Today’s Morning Jolt spotlights the morning’s bad news about an angry mob storming our embassy compound in Yemen, the hard questions being asked about remarkably thin security at our consulate in Benghazi, and then this update on Chicago:
Obama: Abandoning His Old Ally and His Own Reforms in Chicago
From my notes for yesterday’s more heated than usual appearance on Kudlow, briefly discussing the Chicago Teachers’ Union strike.
Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday that “every issue we’re talking about is the core thrust of Race to the Top,” President Obama’s signature education reform.
Obama’s former chief of staff is trying to enact Obama’s reforms in Obama’s home town, and the president is silent and has no comment. This is a humiliation for the president. The Chicago Teachers’ Union has demonstrated who calls the shots in the symbiotic relationship between the teachers’ unions and the Democratic party, and the president is proven to be unable to speak up for his own purported agenda.
It’s not looking like we’ll see resolution anytime soon, either:
Chicago teachers stayed away from public schools for a third day on Wednesday in a strike over Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s demand for tough teacher evaluations that U.S. education reform advocates see as crucial to fixing urban schools.
With more than 350,000 children out of school, the patience of parents and labor negotiators began to fray as hopes of a quick resolution to the biggest U.S. labor strike in a year were dashed.
Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who is based in Chicago, appeared at the site where negotiations were supposed to take place on Wednesday and said that he had met with both sides separately to urge them to settle.
“Both sides are dug in. They can’t hear each other,” Jackson said.
And if Jesse Jackson can’t bring these folks together . . .