yurbud
yurbud's JournalANALOGY: rebuilding after arson
Republicans are trying to burn down our house, & centrist Dems keep rebuilding with wood instead of something that can withstand the arson.
https://twitter.com/prof_smartass/status/887728082060066816
If Anthony Kennedy retires, that's when we need a Merrick Garland
Gorsuch was a far righty replacing another far rightie, so it didn't change the balance of the court.
Anthony Kennedy is often a swing vote, so his replacement will be critical.
Republicans might actually consider agreeing to Garland or the equivalent for that seat as a way to dampen Democratic fervor for the midterms or whatever election is after Kennedy's retirement.
At least that's the pitch someone could make to Republicans.
The current partisan balance would be maintained, which is way the hell more than the Republicans deserve.
And they would still lose anyway, but possibly hold onto a handful of marginal seats.
It took 50 years to confirm 1968 was stolen. It took 243 days to confirm 2016 was stolen.
Good post on DK about Republicans only winning the presidency by cheating, mostly monkey wrenching foreign policy.
What is odd to me is this is the first time Democrats have made long, consistent noise about it.
The other thing that is odd is the monkey-wrenching at least slowed escalating tensions with Russia rather than damage peace talks. I wonder if that's why the MSM is airing the allegation and keeping it in the mix.
NOTE: Formatting isn't working for me lately. Everything below the line is quoted.
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During a phone call on the night of Oct. 22, 1968, Richard M. Nixon told his closest aide (and future chief of staff) H.R. Haldeman to "monkey wrench" President Lyndon B. Johnson's efforts to begin peace negotiations over the Vietnam War. Nixon long denied giving such an order, but Haldeman's notes, which were quietly made public in 2007 and were recently discovered by the historian Jack Farrell, prove he was lying.
The New York Times, July 9, 2017
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.
On December 11, 2016, eight days before the electoral college met, I wrote: 1968, 1980, 2000, 2016,* summarizing October and other surprises:
The 1968 “monkey wrench” of Vietnam peace efforts.
The 1980 likely deal with Iran to delay release of hostages until after election. Credibility buttressed by later Iran-Contra deal.
The 2000 theft by Supreme Court and voter purging.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/7/9/1679269/-It-took-50-years-to-confirm-1968-was-stolen-It-took-243-days-to-confirm-2016-was-stolen
Conservatives Story About How Republicans Are Born Backfires Spectacularly
On Sunday, the head of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform wrote on Twitter:
The post quickly went viral, but probably not for the reasons Norquist expected. Of the more than 4,500 comments, many explained exactly what the tax on that guitar would be used for.
Here are some examples:
There are a lot more responses in the article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grover-norquist-how-republicans-are-born_us_5950abfae4b02734df2b4f98?rp&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
TOON: Tom Tomorrow on Trump's cabinet lovefest
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/19/1672128/-Cartoon-The-honest-cabinet
Why acts like this shooter's are not just wrong but counter-productive & stupid
Assuming this guy had any kind of political motive, which is still up in the air.
Early on in the War on Terror, I wondered what the commies thought about terrorism, and stumbled across this quote by Trotsky. By citing it here, I imply to agreement with any other communist thought. It was just ironic that one of our enemies nailed this idea.
Before I read it, I was mystified by terrorism since if it was committed on the perpetrator's enemy's home turf, it would galvanize and unite the enemy's people who might otherwise have pockets sympathetic to their cause.
After reading this, these lone wolf acts seem stupid in terms of the effect on the perpetrator's side too:
"
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/tia09.htm
When will someone in Congress start making noise about Trump's organized crime connections?
That part of it would be easier for the public to understand, especially the less educated, and still have the Russian connection.
The problem with playing the Russian government angle by itself is it could be spun as jumping the gun on diplomacy.
Obviously, asking for help to change the outcome of the election is worse than that, but low information voters don't tend to listen or read beyond the headline or tweet.
Being mobbed up is tougher to talk your way out of.
Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldnt be setting America's public school agenda
This is an LA Times editorial.
Can the Democrats finally admit that letting billionaires dictate education policy ends up wasting taxpayer dollars and harms our kids?
Can't the Democratic Party pick at least a few areas like education for one, where donors don't pay set policy and the rest of suffer the consequences of their whims?
If they did so, they might win back the full enthusiastic support of teachers and parents of school age kids.
***
The Gates Foundation strongly supported the proposed Common Core curriculum standards, helping to bankroll not just their development, but the political effort to have them quickly adopted and implemented by states. Here, Desmond-Hellmann wrote in her May letter, the foundation also stumbled. The too-quick introduction of Common Core, and attempts in many states to hold schools and teachers immediately accountable for a very different form of teaching, led to a public backlash.
***
But the Gates Foundation has spent so much money — more than $3 billion since 1999 — that it took on an unhealthy amount of power in the setting of education policy. Former foundation staff members ended up in high positions in the U.S. Department of Education — and, in the case of John Deasy, at the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The foundation’s teacher-evaluation push led to an overemphasis on counting student test scores as a major portion of teachers’ performance ratings — even though Gates himself eventually warned against moving too hastily or carelessly in that direction. Now several of the states that quickly embraced that method of evaluating teachers are backing away from it.
Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn’t be allowing them to set the policy agenda for the nation’s public schools. The Gates experience teaches once again that educational silver bullets are in short supply and that some educational trends live only a little longer than mayflies.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-gates-education-20160601-snap-story.html
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