Last edited Fri Mar 20, 2015, 04:18 AM - Edit history (1)
So, at the state level, they have cut funding to the point that the kids can't even get textbooks to use in their schools!
Let alone repair the leaking roofs.
It was quite a slick little scam they pulled here just a few years ago.
Idaho state's Superintendent of Public Schools, a complete idiot, decided that our state should use an online system to teach our kids a few years ago.
Sounded groovy, what could possibly go wrong?
So, they put the system in place, with the state's Superintendent awarding the lucrative contract without him holding a public bidding process first, as is required by law.
Nosirreebob, he was a man of action, and he wanted to prove it.
He wasn't going to hold a silly ol' public bidding process and let something like that slow him down from implementing this as fast as he could.
Nope, so he just picked up the phone and called the company that he wanted to have the multi-million dollar, long-term contract!
Even though he didn't have the legal authority to do that!!
So, of course, someone here was awake when this all broke out in the news, and they went to court with the state over it.
So then, naturally, the judge said the no-bid contract that the state signed, in order to start their state-wide online public educational system, was illegal.
It was obvious that a blind man could have seen how that case was going to be decided.
However, since some of the smaller rural school districts used the online system extensively . . . some so much they used it exclusively . . . so much so, that they decided to forego buying textbooks in order to save money . . . money which the Republican-controlled state's legislature wouldn't give them to buy any textbooks with anyway, so they were screwed.
The idea, according to the state's Superintendent of Public Schools, was to standardize the public educational system state-wide . . while throwing several millions of dollars to their party's favorite corporate donor at the same time.
And then later, they said hey, now that we've got this nifty illegal state-wide broadband internet public education system up and going, why not just give up using textbooks altogether?
You know, using stuffy, ol' textbooks, ugh . . . that's sooooo 20th century!
And so, that is how it came to pass that some of the smaller rural school districts in Idaho have been caught between a rock and a hard place this year.
It is a direct result of this illegal no-bid state contract.
Compounded by the fact that the case took so long to go through the court system.
This contract was obviously illegal -- especially since the state's Superintendent of Public Schools didn't have the legal authority to award the online internet broadband contract to begin with -- and so, this year, now even some of the Republican legislators want to know why they were exposed to the public for looking the other way when all of this went down in the first place 2 or 3 years ago.
Like they had no idea this crap was wrong!
The hypocrisy was as thick as a fog in dear ol' London last month when that judge's ruling came down.
His ruling came down as no surprise to anyone.
Right along with the pants of every Republican legislator who immediately began to cry foul about this contract because the simple truth is, those bastards knew that this contract was illegal when the state's Superintendent of the Public Schools did it at the time he did it, to begin with!!
Hell, it was in all of the newspapers saying that the Superintendent of Public Schools didn't have the authority to do something like this.
The state's attorney general (another Republican) looked the other way as this news broke.
He said he didn't think his office should get involved in it, that it was something the state's Republican-dominated legislature should deal with.
No crime here, now shoo along.
Have I told you that the FBI is currently investigating the Governor of Idaho for how this all went down in my state?
Have I mentioned that the news of the FBI investigating the Governor came out weeks before the mid-term elections last year, and yet, the majority of people in Idaho voted to re-elect him anyway!!!!!!
The odd thing is, maybe it was to be expected . . . even after the news of this illegal contract came out after the judge made his ruling, the Republicans in the state legislature still claimed that they don't need an ethics committee in the state legislature to oversee what they are doing while they are in session in the Capitol.
Idaho is 1 of only 2 states in the entire country that still does not have an ethics committee associated with their state's legislature.
Well, golly gee, they don't need one, cuz they never do anything corrupt, shady, or illegal.
Now that the Republicans have dominated the state's legislature for the last 30+ years, they are sure they don't need one.
Just go ask a Republican serving in the state's legislature, if you don't believe me.
Or go ask one who resigned faster than a cow flicked flies off of her back when what they did came out in the news.
It doesn't matter, say the Republicans, they have another crook, I mean, legislator, all lined up and raring to go in that other guy's place.
And just look, there is no public scandal over some illegal activity, like raping 2 different women in 2 different states over 2 different decades, or committing incest associated with this new guy of ours . . . . . . . yet!
My friend explained it to me a few months ago.
He fount out that one of the major rightwing think tanks has an office here in Idaho, along with 2 other locations in 2 other states like Texas and Florida.
And they push to get enacted some kind of crazy ass law, just to see if they can get it passed into law.
You know, crazy ass shit, like requiring women to undergo transvaginal exams if they want an abortion.
Or making to legal to carry a concealed weapon as long as you're a member of the state legislature, without going through any gun education safety classes or undergoing background checks.
Then, after they get it signed in to law in my state, they push that same crazy ass crap in other states.
That's what is going on right now in Wisconsin.
Idaho screwed their public education system up so bad 8 years ago, it wasn't even funny.
The first thing the Republican Governor did was slash the education budget by a BILLION dollars and then he gave the biggest corporations a BILLION dollar tax cut.
You know, to balance things out here a little bit.
The corporations didn't mind.
Every school district superintendent was screaming, but those were screams of joy said the Governor.
No, they were simply overwhelmed that they wouldn't have to worry about what to do with all of that money they had accustomed to having in previous years.
No need to thank me, said the Governor, I'm just doing my job.
Hell, the jerk that was elected to be the state's Superintendent of Public Schools in 2006 didn't even have a bona fide college degree!!
He had an internet degree from some college like Phoenix University.
And he didn't major in education . . . nope, his degree was in weights and scales, scales like the ones they use to weigh large semi-trailer trucks!
And Idaho has had "right-to-work" for less as a state law for almost 28 years now.
All Walker is doing, is copying what they did here, spreading the hate to his own state.
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Randi Weingarten ✔ @rweingarten
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