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Showing posts with label Jeb Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jeb Bush. Show all posts

Monday, October 14, 2013

re Common Core - FL Dept. of Education's public meeting in Broward Wednesday re Gov. Scott's "Plan for Education Accountability" just got a whole lot more interesting -a pro-Common Core supporter and Jeb Bush "insider" just resigned; IVBE President Charlotte Greenbarg urges Gov. Scott to stay strong AGAINST Common Core; @JeremySWallace, @fineout

















But today.. former Jeb Bush Chief of Staff and Ed Board member Sally Bradshaw says, "No Más."








Hmm-m... this immediately makes that Broward meeting of theirs much-more interesting now.

"The Florida Department of Education will be taking public input on mathematics and 
language arts standards in Florida, in accordance with the request that accompanied 
Governor Rick Scott's recent executive order regarding a Plan for Education Accountability."

Wednesday, October 16  5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Broward College - Davie Campus
Bailey Concert Hall - Building 4
3501 SW Davie Road
Davie

More information here:  http://flstandards.org/
Email comments on the standards to flstandards@fldoe.org

Based on how these sorts of things have gone around the country, my free and unsolicited advice to any of you attending this or future meetings is: Beware of politically-motivated "experts" saying things that aren't quite true Like the one depicted here:

Education Views blog
Common Core ‘specialist:’ National standards are necessary to combat birthers and Bill O’Reilly
Posted by Jimmy Kilpatrick on October 8, 2013 
http://www.educationviews.org/common-core-specialist-national-standards-are-necessary-to-combat-birthers-and-bill-oreilly/
By the way, Common Core standards are supposedly only for math and English. Why does a school district have a “Common Core science specialist”?
Now there's a question for Jeb Bush and his friends.
http://www.floridatrend.com/article/16270/floridas-think-tanks--heavy-hitters

-----

This afternoon, my friend and fellow Broward County civic activist Charlotte Greenbarg, president of the education reform group Independent Voices for Better Education, sent the following email to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and gave me permission to post it here for your edification:



Dear Governor Scott,
Attached is IVBE's position paper on Common Core. We urge you to disengage Florida from this untested, intrusive and non-validated scheme.
The Brookings Institution/Brown Center's report cites the uselessness of Common Core.

 Sincerely,

 Charlotte Greenbarg
President, IVBE

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Prescient blogger Mickey Kaus is reading my mind again: "Psst, @SenMarcoRubio: Don't even bother showing up in Iowa"; "Pew shows blacks favor "enforcement first" approach--way off the Dem reservation on that, basically in line w/ GOPs"; Meanwhile The Hill reports "Schumer predicts mass demonstrations if House blocks path to citizenship"; pro-amnesty Miami Herald goes an entire week without publishing anything critical of immigration bill they favor











Whatever you do, don't wake-up FL-24 Rep. Frederica Wilson and tell her that last bit of news. She doesn't want to have to say anything about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill until after she gets her talking points from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.  

 More Mickey at http://dailycaller.com/author/mickeykaus/

Here's some more of what you WON'T be reading about the Schumer-Rubio immigration bill in the Miami Herald or the South Florida Sun-Sentinel this week, or seeing presented fairly on newscasts of CBS4, NBC6, 7News or Local10 News at 6 and 11 p.m. 
And what you WON'T be reading about any of the various amendments or fig-leafs that will never be enforced.

 Not that the smart readers among you didn't already know this, or haven't since connected the dots over the past week after realizing how truly unprofessional the Miami Herald and its management and editors have been by having a news blackout on the Ryan Lizza column and Rubio and Alex Conant.
But for the rest of you, do you not see how the local South Florida press corps is completely snowing you, and almost daring you to call them on what they've done.

Try to find the words Lizza, Corker or Hoeven on these websites for May or June of 2013 re immigration, especially written by a local reporter.
Nice and thorough, Miami-style: nothing.
It's like they did a body-dump by driving out to the Everglades and dropped the facts into the swamp, assuming the gators would eat all the evidence.

 http://miami.cbslocal.com/

Local10, http://www.local10.com/ is the only one of the four with anything to speak of, and none of what appears there is local, just written AP dispatches.
So none of it was ever actually telecast.
So it's little more than useless, too.




















On Sunday afternoon, I left this comment at the Tampa Bay Times website regarding Alex Leary's story on Friday about Sen. Jeff Sessions and his efforts at telling the truth about the myriad amendments and what Rubio and the Gang of Eight are trying to do -buy off senators with promises that the Congress has no intention of keeping in the future.

 Tampa Bay Times
Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions driven in opposition to immigration reform bill
Alex Leary, Times Washington Bureau Chief
Friday, June 21, 2013 11:20am
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/national/alabama-sen-jeff-sessions-the-fierce-unrelenting-opponent-of-immigration/2127863

At some point, Alex, you and the other political/govt. reporters at the Times are going to have to have a serious pow-wow amongst yourselves about your news partner, the Miami Herald.
Have to reconcile yourselves with the larger real world consequences of the fact that even while all sorts of things have been going on this past week on Capitol Hill with the immigration bill and the various amendments and fig-leafs intended to get more GOP support, matters that can have been mentioned at all of of the major political websites and blogs, and via Twitter, the zealously pro-amnesty Miami Herald has been engaging in a policy of deliberate censorship.A news blackout against anything and everything that has come out publicly that is negative about the Schumer-Rubio bill, esp. in Ryan Lizza's column in the The New Yorker about Sen. Rubio and his aide, Alex Conant. No, never is heard a discouraging word.
Instead of trying to stay on top of things for its readers as you'd expect, the Herald has gone the exact opposite route -to keep their own readers in the dark by making sure that nothing about it gets into print or is mentioned publicly in their political blog, Naked Politics. Your Tuesday blog post was NOT co-listed there -for obvious reasons. Because it publicly raised questions about just what was in that column of Lizza's, specifically, Alex Conant's comments which would not have gone down so well in Northwest Miami.
That is precisely what the Herald's current management and editors don't want to see publicly brought up or discussed. especially anything that reflects poorly or Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, almost as if the Herald is now their publicists.Nope, the only things that get into print re S.744 are positive things about immigration -no mention about what the true purposes of the various amendments and fig-leafs are and what groups and industries are pushing them -any why.
Nothing like this fair-minded piece of yours today re what Sen. Sessions wants to do.
There's YOUR news partner at work.
Engaged in a deliberate news blackout against anything that is contrary to their editorial stand on immigration.
Very late Sunday night the Herald posted the Leary story online at  http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/23/3467046/rubios-steadfast-immigration-reform.html

 It's NOT like this is the first time that the Miami Herald has gone into full-spin control to protect Marco Rubio once he was elected to the U.S. Senate, either:

 The Atlantic Wire
Miami Herald Is Better at Marco Rubio Damage Control Than Rubio
By John Hudson
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/10/miami-herald-better-marco-rubio-damage-control-rubio/43990/
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Friday, June 21, 2013

Now starting #newsblackout Day 5 at Miami Herald re Ryan Lizza's New Yorker column & Marco Rubio; Tampa Bay Times gave up Tues., Orlando Sentinel on Wednesday; Miami, often still barely part of America, and almost completely journalism-free this Summer.

musha hadeen YouTube Channel: Syndicated radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh discussed the fact that the old cliché about U.S. Big Business always supporting the Republican party is no longer true, and explains why that has changed. "At the root of this is money." Exactly. 
Now, instead of publicly fighting government encroachment and red-tape, Big Business supports and even depends upon Big Government programs -and the cheap loans that they can receive via crony capitalism. It's for this reason and many others -including cheap labor in places like Florida- that Big Business is now so intent on pressuring the GOP to pass the pro-amnesty Schumer-Rubio immigration bill, S.744, or else risk getting no campaign contributions in the future. This has led been led by many large and powerful GOP donors who have become conditioned to getting their way because of their money -and the GOP consultant class that are always hip to act morally superior and act as go-betweens for the folks with big checkbooks! Now both groups are acting like they are the ones who are casting the votes, not Congress, not unlike lots of schlocky films of the '70's involving political intrigue, mindless conspiracies and a basic premise that business people owned elected officials. 
Rush Limbaugh mentions GE, the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson by name as examples of this elite class who are pushing hard for amnesty for all 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., regardless of what it actually does to the country and whether it actually solves any problems. That's OUR problem, not theirs!
Uploaded June 17, 2013. http://youtu.be/_jzVx8QTGJU

Whether you're a conservative, moderate or liberal, this far-ranging discussion is by far the most-accurate thing that has been broadcast on U.S. radio so far this year, and yet I'm sure it was quite upsetting to many of his listeners across the country who weren't quite prepared to believe it when Rush said it. 
Yes, it looks like many of his millions of listeners will have to let go of their old ways of thinking and quickly adapt  their political calculations and accept that the political world hasn't just changed, but changed dramatically as a result of what is being attempted by the GOP Establishment.
Time to push those old clichés out the door and see the world for what it truly is -full of opportunistic, know-it-alls who in some cases are Republican-leaning business people -and their hired hands- who want pols to sell their principles in exchange for their campaign checks, leaving you to have to watch from the sidelines. 

 As most of you who have been paying attention know, the Once Upon a Time decent-but-never-great Miami Herald has really fallen down the journalism rabbit hole the past 15 years, due largely to some consistently poor management, a lack of commitment to quality local reporting and an abject refusal to evolve with the times and give customers the sort of compelling original content they want about the area they live in.

The sad reality for me is that they cover Cuba about as much if not more than they cover Broward County where I live, less than 14 miles north of where the Heat played the Spurs Thursday night in downtown Miami. 

As I've stated here on the blog before, Broward County is largely terra incognita to the Herald, especially now at their new HQ in the make-believe city of Doral, the city of warehouses and persistent street flooding that strands citizens and commerce even worse than in Hallandale Beach.

That has been even more the case as the paper has cut back on frontline reporting personnel, and in my opinion, keeping more of the problems instead of trading them out for fresh eyes that can see what's right in front of them.

Real Clear Politics
Top 10 Newspapers in Trouble
#4 Miami Herald
05.22.12, 08:54 AM CDT

I mention this because the Herald's longstanding pro-amnesty bias, obvious for quite some time, regardless of the facts or the circumstance, has allowed their other biases on behalf of Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, that is, ONCE THEY GOT ELECTED to Tallahassee and D.C., to again cloud their news judgment and any claim to news objectivity.

In case you forgot, I commend to you, 
The Atlantic Wire
Miami Herald Is Better at Marco Rubio Damage Control Than Rubio
By John Hudson

Here's what I posted early Thursday morning
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/republican-votes-for-gang-of-eight.html
Republican votes for the Gang of Eight immigration bill continue to fall away even 
as the Miami Herald continued their news blackout for a third day regarding Ryan
Lizza's New Yorker column and the truth about S.744, and the bad news for Marco
Rubio and the newspaper continues apace, as the truth about both continues to seep
out over the Internet

It's the perfect book-end to Wednesday.

Yes, lots of genuine frustration that an important public policy issue that directly affects this area of the country more than any 95% of the U.S., negatively in my opinion, is being completely ignored -on purpose

Not surprisingly, this being South Florida, and the Summer, it's not like the four English-language TV stations are doing anything to fill the news vacuum.
They've done nothing about it and are, in fact, resorting to their usual summer habits: -either sleepwalking or taking a siesta for the whole summer.

But don't worry, they'll wake-up and pretend they're serious reporters again around Labor Day, esp. if it looks like a hurricane may pass thru South Florida.
Yes, then they are all Edward R. Murrow speaking gravely into their microphone.

In fact, Thursday night, even given the unique circumstances of the NBA Finals, during 90 minutes of ABC's Miami affiliate, WPLG's newcast from 5-6:30, other than the 4 breaks for weather updates, the only non-Miami Heat story was the George Zimmerman trial.
That's the whole list.

(I even watched it again on my DVR before writing this just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.)

Miami, often still barely part of America, and almost completely journalism-free this Summer.
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Friday, June 14, 2013

"Fertile" territory for media bias! Or, that's why it's the Miami Herald -and is shedding longtime readers! Former Florida governor Jeb Bush makes some nonsensical comments on Friday morning in hopes of passing the amnesty-first immigration bill, but while MSM and blogosphere duly write about what he said and give it due attention, the Miami Herald wouldn't post the story and leave it visible on their website for hours -like they'd do if other pols had said same thing -like Rick Scott for instance

Above, what the Miami Herald's webpage looked like shortly before 11 p.m. Friday.

On a day when an embarrassing and nonsensical comment by former Florida governor Jeb Bush was one of the top political stories of the day as judged by the country's political class and blogosphere, guess which Florida newspaper has nothing about it on the front page of their website, even while continuing to carry a story at the top of their website about Brit boy band One Direction?
Yes, the Miami Herald.
Surprise!

More than 12 hours after The National Journal has posted their story using some informed tweets, 

Jeb Bush Says Immigrants Are 'More Fertile,' Twitter Gets Mad
By Ben Terris and Matt Berman
Updated: June 14, 2013 | 10:34 a.m. 
June 14, 2013 | 10:24 a.m
http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/jeb-bush-says-immigrants-are-more-fertile-twitter-gets-mad-20130614 

you literally couldn't find the story by examining what appears on the Herald's landing page.

Another example of the Florida news media running interference for the darling of the GOP East Coast Establishment and Florida's influential low-wage agribusiness industry, and a scenario that keen-eyed observers have seen time and again at the Herald the past ten years as its era of genuine relevancy in the community recedes farther and farther back in time and memory.

But then the Herald has long treated Jeb Bush differently than it does other pols in Florida -that is, once he finally got elected governor.
Typical media suck-ups.

By the way, who, exactly, is going to be persuaded to support this bill, S.744, because some self-serving and over-rated politician says that female immigrants are fertile?
That's a very, very weird thing to say aloud and makes you wonder what would have happened if some quick-witted reporter had asked him how he knew that.

I'd like to meet those people, or rather, I'd like the Florida news media to try to seriously try to find even one person in this state who is convinced by Bush's comment to change positions.
Just one person.
You couldn't find one, which makes Bush's comments even more asinine and queer.
This guy could NOT win an argument to save his life -or our country's..

If current Florida governor Rick Scott had said something along these lines, that story would've been the lead story on Friday night's six o'clock TV newscasts in Miami and be parked at the top of the Herald webpage for days on end, full of feigned outrage by liberals and La Raza about "the hurtful comments."

But yet again with Jeb Bush, someone I'd never vote for, and someone too weird, off-putting and self-serving for my tastes -to say nothing of his being very, very over-rated as a policy person- the Miami Herald gives him another hall pass.

Here's where the Herald buried the story
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/14/3451208/jeb-bush-america-will-decline.html

 And if you're paying attention, you'll see that it was an AP reporter doing the story on the former Florida governor, not even one of the Times/Herald reporters or a McClatchy reporter in D.C.
Now that's embarrassing!

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Friday, February 15, 2013

re Marco Rubio: Oh dear! Another predictable Beth Reinhard paint-by-numbers piece on Rubio in The National Journal, full of the usual resume/personality recitals. I'll bet I can guess what Reinhard will say about him before reading it. Yes, and so can you! That's the whole problem -Reinhard writes about Rubio by rote; Where's the plan for positive changes at McClatchy's Miami Herald -still missing!

U.S. Senate longshot candidate Marco Rubio in Hallandale Beach, FL at Southeast Broward Republican Club. June 23, 2009 photo by South Beach Hoosier. © 2013 Hallandale Beach Blog, All Rights Reserved

The National Journal
POLITICS
Can Marco Rubio Live Up to the Hype?
He's the GOP's Barack Obama, a fresh-faced politician with an immigrant name, a playlist full of rap, and a collection of fawning press clips. The challenge: He's selling the same old party message.
By Beth Reinhard
Updated: February 14, 2013 | 8:50 p.m. 
February 14, 2013 | 8:20 p.m.
The freshman senator from Florida had joined four veteran colleagues to unveil a proposal for the first major overhaul of immigration law in a quarter-century. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced “my friend, Senator [Marco] Rubio, who obviously is a new but incredibly important voice in this whole issue of immigration reform.”
Two weeks earlier, Rubio had laid out a similar set of principles in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal under the headline, “Marco Rubio: Riding to the Immigration Rescue.” The article came as a surprise to McCain and other members of the bipartisan group of senators who had been sketching out an immigration plan with and without Rubio for weeks. The blueprint was inspired by legislation that McCain first spearheaded in 2005.
The dig was subtle, but Rubio didn’t let it go.

Oh dear! Another predictable Beth Reinhard paint-by-numbers piece on Marco Rubio in The National Journal, full of the usual resume/personality recitals.
Bet I can guess what Beth Reinhard will say about Marco Rubio. 
Yes, and so can you! 

That's the problem -Reinhard writes about Rubio by rote.
Just like her last piece on him.

Even the new anecdotes she drops throughout the column sound just like the old ones she used, since they are almost always cobbled together to create the same old product: Marco the Magnificent.

It would be far better if she spoke to veteran analysts like Charlie Cook, also of the National Journal and someone whose every word I read religiously for meaning and portent, as mentioned many times here in the past, which is why I've linked to so many of his columns here over the years.

Specifically, speak to Cook about the dangers of over-exposure, which he is getting closer to everyday, and the graveyard of presidential candidates that peaked early and never made it to Election Day because they prematurely annoyed or bored America silly, or flat out didn't have the sort of practical experience needed or the ability to articulate a cogent, distinct message that resonated with the public and which could grow even larger with hard work.
Bill Bradley for instance.

Even though I was an early and very confident Senate supporter of Rubio's in 2009, when the entire Florida GOP and business establishment, along with Florida's sycophantic Mainstream Media, plus the East Coast drive-by MSM, practically handed the 2010 Republican Senate nomination to then-Governor Charlie Crist, in my opinion, Rubio needs to actually accomplish a lot more of substance sooner -and be seen LESS in a pop-culture prism- otherwise, everyone in America may be bored silly by the sight of him within two years as the new car smell wears off, just as he's campaigning for House and Senate candidates throughout the country, and actually getting most of the questions, not the candidates he's with.

Yes, just like a once interesting new TV commercial that you have now grown to cringe at within a milli-second of seeing on TV and reach for the remote.

And if and when that happens, the only thing that will be written about him will be the hit pieces by the usual suspects, especially among liberal reporters and columnists in the West, who have no secret of the fact that they resent the collective power of Cubans in the political process compared to Mexicans, who vastly outnumber them.

And Univision, of course, in their creepy stalker-like relationship with Rubio, where they are always looking to see if he's spending too much time with someone else.
Y
es, Univision, the Spanish-language channel that the Miami Herald is always kissing the butt of and overplaying the significance of, but who will, not so curiously, not mention in print that they didn't air President Obama's State of the the Union address, which is why they won Tuesday night in the TV ratings.

Nope, no mention, as you can see for yourself. 

I thought they were the new "It"?
Qué pasa, Herald?

Yes, Univision, the politically-biased TV network that makes it very clear in their so-called news coverage that the only reasonable side of the immigration debate is pro-amnesty, otherwise, you are a racist. 

 Oh yeah -and the supposed news network whose employees loves to take public whacks at 
Rubio.

That is, if they, too, aren't already bored silly by Rubio and tired of pointing-out the same deficiencies they saw/see in him, over-and-over.

On the other hand, it's good to remember that Rubio eventually got so bored/irritated with Reinhard asking him the same ol' leading questions over-and-over during his long Senate campaign, that as I wrote here at the time, towards the end, he eventually started freezing her out because he simply couldn't take the routine anymore

You might recall that was back when the Herald's then-Ombudsman took Beth Reinhard (and the Herald) to task in his once-in-a-while Sunday column for having one person perform both reporter and columnist duties, saying that it was a conflict of interest.

The Ombudsman was right, of course, and Reinhard proved why that was true by being whiny publicly in her columns about being frozen out by Rubio, which not only made her less attractive to Rubio as a person to speak with, but for voters and newspaper readers, made her 'articles' about him not at all reliable, since you already knew that she was mad at him enough to say so publicly.
But I guess I'm the only one who remembers that, huh?

Alas, the Herald's then-Ombudsman left in April of 2011 and has never been replaced, with rather predictable results from my perspective: more bias than ever in articles as well as more missing facts and context.

 As many of you regular readers know, I've directly asked the Herald's top management why there's been no replacement and no mention made in the paper of what their plan is, if any, for an eventual replacement.
And, what their plan for improvement in print and online was to keep the faith of readers.
That's been met with stony silence. 
Followed by more silence.

A smart and fair-minded person representing the interests of Herald readers and ethics is not in the cards there.

Folks, it's time to face the fact that publisher David Landsberg has no actual plan for the Herald's future that positive for news consumers, because if he did, he'd have already made them public months before they went to a pay wall, and only added the pay wall AFTER getting rid of the problem step-children, adding new and curious columnists and reporters who don't take things for granted -one of the worst daily offenses there!-  and completely re-do the website from top-to-bottom, so the same stories don't appear in three separate places there, as happens now, which is acutely embarrassing for everyone, most of all, them.

That's why in my opinion, with the same people in charge, the Herald's problems are only going to get worse over time.

 But if someone with some smarts and money bought the Sun-Sentinel, fired all the dead wood and made it more like some of the Swedish newspapers that I've become increasingly  used to, and read daily while I was in Stockholm last month, newspapers which are very popular, well then, you could well see will see a very interesting dynamic take place here
in South Florida.
But not right now.

Now, each newspaper and its management seem locked in a battle of lethargy to do the least amount of original enterprise reporting possible.
  
------
TheWrap
Ratings: Univision Wins Night By Skipping State of the Union
By Tim Kenneally
Published: February 13, 2013 @ 10:03 am

November 1, 2010
Hallandale Beach Blog endorses Beth Reinhard & Charlie Crist's departure - asks they get escort to airport so they don't miss their flights out of FL

September 3, 2010

Addition by subtraction: Beth Reinhard leaving Miami Herald, heading to D.C. and The National Journal. Herald readers finally win one!


-----
Univision staffer attacks Sen. Marco Rubio on Facebook

No doubt after the Castro Brothers finally go adios for good, many of the Univision employees will try to move to Cuba and try to suddenly reinvent themselves as real journalists, after years of being celebrity hand-holdres, political suck-ups and amateur political science professors based in LA, NYC and Miami, forever intent on lecturing us on how important Latin America is, despite the fact that we mostly don't care about it for perfectly valid reasons, no matter how much they insist it's important.



But it's not, even with changing demographics and population changes, Americans aren't going to suddenly care about Honduras or Uruguay or Brazil if they never did before, and they can't let on that the whole thing has been a journalistic con for years to fleece advertising dollars.

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