Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 02:01 am
Kerry Bentivolio, a Milford Republican candidate for the 11th Congressional District in Michigan (Oakland and Wayne counties — the Romneys grew up in Oakland County Michigan), told his students his goal was to make them cry and he added, “You’re just a paycheck to me.”
No worries, the creepy “You’re just an object to me” teacher got a verbal reprimand but that was nothing compared to what happened nine months later.
The Detroit Free Press reports that this was hardly the beginning or the end of Mr. Bentivolio’s intimidating behavior. He threatened students by “grabbing their desks and yelling in their faces or for slamming his fists on their desks.”
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The Free Press continued, “Similar incidents occurred throughout the school year, according to the written reprimand dated June 7 and signed by assistant principal Myriah Lillie. ‘Most students reported that they felt threatened and unsure of what you would do,’ she wrote.”
Click here to see the Free Press’ graphic of reprimands aimed at Mr. Bentivolio over the years.
Students complained that Mr. Bentivolio lost their assignments, accused them of changing grades in his book, and talked “constantly in class about political stuff and his war service.” In Republicanese, then, he was “indoctrinating” the students.
What did Mr. Bentivolio claim when faced with these complaints? Come on, you know this one by now…. Think Fox News. If you guessed “Politically motivated” you win. But here’s the best part. The Tea Party, union-hating, government jobs-hating Bentivolio is getting paid through August for a job he “resigned from” after facing multiple reprimands.
It also appears as if he was unwilling to do what he needed to do in order to improve his evaluations. Instead of improving his methods and restraining his temper, Mr. Bentivolio resigned and reached a settlement with the school district under which no one can whisper a bad word about him.
Bentivolio, who faces off against Democrat Dr. Syed Taj in November,
has some typical Tea Party Republican (read House Republican) ideas, like sending the Marines to patrol our borders. He’s been endorsed by both Rand Paul and Ron Paul. Naturally, with Bentivolio’s great love for children, he is pro-government mandated pregnancies and anti-women’s liberty:
I believe in the Right to Life and have been endorsed by Right to Life of Michigan PAC. I also support Liberty for every life.
You see, when the founders of our nation described the inalienable rights that our Creator has granted to us, the right to life topped the list. The unborn are the most defenseless people in American society. I oppose the decision in Roe v Wade and will challenge the expansion of abortion in the United States. I support bans on partial-birth abortion. I will not vote to allow the Federal Government to subsidize at home in the form of Federal payments to Planned Parenthood or abroad in the form of foreign aid that supports abortion. I am committed to the pro-life cause. I will stand with the pro-life movement in Washington.
Yes, he will vote as House Republicans did to refuse to allow female soldiers to pay for their own abortions, because he’s “pro liberty”. He cites the constitution as a reason to grant more liberty to a fetus than to a grown woman, but the constitution doesn’t support his claim. No matter….
Given the fact that Mr. Bentivolio lives on a small farm and has a flock of chickens, I think it’s safe to say that he has all of the requirements for a pro-government mandated pregnancy, pro-second amendment Republican. After all, Republicans like to deal with women’s liberty as they do farm animals, even referring to women as barn yard animals when discussing reproductive freedom.
The majority of House Republicans who signed the Personhood Amendment don’t believe a woman’s life should be a priority once she is carrying a fetus, and feel it is their right to have their “small government” force her to carry the fetus to term even if it endangers her life. This is justified because they claim there are really no circumstances when a pregnancy threatens the life of a woman.
But if there were, even though this isn’t addressed in their legislation, they promise us that they’d consider the woman’s life. File that under “legitimate, forcible medical need” and take comfort that these bastions of science and medicine would place themselves at the helm of determining whether or not you barn yard animals deserved to live, because while they oppose government coming between you and your doctor in theory (and indeed spent the last four years screaming about the horrors of government intervention in health care), in practice, Republicans champion inserting themselves above your doctor when it comes to your uterus. They know stuff; they have farm animals.
It’s probably best that Mr. Bentivolio is not teaching anymore, given this written rebuttal to a poor evaluation that he wrote in 2006 (mind you, he taught English, history and social studies):
“Four or five self-absorbed, spoiled brats does (sic) not a teacher destroy, nor will I permit it (sic) to do so,” he wrote. “Nor will I permit it (sic) to tarnish my reputation.”
Mr. Bentivolio obviously has wee bitty control issues. He will not permit! Obey!
Mr. Bentivloio also seeks to replace disgraced Republican Thaddeus McCotter in a special primary election in September, so Michigan has two chances to be represented by the “you’re just a paycheck to me” Republican.
If you’re wondering why the Republican Party is being taken over by crazies (sorry, but the few bad apples theory isn’t going to fly anymore), look no further than the fact that the presidential ticket is running a campaign of blatant lies. The party has been taken over by corporate interests, so they justify their obviously anti-people policies with radical, fringe social agendas steeped in Orwellian language like “liberty” and Christ portrayed as being for the money changers.
After refusing to reevaluate their failed platform under Bush, Republicans responded instead by doubling down on their big government, big spending, cut taxes for the rich platform. Anyone with a brain can see that this platform isn’t viable, and isn’t fiscally conservative, so they are left with the nutjobs who sell a frightening combination of nationalism, alleged Christianity, and authoritarian cruelty in order to mask their real agenda. The problem is that more of them than not now believe that Orwellian agenda. As we can see with both the Paul Ryan pick and Todd Akin going rogue, the party establishment has lost control of their party.
Mr. Bentivolio’s behavior toward his students is a perfect example of how he would lead. This is a paranoid man who refuses to take responsibility for his own behavior and instead enjoys inflicting pain on those he has power over.
To this end, Mr. Bentivolio sums up the modern day Republican Party. He’s not an aberration, he’s the norm. All you need to do is peek into the House that Ryan built that has spent the last two years killing women’s liberty instead of passing jobs bills, let along proposing them. They ran on jobs. When they got there, they doubled down obsessively and compulsively on a social agenda not supported by most Americans. These are, quite frankly, damaged people selling damaged goods.
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