The epic freedom struggle continues. I'm feeling hopeful.

SNCC Poster, 1963, Photography by Danny Lyon

Woke up this morning with my mind

Stayed on freedom 

I woke up this morning with my head still ringing with music from Danny Lyon's new film, SNCC, and clear as a bell about the line connecting the great freedom struggle of the '50s and '60s with today's election. Win or lose, for me, this campaign was never simply about electing Joe Biden. Rather, it's about being part of a movement for freedom and social justice for the past 60 years, a movement that transcends party politics. 

This is definitely a which side are you on election like none other in my lifetime, save possibly Barack Obama's first campaign in '08. It's one that has certainly captured the democratic spirit of tens of millions from the heartland of the midwest to the so-called red states of the south and southwest. 

As the polls open this morning, nearly 100 million of us have already voted, more than two-thirds of the number of votes cast in the entire 2016 election.

Black and Latino voter turnout will likely hold the key to a Democratic victory, especially in southern and midwestern swing states. 

Of note... 239,822 African American voters over the age of 65 have already voted in Georgia, a state that has been red for the past three decades. That's 124% of the total 2016 turnout for African American seniors. Latino voters in GA are also turning out in record numbers. That state's results should be coming in early tonight and along with FL, should be a strong indicator of where things are headed. 

The ChiTown vote... More than 738,000 Chicagoans have already cast ballots in person or by mail, blowing past the city's early voting records set in 2016. I'm not worried about the Trump vote here IL. I'm just hoping that a giant turnout will mean State's Attorney Kim Foxx is reelected and the FairTax Amendment passes.  

All this and more, leaves me feeling hopeful about today's outcome. My hope is a massive anti-Trump vote will also bring a victory for Democrats down-ticket and return the Senate majority blue.

Republican efforts to suppress voter turnout have apparently fallen flat. This will likely leave Trump the choice of either conceding or more likely, resorting to futile attempts at sabotage or other counter-electoral or violent efforts to hang onto power. 

Defeating Trump today, if that happens, won't mean the death of Trumpism, neo-fascism, or white supremacy. That fight will likely continue for generations to come. But it will still mark an important victory in the long, ongoing freedom struggle and a reversal of the retrograde trend of the past four years. 

 

I voted today. It was one of the most emotional experiences I've had since becoming American. I wanted to hug every poll worker & thank them for their work & enthusiasm. I'm frightened, as many of you are, but the country we want is here, standing next to us. #VoteHimOut pic.twitter.com/MzipAtSZ9I

— Maaza Mengiste (@MaazaMengiste) October 31, 2020

My favorite Ryan moment

Is anyone buying Paul Ryan's stale excuse for jumping ship? No, he doesn't really want to spend more time with his children. He hires people to do that. After years as a corporate shill, busting his state's unions and putting hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars into his wealthy patrons' pockets through regressive taxation, Ryan is joining the mass exodus of Republicans from DT's sinking ship for one reason only. He knows his day of reckoning is near.

My favorite Ryan story took place back in 2014, when he was called out by a Wisconsin high school, social studies teacher named Al Levie, who had been one of three recipients of a Martin Luther King Jr. humanitarian award. During a celebration honoring the late civil rights leader, Al refused to accept the award from Rep. Ryan, who he correctly called, "a lackey of the one percent". He then told the audience,  “I can’t in good conscience accept this award, as a humanitarian, Paul Ryan stands for everything I don’t believe in.”

After Ryan spoke, Al criticized the congressman’s policies before being walked off the stage. He had earlier made it clear that he would like to see collective bargaining restored in Wisconsin, fair immigration reform and a fair tax system and more.

“Paul Ryan had no business at a Martin Luther King event, it’s totally hypocritical. On the one hand he votes to slash health care, while on the other hand, King dedicated his life and he died for it — for people to have adequate healthcare, to have adequate jobs.”

I imagine, Al is smiling a little today, both at the news of Ryan's imminent departure and of the rolling teacher wildcat strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Kentucky and more.

Then there was the time in 2012 when V.P candidate Ryan ventured down to Chicago to counsel his pal, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on how to break a teachers strike.

"I've known Rahm Emanuel for years. He's a former colleague of mine. Rahm and I have not agreed on every issue or on a lot of issues, but Mayor Emanuel is right today in saying that this teacher's union strike is unnecessary and wrong. We know that Rahm is not going to support our campaign, but on this issue and this day we stand with Mayor Rahm Emanuel." 

Then Ryan artfully called out Pres. Barack Obama, who, in the middle of his re-election campaign, and worried that his support for the striking teachers would split his Democratic Party base, was trying to walk the center line  in the epic battle between the CTU and MRE. A sign of things to come.

My favorite Ryan quote came from another visit to Chicago a year earlier. Speaking at the city's Economic Club, Rep. Ryan said that Obama's attempt to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans amounted to “class warfare” and "class envy".  Ryan only wanted to make sure that class warfare remained one-sided.

As NYT columnist Charles Blow put it:

Ha! The war is already being waged against the poor and vulnerable, and the envious have-nots didn’t start it. The right and its cabal of economic cannibals did.

AFT's early Clinton endorsement is creating a rank-and-file backlash

The AFT's early endorsement of Hillary Clinton comes as no surprise, at least to me. Randi Weingarten and the current AFT leadership has long been tied to the Clinton's political organization by a thousand threads.

After all, the 1.6 million-member union backed Clinton over Obama in the 2008 primary, even as Barack was running to become the country's first African-American president.

Weingarten sits alongside the biggest Democratic Party fundraisers on the board of Clinton's SuperPAC, Priorities USA Action, a PAC which in the past has been riddled by fights between Obama and Clinton factions.

This is the way things are done in the AFT.

When incumbent Obama ran unopposed in the 2012 primary, the AFT rushed to endorse him without making any demands or getting anything in the way of pro-union, pro-teacher concessions from an administration and a political party that had clearly turned a deaf ear towards the interests of public school educators and parents. The early endorsement didn't sit well then with many rank-and-file teachers (including even many Obama supporters) who saw the move as crass opportunism and a give-away of any leverage the union might have had in shaping policy on issues like testing, teacher evaluation or Common Core.

Leave it to Weingarten to proclaim last month -- without any self-reflection -- that...

"Despite the best intentions, what essentially happened here is President Obama and [Education] Secretary [Arne] Duncan essentially followed the No Child Left Behind-Bush template in terms of testing and charters and sanctions.There's a growing consensus that we need a reset to educational policy in the country."

So there was never any doubt in my mind that another Hillary early endorsement was forthcoming. What did surprise me was the clumsy and self-defeating way it was done, once again without bringing the membership along or getting or asking for anything from Clinton in exchange.

The AFT executive board did meet with Clinton and Democratic Party rivals  Sanders, and O'Malley, (Chafee had not yet announced) to discuss issues. But issues were never really the issue here since all are pretty much indistinguishable on public education matters and none of the Clinton contenders appear to have the money or juice within the party to win the nomination -- not counting a major Clinton campaign stumble.

Clinton has come out in favor of of tying teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests. She has been outspoken in support of privately-run charter schools.

In fact, the only thing the union got from Hillary was this vague statement of support, reminiscent of many made by Obama and Duncan over the past 7 years.

"It is just dead wrong to make teachers the scapegoats for all of society's problems," Clinton told the AFT. "Where I come from, teachers are the solution. And I strongly believe that unions are part of the solution, too."

Sanders and O'Malley made similar statements.

In a social-media announcement I received yesterday, RW claims the leadership surveyed "a million" AFT members before making the endorsement with an overwhelming 3-1 majority voicing support for Hillary over the Sanders and the other contenders. The announcement calls Clinton, "the champion of working families" and asks those of us in social media to sport these I'm With Hillary social media badges. I won't be sporting any.

I'm dubious about the million-member survey mainly because I can't find even one rank-and-file teacher here in Chicago who says they were polled. If there's indeed 3-1 membership support for the early (nothing-in-return) endorsement, it sure isn't showing up on Twitter or other social media. You would think that RW would have a host of rank-and-file teachers all over social media proclaiming their support for the endorsement. Instead there appears to be an swell of anger and resentment, at least from ed activists over the endorsement and the leadership's undemocratic (small d) leadership style. No surprise there either.

A petition circulated yesterday, calling on the union to revoke its endorsement, got thousands of signatures in just a few hours.

I did see one official poll done by Hart Research Associates of 1,150 union members. But that's a far cry from 1 million.

Here’s the memo from our pollster—Hart Research, one of top firms in US—on their findings of our member poll http://t.co/mhIt9HfpVQ

— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) July 12, 2015

BTW, guess who runs Hart Research Associates? None other than Geoff Garin, who briefly served as co-chief strategist for Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign. Geoff's company also works for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which has poured millions into the AFT coffers in an attempt to influence union policy.

So yes, the Clinton juggernaut is rolling. Clinton PAC money is flowing. Look for its influence to be felt not just on unions (the NEA will have no choice but to follow suit) but on local community organizations and social movements as we head toward 2016.

It would be ironic however, if the bullish and undemocratic way the Clinton endorsement was done leads to a rank-and-file backlash that ends up actually hurting, rather than helping the campaign and letting Hillary and the Democrats once again, off the hook on education policy.

Election hangover

I'm feeling a little hung-over this morning but still trying to get some of my election-night notes down on the blog. First and most importantly, I lost my $5 bet by badly underestimating the number of electoral votes for Obama. As you all know, I predicted 290 and it appears that he got (with the late addition of Florida) 332. Sorry Nate Silver, I should have kept the faith.

Second, Obama owes his victory to his well-positioned field workers,  an abysmal cast of Limbaugh Party opponents, and to an amazing turnout of his ever-forgiving base, particularly African-American, Latino, women (thanks Akin, Murdock, Ryan, etc...) and youth voters, in the key battleground states. Black vote was 93% for Obama. Latino, 76%.  It's safe to say that the road to the White House went straight through the barrio.

Obama got about 60% of the youth vote, but his share shrunk from 4 years ago. Good reason to support and build the emerging youth voter movement looking towards 2014.

White voters who still make up 72% of the electorate (hear O'Reilly moan), went 57% for Romney/Ryan. Older white males were the heart of their voter base, as expected. But Obama was able to do better among white males than he did in '08, especially in states like Michigan and Ohio, where Romney's class bias and opposition to unions and the auto industry bailout had an impact. Obama's support among white men went from 16 %  when he defeated Republican McCain in 2008, to 21%.

Irony is that neither candidate said much to separate themselves on education, yet education turned out to be a big vote motivator. I think the Dems, despite their horrible corporate reform policies (Race To The Top) were able to score votes by supporting more funding for public ed and shoring up their alliance with the teacher unions. Despite dire predictions by some lefties about teachers abandoning Obama, they appear to have voted for him in overwhelming numbers (as did swing-state lefties). The reason -- teachers aren't just teachers. They are also, women, African-Americans, parents, college-loan payers,  home owners, health care consumers, etc...

Chicago

It was a great day in the Windy City. We got almost a 90% vote for elected school board. But non-binding. Now we need to put the heat on the legislature. 65,763 voted for it, 10,174 against. That's actually 86.6%. Also, the mis-worded Constitutional Amendment put on the ballot by Mike Madigan's pension grabbers, failed to win the needed 60% vote. Rest assured that they will try, try again.

Lots more to talk about. Victories for women, marriage equality, the overcoming of  T-Party govs' supression of voting rights and more. Look for civil war in the GOP to explode. Look for their mea culpas and a promise to do right by Latinos and immigrants. Overall, great victory over the right-wing surge. Most fun was watching postmortem at FOX with Rove trying to claim that Obama hadn't really won Ohio.  Bad news if any -- Obama promises to be even more conciliatory towards the Limbaugh Party.

Take-aways from last night's debate

"Candy, I don’t have a policy of stopping wind jobs in Iowa." -- Mitt Romney

"I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks,” and they brought us whole binders full of women." -- Mitt Romney

It was a good thing I left the Give a Sh*t Happy Hour at Cole's Bar early to head home and watch the debate (with one eye on the Tigers/Yankee game). If I had stayed, I would have gone broke buying rounds of drinks every time Romney blew it, misspoke or blurted out one of his his string of inanities.

My (everybody's) favorite was "Binders full of women" which is still trending world-wide but has been largely ignored by the media. I also loved "wind jobs" (sounds salacious, doesn't it?). And didn't Romney's "5-point" plan for cutting the deficit remind you of whatshisname's "9-9-9"?

Low points for Obama were:

-- He was asked, "What has your administration done or planned to do to limit the availability of assault weapons?" Since the correct answer would have been -- nothing, Obama began his response by throwing a bone to the NRA:

"We’re a nation that believes in the Second Amendment, and I believe in the Second Amendment. We’ve got a long tradition of hunting and sportsmen and people who want to make sure they can protect themselves."

Yeah, right. With AK-47s? 

Romney was even worse. His response to the plague of assault weapons was essentially to tell children to have a full set of parents.

"But gosh to tell our kids that before they have babies, they ought to think about getting married to someone, that’s a great idea."

You see, the deal was, every time he said, "gosh," or "golly gee", everyone has to belt down a double.

-- Obama's short recitation on the wonders of his corporate-style education reform which was mercifully cut short by Candy Crowley.

-- His attempt to find common ground with Romney on tax breaks for the corporations:

"We need to create jobs here. And both Governor Romney and I agree actually that we should lower our corporate tax rate. It’s too high."

It brought back sickening memories from the last debate when the president found common ground with Mittens on Social Security.

Anyway, it was a good night for Obama, although the bar for his success was set pretty low after the last debate. It reaffirmed my axiom -- if you don't hit it, it won't fall.

 Axelrod obviously was forced to dump his abysmal  prevent-defense strategy and script Obama with some  punch-back. This I'm sure, to the delight of the gang over at Cole's. And speaking of bars, yes, glad I left early -- sober and with money still in my pocket.

In the wake of Chicago teachers strike...

North Shore teachers are out on strike this morning. Here, fifth grade Lincoln Elementary teacher Larry Patrick, center, rallys with other 112 district teachers outside the North Shore School District 112 Office. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)

Poll watching madness. Isn't this just another way of turning politics into a spectator sport? Like watching the playoffs. I'm glad Chicago's teachers and now those in the North Shore are taking a different route.

In the wake of the teachers strike, cracks are starting to appear from within Rahm's tightly-run organization. The victorious teachers strike and CTU prez, Karen Lewis' willingness to tell the abrasive mayor where to put his middle finger, seems to have given courage to a slavish city council. With Ald. Rick Munoz in the lead, more than 30 aldermen have signed onto an anti-school closing statement. And now, a Progressive Caucus has formed and attracted some 200 community member to a meeting Monday night, to air concerns, frustrations and ideas regarding the 2013 municipal budget. It was the first of three hearings organized by the Caucus, taking place this month. 

At Monday's meeting, moderated by Chicago Reader Senior Reporter Mick Dumke, more than 15 Chicagoans, including Chicago Public Schools teachers and parents, firefighters, police officers and other community residents, testified about their concerns on issues from public safety to job creation and economic concerns.

“When will the banks and corporations be asked to pay their fare share? Where is the accountability when it comes to the corporate elite?,” asked Amisha Patel, Executive Director of the Grassroots Collaborative. Patel called for the closure of the LaSalle Central TIF to “put $15 million back into public services every year.”

Empty chair at Progressive Caucus budget hearings noted.

Missing from the meeting? You guessed it. The RahmFather.

Dumke's partner in crime over at the Reader, Ben Joravsky, has another strong, biting piece on Rahm's autocratic rule over the schools and his firing of schools CEO J.C. Brizard, "B-3 in, J.C. out—Chicago gets a new school boss." Don't miss. 

Rahm has already been dumped as Obama's campaign chair. One of the reasons may be, his attacks on Obama's base for demanding fidelity to campaign promises, are campaign killer, writes David Sirota in Salon. I wish Sirota had mentioned Dems' corporate-style ed reform policies, also spearheaded by Rahm, which have also badly divided Obama's base of support. 

It's true that Obama has Chicago and Illinois locked up, but this goes way beyond local borders. 

FairTest's Monty Neill will be in Chicago on Friday, Nov 2, for a public forum on testing issues at 7 pm at St Xavier University (more here). According to Julie at PURE, Monty has also agreed to help lead a citywide strategy session on anti-testing resistance - how we can work across groups, unite behind some common messages, share resources and otherwise build a strong testing resistance in Chicago. The session will be from 2 to 4 pm on the 2nd at the CTU office, 4th floor in the Merchandise Mart.

Speaking of Monty, check out the FairTest Fact Sheet on "Why Teacher Evaluation Shouldn’t Rest on Student Test Scores." 

To win federal Race to the Top grants or waivers from No Child Left Behind, most states have adopted teacher and principal evaluation systems based largely on student test scores. Many educators have resisted these unproven policies. Researchers from 16 Chicago-area universities and more than 1,500 New York state principals signed statements against such practices. Chicago teachers even struck over this issue, among others. Here’s why these systems-- including “value added” (VAM) or “growth” measures -- are not effective or fair. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Karen Lewis

“Real school will not be open [Monday]. ... No CTU member will be inside our schools." -- Sun-Times

Bad timing for Rahm?

The timing also may be inopportune for Emanuel, a former White House chief of staff whose city administration is wrestling with a spike in murders and shootings in some city neighborhoods and who just agreed to take a larger role in fundraising for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. -- Time 

More Lewis

“We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters throughout the state and country who are currently bargaining for their own fair contracts. We stand with those who have already declared they too are prepared to strike, in the best interests of their students.” --- CTU Statement

Xian Barrett

When you, rather than bargain on any of this stuff set up fake school centers staffed by positively motived Central Office staff, many of whom are terribly pissed to be pressed into veritable scabitude when they know you are wrong, and you equip them with a manual that tells them things like, “communicate with words”, that not only hurts our kids, but it suggests you have no idea how to run a system with their welfare in mind. -- Teacher X: Why I'm striking

Rahm

"The issues that remain [ie. teacher evaluation based on test scores] are minor." --NBC

Rahm dumped as Obama campaign chair

No wait, the headline is wrong. The latest from Charlotte is that Rahm Emanuel hasn't been dumped. He's been promoted. Yes, that's right. He's moving up the party ladder from campaign chair to fundraiser. If you read the Washington Post (and who doesn't these days?) that's the story line behind Rahm being dropped as honorary chairman of the Obama campaign. You see, he was removed so he could "help raise big-dollar contributions so that Democrats can compete with what is emerging as a clear GOP fundraising advantage this election cycle." This according to unnamed "campaign and fundraising individuals."

As we all know, campaign chairs can't fund-raise. Right? They're too busy doing, ummm, other things or something. And of course this promotion has nothing to do with the fact that Rahm's name has become toxic, synonymous with anti-teacher anti-unionism , much like Wisconsin's Gov. Walker on the Republican side. We know this because the unnamed "campaign and fundraising individuals" in the Post story never mention it.

That's their story and they're sticking with it.