one from his self-made pulpit of the Church of Global Warming, who could blame him?

Picture Mr. Gore, a career politician who suddenly found himself out of work at the hands of what we can only refer to as KARMA in regards to his close-but-no-cigar attempt to alter the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, sitting home after his concession and freaking out that he may actually have to find a real J-O-B. "What do I do? What do I do?" he says over and over to himself, running his fingers through his hair in front of the television set in his office. But then the cable channel he's watching begins a broadcast of the Burt Lancaster movie "Elmer Gantry" and suddenly Al Gore gets the most brilliant idea of his political career. “I've got it. I will be the CHAMPION of the PLANET! I will become… Mr. Global Warming!”

“And then I will become Mr. Gazzillionaire!”

And he is.

In fact, Al Gore became so rich jetting all over the country and the world promoting this non-sense to all the Anti-Capitalists in California, Europe and Canada who all couldn't wait to run to the hand to put their cash in, it doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar or a perhaps a Community Organizer, to see where the big money is.

The BIG money is in promoting FEAR! 

Oh, now some may buy into the Dale Carnegie theory about "arousing an eager want" in people and trying to see the other point of view but Mr. Gore, lacking in those fundamental skills opted to just spew his brand of doom upon the world and scare the crap out of everybody to great results and heaping wads o' cash.   

The seas will boil! No wait, they'll rise. Ooh, that's better, yes the seas will RISE and drown your grandmother as she sits in her rocking chair on her front porch! You want your grandmother to drown? I think NOT! And your little dog, he'll be TOAST as the hot sun scorches the Earth bare!

Oh, and the seals, they will have NO ICE!

That's right, the poor little harp seal pup (cue video of big eyed baby Harp Seal flopping around) will have no ice upon which to lay his cute little furry head! Aw, isn’t he cute? Who will help the Harp Seal?

And who wouldn’t want to help the Polar Bear? Why they need ice too!

Even though NONE of the gloomy predictions made in the 1980s, the 1990s and even in 2000 about how crappy life in these United States will be in the year 2015 due to the change of weather have ever even come close to being true, SOMETHING has to be done TODAY because "mark my words, 25 years from now…blah, blah, blah."

As it stands right now in the year 2015, our lives are only crappy because of the grasping over-taxing all-encompassing government that won’t let us keep enough of our money to keep most of use or the economy going, and certainly NOT because of the weather.

The Conundrum of Alaska Development

So the message is that the nation has to do something and do something quick to LIMIT Climate Change and it’s horrible, devastating and dangerous effects that we will all be seeing any day now.

But on the OTHER HAND, since business is still lousy in the United States after 8 years of not a whole lot of growth despite all the self-congratulations by the current administration, we will let business suffer at our own peril. We still need to develop!

This is why Shell gets to drill in the Arctic region counter to the Climate Change campaign and that Mr. Obama has called for a whole lot more ice breaker ships to be built for the region. But the ice is melting, right?

Some may see the irony of calling to cut development to aid the planet and to spur development to aid Alaska but the reality is that Mr. Obama has to deal with a group of hard-core individuals that Mr. Gore never had to think about, namely The Russians. Those resources sitting under all that melting Alaskan permafrost may just go to the people who can get to them first.

So more icebreakers it is. Could it be that they will be...Solar powered icebreakers?

Anyway, in an attempt to discourage the Russians, not destroy the fragile U.S. economy AND save the planet long enough for the president to grab some of that lucrative Climate Change lecture cash once he's out of office, Mr. Obama has to try to have it every way he can think of to come out looking good to the people who’ll pay the money to have him as a speaker.

Looks like the planet will be the odd man out once again, sigh.

But then what on God's Green Earth would the future Reverend Barack Obama talk about while traveling with his Climate Ministry?  This way the development will be allowed to happen and then he'll get to rail about it later. 

Win win, baby, win win.