Mount Virtus

Suffering from low blood pressure and need it raised? Want to hear one of the reasons why many people are disenchanted with public schools? There’s nothing quite like indoctrinating young minds, whether from willful ignorance or whatever the cause may be. Mike Rosen, the preeminent radio talk show host in the Rocky Mountain West, has recorded classroom footage from Jay Bennish’s geography class at Overland High School, featuring an unbalanced rant against President Bush, America, and capitalism.

One of Bennish’s students made the recording and will appear with his mother on the Mike Rosen Radio Show on 850 KOA tomorrow morning, Wednesday, March 1. I haven’t heard if the host was able to get Bennish himself, the Overland principal, or any representative from the Cherry Creek School District in metro Denver to appear, though he has extended an invitation. Rosen’s show airs from 9 AM to Noon Mountain Standard Time for those outside the region. It should be compelling radio.

For those of you who may recall, Walter Williams featured the Colorado indoctrinator in his column last week.

Update (3/2): Kudos to the Cherry Creek School District for taking action. It looks like media scrutiny will be on this case. Neither Mike Rosen nor the Allen family expressed any desire for the removal of Mr. Bennish from his job - just that his tirade would be treated as an example of what school district policy should not tolerate. Stay tuned…

Michelle Malkin has transcribed a lot of the tape and has some more links, as well. More at Slapstick Politics, too.

Mike Rosen talked to student Sean Allen again today, who stayed at home because some of his friends at Overland had overheard serious threats. Makes sense, when you see the number of students who protested the school district putting Bennish on administrative leave.

Update II: The sudden surge of interest in this story has highlighted the case for educational choice in America’s affluent suburbs. Cherry Creek School District may be the most affluent district in Colorado and one largely untouched by a lot of the charter school and other choice reforms that are prominent in this state. When a teacher like Bennish spouts his one-sided tirades - and he is far from alone - it is further evidence that the schools are more accountable to their interest group customers - teacher and educrat unions - than to the parental customers. Choice and competition are vital remedies to a system not only lagging in academic performance but ideological balance.

Joshua has the scoop on the imminent entry of a new candidate into the Colorado Attorney General’s race. Looks like the Dead Guvs may have to add another line — and, er, maybe the guys at Mile High Delphi can start rolling out the predictions for all the statewide offices up for grabs in November.

The Holtzman campaign says to pass the word along about this week’s exciting events:

Come Party With Us!

Join Us As We Celebrate
The 46th Birthday
Of The Next Governor Of Colorado

Marc Holtzman

At The Official
Marc and Lola
2006 Campaign Kickoff

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

5:30 PM
VIP Reception
West Wing Room
6:00 PM
Ballroom

Radisson Hotel Denver Southeast
3200 South Parker Road
Aurora, Colorado

Entertainment:
Music and Dancing
Provided by:
Danny Dale
Tony David
of “The Glass Menagerie”

VIP Reception: $46
General Reception: Complimentary

Thursday, March 2, 2006

8:00 AM
For Breakfast

Rosario’s
Banquet Room
2930 North Elizabeth
Pueblo, Colorado

$20 Per Person

RSVP to Elizabeth or Dustin
303-370-2006
SupportMarc@Marc2006.com

I know the story isn’t brand new, but I couldn’t resist a quick post on this topic before the weekend: the Rocky Mountain News castigates State Senator Deanna Hanna - the most popular Colorado legislator in the “name game” song - today with an implied rhetorical comparison to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Does the word “shakedown” mean anything? The Democrat from Lakewood is in ethical hot water for basically attempting to extort money from a realtors’ group that she felt betrayed her by refusing to fund her 2004 re-election campaign and giving $1,400 to her Republican opponent instead.

You have to credit the Democrat majority for at least being willing to open up an ethics panel on one of their own. Mount Virtus will follow this story as it unfolds.

Both Marc Holtzman [no link yet available on his Web site] and Bob Beauprez are touting their support of the popular “65 percent solution” education initiative. A ceremony was held at the State Capitol today to celebrate the submission of the petition signatures that officially put the measure on Colorado’s November ballot.

In our separate RMA interviews with the two candidates several months ago, I came away with the convincing impression that Holtzman had a much stronger grasp of the issue than his rival did. I am more confident he could hold up the arguments in a debate with a formidable opponent who may be in the pockets of the education interest groups.

Why were the two Republican candidates practically shouldering one another out of the way to be the first in line to support the First Class Education “65 percent solution”? You will find one excellent answer here.

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Compliments of Michelle Malkin, watch a brief video of Hillary Clinton stirring up fear and paranoia about school vouchers. Then ask yourself two questions:
1. Has giving no-strings money through the GI Bill sent millions of dollars to the creation of white supremacist universities?
2. What makes a K-12 education voucher different from the GI Bill, since both empower people to spend money on the education they see fit?

Yup. Hillary is prostituting herself for every ounce of support she can get from the National Education Association.

The editorial board of the Pueblo Chieftain rips State Senator Peter Groff and his Democratic colleagues for the economic and political travesty that is Senate Bill 66, which would require all businesses with 10 or more employees to offer those employees unpaid leave to attend functions at their children’s schools. Key quote:

We know of many working parents who have been able to arrange with their employers to get time off to attend important school functions for their children. Employers who value their individual employees often make allowances through scheduling to give workers time to take care of their youngsters’ school affairs.

In any event, though, the state should not mandate this arrangement. Giving it the color of law invites misuse of the time off by irresponsible parents. Good parents should be able to find accommodation to attend to their responsibilities.

Yes. It’s called common sense.

While I’m at it, remember Rep. Gwyn Green’s voodoo economics “price-gouging” bill (HB 1251)? The Democrats on the Business Affairs Committee gave it a party-line thumbs up on Monday and sent it to the House floor for a vote, scheduled for tomorrow. Can we trust this party with anything, much less the State of Colorado’s reasonably friendly climate for businesses and consumers?

The refreshing thought is that at least Governor Owens is there to wield the veto pen on SB 066, HB 1251, and any other rotten legislation that may get sent his way.

More analysis later, but this story from the Rocky Mountain News speaks for itself: yesterday, statehouse Democrats voted party-line in committee to kill seven bills that tackled the issue of illegal immigration head-on. Examples?

- One bill prohibited giving public contracts to businesses that knowingly hire illegals
- One bill authorized training of local law enforcement in the recognition and detention of illegals
- One bill required employers to learn how to verify worker eligibility and fire those found ineligible

It will be important to remember come November which party blocked these and other important immigration reforms at the State Capitol: the Democrats.

President Bush is in town to speak at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden this morning. In fact, he will be down the street from my workplace. I have to run a work-related errand on my way in - I’ll report later if there is anything to be seen.

Yesterday Governor Bill Owens made his signature the 100,000th on the petition drive for First Class Education, which would make school districts spend 65 percent of their operating budgets in the classroom. This issue looks to be a big winner, especially for the GOP, and the interest groups (including teacher and administrator unions) are in a tizzy.

Finally, in the latest textbook example of why a Democrat statehouse majority is bad for Colorado business, SB066 passed the Senate floor on a party-line vote. The legislation, which now moves to the House for consideration, would require employers to give employees five hours a month to attend their children’s school activities. The heavy-handed mandate will most burden and harm small businesses, who do better in making these arrangements with employees in a way that works for both parties. What other unintended consequences will follow from this Democrat nannyist meddling could be examined further at length. (Time constraints will not allow more analysis at this point.)

Of note is the fact that my Senator Moe Keller (D), who is up for re-election this year, voted along with her party and against the interests of many small business owners in her district. Many will not forget her vote come November.

There is a lot going on in the Centennial State. Look forward to more updates soon.

Update: Earlier this morning I drove past about 30 members of the “No Blood for Oil” brigade holding signs to greet the President’s arrival at the National Renewable Energy Lab. Yawn….

I’ve had a wonderful, week-long hiatus from blogging. Even as I resume, posts likely will be more sparse for awhile. After all, there’s a new Little Virtus who has stolen Daddy’s heart and needs more of his time.

To get back into the spirit of things, an interesting Monday read comes from across the Pond: William Rees-Mogg of The Times of London writes about the impending downfall of General Motors. (HT: Real Clear Politics)

Amazing stuff to contemplate - my family earned its living from GM - including the premiere health benefits that yours truly benefited from - and my dad still draws a pension from them. But globalization moves on to benefit more and more consumers, and GM appears unable to adapt. So be it. The world continues to change before my eyes, and what was once conventional wisdom collapses into the dark corners and dustbins of history. And who will unleash the market forces that will restore the fortunes of the once mighty Michigan economy? Stay tuned…

Editor’s note: I have included my most highly recommended Lincoln book selections at the end of this post, if you care to read that far.

Since the celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday was subsumed under the generic President’s Day label, the significance of tomorrow often is forgotten. But I would have a difficult time omitting a commemorative mention of the significance of February 12 - especially this year.

In both the Gregorian and Western Christian church calendars, 2006 runs the same pattern as 1865, the closing months of Lincoln’s life - since recounted in legendary memory. The assassination of the 16th President took place on the night of Good Friday, April 14, the same date in which American Christians and others will celebrate Christ’s divine sacrifice on Mt. Calvary this year. The timing of Lincoln’s murder established a quasi-religious mythology surrounding the Great Emancipator.

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Fox News reports:

BROCKTON, Mass. — A 6-year-old boy is getting a lesson on the meaning of sexual harassment long before he’ll be able to spell it.

The first-grader was suspended for three days for sexual harassment after he put two fingers inside a classmate’s waistband, school officials told his mother, Berthena Dorinvil. The boy told her he only touched the girl’s shirt after the girl touched him.

Experts say only in rare, troubling cases can children that young truly sexually harass one another.

“The connotation is you’re getting some kind of sexual gratification, or wanting sexual gratification, or are putting pressure on for some kind of sexual gratification, when a 6-year-old doesn’t have that capacity,” said E. Christopher Murray, a civil rights attorney who has handled school discipline cases.

Dr. Elizabeth Berger, a Philadelphia-area child psychiatrist, said this case seems to be an overzealous attempt to ensure students feel safe in school after years in which society was not attentive enough.

The boy’s mother called the Jan. 30 suspension from Downey Elementary School outrageous. She said she can’t even explain to her son what he did wrong because he’s too young to understand.

“He doesn’t know those things,” she told The Enterprise of Brockton. “He’s only 6 years old.”

Brockton school officials have not commented beyond a statement from Superintendent Basan Nembirkow that said sexual harassment charges are always investigated and officials are trained to deal with them.

The Brockton School Committee defines sexual harassment among students, in part, as “uninvited physical contact such as touching, hugging, patting or pinching.”

First-graders who repeatedly touch classmates need to be disciplined and taught what’s appropriate, said Nan Stein, a senior research scientist at the Center for Research on Women at Wellesley College. But don’t call the apparent discipline problem “sexual harassment” because first-graders just don’t get it, she said.

There have been similar cases. In 1996, a New York second-grader was suspended for kissing a girl and ripping a button off her skirt — an idea the boy said he got from his favorite book “Corduroy,” about a bear with a missing button. Earlier that year, a Lexington, N.C., 6-year-old was separated from his class after kissing a classmate on the cheek.

Sigh.

Note to readers: You may have noticed recently some extra commenting restrictions and a few disappearing comments. These were the unfortunate side effects of a full-scale effort to delouse after a spam invasion. My regrets that some legitimate comments were accidentally erased.

I have opened up commenting again and tweaked the settings to see if we can have good discussions free from being overrun by comment spammers. My policy remains the same that anyone can add their thoughts and have them posted, provided they are free of obscenity. If the spam problem persists, however, I may have to shut down the discussions indefinitely.

A strong message has been sent by Colorado junior U.S. Senator Ken Salazar’s rapid-response endorsement of Democrat gubernatorial primary frontrunner Bill Ritter in the wake of Mayor John Hickenlooper’s 11th-hour declaration that he wouldn’t run. The former Denver District Attorney is his party’s best hope to capture the statehouse, now that Hick has bowed out. Salazar’s clout and status brought to bear so quickly seems to say that he thinks no other Democrat should enter the primary - and he doesn’t even need to mention the low-profile candidacy of Rep. Gary Lindstrom. Meanwhile, every hour of indecision for Boulder liberal Rep. Alice Madden is an hour closer to turning a longshot campaign into a wasted effort.

And so many questions remain: Will the Democratic Party split over the rush to coronate Ritter? Are his views on abortion too far to the right for Colorado’s Democrat activists? What viable alternative do they have? Will the party’s base find a boost to restore its energy? Does a divisive primary wait? …Where’s Mike Miles when you need him?

Message to Republicans: keep your eyes on the prize.

Today’s “On Point” by Vincent Carroll is priceless: he highlights a Colorado Democrat legislator who has introduced a bill that reveals some combination of total economic illiteracy, shameless populist pandering, and/or a statist thirst for destructive power. Out of deference and good will, we will presume the motive to be the first.

From Carroll’s piece:

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There is a great editorial in the Chicago Tribune today (HT: Real Clear Politics) that deflates the mythology of the ‘jobless recovery’ and other Democrat nostrums about national employment trends. The national unemployment rate stands at an incredible 4.7 percent (4.6 percent in Colorado), but the naysayers press on. More specific Colorado jobs myth deflation to come in the near future, time permitting.

Some brief Monday morning thoughts:

Colorado Democrats are under a lot of pressure and influence from the aging dinosaur of organized labor, which despite its “pro-worker” rhetoric, champions some legislation bound to have an adverse effect on working families. Working families who shop at - or even work at - say, Wal Mart. Did they take a poll of the giant retailer’s employees before deciding to support a measure that would mandate a certain percentage of payroll on health care benefits? This is horrible legislation that would primarily benefit the union bosses and their organizing buddies, and could hurt the many student and second-income employees who already are covered by someone else’s health insurance and choose to work at Wal Mart for the extra take-home earnings.

But none of the organized labor lobby is strong as Colorado’s public employee unions, from whom other union bosses might get the idea to enforce the automatic collection of union dues from employee paychecks by legislation. Or with a Democrat governor in the statehouse they likely will seek to undo Bill Owens’ 2001 executive order outlawing political deductions from state employee paychecks.

Speaking of Democrats who want to be governor, it looks like Mayor John Hickenlooper finally will decide to cast his hat in the ring. To which I reply: Good. One can only take so much anticipatory drooling from the other side of the aisle. They have deluded themselves into believing that Hick is the unbeatable statewide candidate they’ve been longing for to lead the “Blue State” charge. Let the real campaigning begin.

Update: Well, surprise, surprise… Hick is not running, and this time we can safely assume that “No” really does mean “No.” Hick or Ritter or Alice Madden, it doesn’t matter: the GOP should be odds-on favorites to hold on to the Statehouse. And having staked so much on a rumor, the Dems sure look rudderless now. The Dead Guvs’ best efforts to breathe life into the state Dems’ fall campaign have fallen short. One of many questions arising now: where is the Big Four’s money going to go?

Update II: A media release from the Marc Holtzman campaign indicates that John Hickenlooper made the classy gesture of giving Marc a personal phone call notifying him of the decision prior to his official announcement. Still awaiting word from the Beauprez camp, but there is every reason to believe Hick extended the gesture to all the other announced candidates in the race. Best wishes to Hick in his continued mayoral tenure.

Berny Morson of the Rocky Mountain News reports on a briefing yesterday put on by Pam Benigno of the Independence Institute. Months of interviews and research have gone into the still-ongoing findings about how fights and assaults are reported on Colorado’s School Accountability Reports (SAR). The short story of a complicated topic? Reporting violent incidents in schools is a lot closer to obscure legal technicality than common sense. Perhaps you remember the story of a student murdered in a Denver high school cafeteria, recently reported as a “Dangerous Weapons” incident. This anecdote is only the most extreme and striking of many points of confusion on the SAR.

Parents and taxpayers deserve a clearer and fairer picture of the atmosphere of their schools, rather than the distorted view currently presented. The fault lies with the current law, not with school officials or law enforcement. Republican Senator Ed Jones of Colorado has introduced Senate Bill 55, which will take a couple important positive steps in improving the way assaults and fights are reported in schools. His bill will be heard in the Senate Education Committee this afternoon. It will be interesting to see how the proposed legislation fares in the hands of a Democratic majority heavily influenced by interest groups keen on seeing the SAR disappear or, at least, be stripped of any useful qualities.