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I cant remember agreeing with Greg Millera Republican who runs a charter school and is ex-president of the Arizona Board of Educationbefore. But an op ed he wrote for the Capitol Times, GOP support of voucher expansion bill an insult to most students, is an exception to the rule. It begins, As an advocate for education reform for the past 35 years, a co-founder of a very successful charter school, a lifelong Republican, and the most recent past president of the Arizona State Board of Education, I have never been more embarrassed, outraged, disappointed, and angry to call myself a Republican. How on earth do the Republicans in the state Legislature who voted for the Empowerment Scholarship Account (voucher) bill, or our governor, who signed it, look in the mirror and in good faith, not understand what they have just done. Miller continues, Public education has been the equalizer for 150 years of economic growth and assimilation of immigrants into the culture that we enjoy today. This is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of students who do not have the resources to pay the additional thousands of dollars for the tuition these private schools will be charging above the state subsidy, and without the opportunity of a quality education provided in their local schools where due process and common goals of expectation drive the continued development of economic expansion for everyone, not just a privileged few. He ends by saying voters need to kick out the ESA expansion supporters in 2018. All Republicans that share this view [against voucher expansion] use your vote in next summers Republican primary to replace anyone who supported this transfer of economic wealth from our public school system to the private schools of the wealthy. Ill take exception with Miller here and say we need to kick out the anti-education Republicans and replace them with some pro-education, pro-child Democrats, but hey, we can agree to disagree on that one.

It looks like the negative reaction to the ESA expansion by Miller and some other reliable Republican supporters caught pro-voucher Republicans by surprise. Theyve been patting themselves on the back for a job well done and basking in the praise theyve received from privatizers around the country, but thereceptionhavent been quite as cheery as they'd hoped on the home front. Witness this sudden change of plans. ESA expansion supporters were all ready to take a victory lap Thursday in the form of a free "Thank You to the Legislators" lunch at the Capitol paid for by the American Federation for Childrenthats U.S. Ed Head Betsy DeVoss education privatization group, which pours money into the campaign coffers of right-thinking candidates in Arizona and around the country. At the last minute, speaker of the House J.D. Mesnard called off the celebration because he thought, according to an Associated Press article, it was ill-timed and emotions are still running high at the Capitol.

Seeing as how Republicans never worry about the feelings of Democrats, who they ignore whenever possible, those cant be the folks Mesnard is worried about. Hes still got a budget to pass, and he doesnt need to alienate dissenting Republicans any further by rubbing the ESA victory in their faces. Then there are the sizable number of Republican parents who send their kids to district and charterschools and agree with Democrats that more money for their schools, including raises for their children's overworked, underpaid teachers, ismore important than helping send other people's kids to private schools.

Meanwhile, House Democrats arent letting Mesnard, Ducey, & Co. forget the vote either.

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Trouble in Republican City Over Voucher Expansion? - Tucson Weekly

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has come to Exxons defenseagain. AP Photo/Eric Gay,File

Citing Exxon Mobils right to free speech, 11 state attorneys generalall Republicansfiled in court this week to stop an investigation into the oil and gas giants decades-long history of climate denial.

The attorneys generalfrom Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsinfiled a brief to support Exxons request to stop the so-called Exxon Knew investigation, arguing that there is a public policy debate over climate change and that the investigation is an unconstitutional abuse of power.

The Constitution was written to protect citizens from government witch-hunts such as this one, where officials use their authority and the threat of criminal prosecution to try and suppress speech on a viewpoint they disagree with, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

This isnt the first time Texas has intervened in the investigation on behalf of the states largest company. Paxton and his counterpart from Arkansas filed on behalf of Exxon in May of last year when it challenged a Virgin Islands subpoena. Paxton has said the investigations are ridiculous.

The investigation, now spearheaded by Democratic state attorneys general Eric Schneiderman of New York and Maura Healey of Massachusetts, was prompted after the Los Angeles Times and InsideClimate News independently discovered that, as far back as the 1970s, Exxon scientists were aware of the role burning fossil fuels plays in climate change. Exxon subsequently funded organizations that publicly deny the science behind human-caused climate change.

As a publicly traded company, Exxon has a legal requirement to disclose risk; therefore, prosecutors are investigating whether the corporation knowingly misled investors over the long-term risk of climate change. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission was also reportedly investigating as of last year.

Exxon filed its lawsuit challenging the investigation in Texas last year, but recently the judge in the case opted to move the suit to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. After challenging the New York and Massachusetts subpoena, Exxon was ordered to hand over emails and documents related to climate change communications.

Schneidermans office reached a settlement in 2015 with Peabody Coal, after a multi-year investigation found that the company had violated state law by misleading shareholders about the risk to the company of climate change and efforts to stop climate change.

A spokesperson for the New York Attorney Generals Offices said Exxons lawsuit would not deter the current investigation.

We will continue to pursue our fraud investigation under New York law, despite attempts by Exxon and Big Oils beneficiaries to delay and distract from the serious issues at hand, Amy Spitalnick told ThinkProgress in an email.

Environmental groups were not quite as diplomatic. Responding to a line in the brief suggesting that climate change is the subject of legitimate international debate, Climate Hawks Vote, a California group that has pressed the California attorney general to also pursue an investigation into Exxon, issued the following statement:

What f*cking debate?!?

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11 Republican AGs file on behalf of Exxon, claiming climate ... - ThinkProgress

As Georgia secretary of state, Karen Handel was, as Ian Millhiser reports, a real pioneer in Republican voter suppression.Handel didnt just push a voter ID law. She really explored the full range of options available to a Republican elections official who wants to keep peopleespecially possible Democratsfrom voting. She encouraged voters to challenge one anothers qualifications to vote, an intimidation tactic often employed by Republicans. She tried to purge thousands of new citizens from the voter rolls. And she didnt just go after voters, she went after ballot access for Democrats:

In the middle of an election cycle, Republican state Sen. Joe Carter decided to withdraw from his reelection race and run for a judgeship instead. Carter was slated to run unopposed, which meant that there would be no candidates for his soon-to-be-vacant seat.

According to the Atlanta-based alt-weekly Creative Loafing, Handel solved this problem by allowing new candidates to qualify to appear on the ballot but only if they were Republicans. Democrats, the alt-weekly reported, werent given the chance to field a candidate for the newly open seat.

And this was not an isolated incident. On the day before a primary election for a state house race, Handel ruled that the lone Democratic candidate must be removed from the ballot because he didnt qualify as a resident of the district. She also did not allow Democrats to submit a new candidate.

Its incredibly apt that Georgia officials aretrying to prevent newly registered votersfrom voting in the June run-off election.

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Karen Handel is a longtime soldier in the Republican war on voting - Daily Kos

He proposed a religious test on immigration, promised to open up U.S. libel laws and revoked press credentials of critical reporters. He called for killing family members of terrorists, said he would do a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding terrorism suspects and suggested that a U.S.-born federal judge of Mexican heritage couldnt be neutral because of his ethnicity. He whipped up animosity against Muslims and immigrants from Mexico, branding the latter as rapists.

When protesters interrupted his rallies, he cheered violence against them. He told a political opponent that if he won, he would get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, adding youd be in jail. He threatened not to respect election results if he didnt win and, in Idi Amin fashion, made the claims of a strongman: I alone can fix it. He publicly expressed admiration for authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Cherished notions of religious freedom, a free press, an independent judiciary and the rights of minorities took a beating from him. The prospect of mob violence in his defense and imprisoning of political opponents found favor.

With all that, Donald Trump became the nations 45thpresident in an election marred by stealth interference from a foreign adversary, Russia, and with the support of millions of voters who survey data show were influenced by the toxicity of racism.

How did a pluralistic nation that propounds democratic values and practices come to this?

This not being the authoritarian in the White House who dismisses basic constitutional principles as if they were annoying gnats, but this an electorate that looks past the disrespect shown toward democratic ideals.

That haunting question has occupied the minds of Richard D. Kahlenberg and Clifford Janey, two education scholars and writers who began to take a hard look at this fundamental domestic challenge long before Novembers results came in.

Janey, former superintendent of schools in our nations capital, as well as Newark, N.J., and Rochester, N.Y., and now senior research scholar at the Boston University School of Education, traces the problem close to home: public schooling. So, too, does Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, author of six books and editor of 10 foundation volumes.

I sat down with both this week to discuss what they regard as an American democracy under severe strain. Kahlenberg observed that public education that ought to help prepare students for citizenship in a democracy is coming up short. He cited a recent survey in which two-thirds of Americans could not name all three branches of the federal government; only a third could identify Joe Biden, who at the time was the vice president, or name a single Supreme Court justice.

Janey observed that U.S. schoolchildren educated in what are essentially apartheid schools divided by class and race get a mixed message about equal political rights and American values.

Together, they spelled out the scope of the challenge in their joint Century Foundation report released in November, Putting Democracy Back into Public Education. The report was boiled down in an article in the Atlantic, Is Trumps Victory the Jump-Start Civics Education Needed? published at the same time.

Simply put, Janey and Kahlenberg argue that our schools are failing at what the nations founders saw as educations most basic purpose: preparing young people to be reflective citizens who would value liberty and democracy and resist the appeals of demagogues.

They said todays schools turn themselves inside out trying to prepare college-and-career ready students who can contend with economic globalization and economic competition and find a niche with private skills in the marketplace.

As for preparing them for American democracy? Raising civics literacy levels? Cultivating knowledge of democratic practices and beliefs with rigorous courses in history, literature and how democratic means have been used to improve the country? Not so much or maybe not at all, they suggest.

The authors point out that in 2013, the governing board of the National Assessment for Educational Progress dropped fourth- and 12th-grade civics and American history as a tested subject in order to save money.

Its okay to test kids crazy in math and reading. Civic education? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Watch as jaws drop at these findings from a 2011 World Values Survey, which Kahlenberg and Janey noted in the Atlantic: When asked whether democracy is a good or bad way to run a country, 17 percent said bad or very bad, up from 9 percent in the mid-1990s. Among those ages 16 to 24, about a quarter said democracy was bad or very bad, an increase of one-third from a decade and a half earlier.

Skills for the private workplace? Essential. So, too, the skills for workplace democracy.

But the declining civic portion of public education, maintain Kahlenberg and Janey, is a threat to our democratic values. It must be addressed, and now. Only a demagogue would argue with that.

Read more from Colbert Kings archive.

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We're teaching our students not to care about democracy - Washington Post

With seven weeks to go, Britain's democracy is spinning up a gear.

At a dinner with friends a few weeks ago, the discussion turned to Brexit, as it so often does here in London these days.

Someone at the table asked me a very simple question. I was surprised at my answer.

She asked: "So what do we have in common?" She meant all the nations that are currently members of the European Union.

I paused for a moment. After a short deduction process, I was left with one thing: democracy.

"Democracy," she exclaimed. "Why didn't anyone say that before?"

She wasn't being facetious, and I certainly wasn't joking.

In all the debate around Brexit, she asked, why didn't former Prime Minister David Cameron mention democracy in the referendum campaign?

I agreed. It seems obvious, when you think about it.

The answer is simple: the ability to argue every detail without fear of arrest -- or worse. The single thing we all have in common is that we live in democracies. We needn't look far to see how lucky we are.

This weekend, France goes to the polls to select the two candidates who will face each other next month in a runoff for the presidency. Chances are at least one of them -- and maybe both -- will advocate following Britain out of the EU.

They will cite differences over currency. They will demand sovereign rights back. They will want control of their own borders. It'll all sound very familiar.

It is an odd conundrum that northwestern Europe is experiencing. It is so surrounded by its commonality it doesn't see it.

So many trees, the wood is invisible. Democracy is flourishing, but its fragrance is drifting over most heads.

Yet on the fringes of Europe, in the south and the east, the scent is sharp. Authoritarianism is on the rise, and the whiff of dictatorship is in the air.

Last weekend, by the slenderest of margins -- and the sleight of hand only media manipulation can manage -- President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took control of his country out of the hands of the people.

His referendum on 18 constitutional changes removes the prime minister and gives him sweeping power over government and legislation.

Erdogan has turned his back on the model democracy that is enjoyed in Europe, yet when he isn't railing against its leaders and calling them racists or Nazis -- as he did a few weeks ago -- he is saying how much he wants to have access to the EU's single market.

The odds of Turkey being allowed to join the EU were always long. But after last week's tight -- and heavily questioned -- vote, any bet had better be transferable to one's children. Turkey is unlikely to be allowed in to the democratic club in the near future.

In Eastern Europe, the fulcrum between democracy and dictatorship runs through Ukraine.

The see-saw is unbalanced, as Russian President Vladimir Putin takes Ukraine's desire to tip towards democracy and do away with cronyism as a slap in the face.

Putin may wrap up his rhetoric in flourishes and describe an overreaching NATO that encroaches on regions of historic Russian interest, but the truth is that many Ukrainians despise his malignant manipulation of economy and media.

What they want -- and have worked towards for more than a decade -- is a more stable and dependable European-style democratic business model than one where a president can take all.

Next month, US President Donald Trump will attend two summits in Europe: one at NATO in Brussels, and one in Sicily, where the G7 world powers will gather.

At both events, Russia and Turkey -- and the different challenges they pose -- are sure to come up. At NATO, Erdogan will represent Turkey and sit side by side with leaders who demand that he respect the 49% of his country that didn't vote to have him grip the country tighter than ever.

In Sicily, leaders will follow up on US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's comments at the foreign ministers' G7 last week in Italy, where the topic of how to handle Russia's backing of President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria has raised the specter how to handle Putin in the long run.

We may even hear Trump express again not just his profound about-face on NATO or his other 180-degree turn on the value of European unity but the importance of democracy and how it binds us together.

Regardless of the fact that it is not Trump but his scriptwriters who are managing to create these new narratives that even he is unable to mangle, one should applaud the sentiment if it is expressed.

One should applaud because on Europe's borders, the anti-democratic forces are converging. If they sense weakness, they will exploit it.

Erdogan treats every EU negotiation as a bazaar. Take the refugee deal: What started off as 3 billion ($3.2 billion) in aid quickly became 6 billion ($6.4 billion) and a few extras.

Putin's aim with Europe seems to be pulling off the weak nations one by one. Divide and conquer. Not by force, of course, but by breaking our unity and resolve to punish his land grabs and violations of international law.

Neither Erdogan nor Putin gives a fig for our North Atlantic values. Nevertheless, their proximity and appetite for power shines a light on what we have in common: a democratic process whereby leaders like Theresa May can hold a snap election knowing the outcome is unquestionably free and fair.

In France, no one will be voting for an end to democracy: It's not on the ballot, and after all, what kind of turkey votes for Christmas?

But worryingly, that may not be enough to stop democracy from being shoved to the backseat while nationalism takes the wheel.

Read more:
European democracy is under threat. Who knew? - CNN