The Wednesday, July 24, Coeur d'Alene Press featured a double-header attack on public schooling from Brent Regan and Ronald Deady. After public schools have been strangled to the point where some are down to teaching four days per week, these Republicans are having a field day blaming labor unions and teachers for Idaho's horrific 47th place ranking in education nationally. This is to promote their national agenda of destroying labor unions and their collective bargaining rights.

The National Labor Relations Board is the only other major entity protecting workers' rights, and they are also under brutal Republican attacks. Anything and everything that benefits or protects the rights of workers, or attempts to increase their wages or health benefits, is being systematically attacked and destroyed by Republicans.

Their goal is to privatize our public school system so it will end up looking and acting like our thoroughly corrupt and exploited system of privatized health care. Republicans are also engaged in their last desperate attempt at destroying Obamacare before its incredible benefits are fully realized and our nation finally understands the scope of Republican deception.

Republicans also want to destroy the teachers union-based pay scale, and micro-manage their pay based on merit. Strangely, Mr. Regan stated that there was no direct correlation between teachers' performance and compensation. So much for the old adage "you get what you pay for!" As our teachers, police, school bus drivers, and workforce continue to quit their jobs and evacuate this state because of this ignorant mentality, it is only a matter of time before these Republicans are forced to acknowledge the correlations between quality and cost, and common sense and selective ignorance.

Then Mr. Regan delivered another personal insult to undermine our hard working teachers by proposing home schooling as an alternative to public schooling. Since these Republicans love the every man for himself concept of self-reliance, perhaps their children should start early and simply school themselves? Think of the savings!

Then Mr. Deady (the other half of the tag team) proposed the idiotic idea of installing TV monitors in all classes! This is consistent with his party's ultimate goal of also installing TV monitors in people's bedrooms to determine their sexual preference, as well as legislating forced vaginal ultrasounds to monitor women's wombs. These hypocrites love to preach our Constitutional rights to privacy when it concerns theirs, then proudly legislate to violate them against others.

As for merit-based pay for teachers; Republicans are viciously against raising the minimum wage, while liberally handing out tax breaks and royalties for the wealthy. They endorse outsourcing our jobs to exploit slave labor overseas, while ignoring businesses within our own borders hiring undocumented workers for less than minimum wage. No sir, these are not the breed of people that I want at the decision table determining my wage or my merits! I will proudly prefer a labor union's collective bargaining process to represent my best interests, thank you very much!

Within the Republican Party, there is a civil war going on in the pursuit of extreme purity. The Tea Party extremists have bitterly declared a no-compromise pledge to achieve their selective austerity agenda aimed exclusively at the middle class and poor. America has clearly rejected this immoral and reckless cut-and-destroy agenda twice.

Regardless, popular public opinion has become meaningless to this arrogant mindset as Mayor Sandi Bloem demonstrated back in January 2011. Mayor Bloem stated in a Press article that there will not be a public vote on the fate of McEuen Field: "Everything has been voted on by the public because they voted for the elected officials"-Bloem. In other words, once they are in power, Get in, sit down, and shut up!

Should you ever doubt or underestimate the GOP's resolve to despise and destroy any advancement of the middle class, just look at their history and the ruthless tactics they will resort to in order to satisfy their vendetta. They were the party that pioneered, endorsed, and continue to justify the prostitution of almost 11 million of our nation's jobs to communist nations like China by blaming labor unions for driving up the cost of labor. In 2010, the Democrats put forward the Anti-Outsourcing Bill in the Senate to reverse this tide of treason. The unified Republicans, along with four Democrats and one Independent (Joe Lieberman) immediately killed the bill.

The only relevant question for "Right to Work"-challenged Republicans is what would America's economy be like today if we kept those 11 million jobs here instead? Trust me, this simple concept that states if you do not get rid of something you will still have it, seems to cause a strange form of mental trauma and paralysis with Republicans when the subject is jobs. Also, try to ask them what would have happened to Social Security if they were successful at privatizing it just before the stock market crashed on their watch? Here again, you will witness mental paralysis, denial, and a revision of history.

Unfortunately, building on common ground with this irrational mindset cannot be achieved, and it is time for Democrats to abandon this futile effort. These Tea Party Extremists reside in an impenetrable dome of self-delusion and hypocrisy. We must continue to set the record straight with the truth, and simply vote them out of office in order to restore the political balance, sanity, and future prosperity to Idaho.

Jimmy Pappas is a Coeur d'Alene resident.