In fact, a whole lot of 20- and 30-somethings across the political spectrum now believe something’s seriously flawed in our public-education system. (You can bet Gyllenhaal wouldn’t have taken the role otherwise.) But why the sea change?

Start by “blaming” Teach For America — which for decades now has placed recent graduates from top colleges as teachers in some of America’s worst public schools.

This year, TFA has 10,000 corps members working in 36 states and the District of Columbia. It has 28,000 “alumni,” more than two-thirds still in education-related fields. But even those who’ve left for other lines of work have had a glimpse of how bad our inner-city schools have become. The incompetence and corruption are hard to forget.

Oh, and they talk to their peers about it, too.

As they should. By the way, I’m going to be doing another Broadside for Encounter on the Lower Education Bubble, tentatively entitled The K-12 Implosion. So if you see interesting stuff on this topic, please send it along!

In a related vein, reader Joe Hall writes:

I was on the realclearpolitics.com site today and noticed that Obama is having a contest to win “Dinner with Barack” to try and raise money. Then I noticed that you do not have to donate to enter. So I figured why not. I figure if everyone who is planning on voting against Obama signs up we can sit there and make him chew on some things other than dinner during our time together. As the estimable John Blutarsky once said, “Don’t cost nothin’.”

Here’s the link.

It would be educational for Obama to have dinner with some Tea Party folks. His life is kind of insular. Why not burst the bubble?

UPDATE: IowaHawk: “Screaming hysterical hecklers at Ryan IA state fair speech rush stage, punch supporters, get arrested. I guess because Ryan’s an extremist.”

Since there were arrests, their names will be public record. Names, backgrounds, and mugshots should be publicized as widely as possible.

Plus, a reference to a prescient warning from 1:49 p.m. on 9/11/2001.

This is one of the relatively few policy areas where Obama has gotten it right. He deserves the credit.

Also, today only: Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS Watch with Heart Rate Monitor, $149.99.

Heh.

Related: The 5 Most Outrageous Attacks On The Paul Ryan Budget.

Also: Dem electoral strategy – convince Grandparents to throw Grandchildren off fiscal cliff.

Yes.

I have some suggestions.

David Bernstein comments: “The family has filed a $30 million lawsuit, but tar and feathers would be more appropriate.” The remedies are not mutually exclusive.

And actually, I think remedies involving public humiliation are particularly appropriate for this kind of official misconduct. Just be sure the supervisors are included.

“More deserted than even Spring Festival [when everybody goes back to their hometown to celebrate the holiday]” is the feeling of many city residents. What more, the situation was even worse in the surrounding areas, because at least in the big city of Shenyang the big supermarkets and restaurants were still open whereas according to local news, 95% of the shops and stores in places like Liaozhong County were closed, to the point where for a time it was impossible to find someplace to buy rice or oil. One Liaozhong resident who was unsuccessful in buying rice said to local media, “If you were to come to Liaozhong at this time and stayed for 5 days, you’d probably starve to death!” . . .

As reported by Shenyang’s local media, ever since July 13th, a large number of businesses in markets such as Dongbei and Wu’ai had closed their doors, the reason being rumors of law enforcement inspecting and cracking down on fake or shoddy products though no one knew just who was doing the inspections. At the time when reporters had contacted both the Industrial and Commercial Administration of the district and the city, both of them said they had not been notified of any law enforcement activities. According to a report by Dongbei News Net, because the crackdown was too ruthless and too strict, some shop owners would rather suffer losses from closing their shops than opening their shops to be checked.

Afterwards, Anshan, Fushun, Benxi, Dalian, and other areas one after another witnessed the phenomenon of large numbers of stores being closed. According to their local media reports, the situations were more or less the same, all reporting rumors of a crackdown on counterfeit or shoddy goods or major inspections to see if the business owners had “all 5 certificates”, “all 6 certificates” or “all 7 certificates” though no one knew just what certificates were required or what authority was making the inspections, only rumors that any problem discovered would result in severe fines, and people didn’t want to “ask for trouble” so they decided to just close their shops for the time being.

One shop owner told this reporter that normally he’s not afraid of inspections, but he thinks the inspections this time aren’t the normal kind, with rumors at the time saying the fines levied were in the tens of thousands of yuan each, and that they were even arresting people and confiscating goods.

Does Thomas Friedman know about this?

A photo of President Obama was suddenly pulled from the website of the group Building One America, whose goals were documented extensively in Stanley Kurtz’s book Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. The book, which was released ten days ago, reveals what Kurtz refers to as Obama’s plan to undercut the political and economic independence of America’s suburbs. Kurtz connects current Obama administration policy with his personal history, and with groups like Building One America in particular.

This website shows a cached view of how the BuildingOneAmerica.org site looked on July 19th, 2012 — with a photo of President Obama talking to Building One America’s President Mike Kruglik, which was taken during a 2011 meeting held at the White House.

The Internet is hard to fool. “The photo of Obama and his mentor appears to be completely gone from the BuildingOneAmerica website. The site has gone from having a photo of President Obama — one of the best known, most instantly recognizable people in the world — talking with a leader of Building One America to its current state, with dozens of photos of unidentified people either talking or listening. The photo of Pres. Obama and Mr. Kruglik gave the site and organization an instant, visceral credibility as a politically well-connected group. Removing that instant recognition seems like a bizarre choice for the organization to suddenly make.”