Jami Miller dove into the nitty gritty of Nevada school rankings to demonstrate where there's been improvement in recent years. She also took a glance at where schools are improving the most... And where they're not. (Sorry, Michelle Rhee.)
And that wasn't all. Debra Solt then stepped up to talk about what Vegas PBS is doing to improve Nevada's economy. But wait, how might a PBS station be doing that? Sure, "Sesame Street" and "NOVA" are educational... But how do they strengthen Nevada's worforce?
It turns out that Vegas PBS has been working one one big GOAL since 2010, and that's to improve Nevada's workforce by providing advanced training courses and making them more accessible to more Nevadans who need them.
It's amazing to think of everything Vegas PBS & CCSD are doing in the community to build a stronger and better educated workforce. And it truly is what we need more of. If we're to ever free ourselves from our own prison, then we must break from the mistakes of the past and build the solid foundation we need for a brighter future.
It's just too bad we can only imagine what our public education system could do if it wasn't so "grossly underfunded". Just imagine what our public infrastructure could support & sustain if we actually kept it up. Instead of having to explain why we're "not really in 51st place", we could aspire to be more than just 36th.
Here’s what I was thinking through the debate: When will it end? Sharron Angle - refusing to be influenced by evidence or reason, Harry Reid wandering off onto wonkishly long-winded answers. Slogans vs. substance. Fossil fueled Sharron Angle vs the always renewable power of Harry Reid. Neither is exactly Churchillian in their presence or style.
Amid the confusing non-answers, flubbed numbers, exaggerations, missed opportunities, disconnected attempts at Reagan-era boosterism and misplaced gravitas there is one point that stood up and saluted:
Sharron Angle has been living on the largesse of her BLM retiree husband’s federal pension and medical insurance for virtually her entire adult life. She’s right up there with a lot of the politicians she so loves to hate for what they supposedly have.
She came across as a self-absorbed, self-satisfied and yet jealous bitch who knew all her bizarre talking points to a ‘t’ - whether they were appropriate to the question or not.
Angle consistently ignores available data in favor of anecdotal particulars - such as mentioning that her father pays $800 for his monthly drugs despite being a wounded war veteran. The point went to Reid as he suggested that dear old Dad should come to the Reid office so that wiser heads might help him remedy such a ridiculous and unnecessary situation.
And typically, she engages in one ad hominum argument after another - attacking Reid personally. This works for her, since she would otherwise have to have an actual command of facts and issues beyond the simplistic TeaNut demagoguery.
On the subject of health care reform, Harry Reid remarked that, obviously, insurance companies wouldn’t do squat unless the government forced them to - so much for the free market. But Angle blundered forward carrying the banner of “Obama-care” saying “What we have here is a choice between the free market and Americanism…. We don’t have to force anyone to buy anything,” agreeing that she would not force companies to cover specific disorders.
The point went to Reid when Angle whined about not getting a coal-fired power plant in Ely or nuclear power at Yucca Mountain. Reid shot back that the reason just might be that he was working really hard to make Nevada a leader in renewable power - and related that he had just brought 1,000 jobs to Nevada with an LED plant. Sharron, duh!
That Angle had the bad manners and lack of class to suggest that the Senate Majority Leader “Man up” was telling. Refer to my earlier statement about being a bitch. She’s a no-class bitch spewing the same old simple-minded TeaNut drool. She even went on to attack Reid for uh, having money. Isn’t that sort of the point of her free-market driven American dream? Point goes to Reid for explaining that as a successful attorney and investor, that can happen, even while you put five kids through “100 semesters” of college.
OK, so Harry Reid is pretty dull. So he won't be headlining any comedy show at Caesars any time soon. So what! Who cares! He's our Senator, not our entertainer. And he clearly used facts while Angle had nothing but canned lines that sounded like they were ripped directly from FreeRepublic.
"This so-called 'new direction' of my opponent is just a U-turn back to the old policies" that got us here, Titus said.
Thursday evening's one-hour debate was filmed in Vegas PBS' studios just an hour after a debate between U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and his challenger, Republican Sharron Angle, wrapped up.
Public opinion polls show Heck and Titus, the candidates for Nevada's 3rd Congressional District, in a dead heat, and theirs is among the nation's most watched races for a House of Representatives seat.
The two candidates sparred on issues including Yucca Mountain, health care reform, the foreclosure crisis, jobs, Social Security and immigration and took questions submitted by readers of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Titus touted the work she has done for Nevada, saying she has supported programs that help people refinance their home loans and avoid foreclosures, and supported the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
"I don't know what Nevada would have done without it," she said of the act. "Just look at the jobs it has created."
Titus said the money helped save local construction and teacher jobs and that saving jobs is her job.
Even though Dina Titus was actually debating Joe Heck, she was debunking the myths propping up both his and Angle's attacks on her and Reid. Yet again, he was flipping and flopping while Dina was laying out the facts. At one point, Heck couldn't even remember his own record (!!!) on voting for big bank giveaways while also voting in the state legislature to deny property tax cuts for seniors and textbooks for kids in school. And she even went after him for flipping and flopping over Heck's own endorsement/unendorsement of Angle! Oh yes, she quickly revealed whose side Heck is really on.
Funny enough, later in their debate he whined and screamed about some independent expenditures against him. He tried to make it a personal attack on Dina, but she turned it right back on him. But interestingly enough, neither one mentioned what could be the most damning evidence of hypocrisy yet from Nevada Republicans. They cry and whine and scream whenever their own records are exposed, but they remain silent when outside groups like the Chamber of Commerce come in to spend millions lying about Democrats.
Oh, and guess where the money is coming from? And what the Chamber really believes about "creating jobs"?
I'm a bit surprised that Dina didn't talk about this more, but nonetheless she hit a home run when she closed by saying she isn't afraid of outside corporate interests attacking her with these lying (and foreign funded!) ads, and that she'll keep fighting for us.
You can see the whole debate here. And I think this really showed what this election is about, probably even more so than the Reid-Angle debate.
Who's on our side? Who's fighting for us? Who's working on solutions to get us back to work? Who's been working to fight foreclosures? Who's working to create a more sustainable Nevada for our future? Honestly, Dina Titus probably explained best last night the choices we really have. And she not only exposed Heck for the flip-flopping opportunist he is, but she even exposed the hollow, shallow reality of Sharron Angle's empty rhetoric (that Heck likes to piggyback off whenever it's convenient for him).
Without a doubt, Titus defeated Angle (and Heck) last night. ;-)
