Oh, the stupid. It "Berns!"

Gohmert: No STEM for Women - They "were created for one thing and one thing alone." (Correction addended)

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Texas Representative Louie Gohmert has just established himself as public enemy number one for women by publicly opposing H.R. 4742, a new bill that would increase federal support for entrepreneurial programs for women in STEM fields--science, technology, engineering, and math...

..."This program is designed to discriminate against that young, poverty-stricken boy and to encourage that girl.  Forget the boy.  Encourage the girl."

"And, you know, that's just not the way God intended us to be treating women.  I know that everybody is today talking about equality and we've got groups that are trying to make us believe that women are equal to men.  However, that's just not the case.  God didn't make us equal.  It is ourselves, we have created this illusion of equality.  And you want to know what the most powerful evidence of that there is?  Simple biology..."

"...Women were created for one thing and one thing alone.  We are insulting the Lord by allowing women to act like men.  Women are beautiful creatures, no doubt about that.  We marry them, we look after them, we provide for them and we love them, but that does not mean they are the same as us.  It is the job of a woman to stay at home, to maintain the household, to bear children and look after them after they're born.  Nowhere in the scriptures does it say that women should be chasing after fancy titles and knowledge.  The only knowledge they need is the one we men allow them to have."

eye'm thynkin':  You'll have to excuse me if I keep this short, but my head just exploded.

Republicans.  They just can't help themselves.

Read more at Bipartisan Report
You can watch Mr. Gohmert's entire speech here.

Addendum: An apology to my readers and to Mr. Gohmert.  

I try to be as accurate as humanly possible--that being said, I am in fact, human.  When I first read this story, I also checked other sites, sites that I trust, and at two of them I found the same quotes.  I listened to Mr. Gohmert's speech, and the first paragraph is quoted accurately.  I erred and assumed the other quotes were from other sources.  And so I reported it.

Yesterday, an anonymous reader said he thought it was satire.  So I did more checking and found the quotes on one other trusted site.  I checked one more place and finally found that the last two paragraphs actually were originally written as satire--the type of excellent satire that cleaves so closely to the truth that the boundaries are blurred.  The best satire is, after all, firmly rooted in reality.

Thank you to my anonymous reader for making me look further; but, think about this, how hard was it, in light of the GOP's attitude toward women in general, to accept this as true?  I realize that by misreporting this, I may have added to the anti-woman aura that swirls around today's Republican Party; but, really, they don't need my help. It's clear enough from the one paragraph that is completely accurate that Mr. Gohmert would prefer  women  always come second.

Stories from My Political Pollution Page on Facebook

--1--

m'eye thoughts:  How, how, HOW could he and his fellow Republicans not see this coming?

"North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory's life since he passed the new (Anti-Gay) Law HB2, has been less than stellar.  The avalanche of backlash from social media and business leaders came to a head this week when the threat of boycott turned into a reality.  Here is a short list of what went down..."

Read more at Liberal America

--2--

Matt Bevin (R), a man with no experience in government, was sworn in as Governor of Kentucky in January, 2016.  Just a month later, in February, he had already made himself so unpopular that a petition to impeach him was circulating the state.  Now this.

So, how's that governor thing going so far, Matt?

Read more at WDRB

More Stories I Originally Posted at Political Pollution

--1--

m'eye thoughts:  Education is overrated.

The bill would also make those members eligible to serve as Missouri associate or circuit court judges.

For when you're voted out of office and a career in lobbying just won't do?

Read more at Bipartisan Report

--2--

Mr. Combover could make P.T. Barnum blush.

Maybe he realizes that a job on Fox is not going to happen for him, so he's looking to replace Pat Robertson?

Read more at Liberal America

--3--

1 . Great!  Now he wants to turn America into the United States of Nazi China.

2.  Do you wonder if these Republicans who are endorsing Trump have a death wish and are secretly hoping their party goes down with a major case of whoop-*ass in November?  What can they possibly be thinking?

Read more at Addicting Info

Is This a Texas Approved History Workbook Page?

Last October I wrote about the Texas State School Board approving a history textbook that identified slaves as "immigrant workers."  

In November I shared how the school board said they would be be "fixing" these types of problems, not by using outside experts to vet their books, but by handpicking their own experts, experts they deem to possess "sufficient content expertise and experience." 

Update:

I came across this photo several days ago.  The person who posted it did not identify where or when it was taken and did not respond to my question about its origin.  I cannot help but wonder if this isn't a workbook page that teachers are using with that Texas approved history text.

I am appalled all over again.

Marcus Sakey's BRILLIANCE, Texas, and Me

I have written quite a bit about the state of education in Texas, most recently in story #2 here.

That being said, I just have to share this:

I opened a new book last night.  It's the first in a dystopian trilogy about "normal" humans who are in conflict with a small subset of humans called "Brilliants."  

Just a few paragraphs in, I came across this sentence:  "Sure, because there are no brilliants in Texas."

I shot tea out my nose.

February 9 - Two Stories I Originally Posted at Political Pollution

--1--

"As the men were being removed from the building by police offices, Cruz noted that the interruption was an 'odd thing.'  'Usually lefties don't believe in God,' Cruz quipped."

eye'm thynkin':  With those five little words, Ted Cruz managed to insult everyone from the Pope to the lady who runs the food program at the church across the street from my house.

Maybe he meant "lefties don't believe in HIS God."  And that's okay, because all the lefties I know prefer the God of Love over the hateful diety apparently being embraced by the Republican Party.

Read more at Raw Story

--2--

The dinosaurs became extinct because Noah took only babies on the Ark, climate change is a hoax thought up by Karl Marx, President Obama was a homosexual prostitute who sold drugs to support his drug habit, the Affordable Care Act is a UN conspiracy to eliminate 200M people from the U.S...

Retired teacher and
candidate for
Texas State Bd. of Ed.
Mary Lou Bruner

She sounds like a perfect fit for the state school board that ok'd a history book in which slaves were identified as "immigrant workers."

Read more at TFN Insider

Kansas Bill Would Allow Teachers to Be Prosecuted for Teaching Stuff the Legislature Doesn't Like

Kansas State Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook

Kansas Republicans are pushing for a bill that would allow teachers to face criminal prosecution if they teach students material they consider harmful, the Wichita Eagle reports.

The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R), stems from a controversy over a poster in a Shawnee Mission public school district in which a poster reading, "How do people express their sexual feelings?"  The poster listed "oral sex" and other acts, the Eagle reports...

Pilcher-Cook said "state laws should protect parents' rights to safeguard our children against harmful materials, especially in schools."...

...Proponents of the bill said they were outraged the sex education poster was displayed "without fear."

eye'm thynkin':  These people would prefer that sex education not include anything about sex?  Because knowledge about sex is harmful?  Or scares them?

Maybe they would prefer that the next Republican lawmaker who is outed for sexual misconduct (we haven't had one this week, so we're due) be brought in as an object lesson instead.  You know, to explain why sex is bad for your career...or something.

Read more at Raw Story

Ted Cruz' Virginia Co-Chair: Secular Education is 'Deception of the Seed'

"Cynthia Dunbar, who brags that she tried to correct a 'biblically illiterate society' during her tenure on the Texas State Board of Education, now works at Liberty University and serves as co-chair of (Ted Cruz') campaign in Virginia...

...In a speech broadcast last week on (David) Barton's 'Wallbuilder's Live' program, Dunbar explained her obsession with the Genesis passage in which God vows to create hostility between Eve and the serpent who deceived her.

'It's what I call the seed policy,' Dunbar said. 'If you think about it, every major social issue you're encountering as legislators actually directs back to what it talks about in Genesis. "If I would put enmity between you and the seed of the woman." Because what happens, what is abortion? Abortion is the destruction of the seed.  What is homosexuality?  It is the prevention of the seed.  And what is education? It is potential deception of the seed.'"

eye'm thynkin': As my husband said when I read this to him, "And then there is the bad seed."

Ms. Dunbar is so wrapped up in her zealotry that she is totally unaware that what she is advocating is nothing less than a duplication of the education system in the Middle East.

 "Christians" like Ms. Dunbar will not be happy until secular knowledge is all but eradicated and every other religion in America is subjugated to Christianity.  The more I hear from the "Christian" -right, the more I am convinced these people don't really hate Shariah Law, they envy it.   What they really want is a Christ-iah Law of their own.

Read more at Raw Story

Arizona: Not Quite As Stupid as Texas, But They're Trying!

Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen

"An Arizona lawmaker who believes the earth is only 6,000 years old and that the U.S. government regularly sprays its citizens with mind-controlling chemtrails has been selected to lead an Arizona legislative committee overseeing education.

Sen. Sylvia Allen (R)...was selected by fellow Republican and Senate president Andy Biggs to chair the Arizona Senate Education Committee...

...According to AZ Central, Allen attended high school but did not go to college...

...In March, Allen made national news when she derailed a discussion about gun legislation to suggest a law that forces Americans to go to church on Sundays.

In March 2013, she wrote an addled Facebook post about her belief the government was purposely poisoning its citizens with chemicals sprayed by airplanes, confusing white contrails left by aircraft with chemical trails.

'Okay, I do not want to get into a debate about weather.  However, I know what I see weekly up here on the flat where I live... The planes usely (sic), three or four, fly a grid across the sky and leave long white trails streaming behind them.  I have watched the chem-trails move out until the entire sky is covered with flimsy, thin cloud cover,' she wrote."

eye'm thynkin':  Maybe Ms. Allen is right about those chemtrails.  The regular distribution of a cloud of Keep'em Stupid Gas would explain why the state legislature believed it was a good idea to turn leadership of an important state education committee over to someone with who never made it past the 12th grade, who can't spell the word "usually," and who has never heard of the separation of church and state.  

It has to be the chem-trails--this degree of stupid just isn't found in the natural world.

Read more at Raw Story

Update: Diversity Shouldn't Require Justification

On December 10, I wrote about Justice Antonin Scalia and his ridiculous argument that black students lack the ability to succeed at elite universities.

Also on record during those arguments before the Court were remarks by Chief Justice John Roberts who questioned the value of diversity in some instances, specifically whether black students would add anything to the classroom experience in, for example, a physics class.  These were remarks that I did not address in my blog post.

Update:

Yesterday, the New York Times published a response from Jedidah C. Isler, a National Science Foundation astronomy and astrophysics postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University.  In it, she asked two questions that, in my perfect world, would stop the conservative Justices in their tracks.  
(The underline is mine.)

Last week during oral arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case about the constitutionality of race-conscious admissions policies, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. posed two questions: "What unique perspective does a minority student bring to a physics class?"  Followed by: "I'm just wondering what the benefits of diversity are in that situation?"... 

...As a black woman and astrophysicist, I immediately became defensive of my own worthiness... 

...The truly damaging part of Chief Justice Roberts's question is the tacit implication that black students must justify their presence at all. 

Black students' responsibility in the classroom is not to serve as "seasoning" to the academic soup.  They do not function primarily to enrich the learning experience of white students.  Black students come to the physics classroom for the same reason white students do; they love physics and want to know more.  Do we require that white students justify their presence in the classroom?  Do we need them to bring something other than their interest?...

eye'm thynkin':  Game, set, and match to Jedidah Isler.

You can read Ms. Isler's entire Op-Ed article here

December 11 - More Stores You'll Find at Political Pollution

1 - Texas Students' Painfully Stupid Answers to Political Questions Will Make Your Head Hurt (video)

m'eye thoughts: They don't know who won the Civil War? Or from whom we gained our independence?  Really?  How in the name of all things holy did these people ever make it out of elementary school?

2 -  Democratic Leaders Eye Executive Action on Guns

An idea that is long over due.

Go to Political Pollution 

Update: Texas Board of Education "Fixes?" Its Textbook Problem

Last month I wrote a post about the Texas Board of Education approving a history book that identified slaves as "immigrant workers."

Update:
After that embarrassing fiasco, the Texas Board of Education decided to do something about their "inaccuracies"...but not in a good way.

"A few enterprising school board members proposed a new measure that would ask academic experts to read over textbooks and correct any factual errors before students get their hands on bad information.  Unsurprisingly, the majority Republican Texas Board of Education crushed the proposal.

Despite their dismal track record, board members said they didn't need an additional panel to help them craft their textbooks.  And in fact, in the wake of the measure's defeat, they decided to tweak existing protocol to give the board even more power to screw with history and science.  Rather than go to the internationally recognized experts, the board says it will handpick a group of 'experts' that they personally deem to have 'sufficient content expertise and experience.'"

eye'm thynkin':  This is the state whose governor chose a homeschooling creationist to head the state's education system, so I would expect the "stupid" to continue unabated under the Board's new plan.

Read more at Addicting Info

Ben Carson: Freedom of Speech Should Be a Two-Tier Right

what eye thynk:  Ben Carson seems to be having a little trouble understanding the First Amendment.  It appears he believes it is there to protect his right to say anything he wants, and that includes stopping the rest of us from disagreeing with him.  

The chronology of his statements on freedom of speech and political correctness make for interesting reading.

2012, during an interview at Patrick Henry College: "(People) need to rise up, they need to say to political correctness: 'Take a hike.  This is who we are, this is what we believe in..."

2013, in an interview with Star Parker, founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education:  "(One) thing we have to realize is we're being crucified by political correctness--because you're not supposed to say anything to that young woman who's having a baby out of wedlock, because 'that lifestyle is equivalent to any other lifestyle.'"

2014, speaking at CPAC: "It's time for people to stand up and proclaim for what they believe and stop being bullied...(Common sense has) been beaten into submission (by the) PC police."

2014, during an interview on BreitbartTV, after being criticized for comparing the U.S. to Nazi Germany:  "We now live in a society where people are afraid to say what they actually believe.  And it's because of the PC police, it's because of politicians, it's because of news.  All of these things are combining to stifle people's conversation.  The reason that is so horrible is because the only way you have harmony and reach a consensus is by talking."

February 2015, talking to Bill O'Reilly:  "We need to be in a place where people feel free to express themselves and not to be intimidated by political correctness.  It's destroying our nation, and there is a reason that our founders, one of the very first amendments, freedom of speech, freedom of expression."

September 2015, speaking on a Michigan university campus:  "Political correctness is imposed by the secular progressives and those who wish to fundamentally change our society.  Therefore, they make things off limits to talk about..."

October 2015, talking to Glen Beck who asked whether Mr. Carson would eliminate the Department of Education as other GOP candidates have proposed:  "I actually have something I would use the Department of Education to do.  It would be to monitor our institutions of higher education for extreme political bias and deny federal funding if it exists." 

It is interesting that he made so many of his calls for an end to bullying opposing views into silence through political correctness at schools and universities or while discussing issues of education, but then says he'd use the Department of Education to silence political discourse in places where education is supported by federal funds.

So, is he trying to say that, if you attend a publicly funded school or university you will be expected to give up your First Amendment rights?  Is he proposing an America where only those affluent enough to afford a private school education would be permitted the right to an opinion of our political system?

During a town hall meeting in Des Moines, a student asked President Obama about candidate Carson's plan for the U.S. Department of Education.  The President replied, "I have no idea what that means, and I suspect he doesn't either."

Aaaannnnd mic drop.

I missed Banned Books Week last week...

...but this still needs to be shared.

Textbook Teaches Slaves Were "Immigrant Workers" - Keeping America Stupid, One Child at a Time

"McGraw-Hill's textbook, 'World Geography'...erased slavery by calling slaves 'workers' and including them in the section 'Patterns of Immigration.'  One example of the text: 'The Atlantic Slave Trade between the 1500s and 1800s brought millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.'

Roni Dean-Burren, who taught English for more than a decade and is now a doctoral candidate at the University of Houston, pointed out that the language of 'worker' suggests compensation and 'immigration' suggests that people weren't kidnapped and brought to North America against their will.  She first learned about the textbook section when her son sent her a photo of the text...

...McGraw-Hill responded...'We believe we can do better...To communicate these facts more clearly, we will update this caption to describe the arrival of African slaves in the U.S. as a forced migration and emphasize that their work was done as slave labor.'...

...Dean-Burren points to wider criticism of the textbook industry...which is mostly based in Texas (and where) the Texas State Board of Education (approves all) textbooks.

...Books that received approval were more likely to be produced on a larger scale, (so) the Texas textbook market (in essence becomes) the national textbook market."

eye'm thynkin':  I knew the Texas State School Board had given itself the right to suggest changes and to give final approval to all public school textbooks in exchange for Texas' textbook publishers providing their books to the state's school districts at no cost. (Profits were expected to be maintained by selling the identical books in other states.).  It was reported that the Texas Board was putting a conservative "Christian" slant on what our young people learn.  But this goes beyond anything I imagined.  This is shameful in the extreme. 

McGraw-Hill promises to "update" the caption.  School districts don't buy new textbooks every year, so one has to wonder how many thousands of our children will learn that slavery was a "worker immigration" movement before McGraw-Hill's updates make their way into our classrooms?

Read more at Think Progress

Republicans Will Say Anything for a Sound Byte

what eye thynk:  The Republican Party is only too happy to tell the poor and middle class that the fastest way to balance a family budget is to be willing to raise our incomes by getting a second job or working longer hours.  

At the same time, in a classic case of do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do, Republicans look at federal and state  budgets and, being too afraid to buck their big money backers and risk losing their own cushy positions, refuse to consider raising government income through higher taxes in order to balance government budgets. Instead, they continue to campaign on cutting costs, reducing spending, and eliminating the unnecessary (Translation: social programs.). 

Individual members of the GOP 17 (18?) continue to attempt to stand out from the crowd with ever more revealing choices for government agency eliminations.

 1.  Marco Rubio (R) was in Nevada this week where he floated the idea that, when it comes to educating our young people, curriculum and standards should be left to the states.   "I honestly think we don't need a Department of Education."

I can only imagine how the U.S. would look if state politicians were to be given full reign over education.  Liberal states would be producing educated young people ready to live in a modern and increasingly scientific world while the South would be awash in evangelical preachers, Biblical scholars and climate deniers. Of course, being unable to come to a consensus on climate change, the rest of the world would move on, leaving us alone to struggle against rising ocean levels.  

There might be one positive outcome: the South would be geographically smaller.  Florida and Louisiana, in particular, would see large pieces of real estate disappear under rising waters.  When the people there find themselves crowded into territories the size of Rhode Island, they can all move to Texas where the Lone Star State Board of Education will be only too happy to show them their latest history text, particularly the chapter that explains Obama did it.

(Digression over.)

Of course, dismantling the Department of Education seems a logical cost-cutting measure to the GOP where education in total is so universally underrated.  

And, incidentally, Mr. Rubio's college education was paid for through Pell Grants and Stafford Loans, both of which are administered by the Department of Education.  More Republican "I've-got-mine-so-you're-on-your-own" think.

2.  Ben Carson (R) was a guest on a national radio show late last month where he floated the idea that "We don't need a Department of Veterans Affairs."

Because caring for the men and women who risk their lives to keep America free is such a waste of government money?  

Several of the GOP 17/18 have said they would like to "fix" our VA hospital system by issuing vouchers to our veterans and leaving them on their own to find health care; but Mr. Carson is the first one to suggest wiping the agency completely off the books.

War is expensive, but Republicans love war.  Nothing gets their blood pumping like the chance to rumble some tanks and drop some bombs; so Ben Carson wants to put aside money for the next invasion instead of having to spend it caring for people who can no longer be counted as viable armament.

John Biedrzyck, head of the Veterans of Foreign Wars responded, "To suggest that desabled veterans could be sent out into the economy with a health savings account card...presupposes that civilian doctors have the same skill sets as VA doctors."

A Military Times report said Carson's idea was "a misguided notion born from ignorance."

It is obvious that being Commander in Chief is not brain surgery.

Update: John Kasich and Ohio's Worsening Record on Education

Governor John Kasich at the Republican Presidential Primary Debate on August 6

Last month, I wrote about Ohio Governor John Kasich (R). I listed my likes and dislikes with an emphasis on Dislike #8:  the way failing charter schools had their "F" ratings expunged from reports in order to make them look better so those who run them (and who are, not incidentally, the state's largest political donors) could receive more state money.

Today, a friend pointed me to an article published by The Washington Post that puts an even worse light on education in my state of Ohio.

Update:

One of the key tenets of Mr. Kasich's education reform for Ohio has been expanding charter schools--despite the fact that the state's charter schools are reportedly the most troubled in the entire country. 

what eye thynk:  Hiding failing ratings and giving the same charter school operators more money to fail bigger is not the way to fix this problem.

Ohio's public schools enroll 90 percent of the state's students.  But under Mr. Kasich's stewardship, public school funding has gone down by half a billion dollars.  During the same period, charter schools have seen their funding increase by 27 percent. In fact, the state now gives charter schools more public funds per student than traditional public schools.  And still, Ohio's charter schools are rated below public schools.

Mr. Kasich also continues to push for making more public money, in the form of vouchers, to be used at private schools, most of which have religious affiliations. In 2010, the year before Kasich became Ohio's head executive, the state spent $99 million in public funds to pay for private school tuition. In 2014, the amount was $200 million.

I have never supported public money being used to pay for private, religious schooling.  If you want your child to attend a school run by a church, be prepared to pay for it yourself.  My tax dollars should not be used to guarantee your child has Bible studies as part of his curriculum. 

In an apparent brush-off  of 200+ years of the separation of church and state, Mr. Kasich forced his support for a religious influence in Ohio's education system when he made known a more detailed list of requirements in a bill designed to create a student mentoring program. The bill said a school could partner with a business, civic OR faith-based community to set up the program and receive state funds to finance it.  When Mr. Kasich announced a more detailed list of requirements, that "OR" had become "AND." Any public school requesting money from the state's student mentoring program is now required to include  a church or faith-based organization. 

He has insisted on evaluating teachers based on standardized test scores in math and reading even though experts have warned that his method is so unreliable as to be judged invalid.

None of his ideas seem to be working.  A recent White House report calculated that the achievement gap between the highest performing schools and those at the lowest level is larger than the national average.

His latest gambit seems to be changing the way the state can take over a school district they see as "failing."  A new and controversial bill gives CEO-type power to the mayor of a city whose school district has received a failing grade from the state.  With it, the mayor can override educator union contracts, strip power from voter-elected school boards, and appoint school board members of his own choosing.  

The Ohio House and Senate held hearings, debated and passed this bill in just one day in what critics are calling a secretive process.  Governor Kasich signed the bill into law in July.

Perhaps inspired by Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker, secondary education has also been targeted by Mr. Kasich.  He spoke with The Columbus Dispatch following a meeting with presidents of Ohio's two- and four-year state colleges and universities, "I reserve the right...to say that with the course of the next year, if they do not enact these changes...I think you just start cutting funding and tell them to deal with it."

That's Governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich's way of saying "My way or the highway"--a pretty typical attitude in today's GOP.  

Nothing to get upset about in this case.  After all, it's only public education. Vouchers are still available to those willing to pray where they learn--though the Governor does not guarantee that your child's education will necessarily improve by the introduction of Jesus into his or her school day.