Citizens beware: it doesn’t matter if you’re right – if you fail to toe the line, you’re wrong .
Lawmakers quietly eliminated a state office that was meant to review Florida education programs because the office was too often critical of state policy, critics of the move say.
Gov. Jeb Bush pushed for the elimination of the Council for Education Policy, Research and Improvement, and governor’s office officials and House Republicans said it was because other officials could do the council’s job.
Asked about the office’s elimination, Bush said this week, “I think they should be given a proper burial.”
The council was set up in 1980 by Gov. Bob Graham to evaluate college and university programs. Its duties were expanded in 2001.
The council recently pushed for a more costly prekindergarten program than state leaders approved and recommended spending more money on other programs to create new doctors instead of allowing universities to open new medical schools.
……Rep. Loranne Ausley, D-Tallahassee, criticized the move.
“This is a very dangerous path when you start eliminating the only objective, independent research arm that is there to give you objective analysis,” Ausley said.
CEPRI was a citizen board which seems to have agreed with about as many of Jeb!’s programs as they disagreed with – they were neither strident critics nor cheerleaders, and their refusal to support 100 percent of Jeb!’s agenda seems to have cost them their existence.
There is no compromising with zealots. They will take the smallest victories and turn them into precedents and toeholds and continue to claw and scrape until they get everything that they want. Then they’ll decide they need more.
Which leads us to the nuclear option. A power grab that seeks to silence the minority. Attempts to reach a compromise are ongoing and misguided.
If it goes down this way, it’s a huge loss for the Democrats. They will have put a bunch of extremists on the federal bench, and only preserved the right to filibuster in “extreme circumstances” and more importantly, only through the 109th Congress. All of the Supreme Court justices except perhaps Rehnquist can hold out until 2007 – and then the Republicans will make the same move to end the filibuster they are making now and we’ll be back at ground zero.
……Sometimes it’s better to just roll the dice. So everyone, whichever side you are on, call your senators and tell them, No Retreat, No Surrender.
Call your senators and call key GOP senators as well. This is important.
When I was a kid, I remember reading about how democracies ended. What surprised me was how often it was a peaceful takeover. Fascists took power in many places not through force, but through rigged elections, broken rules, and consolidation of power, all hidden behind flags and God and promises of glory.
Today, the fanatics who have seized the GOP are beginning their attempt to flagrantly defy a half-dozen Senate rules which have existed for generations in order to install federal judges more interested in ideology than legal precedent.
……If you haven’t already… if you live in RI, ME, OH, SC, NE, AZ, AK, OR, PA, or VA, some of your Senators might be the last best hope to hold the line against this “nuclear option” and unprecedented seizure of Senate power.
……Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island
(202) 224-2921Susan Collins, Maine
(202) 224-2523Mike Dewine, Ohio
(202) 224-2315Lindsey Graham, South Carolina
(202) 224-5972Chuck Hagel, Nebraska
(202) 224-4224John McCain, Arizona
(202) 224-2235Lisa Murkowski, Alaska
(202) 224-6665Gordon Smith, Oregon
(202) 224-3753Olympia Snowe, Maine
(202) 224-5344Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania
(202) 224-4254John Sununu, New Hampshire
(202) 224-2841John Warner, Virginia
(202) 224-2023
And while you’re dialing the phone, peruse The Top 10 filibuster falsehoods … (click the link for all the details I cut out)
Falsehood #1: Democrats’ filibuster of Bush nominees is “unprecedented”
Falsehood #2: Bush’s filibustered nominees have all been rated well-qualified by the ABA; blocking such highly rated nominees is unprecedented
Falsehood #3: Democratic obstructionism has led to far more judicial vacancies during Republican administrations than Democratic administrations
Falsehood #4: “Nuclear Option” is a Democratic term
Falsehood #5: Democrats oppose Bush nominees because of their faith, race, ethnicity, gender, stance on abortion, stance on parental notification …
Falsehood #6: Public opinion polling shows clear opposition to judicial filibusters, support for “nuclear option”
Falsehood #7: Filibustering judicial nominees is unconstitutional
Falsehood #8: Clinton’s appellate confirmation rate was far better than Bush’s rate
Falsehood #9: Sen. Byrd’s alterations to filibuster rules set precedent for “nuclear option”
Falsehood #10: Democrats have opposed “all” or “most” of Bush’s judicial nominees
Anytime a research entity works for or is funded by the very people they’re reporting to, there’s always finessing or outright fudging. There’s either enlightened leadership that wants to know about problems or improvements that can be made or management that just wants to maintain the power structure. There is a real, dangerous trend in this country toward ignorance of research and objectivity, let alone criticism and alternate perspectives.