Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in April 2017

The Great Slab of Trump

Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, the only Orc known to speak with a drawl, dwells in a dank and musty Manichean world with his loyal consorts, fear and paranoia.  That reality informs a Hobbesian vision of governance characterized by reduced oversight of police authorities, more private prisons, and a slavish dedication to keeping strangers out of the country.  He is President Trump’s pre-eminent policy enforcer and his world view has led him to bring dangerous simplicity and absolutism to policy issues that require analysis, nuance, insight, compassion, and a complex understanding incompatible with a Manichean worldview.

READ MORE HERE  >>>

Arizona’s Voucher Bill and the New Segregation

When the Arizona Legislature passed, and Governor Ducey signed Senate Bill 1431, they opened the door to a substantial replacement of public schooling with a taxpayer-supported system of private and parochial schools.  Proponents claim their objective was to maximize school choice, despite insufficient evidence it will improve educational outcomes.  Critics claim there is no improvement and the real purposes are to undermine teachers’ unions and dismantle the public school system in furtherance of an ideology that decries what some deride as “government schools.”  Whatever the consequences, there is a danger that has not received sufficient attention:  creation of a new system of segregated schools likely to be more expansive, insidious and dangerous than the segregation that led to Brown vs Board of Education.

READ MORE HERE >>>