Discussion: Fallout From Red-State Teacher Strikes Piles Onto Republican Midterm Anxieties

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As Stephen Colbert once sneered, “Those teachers and their exotic Nissan Sentras.”

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The Repugs are freaking out over this strike.

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Anyone watch that video of a Republican teacher protesting yesterday? He pointed out the problem by saying if you put a R on a fence post, he would vote for the fence post over any of the current lawmakers. Heaven forbid he would vote for a Democrat over a fence post with an R on it: Like the chickens voting for Colonel Sanders.

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Maddow did a long segment on this last night and NYT has several stories. KY governor is an ass

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has not yet signed the bill, but last week tweeted his support, saying public workers owe “a deep debt of gratitude” to lawmakers who voted to pass it.

During Monday’s rally, some teachers, angry at lawmakers who supported the bill, chanted “Vote them out.”

Melissa Wash, a first-grade teacher form Gallatin County who has been teaching for 19 years, said she voted for Bevin, but now plans to become a Democrat. To the lawmakers who voted for the pension overhaul, she said: “You better not count on another year in office.”

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The story is big down here. They interviewed a woman teacher the other night who was sobbing as she told how she is now commuting from her home in Oklahoma to teach down here in a suburb of Dallas because she can make 20,000 more a year doing that but she hates it and I don’t blame her - it’s a long fucking way to commute.’

There is a lot of sympathy down here for the teachers.

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Again, it’s remarkable how they aren’t getting ahead by tariffs, tax cuts, deregulation, privatization, outsourcing or stupid walls.

Organize.
Turnout.
More organization.
More turnout.

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Bevin has not endeared himself to many since he’s been in office, petulant child that he is, as well as an ALEC transplant, Koch Bro puppet and trump boot licker. He’s managed to piss off just about everyone, even some Rs. Has his eyes on national office to which he is being groomed. Rumor has it he may not run again but I think more along the lines he will run and pick a really egregious Lt. Gov. so if he wins, he’ll quit and go for Mitch’s seat leaving us with his mini-me fellow ALEC moron. I don’t think it looks as good for his reelection as others may think. He’s a dick, everyone knows it, and he really fucked with the health care too. He’s not a liked man.

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Looks like red states actually want their children to get a good education. Who would have thunk it?

The perfect storm is forming across the nation. People are fed up with the corruption of the GOP. We hear about Trump supporters loving him, and many do, but these are our fellow Americans and they are waking up to realize they made a mistake. Good for them.

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I’ve had neighbors and family who have been HS and grade school teachers, and they’ve told me horror stories. Working off the clock is the norm, buying supplies, showing kids how to groom themselves, so they teach, they parent, and they raise their students.

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Yep it sure looks feels smells and sounds that way to me too. There is such pushback all over the place. Sinclair’s stock took a steep dive.

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They have so much more responsibility piled on them these days and no support from the governments - it’s pathetic and it is reaching a boil.

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I’ve followed KY politics ever since Bevins defeated the D governor, and it had to do with ACA. People who needed it the most hated Obama, so they voted in an R who guaranteed they’d lose benefits. Some states will def be harder to flip than others, yours sounds like one of them.

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I have long thought that one of the GOP’s biggest blunders was their attack on education in general and on teachers specifically.

When I was growing up—the week after the invention of the wheel—teachers were respected members of the community and got the proper credit for doing a difficult job for not enough pay.

Having taught (college) myself, and having a sister and brother-in-law who teach primary/middle school, I have seen conservatives continually denigrate teachers as lazy whiners, teaching as something losers do, and education itself as evil and unnecessary.

The worm, it seems, has turned.

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I think every seat that is up for reelection in the state house has a Dem running for it. 41 of them are teachers, many are women. Probably looks a little better from inside the forest than out.

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I hope so because I grew up with public education too and it was good and I’ve been sickened by what has happened and I have friends who became teachers and the Repuglic attacks on them are really obscene and I think it is a major blunder. Most voters are like you and me -public school educated.

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they don’t get it. They think the R platform is “we’re against teh gays and teh muslims and teh womens and teh non-whites!” and that the economic stripping of the middle class is something that they can convince their R lawmakers to maybe not do.

they don’t understand that stripping every last cent out of the middle class and tanking the whole country’s economy go give more to the already super-wealthy IS the R platform. And the “against gays and mooslums and wimmens and non-whites” is just the distraction to get them to keep voting these dickwads into office.

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Makes you wonder what is so good about Oklahoma that she wants to stay there. There are plenty of affordable places in the Dallas northern suburbs, and it’s a better place overall.

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I agree but she’s from Oklahoma and doesn’t want to leave.

What can I say? Not my choice either. I wouldn’t live there; I won’t even take a rental car that has Ok plates on it -

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I think the attack on education arose in the seventies when they saw how out of control the masses could get when they were taught to think and form opinions. The kids Marching For Our Lives were likewise taught to think.

The attack on education is ongoing. It is good to see it being countered.

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