If you want to know what the real goals of the Romney administration will be, ignore Mitt and listen to Ann.
I’ve been a First Lady of the State. I have seen what happens to people’s lives if they don’t get a proper education. And we know the answers to that. The charter schools have provided the answers. The teachers’ unions are preventing those things from happening, from bringing real change to our educational system. We need to throw out the system.
When’s the last time anyone’s heard a potential First lady slag teachers? Because “throw out” our education system sure seems like a moderate, centrist thing to do, right? Nancy Reagan wanted us to just say no, Laura Bush wanted to teach adults to read, Michelle Obama wanted us to eat healthier. Is Ann’s FLOTUS project going to be busting all the teacher’s unions?
If you want policy specifics from the Romney camp, apparently all this time we’ve been paying attention to the wrong Romney.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
Oh, the right will pooh pooh what little miss Annie said because she’s just “The Wife”. Whereas with FLOTUS, she tries to help kids eat healthier and they proclaim she’s taking the country down into the 9th level of Hell.
PreservedKillick
Maybe I’m just thin skinned when it comes to Anne Romney, but this:
Pisses Me Off.
Thanks. We actually do have an excellent education system in the state where you were First Lady, Anne. At pretty much all levels, public and private.
Comrade Dread
Most folks aren’t paying attention to this. They assume that teachers are getting paid more than they are for 3/4ths of the work, that they get a cushy pension, that they have good health care, all paid on their dime.
And the GOP has done a bang-up job of convincing them of this because many in the GOP have seen how much money goes into education and have been seriously jonesing to get a piece of that pie.
So they’re just moving to phase two now. Exploit this feeling so that we can turn over schooling the children to the For-profit companies that our political cronies own, where teachers will be making minimum wage with no pensions and health care administered by the Christian Scientists.
Disco
Fuck Ann Romney and fuck very much that slick prick husband of hers. God I can’t wait for their whole shithead family to disappear from public life.
Violet
Ann-toinette Romney strikes again. She and Barbara Bush should form some sort of “Let them eat cake” club.
OT–Apparently “Heckuva job” Brownie has criticized President Obama for responding to Hurricane Sandy too quickly. The irony is many layers thick with this one.
jibeaux
states’ rights, biyotch!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
OK, speaking hypothetically, let’s grant Lady Mitt’s premise for a moment and assume that under her husband’s leadership we do a Pol Pot on the teacher unions. Once the public schools are all gone, what is it that makes charter schools special, after that? Aren’t we just left with the same schools and students as before only with less public control over their standards than we had before? And this is better because why again? The whole point of a charter school today is that it is something different from what you get at the schools most students attend. But to quote Syndrome from The Incredibles when everybody is special, nobody is. What happens after that?
BrianD
I’m a union charter school teacher. Where does this leave me?
Cacti
Did any of the Romney sow’s Mittlets attend a public school?
I know she and Mitt didn’t.
The Moar You Know
@Comrade Dread: My wife is a teacher. I want her out of the profession. She’s working eighty hour weeks now, no joke. It’s killing her from overwork. Every one of her fellow teachers I know is getting killed from overwork. People who perpetuate the “nine months and whole summers off” horseshit around me get taken to the woodshed.
I love my wife very much and I would like her to live to see retirement. We need the money, and she still loves teaching kids, but there’s got to be another way because she’s not going to live to 60 at this rate.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I hope every teacher’s union shows this to their members every day between now and next Tuesday.
Any public school teacher voting for these assholes deserves her or her fate under a Rmoney administration.
Some days, it’s hard to say who’s the worse human being, Ann-toinette or her hubby. Jeeeezuzfuckingkeeeeristonabike the two of them are pieces of work even by Republican pieces of work standards.
jibeaux
@BrianD: unpossible
RedKitten
@Ms. D. Ranged in AZ: I know. This shit just enrages me. FLOTUS is portrayed as just shy of a one-woman Gestapo, because she’s encouraging kids to move more and eat more healthfully. If she had said something like THIS, it would have dominated the news cycle for weeks on end.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@BrianD:
An eggshell in the otherwise perfect omelette.
catclub
@BrianD: Through the looking glass, man.
Davis X. Machina
Anything that is, can be bought and sold.
Anything that cannot be bought or sold, is not.
Anything that can be bought and sold, must be bought and sold.
Health, education, breathable air, potable water — doesn’t matter.
It is the Prime Directive.
Ash Can
Ann Romney set out more actual policy details in that paragraph than Mitt has all month long; I’ll certainly grant you that.
And this @Violet:
is awesome.
Cassidy
Profit!
slag
The only thing better than than people who make bad decisions in times of crisis are people who make bad decisions in times of crisis and who want to “throw out the system”. What could go wrong?
catclub
@RedKitten: of course, if she had said exactly that, there would be heads exploding on both sides of the political aisle.
If she said ‘we need to throw out the system’ of corn price supports, then the outrage would be on the right only.
SenyorDave
Is it possible that Ann Romney is actually a bigger, more entitled pos then her husband? The question needs to be asked.
catclub
@slag: I think you meant ‘worse’ for that first ‘better’.
Just guessing.
Mike G
This is an awesome clip – from Chris Christie of all people.
In what may be his last appearance on Fox for awhile, he is being interviewed about the storm by the yokels on Fox and Freaks. He praises Obama consistently for his responsiveness and steady communication.
When the stunned-mullet hosts try to throw in the obligatory Fux plug for Rmoney, saying he wanted to tour the NJ disaster areas, Christie shuts them down COLD —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIsEXWpv7MM
catclub
@Ash Can: I find it horrifying that the refusal of Romney to grant ANY interviews the past month has not been even discussed by the media.
Of course, I am also horrified that his tax returns are not discussed daily as well.
And I want a pony. A horrified pony.
PreservedKillick
Ah, so I see Chris Christie is running for president again.
slag
@catclub: For that matter, I probably also meant, “What wouldn’t go wrong?”
Ash Can
@RedKitten:
There really is no other explanation. It’s not simply because she’s a Dem; no other Dem FLOTUS has ever gotten pilloried like this with the sole exception of Hillary Clinton, and that was spurred by her direct involvement in political affairs. Michelle Obama is doing what every other FLOTUS has always done — choosing a non-controversial pet project that everyone can agree on and running with it. There’s one factor that’s different in her case, and one only.
Villago Delenda Est
Mitten’s bitch is as vile as he is.
Both need to be strung up from the same gallows.
SatanicPanic
They end up with no job, sitting at home having babies?
Kyle
@PreservedKillick:
I don’t think he’ll get much support from Rmoney, going by that video clip.
Bokonon
Interesting when the true shadow agenda shows its face …
Joel
@Mike G: Someone’s running for 2016…
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Villago Delenda Est: How about adjacent gallows – so they can observe each other swing? With loose nooses.
PreservedKillick
@Kyle:
Who in their right mind would want Romney campaigning for them?
I mean, yeah, I guess Romney could kick in a few bucks – but I doubt he even contributes to candidates within his own party.
El Cid
The same corporate and Galtian types who bitch and moan about how much those overpaid / overpensioned public teachers get and how much they suck and therefore how better it would be with more private sector education are the same people who bitch and moan about how their own employees are lazy and have to be made to work and cost them too much money and such. There’s no endpoint to that cycle.
Bill in Section 147
@Villago Delenda Est: And tumbrels. We must have tumbrels.
There are not enough rotten and foul items laying in the gutters that can be heaved at the riders because the government employs street sweepers and such but I can bring some tomatoes and cabbages from home.
Cacti
@SenyorDave:
Her hobby is playing with dancing horsies that cost more than most people’s homes.
SATSQ
Ash Can
@catclub:
I agree. Under normal circumstances I can understand (but not condone) why newsies handle even the creepiest pols with kid gloves; it’s because they’re afraid of losing access to their subjects. But Romney isn’t even giving them access! What the hell have they got to lose?
Brachiator
@Zandar:
Great post.
Missed the obvious thread title: Let Them Eat Canapés.
@RedKitten:
We’ve had presidents advocating physical fitness since, what, JFK?
But when the current FLOUTUS continues the tradition, she’s just being uppity.
pseudonymous in nc
@Mike G:
Christie is an egotistical bully — his misguided points-scoring against the Atlantic City mayor is a case in point — but apparently being told by the president that he had a direct line for emergency response is what he needed here.
And yeah, he doesn’t want to wait until 2020 to run for president.
Seanly
@Ash Can:
I agree with you.
Aren’t charter schools part of the public system? Like the arts or science/math magnet schools? Or is charter some new term for private schools?
I honestly don’t want to be part of a society where everything is privatized. Grrr I hate these people.
pseudonymous in nc
@Kyle:
What, you mean a busload of $0.47 cans of creamed corn sent from Ohio isn’t going to be greeted like it’s manna from heaven?
JCT
@Cacti: I commented on exactly this a few days ago on another thread. Of course NONE of the little princelings went to public school. As per usual with either of asshole Romneys, they have zero experience with all of these things that “us people” actually depend on and could give a fuck less about what we would do without a public education system, or access to health care or, say, disaster relief.
They just pull stuff right out of their ass and the media plays megaphone for them.
And heaven for-fucking fend an interviewer would ask Lady Ann if any of her brood went to public schools…
Villago Delenda Est
@Brachiator:
There is NOTHING the current FLOTUS does that is, by the definition of the 27%, NOT uppity.
It’s the nature of those people, you know. The uppity ones.
Seanly
@Mike G: OMFG, you’re not kidding about him shooting down the host’s Romney question. I think Christie knows his state got pummeled and he doesn’t have time to play politics.
Mike G
@El Cid:
It’s curious how few rightards go into teaching, given how certain they are that it is such “easy work” and so “grossly overpaid”. You’d think that people ruled by the profit motive would be flocking into such a job field.
El Cid
@Mike G: Well, they know they couldn’t get a job, what with the good teaching jobs all going to black people and union thugs, plus they know they’d be punished for having conservative views. QED.
Frankensteinbeck
At least since the 80s there has been a movement in the Republican Party to… basically privatize everything. It goes beyond plutocracy. Remove all regulations, destroy public education, end the safety net, ditch NASA, NOAA, and the CDC, and so on. They kept it couched in vague language and sidelong attacks, because if they openly advocated privatizing Social Security, their constituents went ballistic.
Since Obama was elected, that constituency has gone apeshit. The extremists in the party are grabbing their chance, because right now is their only chance in 50 years to publicly wave their freak flag without getting slapped down hard.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Romney keeps letting this slip in debates. He has swallowed, hook line and sinker, Reagan’s ‘the goverment can’t do anything’ argument. When he gets mad and confused, he whines things like ‘government can’t make jobs’. He BELIEVES it. He doesn’t ‘t understand why we can’t see how obvious this all is.
PreservedKillick
@Seanly:
Oh no, he knows that his ability to play politics at any future point is dependent on how he handles this crisis, and he knows that the single largest source of help he has is the black guy sitting in the white house, and he knows that Romney is an anchor.
He knows *exactly* what he’s doing, he knows *exactly* who his ally is right now, and he probably knows that he’s going to help Obama get re-elected.
And so does Obama, BTW.
Kyle
@pseudonymous in nc:
Fixed it for you. Rmoney wouldn’t waste saleable cans of food on the 47% moochers.
Elizabelle
@Mike G:
Not enough status.
Unlike physicians or stock traders, or people who do “real work.”
PeakVT
@Mike G: Gawd the end of that clip was HILARIOUS. I’d like to see what the bobbleheads’ reactions were.
slag
@El Cid: You’re exactly right. It’s a constant shift of responsibility away from them and toward the less powerful.
Villago Delenda Est
@Seanly:
Oh, he’s playing politics, alright. The catch is, to do anything but praise Obama in the wake of Sandy would be political suicide for Christy, and he knows it would be.
Rmoney is fucking up, big time. Christy knows that if he can’t get reelected to NJ Gov, he’s toast in 2016. That comes first. It’s every man for himself right now. Mittens can go pound sand, as far as Christy is concerned. Mittens is utterly spent as a force in the GOP. There’s no downside for Christy to dis him.
Petorado
So I guess Ann Romney’s contribution to this nation, were she to become First Lady, would be the motto, “Just Say No … to Public Schools.” That, and instituting a “Let them eat cake –and other highly-processed snack foods” school lunch program.
Bubblegum Tate
@Comrade Dread:
Also, too, I’m frightened and appalled by how many people think “teachers get paid in the summer for doing NOTHING!”
Mr Stagger Lee
@Villago Delenda Est: I think 2016 is going to be a 3 way battle between Jeb, Christie and Mike Huckabee. It is going to be fun, especially if Huckabee wins and has to convince the Mormons in the West to vote for him after the dissing, they getting from the Evangelicals who voting for Jesus, instead of the Mittster.
muddy
She makes that mean face and I find her chilling entirely. And not chill in a good way.
Davis X. Machina
@Bubblegum Tate: I decide every spring whether I get paid in the summer of the year following. Little form you fill in — 20 paychecks or 26. Same salary either way.
Peregrinus
@Davis X. Machina:
We’ve gone to a standardized 26-paycheck year where I work.
Of course, we’re private, so we don’t have a union. Just an informal “advocacy group.” Right up until we have to negotiate salary, at which point every Republican in the room becomes as loud as all those union thugs they proclaim have destroyed the public system.
PreservedKillick
Yeah, so Obama is touring New Jersey with Christie tomorrow.
https://www.facebook.com/HuffPostPolitics/posts/10151138867032911
Ahem.
You want a clear read on Romney’s electoral chances? There ya go.
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Sadly, if some of the election polling is any indication, it’s more than just 27%.
Yeah, the ones that bristle over the mere idea that they might be governed or given advice by someone who was not a Real American White Person(tm).
Applejinx
@catclub: Here is your horrified pony. (told her Romney was leading in ‘the polls’)
Oh, my, that Christie clip. I laughed so hard. First the expression, and then “I have no idea, nor am I the least bit concerned or interested.” I laughed SO hard.
Cassidy
@Davis X. Machina: But you’re not doing anything to earn those months! No long hours. No putting up with shitty parents not raising their kids. No putting up with that one teacher who’s snorting her kids ritalin and making the rest of you look bad. No putting up with that other fundie teacher or administrator who insists on making sure everything is in accordance with the baby jeebus. ZOMG! YOU DIDN’T EARN THAT THREE MONTHS!
Davis X. Machina
@Peregrinus: Familiar scene. I taught Catholic for years.
We had a bargaining unit, but it was stand-alone, no NEA or AFT affiliation. That meant ‘hire your own lawyers’. What we did have, for wages, was a fixed multiplier applied to the average of the six abutting public systems’ pay.. we negotiated the decimal, the BC/BS buyin, and that was about it.
It was contract language, not money as such, that usually caused us to go to the mattresses.
Soonergrunt
@Zandar: A small nit here–Michelle Obama doesn’t just want us to eat healthier, she wants us to take better care of military families, too.
Bubblegum Tate
@Davis X. Machina:
I know. It’s more than a little disturbing how many people don’t understand how that works, though. A lot of them, even once it’s explained how it’s the same amount of money either way, still say, “Yeah, well, they shouldn’t get any money in the summertime! They should have to give those paychecks back!”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Soonergrunt:
See! SHE’S A SOCIALIST!!!!!!!!!!!
Original Lee
@Davis X. Machina: Brought to you by teacher’s unions, too. My dad used to talk about how, back in the day, he got his entire year’s salary as a lump sum in mid-October, and that was it.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
BINGO.
Private and charter schools rank better because they can choose who attends. Public schools don’t have that luxury. So, comparing the one to the other is apples vs. oranges.
Only those with MAGIC WIZARD POWERZ could ever hope to make sense of it.
Ms. D. Ranged in AZ
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God: They loves them some charter schools here in AZ. But for the masses, F*ck the Poor, Public Schools are just fine. God I hate smug rich assholes like Queen Ann and RMoney
Zippity
@Violet: His comparison of the response to Sandy and Benghazi is spot on. We had plenty of notice for both events, right? No? Oh. Never mind! /snark
Gus
@pseudonymous in nc: He’ll have a heart attack by then.
Bostondreams
@PreservedKillick:
What gets me is that Massachusetts has some of the best public schools in the country, AND it is heavily unionized. Meanwhile, anti-union states below the MD line struggle.
These folks, if it doesn’t fit their narrative..
Scuffletuffle
@Disco: No way…not even with Chris Christie’s dick.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
You people need to stop picking on Ann! This is hard! She and Mitt just keep giving and giving, and they’ve given all they can!
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Mike G: Oh, classic reply by Christie to the stunned bobbleheads on Fox News upon being asked if he believes Romney will come visit New Jersey: “I have no idea, nor am I the least bit interested.” They looked too stunned to breathe….
Redleg
She’s been first lady of a state but has never held a job or developed expertise in any discipline. Why do we need to hear what she thinks is important?