Failure will be subsidized, and success will be ruthlessly stamped out.

Success Academy is run by Eva Moscowitz, someone hated by the teachers unions and the left. So of course she must be destroyed, and if there is some collateral damage in the form of children, so be it. Such things happen in war.

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 capitol 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%.

These are schools that work. They are something to be proud of and encourage.

...

We close with a little red meat because there's something in this story—frightened children, cold political operators—that gets our blood up.

...

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.

There's a lot more at the link.

Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo is holding a rally with.. Eva Moscowitz.

De BlasioÂ’s rally in support of a higher tax on wealthy New Yorkers was not specifically targeted at education, but across town, Andrew Cuomo joined Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz at a different rally promoting charter schools. Although de Blasio downplayed the significance of the charter rally, itÂ’s a big deal. Moskowitz is his chief opponent in the charter school co-location fight. Indeed, de Blasio specifically mentioned the need to reduce MoskowitzÂ’s influence as a reson for the policy shift, and Moskowitz has responded with plenty of harsh words of her own. By appearing at the rally, Cuomo effectively endorsed de BlasioÂ’s biggest rival. And heÂ’s not just a silent partner; he spoke forcefully about the need to protect charter schools. . . .

More at Mead, who calls NY state the chief battleground in the war on charter schools, where their fate will be determined in a struggle between the liberal coalition's moderate/liberal wings, and its leftist wing -- the tail that now actually wags the dog.

Posted by: Ace at 07:34 AM | Comments (312)
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What our old friend Oliver Willis thinks when he sees Mitch McConnell walking on stage with a rifle.

@NoahCRothman we're not in the damn stone ages. most americans live within quick response sphere of police. they dont need armed response.

— Oliver Willis (@owillis) March 6, 2014

Reality:

Official legal position of New York City: Cops have no obligation to protect an individual being attacked by a guy with a knife.

What "explanatory journalist" Sarah "Gosnell is a local crime story" Kliff thinks about ObamaCare's lousy poll numbers.

It would be bizarre if a majority of people thought Obamacare helped them. It doesnÂ’t touch the vast majority of insurance.

— Sarah Kliff (@sarahkliff) March 6, 2014

Reality: Obama said his plan would, "cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year."

Spoiler...it didn't.

Reality based community guys!

Posted by: DrewM at 06:42 AM | Comments (249)
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• Obama, Solipsist
  
• Democrats Filibuster An Obama Nominee
  
• The Tyrant In The Gray Flannel Suit
  
• Few Uninsured Signing Up For Obamacare
  
• De Blasio's Numbers Already Cratering
  
• Harry Reid's Two Minutes Of Hate
  
• National Crisis Averted: Obama Going On Vacation After All
  
• Republicans Just Want To Be Left Alone
  
• Bitcoin Firm CEO Found Dead
  
• Not Sure Why, But Issa Apologizes To Cummings
  
• It's Time To Increase The Size Of The House
  
• Senate Control Could Decide Opportunities In Tennessee
  
• Texas Down To Six Abortion Clinics
  
• Bad News, The New Hoverboard Is A Hoax
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:00 AM | Comments (381)
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Happy Friday.

Programming note: I'm doing another segment of Huffpost Live's "Legalese It! with Mike Sacks" this afternoon around 3:15.

The Congressional Black Caucus calls for Rep. Issa's removal as House Oversight chair. Let me tell you what's not going to happen . . .

At what point do Democrats start admitting that the best thing that could happen on healthcare is to start from scratch? The report from McKinsey is only 9 pages and most of it is graphs. Definitely read it.

Mayor de Blasio's approval rating drops to 39 percent just two months after he took office. Such fickle beasts, New Yorkers.

This? I liked it:

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:49 AM | Comments (291)
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Prager University: The Bigger the Government, the Smaller the Citizen

As Jonah Goldberg has pointed out unlike your family, friends, or neighbors the government cannot love you. Nor can the government love other people on your behalf. That's one reason why de Tocqueville believed that America's 'mediating institutions' based on voluntary, personal interactions were so critical to its success.

But the left only believes in and trusts government:

In the view of the left, there are only two entities that matter: the individual, and the state.

...This desiccated vision of society is in direct contrast to what Alexis de Tocqueville observed as being the genius of the American experiment. He celebrated the countless ways in which Americans interacted with and influenced the public square through what later came to be called "mediating institutions"-churches, civic societies, fraternal organizations, and innumerable other voluntary associations that served not only their members, but their communities as well. These institutions, he said, were the backbone of American life, and the primary bulwark against the kind of tyranny that had long dominated Europe.

When the left views American society, it simply doesn't see these institutions, or worse, dismisses them as reactionary and obstructive of "progress." They are viewed purely as expressions of private interests, needs, or desires, and at best of no consequence to the real work of improving the country, and at worst positive hindrances to be caged or, if need be, destroyed.

And this story from MN where a soaking wet high school girl in a bathing suit was forced to stand outside barefoot in sub-freezing weather by teachers during a fire alarm is a classic example of how big government and its rules end up robbing average people of their basic human decency and making them behave like monsters. The girl is okay thanks to the help of her classmates but suffered some frostbite to her feet.

Quote of the Day

"My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you've been mean to someone, they won't believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it's time to stop being nice, then destroy them."

But as my mother also taught me when you're a teacher - or really anyone in a position of authority - you always start out super-strict, demanding and merciless and then slowly loosen up once the ground rules have been established. Of course both of these pieces of advice are correct in their own circumstances.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:28 PM | Comments (572)
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Only one in ten of the uninsured who qualify for Obamacare have bothered to sign up for it. Seems like a pretty good reason to take away everyone else's insurance.

Obama, for his part, thinks Obamacare is working exactly the way it should.

Completely unrelated I'm sure, but Bobby Jindal thinks it's time to revisit our assumption that Barack Obama is a smart man.

At Sarah Hoyt's place, a guest post about the science-fiction community's descent into busybodying, witch-hunting intolerance.

From @rdbrewer4 in the sidebar, @charlescwcooke notes the downside -- for Democrats -- of a filibuster-free world. They had to kill the nomination of that Adegbile character themselves. There was no Republican filibuster which would allow them to hide.

From @tsrblke, Volokh considers one of the dumber posts ever appearing at Salon, and when I say it's one of the dumber posts ever appearing at Salon, I really mean only that it's a post appearing at Salon. When you're drowning in a sea of stupid, you really can't parse out the relative heights of stupid-waves.

Also from @rdbrewer4, scientific proof that nothing's funny if you analyze it to death.

One of the coolest things of the day comes from @comradearthur, who links this tour of the solar system, which is -- for once -- in proper scale.

Your usual depiction of the solar system cannot display distances to scale because the distances between planets are so enormously huge the planets would be smaller than a single pixel and hence invisible.

Well, this link aims to show you what Douglas Adams meant when he had the Hitchhiker's Guide define space's size in this way:

“Space,” it says, “is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space. "

And it defines infinity thus:

Infinte: Bigger than the biggest thing ever and then some. Much bigger than that in fact, really amazingly immense, a totally stunning size, real "wow, that's big," time. Infinity is just so big that by comparison, bigness itself looks really titchy. Gigantic multiplied by colossal multiplied by staggeringly huge is the sort of concept we're trying to get across here.

It's a neat link. I'd like to tell you the first billion kilometers are the hardest, but in fact the solar system is relatively action-packed with planets in the first billion kilometers. It's the last four and a half billion kilometers where you start to get a sense of what "empty space" really means.

Empty... space.

So that's why they call it that.

Thanks for help on the Hitchhiker's Guide quotes to Mike in the Hinterlands.

Posted by: Ace at 03:12 PM | Comments (748)
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The Meatball analyzes the competitive races.

He begins by noting five "firewalls" Democrats are counting on to stop a wildfire, each set back a little deeper into Democratic territory than the last.

Most of the firewalls are now on fire.

However, as of March 2014, the GOP has locked away two races, closed in on a third, well on their way with two more, and slight favorites in yet two more, giving the Republicans room to make an effective push into more purplish territory. They are fiercely contesting an open race in Michigan and now an incumbent in Colorado, and are threatening to do so in Iowa and New Hampshire. The higher they raise their maximum potential gains, the lower the number of races the Democrats can afford to write off. Despite the slacking off in Virginia, this remains a challenging map for those left-of-center.

As of today, the Democrats are in deep trouble. We aren’t forecasting a landslide win for the GOP — eight months is a lifetime. But with the second firewall already burning and Republican advancements into states they failed to win in 2012, they may be well on their way.

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (260)
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Jonathan Ross is a television host well-loved in Britain because their talent pool is small and they don't know any better.

No just kidding he's fine, I kind of like him. Most Americans will know Jonathan Ross, if at all, from accidentally leaving on BBC America after Doctor Who ends, or by searching for Doctor Who interviews.

I barely know the man's work at all but the thing that puts me off him, a bit, is that he's so ingratiating and ass-kissy with his guests. I get the need to ingratiate oneself, but he goes too far for my tastes.

This is actually germane to this story. I'm not entirely wasting your time.

Jonathan Ross was asked to host this year's Hugo Awards, science fiction's most prestigious awards. I made that last part up. When I say "most prestigious" I only mean "I've heard of them."

Why was he asked? Well, in addition to being a host on TV shows every single day (in Britain he's as ubiquitous as Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends from the Philip K Dick novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), he's also a science-fiction fan. He reads comics, he writes comics. He went to Comic Con last year as a guest of fanboi fave rave Neil Gaiman. He apparently hosted the Eisner (comic book) Awards there and did such a good job they immediately invited him back for next year's duties.

Plus, he's married to a science fiction writer -- a woman named Jane Goldman, who has herself won the Hugo Award. The very show he was to be hosting.

So let's be clear: He has a reason to respect the Hugo Awards, if he didn't already. If he suggested they were trivial or stupid, he would hear about it from his wife.

The perfect host, yes? Kismet, no?

No.

Because his hiring sparked a Nerd Rage in the sci-fi community -- including among sci-fi writers and those in charge of other aspects of the Hugo Awards show. Their main complaint was that he is "controversial," meaning, I guess, that as a comedian, he has told some mean jokes. They objected not so much to jokes he had told before, however, but, in a science-fiction timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly sort of way, to the jokes they feared he might tell in the future, while hosting the show.

Let me repeat: this guy is no Ricky Gervais. I don't know him all that well, but if you define "edgy," one picture that will not appear next to that definition is Jonathan Ross' face.

And apparently it's caused a huge Twitter rage, with lots of attacks on the anodyne Ross.

The New Statesman takes it from here:

At Loncon’s request, [Neil] Gaiman asked Ross to take the stage at this year’s Hugos. “I think Jonathan would have been an excellent host,” he told me. “One of the things Jonathan is great at is making a room full of people feel comfortable. To be a Hugo host you need to be genuine, funny, respectful – and he is respectful, while still being cheeky. Jonathan would do it better than I did. And he agreed to do it for free because he is SFF family.”

Despite this, a vocal contingent resorted to petty name-calling on the Internet. Does calling someone a “grating fatuous bellend” not count as bullying if your subject is famous? I call bullshit. Does saying horrible things about someone because you think they might possibly say horrible things about you make you the better person? In this tirade about insults and slights, nasty bullies with little self-awareness recast themselves as the victim.

“What was peculiar about the attacks was they had constructed an ad hominem straw man to attack, who was sexist, sizeist, hates women and likes making everyone feel bad,” said Gaiman. “It doesn’t bear any resemblance to Jonathan. While he has occasionally said things that make you go ‘Oh god, your mouth opened and that thing came out’, he is a consummate professional.”

(Regarding the “sizeist” accusation, here’s what Ross’ teenage daughter Honey Kinny tweeted to Seanan McGuire, the most vocal of the Twitter pitchfork mob: “I was horrified by your outrageous and unfounded assumption that my father would ever comment negatively on a woman’s body. I’m Jonathan’s overweight daughter and assure you that there are few men more kind & sensitive towards women’s body issues.” When I emailed asking McGuire to pinpoint a moment in which Ross had ever made a fat joke, I got no reply.)

A "bellend," by the way, is apparently the glans. Yeah, I had to look that one up myself.

Ross agreed to do host the show for free, because he's sci-fi family (through his Hugo Award winning wife).

But nah: Let's attack him mercilessly and get him fired because being cruel to strangers is how we prove We Matter.

So now Jonathan Ross is fired, and the Hugo Awards will find some unobjectionable, totally-into-sci-fi host like, I don't know, Sarah Silverman.

Thanks to @slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 12:17 PM | Comments (404)
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FAUX NOIZE!!!!

Just thought I'd say that before the trollz.

Although other polls have had Obama below the 40% mark, this is the first time FAUX NOIZE!!! has had him below that level.

Fifty-four percent disapprove. Before now ObamaÂ’s worst job rating was 40-55 percent in November 2013. Last month 42 percent approved and 53 percent disapproved (February 2014).

Approval of Obama among Democrats stands at 71 percent, near its 69 percent record low (September 2013). For independents, 28 percent approve, which is also near the 25 percent all-time low among this group (July 2013). And approval of Obama among Republicans hits a new low of five percent.

Overall, a 59-percent majority thinks the White House has mostly failed at creating jobs, up from 52 percent who said the same in October 2012. Likewise, 56 percent feel it has failed on growing the economy. ThatÂ’s also up from 52 percent.

The poll goes on to note a major loss of support on his handling of foreign policy, which, you know. I'm sure that doesn't exactly shock you guys. Although many of you may be shocked to learn that some Americans noticed he was screwing up big time.

In other polling news, the Washington Post now finds support for gay marriage at the 59% mark, with 34% disagreeing, and with half of all respondents saying that a right to gay marriage actually exists in the Constitution.

You know, I used to -- I used to not link polls like this. I know they are unpopular and even accused of being "trolling" or posted in aid of the leftist agenda.

But it's important for people to know what the facts actually are. The fact that support for gay marriage is at nearly 60%, while opposition is down to 34%, doesn't prove anyone's right on this point, nor that anyone is wrong. As they say, the Truth makes a majority of one.

But very often people seem mystified as to why their representatives are not prioritizing their policy preferences to the degree they liked.

And I think sheltering people from stuff like this -- cocooning them, as the New York Times does -- is simply a bad practice, which leads to misunderstandings and a skewed notion of what the actual political reality looks like.

And this poll is not an outlier -- Pew found that support for gay marriage had jumped to 53%, not quite as high as the WaPo now finds it, but above 50%. (Pew also finds that more people oppose SSM, 41%, than the WaPo.)

Pew also finds that most of the country supports gay marriage. Except in the South... which splits perfectly on the question.

Today, majorities of Americans in the Northeast (60%), West (58%), and Midwest (51%) favor allowing gay and lesbians to legally marry, while Southerners are evenly divided (48% favor, 48% oppose).

This isn't a winning issue anymore, which doesn't mean people are required to counterfeit their preferences.

But the other parts of the agenda regarding the stigmatization of homosexuality: Those are now simply radioactive. Those will have to be jettisoned, at least on a political level.

Most People Don't Realize How Far the Ground Has Shifted on This: Interesting take-away from Allah-- see the graph about how many people accurately say that gay marriage gets majority support in polls.

Only one group, those strongly in favor of gay marriage, say so. (In their case, it's either because they're very interested in the topic or are, like most people, just assuming that most people agree with them.)

Only a small fraction of those opposed to gay marriage know this particular polling result, somewhere between 19-22%.

Posted by: Ace at 01:28 PM | Comments (396)
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Allah discusses this and provides links to people, like @freddoso, who were there.

Below is linked excerpts from his speech. I cannot judge if the speech is standing-o worthy because the excepts are, of course, the most basic, obvious things. Stuff like "we have to start saying what we're for, and not just what we're against." This is an obvious thought which virtually everyone says, and the only way to judge whether or not this was an effective part of the speech is to hear the details he then turned to, which the excerpts, of course, leave out.

Of course Christie also had to contrast Republican governors, such as himself, who do things, with Republican congressmen who, in his telling, only talk about doing things.

I think in another context this would be a standard piece of puffery that raises no objections, but these words from Christie provoke a certain suspicious response from many. Because many people in the conservative movement think he's throwing the rest of the party under the bus to advance himself.

Which is standard political behavior, to be sure, but I think many people are alarmed by the suggestion that the federal-level GOP ought to just roll over for Obama and Reid.

As Christie, I'm sure, would remind you, when speaking about himself, doing the right thing is not necessarily doing the popular thing, but I don't hear him defending the congressional Republicans for doing the right, if unpopular, thing.

Eh, maybe I'll listen to the whole thing when it gets released.

In the meantime, there are excerpts, and also this report on McConnell's "lukewarm" reception and his own speech.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:20 AM | Comments (336)
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