Charter Schools: Discriminatory, Racist, Greedy, Corrupt, Thieving, Selfish, and Unneccessary.

P***ed off yet, Gentle Reader? Wait a few, we’ve not yet begun to cite. Charter Schools, each and every one of them, are exemplars of one or more of these despicable human traits. And anyone who supports them, runs them, or sends their kids to them, is likewise possessed of such revolting Teapublican faults. Proof? Here ya go:

Discriminatory? Proven. The GAO nailed charters to a tree in their 2012 report:

Racist? Proven. North Carolina is one example of many showing how racists are using charters to re-segregate:

The charts also show how racial makeups have shifted over time. By 2014, a fifth of charter schools were overwhelmingly — more than 90 percent — white. In 1998, less than 10 percent of charters were that way.

Corrupt and thieving? Yep, Proven. Thieves and con artists have flocked to charters, because they are barely regulated and rarely accountable:

No sector — not local governments, school districts, court systems, public universities or hospitals — misspends tax dollars like charter schools in Ohio.

A Beacon Journal review of 4,263 audits released last year by State Auditor Dave Yost’s office indicates charter schools misspend public money nearly four times more often than any other type of taxpayer-funded agency.

Selfish? You guessed ‘er, Chester, Proven. Charters take resources away from public schools, leading to public schools doing even more with even less, while the charters waste more money and do very little for students. Those who use them are screwing their communities, selfishly

Charters are a scam, engineered by greedy Teabaggers, mountebanks, and charlatans. The reason so many public schools suck is simple: not enough people want to pay for them. You CAN’T get more than what you pay for. But lots of Americans have bought into the idiotic Post-Reagan Voodoo Economics notion that says “Money magically appears if you take it away”. So when they cut school funding and public schools got crappier as a result, they said “let’s take MORE money away and give it to these unaccountable, unqualified, crooked scumbuckets”. And the underfunded public schools got crappier still, and the cycle repeats itself ad infinitum. A self-fulfilling prophecy, created by con artists for their own malevolent purposes.

Want better schools? Pay for them. Hold EVERYONE INVOLVED accountable. Hold OURSELVES accountable. Hold POLITICIANS accountable. EVERYBODY needs to step up, not just the teachers who barely make a decent hourly wage, working in crumbling schools with no supplies; or the students trying to learn in the same underfunded environments.

And yes, hold the profiteering motherf***ers (public and private) who run charters accountable, too.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

PS: We haven’t even talked about the illegality of using taxpayer funds to fund religious schools. That in itself is illegal, but it happens all over the nation.

Teapublicans are out to steal YOUR retirement insurance premiums.

Let’s call some spades, here, OK? Social Security is INSURANCE for which we are forced to pay premiums. Some of us have paid for this insurance for decades and have the right to expect that the seller will deliver the product we had no choice but to purchase. Sounds simple, yes? We pay, we should get what we pay for, like any other insurance (car, home, life) product.

But not according to “Republicans”: they are out to breach our contract and steal our money:

As one of its first orders of business upon convening Tuesday, the Republican House of Representatives approved a rule that will seriously undermine efforts to keep all of Social Security solvent.

The rule hampers an otherwise routine reallocation of Social Security payroll tax income from the old-age program to the disability program. Such a reallocation, in either direction, has taken place 11 times since 1968, according to Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The most cynical aspect of this attack is that it comes from some lawmakers who were helped by Social Security in their own lives. The roster includes Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who received Social Security benefits during his college years, after his father’s untimely death, and now thinks that the nation can’t afford to keep paying them as currently scheduled.

Another is Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), the sponsor of the House rules change, whose father died when he was 2 and then was raised by a single mother on Social Security and veterans benefits. Now he talks about Social Security going “bankrupt,” which is flatly incorrect, and promotes a measure aimed at cutting benefits for all. This is known as climbing the ladder and pulling it up behind you.

Got it, folks? The Teapubbies are doing exactly what they said they would do if elected. They are out to wreck Social Security, pocket our premiums, and throw anyone who is retired or disabled onto the streets instead of giving you the insurance benefits you paid for.

F*** those people. And if you voted for a “Republican”, f*** you too.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Republicans”: Don’t Fix the Problem, Make it a Secret Instead.

It’s a reflex, really: anytime Teapubbies want to do a thing and some pesky thing like “legality” or “optics” interferes, they do the thing anyway, and hide it. Look in your dictionary under “Teapot Dome” or “Watergate” for some classic examples. But it didn’t stop there, Cranksters: here are three examples from recent American history, showing that the GOPee is all about them thar secret thangs:

Number A: Recently, a lot of drug companies (ya know, they exist to make money by saving lives) have refused to sell Ohio drugs if they’ll be used to end lives instead of saving them. This puts a crimp in the execution-via-lethal-injection process that is so beloved by “conservatives”. In short, it’s getting hard for the Gummint to kill people quickly and cheaply.

So, there’s the thing Teapubs want to do: kill convicts. Do they come up with a new way of doing this, or an alternative punishment? Nope. In Ohio, they are trying to pass a law that would hide death drug information instead:

State lawmakers are preparing to introduce legislation to address legal concerns about Ohio’s administration of the death penalty, likely including language to keep secret the names of sources of execution drugs. Batchelder said the legislation has been drafted, and he anticipated its introduction in coming days. He declined to offer specifics about what would be included in the bill, though he said it would address issues that have arisen from court decisions related to the death penalty. “We have a problem in the sense that some of the federal judges have held that our existing system does not provide due process safeguards for those who have been convicted of homicide,” he said.

Got that? The problem is that Ohio (like some other states) is unconstitutionally executing convicts. Do the Repubs seek a constitutional way to execute said offenders? Of course not, don’t be silly. ‘Tis far easier to hide their actions than to solve the problem at hand.

Letter Two: also in newly-Red-ified Ohio (motto: “As red as Ohio State’s Scarlet, as Confederate as Ohio State’s Gray”), Guv Kasich wanted to hand his Kronies a lot of Kash. Alas, that’s illegal. So, he set up a secret money-laundering scam called JobsOhio, and then added more secrecy when the public objected to having their collective pockets picked by a load of millionare motherf***rs. The link provides a good summary of the matter, sans cranky snark and lingua franca.

Thirdly: since it’s illegal for Parties to coordinate with “outside groups”, Repubs had a problem in the recent election cycle: how to, well, break that law and get away with it. The solution? A secret Twitter account, of course. Click the link there, it’s pretty f***ing outrageous s***.

Nor are these the only examples. ‘Twould take a hundred bloggers a hundred hours to document a hundredth of these crimes. They are sufficient to illustrate the situtation: the scumball “Republicans” that Americans have stupidly put in charge of 2/3 of our government are a load of uber-liars and thieves who are not only adept at hiding their crimes: they instinctively hide them. Trust them not a bit, Gentle Reader. Not a single bit.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Only Questions that Matter Today: Could You Vote, and Did You Vote?

Everything else is a bunch of irrelevant details, or an excuse. If you could have voted and did not, then you suck at being a citizen.

If you are voting or have voted, thank you! Feel free to ignore the rest of this post.

If you couldn’t vote, you should find out why, and then work to clear any roadblocks so you can vote in the future. Perhaps you’re too young, not a citizen, or prevented by other legal reasons; nobody can get on your case for that. Or perhaps you couldn’t vote because of GOPee criminal actions that disenfranchised you: you’re pretty much blameless there. too. Maybe you’re sick, or out of the country, or had some other obstacle in your path. Understandable.

But if you COULD have voted today, and CHOSE not to do so, f*** you. F*** you for being lazy, being cynical, being stupid, or being oh-so-superior. The only way we can win a f***ing election is if we turn out. And when people don’t turn out, we get whatever a**holes the 1% wish to cram down our throats. By not voting, you bear partial responsiblity for the Teapublican Takeover of our nation. F*** you for that, you stupid, f***ing f***.

Turnout is the ONLY tool left in our kit, the ONLY weapon in our arsenal. Turnout, and ONLY turnout can defeat voting machine hacks, disenfranchisement schemes, poll-rigging, disinformation and propaganda. Every other means of ensuring our representation is already gone, stolen by the corrupt motherf***ers who have hijacked our nation. THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT THE “REPUBLICANS” IS FOR EVERYONE ELSE TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR CORRUPT A**ES.

A few other factual points:
Number A: the two parties are NOT THE F***ING SAME. Stop with that f***ing lying bull-f***ing-s***.
Letter 2: Dem voters outnumber Repub voters overall. If Dem voters vote Dem, we win. If Dem voters don’t vote Dem, we lose.
Thirdly: If you aren’t voting, you aren’t using your Constitutional rights.
Fact the Fourth: You can vote Dem, or Repub, or for some idiot third-party yahoo who is there to help Repubs steal Dem votes. Only by casting votes for Democrats do we beat “Republicans”.

It’s math, period. Pound all the other hifalutin philosophical bilge right up your own a** along with a heaping helping of sand. More votes win. Fewer votes lose. Math.

Ohio flipped from Purple to Red because of fewer votes that can be counted with your shirt, pants and socks on. Less than ten votes in one district did the trick. So don’t tell this writer that your vote is of no consequence: women, children, and every taxpayer in the state are suffering because a few f***ing Dem voters did not vote for a single Ohio Democratic candidate in 2012.

Once again: If you can vote, PLEASE do so. If you choose not to and you could have, f*** you and the high f***ing horse you f***ing rode the f*** in on.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Republicans” Can Only Win with Democrats’ Help.

According to a recent poll, Ohio’s GOPee Guv John Kasich has a large number of Democrats voting for him. The percentage of such idiot voters is sufficient to provide a comfortable margin of victory. Thousands of Dems have said that they will vote for a thieving, lying, union-busting, woman-hating Wall Street motherf***ing “Republican”.

By so doing, those Dems will enable thievery, lying, starvation, forced births, pollution, contract violations, voter suppression, and income inequality to not only continue, but become even more prevalent. Think about that for a second, Gentle Reader. These are Teapublican values and policies, being supported by alleged Dem Voters.

This is the story of the 2014 midterms, friends: in spite of every evil deed, every crime against humanity, GOP candidates are projected to win. Why? Because a s***load of voters who should know better will make some truly stupid choices.

Stupid choices like voting for Teapubbies, casting protest votes in close races, or just not voting at all. That is how “Republicans” win. It ain’t just vote-rigging, corruption and bribery that enables the Repub Reign of Error: some Democrats are partially culpable.

Please do your part: vote smart. If enough people do so, we can pull off an upset. Smart rarely triumphs over stupid, but it can happen, if enough smart people take the time to vote smart.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

THIS is how Dems can Win. Easily.

Everybody assumes that Dem turnout will suck out loud this election. And it looks like that could well be true. If so, Democrats have no one but themselves to blame for the succeeeding years of Teapublican rape, pillage and plunder.

But there IS a way for Dems to win. An easy way. A way that can work, and requires less than half an hour’s time from each Dem voter. Here it is:

VOTE. That’s it. If Dems vote in numbers that exceed the current dismal expectations, they will win races. Lots of races.

This is because Repubs are assuming Dems WON’T vote. So their plans are based on crap Dem turnout. Increasing our turnout messes up their plans.

Plus, voting machine hacks are programmed in advance, and are based on projected turnout. If Dems exceed turnout, the hacks fail and Dems can win.

The biggest problem in making this happen? Disengaged, apathetic Dem voters. For example: Ohioans as a rule pretty f***ing pathetic when it comes to doing anything other than bitching and moaning about our government. So Repubs are projected to keep 100% of power in the state for another four years.

Now, ask yourself, “what would happen if just a few thousand extra Dem votes were cast in the Buckeye State?”. Answer: Some of those motherf***ing Repubs would be cast out of office, replaced by Democrats. That, Gentle Reader, would be a very good thing indeed. In Ohio, and across the nation. Add more votes, win more victories.

Come on, let’s give the bastards one in the eye. Let’s confound the pundits and give the Elephants an atomic wedgie. Let’s all vote. The occupants of the House O’ Cranky mailed in our ballots today. Who’s next?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Supreme Court “Republicans” are helping to Steal another Election.

Ohio’s stinking “Republican” Secretary of State John (“Yes, the kind that pays for whores”) Husted has finally hit the US Supreme Court jackpot: the five partisan Wingnuts thereon are helping “Republicans” steal yet another election:

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The nation’s highest court on Monday granted an emergency plea from state officials to block a lower court’s order expanding statewide early voting days and times.

The court issued its order without an opinion or explanation, noting the court’s liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Kagan would not have granted the stay. Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Anthony M. Kennedy voted to grant the stay.

Ohio’s disastrous 2004 election shows the state cannot operate an election on only one day, argued attorneys for the ACLU. In papers filed in Supreme Court on Saturday, they said early voting, including Sunday “Souls to the Polls” events, have become woven into the fabric of Ohio’s democratic process.

“That election [in 2004] resulted in waiting times to vote that stretched into the day after Election Day and failed to provide meaningful access to the ballot for tens of thousands of Ohio voters,” they wrote. “Ohio thus comes to court with dirty hands.”

And the Repubs amongst the Supremes, who illegally installed an illegitimate occupant (Bush the Lesser) to the office of the Presidency, have even dirtier hands. Hands they now proudly display, filth and bloodstains plain to see.

All pretense of legitimacy is now gone, and the Roberts Court has fully revealed its true intent: the permanent takeover of our government by their ideological “soul” mates and paymasters in the GOP. Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

The Teapubbies announced their intention to do so back in the 1970’s. In the Powell Memo, they laid out their plan to seize control of the media, the economy, and the government. Click the link and read it.

The only way, and by that I mean the ONLY F***ING WAY to save this country from the tender mercies of the Rightish Inquisition is for the rest of us to VOTE in this election. Vote against every Elephant on every ballot in every race. Take back the House and keep the Senate.

That way, some actual jurists can be placed on the Supreme Court, replacing the corrupt partisan Repub motherf***ers who just f***ed tens of thousands of us out of our right to vote.

Vote, vote, vote. Take all your friends and family too. Vote while you still can.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Would you like Fries with your Governor?” Repubs have a Price List for Bribes.

Not much different than a fast-food drive-thru, really, except for the high price and the product. Due to an accidental bit of transparency, the list of prices charged for services provided by “Republican” whores governors has been posted online, and turns out it’s as cheap as the politicos themselves. Big business and their lackeys pay secretly for secret influence over government policy, and it’s a sweet deal for all involved (but not for the rest of us). From the NYT:

The documents, many of which the Republican officials have since removed from their website, showed that many of America’s most prominent companies, from Aetna to Walmart, had poured millions of dollars into the campaigns of Republican governors since 2008. One document listed 17 corporate “members” of the governors association’s secretive 501(c)(4), the Republican Governors Public Policy Committee, which is allowed to shield its supporters from the public.

“This is a classic example of how corporations are trying to use secret money, hidden from the American people, to buy influence, and how the governors association is selling it,” said Fred Wertheimer, the president of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan group that advocates more transparency and controls over political money.

One document states the benefits of a Governors Board membership, for a $50,000 annual contribution or a one-time donation of $100,000, saying it “offers the ability to bring their particular expertise to the political process while helping to support the Republican agenda.”

Board members received two tickets to “an exclusive breakfast with the Republican governors and members of their staff”; three tickets to the Governors Forums Series, where “a group of 5-8 governors discuss the best policy practices from around the country on a particular topic”; and a D.C. Discussion Breakfast Series, among other events. If they bump up to Cabinet Membership — $100,000 annually or a single payment of $200,000 — contributors also receive two invitations to “an exclusive Gubernatorial Dinner,” an “intimate gathering with the Republican governors and special Republican V.I.P. guests” at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington.

Got it, Gentle Reader? Bribery is so common, so endemic, so ordinary for “Republicans” that they provide their customers a handy little price guide to help them decide which product best suits their needs. Whether you favor the fast food or prostitution analogy, it’s a sad commentary on the party that selling their offices for money and giving the bribing bastards whatever they want is so common, so ordinary, such an accepted part of their way of doing “business” as to be reduced to a menu of products and prices.

When a party has become THAT corrupt, there’s no saving it. Time to throw the lot of them in jail for bribery and other corrupt acts, and start a new party to replace it.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Kasich the Koward.

We already knew that Ohio’s Governor was a corrupt, wingnut, thieving, Wall Street millionaire, crony-centric, lying, money-laundering scumbucket. Now, we can add “huge f***ing wussy” to the list. Little Johnnie Kasich is too s***-scared to debate his gubernatorial opponent, you see. Here is an article on the issue:

“He’s not accepting the challenge because his handlers know that when the Governor is forced to speak on his feet he reveals his disdain for working Ohioans and he is unable to defend his record of helping his wealthy friends at the expense of Ohio’s middle class,” says Laura Hitt, FitzGerald’s campaign spokesperson.

But Kasich isn’t the only Ohio Republican ditching debates this year. Attorney General Mike DeWine, Secretary of State Jon Husted, and State Treasurer Josh Mandel have all declined to participate in the City Club of Cleveland’s debate series.

Mandel is a former U.S. Senate candidate with future statewide ambitions and Husted is often touted as a future gubernatorial prospect.

All of these boyos, like Kasich, are little Nancy-boys with not even a soupçon of testicular fortitude. Yes, they have things to hide, yes, they want to avoid being asked tough questions, but at the end of the day, they are cowards.

Kasich is secretive about how he stole some of his millions from the American taxpayer during the Bush Crash of 2008, he is secretive about the money he helps JobsOhio steal from Ohio taxpayers every day, he is secretive by reflex. Like all people who live criminal lives, he is petrified that someone might ask a question that will send him off to a much-deserved prison term. So he hides.

Kasich the Koward. A trembling, wimpy, pathetic, piss-poor excuse for a man. Too scared to debate. Kowardly Kasich.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

 

In your anger at the party, don’t forget the real victims. (Please vote.)

This post has a very narrow audience: those who say they will not vote unless the candidates are sufficiently in line with their personal beliefs, and think that by withholding their vote they will somehow “teach the party a lesson”. It is not targeted at any other people or groups. S’alright? S’alright.

Many of the party apparatchiks, leaders and candidates (for example, Hillary Clinton) are millionaires, and will not be hurt by your lack of participation in a hypothetical future contest. They should pay a price, but they will not. They might write books, consult, bloviate, become the ambassador to Lower Maylohda, or join the punditocracy: but one thing that they will not do is suffer. Not one wee bit.

No, the people who will be hurt by the lack of participation in a given race will be the poor. The children. The elderly. The minorities. The women. THEY will pay the price for your bitterness, defeatism and despair. You might not pay a price, the candidates might not pay…but nothing is free in this world. Somebody always pays.

In the last election, in one Ohio state congressional district, a (literal) handful of voters failed to vote for the Democrat in the race, and the Teapublican won. That state is now 100% Red. Dems have NO POWER OVER STATE GOVERNMENT.

Voting rights are being taken away. Women’s rights are being obliterated. Children are starving and dying. Millionaires are profiting and the rest of us are struggling. Because a very few voters made the choice you propose to make.

Think a bit before you decide to be dogmatic. Think of those four voters who did what you say you will do. Every vote counts. And every vote has a consequence.

Perhaps God should have mercy on those who abandon their fellow Americans to poverty, privation, and death; but the rest of us shouldn’t.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky