TCD’s week in review

Labor Day weekend in Milwaukee means the rumble of Harley-Davidsons and the arrival thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts from all over the world. Personally, I am not a fan of motorcycles—I think they’re the loudest, dumbest things you can own. But this is America, so far be it from me to let my personal opinion of hogs get in the way of a great Milwaukee tradition that unites so many passionate people looking to celebrate something they love. I don’t understand it, and that’s fine by me. Ride on!

There are many ways to criticize the administration of President Barack Obama. This is the case regardless of whichever party you consider yourself to be aligned. Every American politician in this day and age is deserving of criticism. But in this year’s presidential election, whether it be in specific policies or overall ideology, there are clear-cut differences between the GOP and the Obama administration. Troubling, however, is the GOP’s decision to highlight an out-of-context statement by Obama and use it as a cornerstone theme of its convention and a major rallying cry in Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. While the remark speaks to notions of Obama’s anti-business, pro-government approach (and there’s debate to be had in terms of the truth of that perception), by trumpeting “you didn’t build that,” the GOP blatantly disregards what Obama actually said. Here’s the full text of that July 13 speech. There are better debates to be had than ones based in distorted inaccuracies. Speaking of which…

Paul Ryan took center stage at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night, and his speech was met with an almost instantaneous response by fact checkers pointing out several inaccuracies in Ryan’s speech. And once again, the political conversation turned to Wisconsin, specifically, to Ryan’s home town, Janesville. Here’s what the vice presidential candidate had to say:

“My home state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it, especially in Janesville, where we were about to lose a major factory. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.” That’s what he said in 2008.

Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.”

As the Washington Post Fact Checker (among many other sources) notes, the plant was largely closed by December of 2008, during the Bush presidency, with only 100 workers remaining into the Obama presidency to finish a contract that ended in April 2009. This wasn’t the only fib in the Wisconsin congressman’s speech. To quote The Wire, “A lie ain’t a side of a story. It’s just a lie.”

Online schools have operated in Wisconsin for 10 years, and the results have not been successful. According to Gannett Media Wisconsin, “Enrollment in Wisconsin’s online schools has doubled in the last five years, but students who have chosen class without a classroom often struggle to complete their degrees and repeat grades four times as often as their brick-and-mortar counterparts.” Last year, as part of Gov. Scott Walker’s budget, the enrollment cap on virtual charter schools was eliminated.