US Politics, March 2018: Why do people leave the White House for good?

demands of career, demands of family life, hate everything, greener cyberpastures, midlife shift to hardline conservatism, price, content, dissatisfaction with available stylesheets, specific user such as Stephen Miller, ILM, no one has left the White House, other please specify

kudos to WilliamC for the title

Leaving it for evil seems even more apropros.

so, I'm not sure how "Hope Hicks had been thinking of leaving for months" is obvious spin while "Hope Hicks got fired because of the House Intelligence Committee" comments is obvious truth, because A) I assume everyone in the administration, with the possible inclusion of Trump himself, is constantly either thinking about leaving or terrified of being fired, and B) there is no shit so horrifying, no fuckup so massive, that the Trump administration will not overlook and let the person in question keep their jobs, with the exceptions of Rob Porter (overwhelming proof of domestic abuse) and Scaramucci (Scaramucci). "but it isn't about being horrifying, it's about covering their ass." sure, but the "white lies" comment was a day before she got fired. again, has this administration ever shown any signs of having their shit together enough to do anything in one day?

THE MOOCH WAS THE MOST TOGETHER OF THEM ALL

I mean, if I were the White House trying to spin something, my spin would almost definitely involve the House Intelligence Committee comments, because if you're already trying to convince someone to leave quietly, you couldn't ask for a more perfect excuse to come along

The Maggie Haberman snotty response has been that people are still pretending this White House is anything close to logical or normal.

And by the way, I apparently called it. After her interrogation Trump reportedly berated her, calling her stupid.

to trump, the greatest sin is admitting that you lied

you're supposed to stand up for what you said, no matter how clearly untrue or idiotic. if you stick your fingers in your ears and yell "LA LA LA" for long enough, people will give up and start getting mad about something else.

I am fully capable of believing this happened in some form, doubtless with plenty of other factors involved:

Hicks to self/others for some time: "This is all fucking up my life, the guy I was dating is a fuckup, my legal bills, man I gotta leave here at some point."

*testifies to Congress and talking about lying*

Trump to Hicks: "FUCK YOU."

Hicks: "I'm out."

people are still pretending this White House is anything close to logical or normal

The bigger problem IMO is people not realizing the Trumpoid base regards the churny chaos as a feature, rather than a bug.

I mean, firing people is kind of his jam, and has been forever.

TALKING about firing people, or having other people fire people. Firing people to their face, eesh, too much conflict for Liddle Donnie!

I see several explanations for Hicks' departure:

1. The White House is a pressure cooker that even in this farce of an administration spits up and chews out those that work for it, especially those least prepared for it. Being called to testify in what may be the biggest criminal probe in American history may or may not have been the icing on the cake.

2. She apparently had intimate relationships with more than one member of the senior staff, including, some have suggested, the President himself, who reportedly has recently been dismissive of her dignity in connection with same, something another workplace might deem actionable conduct. She therefore determined, on top of 1, that the costs of her work environment outweighed the benefits.

3. She is or has been facing serious criminal liability for her role in drafting false public statements that may become the basis for charges of obstruction of justice, and has resigned out of objection to having been put into such a position and/or to concentrate upon same or avoid continued work for those against whom she may have flipped.

4. She is an asset of the American intelligence community installed at the heart of Trump's operation or cultivated after reaching it to gain intelligence on an actor suspected of coordinating criminal financial and domestic political activity with agents of a foreign state. She resigned after being suspected or when her services were no longer needed.

The last is probably a ridiculous theory whose legal ramifications are not what would be desired by intelligence actors who might also pursue criminal charges.

this is a lot of thinking to waste on hope hicks

Then we may as well ignore the question in the thread title and get back to making up silly nicknames for our Commander in Chief.

Simon otm

Hicks and people like her: Who the fuck cares? Mouthpieces.

but that's gabbnebism for ya

aka 'Versailles syndrome'

this is a lot of thinking to waste on hope hicks

― Simon H., Thursday, March 1, 2018 3:59 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There was more typing than thinking involved.

You don't say.

No, I type. Rather fast at that.

I think Hope Hicks is my second favorite Trumpling to think about, after the Mooch. She's like Gary from Veep, but imagine if Gary was made Director of Communication? Nobody would believe that.

I shook my head when y'all fantasized about the Mooch last July too.

Hope Hicks was a (very young) PR professional before joining Trumpworld, and from a long line of same. It's worth noting, though, that her parents work for/with people who you would not necessarily think of as Trump folks. They met as Congressional staffers in the '80s, he for a "liberal" (and apparently closeted) Northern Republican, she for a blue dog rural Southern Dem, and he went on to work for Roger Goodell, not exactly Trump's best friend, then left after she went to Sauron to help head up the very-Clinton/Gore-tied Glover Park Group. She too came to the Trumps from a substantially Clinton/New York Dem-Tied PR firm. Does this mean she or her parents are secret progressives? No. He's a former oil and tobacco image smoother who donated to Romney in 2007, and his current gig may simply be working for the NFL on the outside, while she may well be an apolitical child of privilege who just lucked into a very unique position. But neither are James Comey or Robert Mueller.

NEWS: The bipartisan leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee have privately concluded that the HPSCI majority leaked Mark Warner's private text messages to Fox News. https://t.co/pn9uLfGtZN

— Nicholas Fandos (@npfandos) March 1, 2018

LINE BREAKS FFS xp

if that's true that's fucking outrageous

xpost

/evergreen us politics thread content

Hahah this is my kind of internecine warfare.

I apllaud moo vaughn just for the chutzpah. #nolinebreaks

Oh, the punishment's far from over.

John Kelly on leaving DHS to become White House chief of staff: "The last thing I wanted to do was walk away from one of the great honors of my life, being the Secretary of Homeland Security, but I did something wrong and God punished me I guess." https://t.co/rBphMQ7Awn

— Gabe Fleisher (@WakeUp2Politics) March 1, 2018

Nunes needs to be thrown overboard in the middle of the Mediterranean Ocean based on that leak report

Romeo-Nunez – then a 16-year-old student at St. Michael’s Academy in Manhattan – said at the time that Trump did not do anything to stop the attack. She recalled to The News on Thursday that she had just come out of a store at 45th St. and Ninth Ave. when the incident was ending, and that Trump arrived a few minutes later.

"A car pulls up, he gets out, people acknowledge his presence," she told The News Thursday. "He's looking around, seeing what's going on. Then he got back in and left."

The beatdown was never reported to the police.

Romeo-Nunez said she always wondered who the other unidentified witness was, but said that person's account was not true. The assailant "was running away" as Trump got out of the limo, and the attacker and Trump never spoke to each other, she said.

FFS what will it take to get Nunes the fuck out of there at least in regards to the Committee? he's a goddamn liar and obstructionist and it's been demonstrated over and over again.

one of the great honors of my life, being the Secretary of Homeland Security

this is what you're really going to hell for you piece of shit

he's a goddamn liar and obstructionist and just the sort of chairperson Speaker Ryan intends to keep on the job

He's worth creating a new ocean for, true

"He might be a goddam liar and obstructionist, but he's *our* goddam liar and obstructionist!"

What possible penalties could Nunes receive?

at what point do Nunes actions veer into obstruction or does it not really work like that in his particular position?

heh xpost

In other news, is there a good way to donate to the striking teachers in WV?

There's a strike fund - one sec.

https://www.gofundme.com/wv-teachers-strike-fund

What possible penalties could Nunes receive?

Theoretcially? Expulsion from the House. Or censure. Or a sternly worded public reprimand from the Ethics Committee. Or a few sharply disapproving looks from his colleagues as they pass in the hallway. Or an all-day lollipop from Speaker Ryan.

xpost Thanks. Also, can anyone vouch for this one?

https://www.gofundme.com/stoneman-douglas-yearbooks

Best I can do is say: looks legit!

xpost to Aimless then I'm betting the later takes place

*latter

“The New York Times, a prominent purveyor of leaks, is highlighting anonymous sources leaking information that accuses Republicans of leaking information,” [Nunes spokesman] said. “I’m not sure if this coverage could possibly get more absurd.”

this is some astounding, next-level disingenuousness

Dow dropped 500 points after tariff announcement

unpatriotic Wall St fuckers

AshLee Strong, spox for Speaker Paul Ryan, on NYTimes story on Intel Cmte/Nunes leak: “The speaker heard the senators on their concerns and encouraged them to take them up directly with their counterparts.”

...

Dem Congress really needs to be making public statements about this to keep the story afloat. so it will at least be clear that Ryan is willfully letting it continue

AshLeeeeeeee

Theoretcially? Expulsion from the House. Or censure. Or a sternly worded public reprimand from the Ethics Committee. Or a few sharply disapproving looks from his colleagues as they pass in the hallway. Or an all-day lollipop from Speaker Ryan.

― A is for (Aimless),

Set on fire. Defenestrated. Wrapped in burlap with a scorpion, asp, and chimp and tossed in the sea.

People For the American Way, the organization that runs Right Wing Watch, filed suit against the Department of Justice and the Department of Housing and Urban Development today to demand the release of documents concerning reported changes in federal policy toward LGBTQ people.

Right Wing Watch had filed Freedom of Information Act requests with both agencies asking for documents on reported actions removing mentions of LGBTQ people from federal announcements and programs.

These reported actions were being taken quietly and without public announcement, raising the questions of who made the decisions, what the decisions covered, and whether agency staff had been directed to implement certain policies regarding programs affecting LGBTQ people without public knowledge.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/were-suing-two-federal-agencies-to-release-information-on-secret-lgbtq-policy/

Is there a finite tenure for either Ryan or McConnell or are they just going to continue undermining any steps towards sanity for the next few years anyway.

nope

Rayburn and Mansfield were speaker and majority leader, respectively, for 15+ years

Ryan's been muttering via usual anonymous friends about wanting out this year. I suspect he's considered either alternate fate -- losing the House or stuck carrying Trump's ever more piss-colored water -- to be not worth it.

Dear God. There’s basically one person left in America who thinks our criminal justice system isn’t punitive enough. His name is Bill Otis. And Trump just nominated him to the US Sentencing Commission. https://t.co/e4jzNbbizX

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko) March 1, 2018

From 2015:

Faced with the choice between two potential errors—continuing to imprison someone who’s no longer a threat and releasing someone who ends up harming new victims—Otis says he’ll opt for the former. “Error is an inevitable fact of life,” he says in an interview. “And the only realistic question that adults can ask is not what system are we going to adopt that is going to avoid error, because there is no such system. The only question you get to ask is, which system is going to give us the fewest errors and who should have to bear the risk of error?”

Though Otis usually eschews the theoretical vocabulary of criminologists for more pungent terms (a favorite device of his is to refer sarcastically to offenders as “Mr. Nicey”), the philosophy he gravitates to has a name: incapacitation. It holds that a surefire solution to crime is to remove likely offenders from society. Otis’ version of the idea embodies what Berkeley law professor Jonathan Simon calls “a kind of axiomatic success that is immune to empirical evidence.” If any parolees commit crime, well, there you go: case closed. And if locking them up is the only true insurance against future crimes, then the best crime prevention measure is locking up more people for longer sentences. Rather than see dramatically declining crime rates as cause for corresponding drops in imprisonment, Otis argues that now is not the time to tinker with a successful formula.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2015/07/bill_otis_meet_the_last_man_standing_who_thinks_criminal_justice_reform.html

Is there a finite tenure for either Ryan or McConnell

They will continue to serve until one of the following happens:

• they resign their position
• they retire from the House or Senate
• their caucus votes them out of their leadership positions
• they lose an election and do not return to Congress

I thought McConnell caused enough trouble in that minority position prior to the Republicans getting into power as it was.
if anybody is going to make an anchor out of Nunes couldn't he help weigh it down, please.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/momentum-builds-to-can-devin-nunes-from-house-intel-role.html

your 'left' party at work

https://splinternews.com/democrats-are-trying-to-help-the-banks-racially-discrim-1823427155

fuck Tim Kaine

this momentum builds but Ryan had an easy excuse to do it already and pretended he didn't know he could remove Nunes then.

I weep for them. I cry the bitterest of tears.

Referring to:

"A former White House official said he's spoken with more aides inside the White House who are trying to leave the administration, but not necessarily getting the kinds of high-paying offers in the corporate world as former aides usually do.”https://t.co/eNVDzBwMxX

— Tom Namako (@TomNamako) March 1, 2018

I like the wacky sitcom idea of having them all leave and just go open a diner or something.

a PR firm

they are so good at it

in case anyone wants to see an actual shot from hope hicks' modeling days, there's one here (it's a 2003 ya novel "created by" the woman who wrote the GOSSIP GIRL books)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_It_Girl_(novel)

Popular Gossip Girl character Jenny Humphrey is leaving Constance Billard to attend Waverly Academy, an elite boarding school in New York horse country where glamorous rich kids don't let the rules get in the way of an excellent time. Jenny is determined to leave her crazy Manhattan past behind and become a sophisticated goddess on campus. But first she will have to contend with her self-absorbed roommates, Callie Vernon and Brett Messerschmidt. Hot guys, new intrigue, and more delicious gossip all add up to more trouble than ever for Jenny. But if getting caught up with boys and facing the Disciplinary Committee is what it takes, Jenny is ready. She'll do all that and more to be The It Girl.

this is almost literally the Hope Hicks story

lol

McMaster to leave? Am I really first to post this or do I keep overlooking something?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/white-house-preparing-mcmaster-exit-early-next-month-n852371

i honestly have trouble keeping the respected-but-totally-reactionary generals straight

Tariff news going over great!

Like most brewers, we are selling an increasing amount of our beers in aluminum cans, and this action will cause aluminum prices to rise. It is likely to lead to job losses across the beer industry. (2/3)

— MillerCoors (@MillerCoors) March 1, 2018

*Coors headquarters*

"But we're the reactionary fuckheads of the industry!"

"We will be sympathized with."

"..."

pissing off the intel gangs AND Coors, Yam may find himself taking a Dallas motorcade ride before next Thanksgiving

coors is like owned by canadians now and they just hang and do curling and shit, afaict. *looks at brewery from desk* yup.

Axios reporting that tariff mess exacerbated by absence of Rob Porter and interruption of weekly trade meetings. It's gonna be great fun when a few months from now the WH staff has dwindled to Vince McMahon and a magic eight ball

https://www.axios.com/trump-declares-his-trade-war-targets-steel-aluminum-2f68d5fe-69ec-4872-b1d5-aaae28f7bf4b.html

pissing off the intel gangs AND Coors

video game bros are also unhappy now

McMaster to leave? Am I really first to post this or do I keep overlooking something?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/white-house-preparing-mcmaster-exit-early-next-month-n852371

― Evan,

i had no idea. the report says "exclusive" and it was published about 20 minute ago, it looks like

WASHINGTON — The White House is preparing to replace H.R. McMaster as national security adviser as early as next month in a move orchestrated by chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, according to five people familiar with the discussions.

The move would be the latest in a long string of staff shakeups at the White House over the past year and comes after months of strained relations between the president and McMaster.

A leading candidate to become President Donald Trump’s third national security adviser is the auto industry executive Stephen Biegun, according to the officials.

third national security adviser is the auto industry executive Stephen Biegun

just trying to let this sink in.

xps re: tariffs the solar racking/mounting industry is also pissed fwiw

john bolton is available

Stephen picked because his last name has the word gun in it

then again, i thought rex tillerson would be spectacularly unqualified but i guess his years of figuring out how to enrich he and his friends exploiting the resources of other countries did a pretty good job of preparing him to be the face of US foreign policy

Hadrian, it's possible that Vince McMahon and a Magic 8 ball would do a better job

oh. looks like biegun actually has a lot of experience. once again i stick the foot in mouth

Vice President, International Governmental Affairs, Ford Motor Company

Stephen E. Biegun is a corporate officer and vice president of International Governmental Affairs for Ford Motor Company. In this role for Ford, Mr. Biegun oversees all aspects of Ford’s international governmental relations, including trade strategy and political risk assessment.

Prior to joining Ford, Mr. Biegun served as national security advisor to Senate Majority Leader, Senator Bill Frist, M.D. In this capacity, he provided analysis and strategic planning for the United States Senate’s consideration of foreign policy, defense and intelligence matters, and international trade agreements.

Before joining the staff of the Majority Leader, Mr. Biegun worked in the White House from 2001-2003 as Executive Secretary of the National Security Council. He served as a senior staff member to the National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and performed the function of chief operating officer for the National Security Council.

https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/people/stephen-e--biegun.html

On the Coors, thing is that the original owners probably own quite a bit of stock and/or have some say in the combined Molson Coors company as those kind of mergers/buyouts are often paid in stock back. I'm sure there are some people that had big money in Coors that now have even more in Molson Coors after the merger and positions in the new beer empire.

what could possibly go wrong hiring an auto exec to handle national security?

http://www.nndb.com/people/387/000022321/robert-mcnamara.jpg

Let's ask Mr. McNamara.

Meantime

NEW from @NBCNews: Robert Mueller is assembling a case for criminal charges against Russians who carried out hacking of Democrats’ emails -
@KenDilanianNBC reporting now on @msnbc:https://t.co/0AJORDTuRQ

— Kailani Koenig (@kailanikm) March 1, 2018

He better be careful, I heard they have smart nukes that can avoid detection.

Would rather see more charges against Americans or anyone who stands a real chance of being arrested.

I think the charges against Russians are functioning politically to legitimize prosecutions of Americans (surely there are more on the way) and beat back WH witch hunt nonsense

yeah but also these dudes messed with the elections and have plans for further fuckery

we must punish them

Yeah I guess they think charging actual Russians shows thoroughness and bolsters credibility. It demonstrates that there is some real shit going on, not just a lame-ass Dem fairy tale.

All that said, it would feel emotionally much better if DT went down over the obstruction, not the (rather more hazy and abstract) "collusion."

let the man do his job

Obstruction has quite strong evidence already, just based on what has been reported and is in the public record. It will no doubt be addressed in due time. Indictments of close advisors and aides who are implicated in the obstruction will probably come first. Mueller is busy building a pyramid and the indictments so far are the base and another course or two. The pinnacle is still a ways off.

collusion way sexier imo

Gonna be some awesome tweetin' soon, especially if it's too rainy for golf over the weekend.

Mr. Biegun, born 1963, graduated from the University of Michigan where he studied Political Science and Russian Language [...] and is a member of the boards of the US-Russia Foundation for Economic Development and the Rule of Law, the Moscow School of Politics, Freedom House, the US-Russia Business Council, the US-ASEAN Business Council and FordSollers, Ford Motor Company’s joint venture operating in the Russia Federation.

Russia Russia Russia.

After a crazy 24 hours, sources close to President Trump say he is in a bad place — mad as hell about the internal chaos and the sense that things are unraveling.

wasn't this lede written in March 2017?

biegun is a condoleezza rice protege, i'm told

horserace-bred journalists having a hard time adopting an intelligible frame for a year and a half of incompetent blundering and constant lack of direction

i am not a lawyer so: to what extent can this recent kushner new be construed as ~actually criminal~ vs merely corrupt? like, is there anything actionable?

Praying the normal Republican with the Russia connections gets it over Bolton.

xpost Just more ethical violations and conflicts of interest, you know, the new normal. Nothing will happen, vote in November.

Bolton will never get a job in the Trump administration. Trump's hatred of mustaches is right up there with his hatred of stairs and rare steak.

lmao pic.twitter.com/JNM1QySJoz

— maya kosoff (@mekosoff) March 1, 2018

Russia Russia Russia.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, March 1, 2018 10:45 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/470558862387720192/tn7KU7qe.jpeg

Wondering if Bolton has thought “I know I really want more war but how badly? Do I want it ‘shave my mustache’ bad?”

Why in the world would anyone expect Trump to know the first thing about video games?

Here we go—all 55 counties in WV have cancelled school. The strike is headed for day 7 #55strong #55united pic.twitter.com/Cxiuq5NL90

— Scott Heins (@scottheins) March 1, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVgMAs44fgU

Don't forget Ivanka?

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2018/03/01/politics/ivanka-trump-fbi-investigation/index.html?__twitter_impression=true

That darned mafia!

Rick Gates tells judge he's canceling Boston trip due to threat invoking Russian mafia https://t.co/bcSe0AecYH

— Evan Pérez (@evanperez) March 1, 2018

President CommentsSection/EndBarstool at it again (wrt video games causing violence, harsh laws best way to tackle drug problem). He really has no informed opinion about anything huh.

really sucks that any opinion this moron spouts is giving any sort of credence

given

"I liked the first season better."

Bannon: There was less White House "chaos" when Priebus was there https://t.co/dQB1utstID pic.twitter.com/KQV5gE3pBY

— The Hill (@thehill) March 1, 2018

good catch from a friend of mine, hadn't seen this posted yet:

Strange things are happening at the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Panama.

Armed guards and riot police. Shredded files and members of the Trump building security arrested. All while the building’s majority owner tries to sever ties with the Trump brand.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-panama-hotel-investigation-5a49443c387f/

I read this three times and now I'm seeing stars https://t.co/CCt1oyZEhU pic.twitter.com/vt424YkPUt

— Mark Berman (@markberman) March 2, 2018

Wow.

More twists:

WASHINGTON — The top lobbyist for the National Rifle Association claimed late Thursday that President Trump had retreated from his surprising support a day earlier for gun control measures after a meeting with N.R.A. officials and Vice President Mike Pence in the Oval Office.

The lobbyist, Chris Cox, posted on Twitter just after 9 p.m. that he met with Mr. Trump and Mr. Pence, saying that “we all want safe schools, mental health reform and to keep guns away from dangerous people. POTUS & VPOTUS support the Second Amendment, support strong due process and don’t want gun control. #NRA #MAGA.”

Mr. Trump tweeted about an hour later, “Good (Great) meeting in the Oval Office tonight with the NRA!”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, declined to provide details about the previously unannounced meeting. A spokeswoman for the N.R.A.’s lobbying arm, which Mr. Cox leads, did not respond to requests for further comment.

But the twin tweets suggest that it may have taken the gun rights group a little over a day to persuade the president to back away from his apparent embrace of Democratic gun control measures during a remarkable, televised meeting on Wednesday with members of Congress.

Shocking

Breaking news: the insentient cassette tape currently sitting in as our president contains a new message after someone recorded over the previously-recorded message. More at 11.

Taped over the piss tape with another piss tape.

I know better than to do this but President Piss Tape Loop appeals.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5451711/Hope-Hicks-10-million-payday-publishers-scramble-sign-her.html

the power of propaganda: trump goes after the NFL and beer and republicans still back him

when you desperately need mother pic.twitter.com/Ytn8EqyRsc

— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) March 2, 2018

So he has Melania sitting beside him and he puts his hand on Pence's knee. OK.

"I'm sorry to have to break this but I've met someone else..."

So he has Melania sitting beside him and he puts his hand on Pence's knee. OK.

― Buff Jeckley (Tom D.), Friday, March 2, 2018

Wouldn't you?

When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down 00 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2018

We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape. IF YOU DON’T HAVE STEEL, YOU DON’T HAVE A COUNTRY!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 2, 2018

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

why is steel more important than any other industry?

Someone's copy editing those tweets

Is "trade" just a word in his head with no connection to the $100bn of actual stuff that comes in and ends up in eg shops where people can buy stuff? Does he think everyone gets everything from the black market, not just guns? I don't even know why I wonder questions like this about him.

Europe digs in to fight global trade war against Trump

Pres. Trump attacks 'Alex' Baldwin for his portrayal on "Saturday Night Live," tweeting that it was "agony for those who were forced to watch." https://t.co/SHpRh5ZPHB pic.twitter.com/MKGJXWsc6H

— ABC News (@ABC) March 2, 2018

before he fixed the spelling

even a broken clock etc

I'm sure I've said this before at some point but if he signed an executive order to cancel SNL I'd go campaign for him tbh

lol "alex baldwin"

he's such a great businessman, I'm sure he's got this

Wait, what about coal? Don't forget about coal! No coal, no Coal Country!

Wait, what about big? Don't forget about big!

things without which you don't have a country

coal
steel
tv
wall
hair

It's easy!

Donald Trump genuinely has no understanding of or interest in the systems which underpin this or any other country. As long as his Fox News and his Twitter and his taco bowl deliveries continue unabated, it's aaaaaaall good.

so relatable

so if we're getting steel from the other countries, doesn't that mean that THEY don't have a countries?

AND that we have their steel?

so that we DO have a country?? AND steel???

i was never any good at economics or breathing

Does the US have a strategic steel reserve? We should!

Sure we do. I mean, it feels right. Why not.

we should built a vault and store all the steel in the world in it. then charge people to take their pictures with it.

vault should be wall-shaped and extend along border w Mexico

he'll change his tune once he realizes this guy's black

https://heroichollywood.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/steel-137010-1024x640.jpg?x42694

"did i say Steel? i meant The Eradicator"

someone tell him christopher steele isn’t just a name, he’ll change his mind right quick

I can't believe our dilemma is real
Prez Trump is tweeting bout the trade of steel

we want an america that's american, not a second-rate canada

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Rush_Caress_of_Steel.jpg

based on the "last thing he heard" principle i suspect we can get the tariffs lifted again by piping in some Devo and suggesting that many people in Akron are saying we should twist away the gates of steel

"trade wars are good, and easy to win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!"

ohhhhhh my fucking god the depths of this man's idiocy still continue to astound

Since CD-RWs often eventually degrade and quit working altogether, I spend my days hoping that the CD-RW equivalent of a human brain does likewise. Looking forward to presidential statements that sound like Oval tracks.

trade wars are good, and easy to win
trade wars are good, and easy to win
trade wars are good, and easy to win
trade wars are good, and easy to win
trade wars are good, and easy to win
trade wars are good, and easy to win
trade wars are good, and easy to win

they get cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big.

Game theory!

If you get to keep all the goods that you're exporting that is a bonus isn't it?

Sure. You can just go swimming through the oceans of surplus like Scrooge McDuck. Winning!

the scrooge mcduck toys in the big floating trash gyre over there --->

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-ichan-steel-imports-cf7deb8beaf0/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Real wars are good and easy to win too. When they not looking, shoot at them-we win big.

The Pence thing is interesting. I interpret potentially as attempted dominance behavior from someone who knows what a homophobe he is, which makes me ask how Pence may be threatening Trump at the moment.

dude

his brain is leaking out through his ears

blended haircut might help with that

moo vaughn and his team of behavioural profilers, yesterday

http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/4200000/Lie-to-Me-cast-lie-to-me-4292033-469-311.jpg

Did you enjoy that show? My friend created it.

"trade wars are good," trump says as the stock market screams

Trumpers will scream "fake news" as the first warhead hits and their flesh is torn from their body and their eyeballs melt.

Screaming stock markets are good! It can't be dead if it's screaming.

Melting eyeballs are good! Who wants to see all that flesh being torn from your body? Not me! Gross! Sad!

wait we all know what I'm referencing right https://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/obama-bee-attack-easter-children-screaming-116704

https://www.axios.com/the-wild-wars-within-the-trump-white-house-1519905402-f84fb393-4789-44ed-a8a1-0f846b1580af.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/us/politics/trump-chaos-oval-office.htm
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/white-house-preparing-mcmaster-exit-early-next-month-n852371
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/01/gary-cohn-white-house-tariffs-432625
https://apnews.com/5355a70b30a84e1681600eca533719f1/Trump-adrift:-Tumult-in-West-Wing-amid-exits,-investigation
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/02/opinions/trump-the-great-unraveling-opinion-borger/index.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-impeach-trump-mike-pence-president-20170221-story.html
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/trump-mocked-pence-joked-about-him-wanting-to-hang-gays-new-yorker-profile-20171017.html
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/363258-pence-told-rnc-he-could-replace-trump-on-ticket-after-access

Fake news, right?

well that sure was a collection of links you just posted

I can't tell how I feel about the prospect of this turning into a simon vs. gabbneb thread. I guess I wouldn't miss it much.

US Politics, March 2018: I guess I wouldn't miss it much

maybe those links could be contextualized in a 100-post tweetstorm.

oh god if I ever post to this thread more than 5 times in a 12-hour span from here on out, please fp me xps

Did you enjoy that show? My friend created it.

ban gabbneb

Video of a candid conversation between Trump and Pence

hey, it's good to be in Da Inner Circle

Billionaire investor and longtime Trump confidant Carl Icahn dumped $31.3 million of stock in a company heavily dependent on steel last week, just days before Trump announced plans to impose steep tariffs on steel imports.

In a little-noticed SEC filing submitted on February 22, 2018, Icahn disclosed that he systematically sold off nearly 1 million shares of Manitowoc Company Inc. Manitowoc is a “is a leading global manufacturer of cranes and lifting solutions” and, therefore, heavily dependent on steel to make its products....

cahn, a billionaire investor with far-flung holdings, is a close associate of Trump — who invoked Icahn’s name repeatedly on the campaign trail. Once in office, Trump installed Icahn as a “special adviser,” although Icahn did not not unwind his business entanglements before accepting the position.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-ichan-steel-imports-cf7deb8beaf0/

Does that technically count as insider trading (assuming for the sake of argument that we still live in a world where things are illegal and subject to punishment of some sort)?

I'm genuinely surprised that the people in Trump's circle don't just drop by the mint on occasion and load their pockets with fresh bills. I mean why the fuck not.

So, with McMaster hitting the road, and Kelly feuding with Jared, Ivanka and Don Jr., how many more weeks does Kelly have before he's unceremoniously dumped? Not that it matters much, since the Supreme Leader will still be there, but it's crazy how many people he's discarded or alienated in just over a year.

That one-off story someone posted, that if Kelly leaves he'll do without a Chief of Staff, seems increasingly believable. It would appeal to Trump as a way of disguising the fact that no one on earth wants to work for him who can also pass a security clearance. He'd just announce this is how he likes to run the White House and because he's such a genius it'll work out better than any White House has ever been run before.

why is steel more important than any other industry?

I can't tell if this is a serious question but steel production and control of it is, by some magnitude, probably the most important element to any western economy along with food production, which is itself is hugely dependent on the steel industry obviously. you can't compare the production of steel and basic food supplies to any other element of a country's economic strategy; transport, infrastructure, building, food production and manufacture.

don't forget fuel & energy but yeah

fwiw the white house denies the NBC report that mcmaster is on his way out:

“Look General McMaster is not going anywhere,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during an interview with “Fox and Friends” Friday morning. “As the President said yesterday in the Oval Office to a number of people, he thinks he is doing a great job and (is) glad he is here.”

but...pretty sure they say that just before everyone leaves

i didn't mean to just tag that list on at the end, i was in the process of shifting that block of text. xp

yes tlg!

If/when Trump does away with the position of CoS, it'll be like Home Alone except with Culkin just vegging out and mindlessly retweeting Fox News talking points while the Wet Bandits strip his house bare. Dude'll be dead in a week without an active handler (god willing).

we should be so lucky

In case my underlying point wasn't clear: I believe most random eight-year-olds are better equipped to care for their own basic needs over an extended period of time than is our current POTUS.

All of this was quite predictable to anyone not in Jared-will-save-Israel-la-la-land

https://www.axios.com/destroying-jared-kushner-a-play-in-5-acts-1519995606-a01f5811-6455-42d6-89cf-edd376c66a04.html

most 8 year olds don't wear diapers

The most amazing/horrifying thing about this story is that he will learn absolutely nothing from it, and will behave exactly the same way the next time things don't go his way for more than 24 hours in a row.

With global markets shaken by President Donald Trump's surprise decision to impose strict tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the president went into battle mode on Friday: "Trade wars are good, and easy to win," he wrote on Twitter.

But the public show of confidence belies the fact that Trump's policy maneuver, which may ultimately harm U.S. companies and American consumers, was announced without any internal review by government lawyers or his own staff, according to a review of an internal White House document.

According to two officials, Trump's decision to launch a potential trade war was born out of anger at other simmering issues and the result of a broken internal process that has failed to deliver him consensus views that represent the best advice of his team.

On Wednesday evening, the president became "unglued," in the words of one official familiar with the president's state of mind.

Meanwhile, looks like Mueller is really closing on Kush. Also, Hicks reportedly kept a detailed daily diary!

On Wednesday evening, the president became "unglued,"

I wonder how they noticed

It's like suddenly noticing the jagged ceramic shards that have been littering your floor for the past year and commenting, 'huh, guess the vase broke.'

In re: Haberman-on-Hicks and everything else, this is not exactly solid journalism but also not a complete waste of time...

http://www.citjourno.org/maggie1

was announced without any internal review by government lawyers or his own staff...
...was born out of anger at other simmering issues and the result of a broken internal process that has failed to deliver him consensus views that represent the best advice of his team.

the office of the President holds too much power (regardless of how qualified/reckless the current holder of the office is)

out of curiosity have any yanks spotted TV coverage of the WV teachers' strike yet

only briefly and on the margins, but maybe I'm not watching enough TV

xpost Dunno, I don't even own a tv.

Seriously, though, I watch approximately zero tv news.

There was a story about it on the news last night. (I don't have cable; I get network channels through a digital antenna.)

I kind of wonder if Trump is working with people to work the market as with his Twitter, he can pretty much time to manipulate certain kinds of stocks.

he's actually weirdly not much of an investor himself.

http://splinternews.com/everyone-in-washington-is-having-a-lovely-time-1823459832

Roy Moore begs for help w/ legal fees. “My resources have been depleted and I have struggled to make ends meet.” https://t.co/BNwMKQhn0t

— Beth Reinhard (@bethreinhard) March 2, 2018

Has he conceded yet?

Ogre? Oh right, Moore, LOL.

When asked if they were going to cover the teachers’ wildcat strike:

We're doing a bit on it tonight.

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) March 2, 2018

http://splinternews.com/everyone-in-washington-is-having-a-lovely-time-1823459832🕸

in further "just stoppin to save some lives before the paula abdul show" news

https://deadspin.com/report-donald-trump-didnt-actually-do-anything-to-free-1823464794

astounding piece of journalism here

looked to me like she blew the lid off of 'business as usual' to reveal the shocking news that political journalists and people in positions of political power know one another and aren't averse to socializing. they might even do a bit of mutual schmoozing and back-scratching, too.

I was actually already aware of the potomac trash gyre, its just the shape of where we are

I also appreciated the implication that this is unique to DC and not at all what goes on in New York City and its very real and important boroughs such as Brooklyn

It's just a thin layer of fauxphisticated NYC blogger snark spread on top of the same provincial attitudes that everyone else in the country expresses towards Washington as if the only people who try to ever make a living here are birthed from pods and/or brainwashed in expensive labs run by the MIC and its proxies. Fucking pisses me off.

Uh-oh, Tombot's gone native! (I kid, I kid.)

I'm in favor of Beltway denizens being photographed at awkward house parties, it's a quaint DC tradition like wearing button-down shirts to the office

tbf the author is a britishes who i think lives in DC

not that such things don't go on in NYC, but i myself have never hosted politicos here at my important brooklyn pied-à-terre

it's very tedious how the world writes about greater Washington like nobody's from there, nobody likes it there, and nothing happens there

i lived in dc for 10 years and the handful of times i interacted with the political machine it was laughably absurd. these people hosting parties with tommy-carrying churchill have no clue about how people live in dc or america at large and deserve to be utterly dragged forever

usually when I read accounts from normal people about their tenures working in thinktanks or anything like that in DC they describe it like they lived through the last reel of Society

mookie otm, those people deserve to be dragged far more intelligently and interestingly than that Instagram listicle or whatever that piece ought to be called.

Lewis Lapham surely wasn’t that good, these people make him look really good, do better

silby I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not

I’m not being sarcastic! It is tedious that that happens. I am from Arlington!

I’m pro-Washington.

i almost miss lewis lapham's boilerplate us politics --> fall of rome column

he was endlessly ahead of his time

I'm anti-Washington, and Tombot's fury reminds me of his "Chuck Schumer is the senator from NY, OF COURSE he munches Wall Street's ass for cash every waking moment and you shouldn't be remotely upset about it" take.

btw, some bipartisan bill writing on behalf of mega-banks here

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/02/crapo-instead-of-taking-on-gun-control-democrats-are-teaming-with-republicans-for-a-stealth-attack-on-wall-street-reform/

Josh Marshall introduced the word failson to lots of new people yesterday

Trump gave a failson dork carte blanche to run US foreign policy and he pursued a policy focused on coming up with a billion in personal loans to save the family business his idiocy helped destroy.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 3, 2018

btw does anyone have images of Putin's PowerPoint in his Supernuke speech the other day, with the animated missiles pointed at Florida?

https://openclipart.org/image/2400px/svg_to_png/261323/rocket-312767.png

https://www.sixflags.com/sites/default/files/dsc_0367_1.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51blz0tgToL.jpg

I missed tombots stirring defense of ass eating

Take it to the gay thread, sailor.

ask a tombotty cleaner

🚽 🦆

It was a real lapse in my jingoism when I voted for the Australian version

a prolapse

No wonder he’s grumpy!https://t.co/iVsni6kHR9

— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) March 3, 2018

Let the man eat

yes, preferably something coated in arsenic

Or at least let him go heavy on the dressing.

imagining a Trump salad having huge chunks of hamburger tossed in and like 2 feet of thousand island

"imagining"

I ask you, is a pureed double quarter pounder not technically a soup?

Burger smoothie!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-IJYXolap8DE/VEQCshIi7EI/AAAAAAAAQYs/fWE_fhJyelU/s1600/DSCN4040.JPG

i.e. artist rendering of the Trump brain.

My wife was a vegetarian for maybe 15 years. When she would visit some of her family in Omaha they (family and restaurants like) just could not make her a salad with no meat for the life of them. She'd order a salad and it would come with bacon, or fish, or something to negate to whole purpose, as if "salad" meant vegetarian no matter what was on or in it.

In this case, I suspect their real message was: you are deeply wrong to reject meat and if we put some right under your nose when you are hungry, you will come to that happy realization and be saved from your terrible folly.

this is the vegetarian's plight, also people for some reason assuming meat=beef and poultry I guess is a vegetable?

i had a cousin who was vegetarian in her late teens and college. this was the mid-90s in east Tennessee. it made her parents apoplectic.

(which, tbf, might have been a small bonus for her)

Well, somebody shot himself right in front of the White House today

Another year of this and they'll be lining up around the block

Instead of Taco Trucks on every corner, we get these...

https://media.giphy.com/media/ENB1fIlVnMRcQ/giphy.gif

some xposts

i had a vegetarian girlfriend in college who visited family in rural pennsylvania. she told them she didn't eat meat, so they made her hamburger helper.

Georgia rush-removed a $40 million tax break on jet fuel from Delta as punishment for dropping their NRA discount.

Number of tickets sold in the lifetime of the discount program: 13.

just bein helpful

xpost

unbelievable.

Sic, you’re behind, Delta already called their bluff

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/02/delta-ceo-our-values-are-not-for-sale.html

Anyway

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/376573-secret-service-shots-fired-white-house

the only way to stop a guy with a gun is that same guy with a gun

Oklahoma teachers might follow W VA's lead

http://ktul.com/news/local/oklahoma-teachers-planning-a-statewide-strike

This post makes a valid point. Yes, it's bad that Republicans are rescinding a giant corporate tax break to Delta Airlines in order to punish them for not fellating the NRA enough...but giant corporate tax breaks of that sort are themselves bad, and it's important to keep that in mind when it's time to decide whether to scream "Those dastardly Republicans!" or not.

my concern is that corps learn their 'lesson' and will quickly trade any notional social responsibility for their sweet sweet tax cuts

i mean good on Delta for not going back on it, but might it not cow others into keeping their mouths shut or outright supporting wingnut agendas of their state governments?

It doesn’t exactly make GA look like a good destination for corporations

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-skelton-adam-schiff-congress-20180222-story.html

xp I guess this could go in the other thread but while we're on the subject it seems like it would behoove the assorted gun control lobbies to merge and copy the NRA model with membership cards, sticky "lifetime" terms, inflated enrollments etc. I'm not a member of anything besides AAA but I would gladly pony up for such a thing.

it's important to keep that in mind when it's time to decide whether to scream "Those dastardly Republicans!" or not.

Doing the right thing for an bad and terrible reason doesn't absolve you of being bad terrible person. If pedophile gives a homeless single mother money for rent and food, thinking it might help him molest her daughter, he is still evil.

It doesn’t exactly make GA look like a good destination for corporations

that and how the state senate just passed an anti-gay adoption bill

Loomis is rarely nuanced. Because he’s bad at it!

People, our positions should not be defined by knee-jerk reactions to fascists.

Aimless trying to hit the side of a barn door with that metaphor and still has to resort to a clause about intent

Oklahoma teachers might follow W VA's lead

good. socrates/plato/aristotle should shrug until our education system is properly funded. fuck atlas (and the koch brothers and the amway crew etc) with a cache of legally-purchased AR-15s

Is it raining in Florida?

If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2018

i am not an economist but trump’s understanding of trade seems... limited at best to my mind

something tells me Japan may have an opinion on that

Delta already called their bluff

It wasn't a bluff? Passed 44-10 in the senate, 135-24 in the house.

I think what was meant was they had no intention of changing their mind so if it was being used as a measure to get Delta to reverse-course, it failed. not that they were bluffing to strip the tax advantages that would benefit Delta out of the bill.

He has no understanding of trade. He's merely repeating what crackpot economist Peter Navarro tells him and Wilbur Ross does not correct. He substitutes Navarro's views for any personal thought because he is too lazy and incurious to engage in any, but found Navarro (via Jared) to be someone who could give academic-sounding voice to his racist xenophobia as regards China in particular. Navarro's views have come to the fore more recently because the collection of people who would talk over and marginalize him have themselves been marginalized by personal rifts.

still has to resort to a clause about intent

resort to? judging their intent was my intent all along. I did not say the action was wrong in itself, because it isn't. but the actor is still worthy of scorn, despite, not because of the goodness of the action.

Navarro's views also appeal to his schoolyard-level zero-sum understanding of the world, which would also lead him to dismiss whatever exposure he may have had to standard trade theory

Nobody wants to buy American cars, they're hopelessly fuel inefficient...

"his schoolyard-level zero-sum understanding of the world"

A perspective we've come to learn has substantial electoral salience, especially among an an ideological-flexible but largely racially homogenous cohort of fellow members of the "poorly-educated"

Oh my god shut up

Wasn't it mentioned in this thread (for sure I read it somewhere) that since his first weeks in the White House people have been trying to explain trade to him, but it's just not taking.

Nobody wants to buy American cars, they're hopelessly fuel inefficient...

Actually, they've gotten much better, in part thanks to (yes) Obama.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-emissions/u-s-vehicle-fuel-economy-rises-to-record-24-7-mpg-epa-idUSKBN1F02BX

Some better-educated too

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/87dt3pDAgu4/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEWCKgBEF5IWvKriqkDCQgBFQAAiEIYAQ==&rs=AOn4CLDSQexNmxbMADNCm6td6I5D6zumzw
Moo

Surprised it took so long for Trump to start with the trade war stuff. Surprised he’s doing it in the post-Bannon era.

Loomis is rarely nuanced. Because he’s bad at it!

The most confusing lib post of the year. I'd had my morning coffee, exercised, and couldn't square it with the guy who posts This Day in Labor History shit.

wonder who's pushing him in this direction. a donor or someone in the admin?

kinda seems like the sort of thing a president shouldn't be able to do unilaterally

Actually, they've gotten much better, in part thanks to (yes) Obama.

Nobody wants to buy them anyway.

donor(s)

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-carl-icahn-trump-tariffs-20180302-story.html

xpost

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/25/navarro-trump-trade-tariffs-423462
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/us/politics/peter-navarro-trade.html

the sort of thing a president shouldn't be able to do unilaterally

If tariffs on particular commodities were taken back to the sole discretion of Congress, it wouldn't be much, if any, better. Just ruminate a moment on how Congress works and this becomes more apparent. Once you've handed the decision over to the executive branch, it is unavoidably handed directly to the POTUS, because of how the executive branch works. The current POTUS is just an outlier when it comes to his tiny-handed grasp of economic policy -- or any other government policy, for that matter.

Of course, Trump doesn’t get that European cars sold in the states mainly built in Chattanooga (VW), Spartanburg (BMW)and Birmingham (Mercedes).

fuck VW for moving out of new stanton

And Sony and me for that matter. It started as a Chrysler plant but hey never even got as far as pouring concrete for the floors.

maybe they're sick of paying for their employees' health insurance in backassward USA

people don't buy american cars outside the US because, outside the amazon reviews for household gadgets written by people who are worried about "toxins", "made in the USA" is not a synonym for quality and hasn't been for 50+ years.

you guys actually bother to ever look stuff up?

This statistic illustrates the number of cars sold by Ford in the United Kingdom (UK) between January 2014 and December 2017. With more than 333 thousand units sold, Ford was the biggest car seller in the UK in 2015.In 2016, the sales numbers dropped from the previous year but Ford continued to perform as one of the strongest car manufacturer in the UK, selling more than 318 thousand cars in 2016. The much higher sales in March and September, as well as the lower sales in February and August, can be accounted for by the new registration plates which are issued in the former pair of months.
In 2017, Ford kicked of the year with a strong sales performance in January 2017, selling more than 22,700 cars in the UK. In March, they sold the most cars during the period in question, 71,837 cars.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/475637/vehicle-sales-of-ford-in-leading-countries/

Ford during the 2017 fiscal year, broken down by leading countries. In that year, China sold over 1.2 million Ford cars and trucks; it is the carmaker's second-largest market in terms of sales.

Interestingly Ford (like Heinz) is one of those American brands that has painted itself as British for generations. (Not that Ford has made any cars in the UK for years).

Is that American Ford though? Xp

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_of_Britain

iirc when I was there I remember seeing the Ford Fusion before it was in The US and some other UK specific models I'd never seen

Ford of Britain (officially Ford Motor Company Limited)[note 1] is a British wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Oval Holdings, itself a subsidiary of Ford International Capital LLC, which is a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company[2].

Yeah, but if I were to go out and buy a ford tomorrow, it wouldn't come from the US

And if I went out and bought a Toyota, it wouldn't come from Japan.

these last few posts of discussion are more than trump has thought about this

It’s almost like he automotive industry is a complex global structure that can only exist because of a complex international trade in goods and services.

🤯

Fucking globalist auto industry.

🤔 https://t.co/0GMU59wNau

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) March 3, 2018

That linked article is epic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/politics/pure-madness-dark-days-inside-the-white-house-as-trump-shocks-and-rages/2018/03/03/9849867c-1e72-11e8-9de1-147dd2df3829_story.html

"‘Pure madness’: Dark days inside the White House as Trump shocks and rages"

fwiw Fords are like the only American cars i see in London ever. i see a lot of them though.

fwiw ford of britain makes completely different vehicles to those ford makes in the US, and ford's UK marketing goes to lengths to disassociate it with the parent company, to the extent that it wouldn't occur to most british people that it's a company with a US connection unless you reminded them of "henry ford". same goes for vauxhall/opel, which was owned by GM until last year, but you wouldn't have known it from the cars they made or how they marketed them.

very very occasionally you'd see a PT cruiser in the UK but i think they gave up selling them.

I've read 18 Trump in Turmoil stories since April 2017. I don't give a shit until and if the Dems take over. I assume Mueller's smart enough to delay serious charges until then cuz nothing will happen so long as Ryan is speaker.

(re the photo of him waving off the boom mikes, from that WaPo article linked in the link in the tweet JiC posted)

One hopes that his historically horrible and broadly despised tenure might finally put several of the necessary and long-overdue nails in the coffin of that particularly ugly, conformist, obsolete & just plain fucking sad approach to "professional" menswear that his shitty daily choices exemplify

Are the Ford Fiesta, the Focus, the Mondeo and the Kuga American cars though? On the proviso that I know nothing about cars, Ford in the UK and Europe used to design and manufacture cars that were totally different from the gas guzzling phalluses they designed and manufactured for the US market - is that still the case?

FWIW, key crazy takeaway:

Trump has been asking people close to him whether they think Kushner or his company has done anything wrong, according to a senior administration official. Two advisers said the president repeatedly tells aides that the Russia investigation will not ensnare him — even as it ensnares others around him — and that he thinks the American people are finally starting to conclude that the Democrats, as opposed to his campaign, colluded with the Russians.

(Oops, caek has covered this already) (xp)

i owned a ford focus for ~10yrs

i'm american btw

fwiw ford of britain makes completely different vehicles to those ford makes in the US

this is a pretty stupid discussion to be having on a board where almost nobody gives a shit about cars, BUT ACTUALLY Ford started pushing the same bodies and vehicle types in all of their markets worldwide several years ago which is why you can find the Transit and Fusion on at least three continents now, and they do well pretty much everywhere. A cursory fucking google and wikipedia browsing session reveals this.

The reason I care if the president is having problems is that he is still the president, and just as he started trade wars (with allies!) against the wishes of his advisers and without anyone knowing he was going to do it until he did it, he could do other shit, too. Remember, 100 years ago, when he began a tweet with some somber "My fellow Americans, I have decided ..." tone, and then there was a long break, and then he announced, apropos of nothing that he wanted to ban transgender troops? Against the wishes of his military and with no one knowing that was coming? And that, for those few minutes in between tweets, some people thought maybe we were about to go to war? There are 8 fucking months until November.

Interestingly Ford (like Heinz) is one of those American brands that has painted itself as British for generations. (Not that Ford has made any cars in the UK for years).

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed)

mostly because of douglas adams

Three days late, but excellent thread title.

at what point can they outsource "chaos in the whitehouse" stories to chuck tingle? because it's just mad libs (uh, no pun intended) at this point, no?

Trump Mad Libs (which is the perfect jumble of words itself - Mad Libs!) must exist.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/trump-tweet-mad-libs

https://d3thpuk46eyjbu.cloudfront.net/uploads/production/3353/1500311516/original/Trumptweet2.png?1500311516

tombot: there was a ford fusion in europe but it's a different thing to the ford fusion hybrid, which is not sold outside north america and brazil. the transit is a UK design that ford USA imported (kind of my point).

just to make clear my point since it's been lost in car stuff though: the idea that there could ever be a world in which consumer goods "made in the USA" appeal to people outside the USA on their merits may be a vote winner in "trump country", but it's just not reality (except for apple, which i don't think is what trump is talking about).

one exception might be fashion

but that’s a tiny market

Designed by Apple in California

Basically what Ed said, applied to all consumer goods, not just cars

US cars have a good rep in China, Buick sells a ton of them there. Part of it is that the Chinese really still hate Japan, but hey got to take wins when you can get them.

I am with rushomancy here. Is there anything in the new "Trump stalks the halls of the White House fuming at the TV and berating the staff" story that wasn't in the last dozen "Trump stalks the halls of the White House berating the TV and fuming at the staff" stories? If so, help a brother out and give us the Cliffs Notes.

I've been saying it since January 2017. I don't care. Let's flip the Congress.

it's the same old story, based off of a couple dozen anonymous aides and a 4 star general, with the new controversies replacing the old.

it did include one bit that documents trump accidentally having a good thought

Trump doesn’t see guns through the traditional prism of left vs. right, but rather as a Manhattan business developer, said one senior administration official, adding that he has told staff that he doesn’t understand why people need assault rifles.

i'm sure that by now the NRA has made him understand

it really is uncanny how you only have to change the proper names from the zodiac killer letters pic.twitter.com/MyrhpSfBxY

— Muscular Baby (@Mobute) March 4, 2018

apparently his republican fundraiser thing tonight is going well. he's already managed to jokingly praise Xi Jinping for being a great authoritarian

"He's now president for life. President for life. No, he's great," Trump said. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."

it looks like he spent the rest of the speech talking about how hillary clinton needs to go to jail.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/03/politics/trump-maralago-remarks/index.html

Breaking: West Virginia teachers say "indefinite" strike will continue after State Senate's Finance Committee rejects Governor Justice's offer of a 5% raise & instead pushes 4% raise. The state's school superintendents back 5%. @BradMcElhinny @MsCByers https://t.co/Oz87Jy5w9O

— Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) March 3, 2018

Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer — please do not go off-message!

The WV GOP is so shitty that even though the teachers went on strike and continued to strike because, among other reasons, a 5% was not enough, the state senate comes back with *less* than 5%. That's some Trump negotiation right there.

classic reagan air traffic controller negotiation move too, right?

Let's see if they fire all the teachers.

one astounding thing to me about US politics is that the GOP managed to somehow portray teachers as villains. i'm not even talking about how the right sees evil liberal colleges and marxist professors and brainwashing machines and "science" and education in general. but even just school teachers themselves are villainized! epitomized by john kasich saying “If I were, not president, if I were king in America, I would abolish all teachers’ lounges where they sit together and worry about ‘woe is us’.” it's so fucking stupid, that idea of the lazy teachers whining and complaining all the time. but somehow that's become republican orthodoxy.

*puffs cigar*
the problem with teachers, see here, is that it needs to be based on free market values. if a teacher is bad, they should replaced, and i mean pronto, why i oughta

Not only are they underpaid, undervalued, and otherwise shit on by the GOP (I mean, they're shit on in blue states, too), the GOP is constantly angling to reduce their power, compel them to teach bullshit, and fund private alternative schools that further undercut their value and power. I heard a story on the radio about how HUD folks were demoralized to begin with, and the hiring of someone like Ben Carson just made them feel so much worse. I can only image that DeVos has done to teacher moral.

Anyway, good luck replacing 20,000 teachers in West Virginia. I hope the entire state of Oklahoma strikes, too. And probably Kansas, too. And likely Mississippi. And any place where the GOP has fucked with the schools so much that the fed-up teachers have no recourse.

Republican orthodoxy is, and has been for as long as I've been alive, that anybody who gets directly paid from the state coffers is a subhuman leech, unless they wear a uniform (cops, firefighters, the troops). Not contractors, btw - contractors are real people because a publicly traded company gets to skim off the payments from the state coffers first, THEN the workers get paid. That's why charter schools are good.

That WV Teacher Trike gofundme: $125,060 of $50,000 goal

xp I mean they've been saying this for 4+ decades. I don't get how anybody doesn't understand this is what they believe. It is as fundamental to their platform as criminalizing abortion.

Because too many parents treat public school like glorified daycare and take for granted the work teachers do? Even though the vast majority of those parents benefited from public school teachers themselves? Out of sight, out of mind. "My Timmy is doing fine, fuck your kid, if they don't like it they can move."

I meant the broader aspect of it, i.e. civil service should not be a job at all unless it's conducted by a privately owned company.

also, teachers are apparently simultaneously lazy and worthless, but also would-be heroes if someone would only give them a gun

(also, a significant chunk of Republican voters never benefited from public school teachers themselves and would be horrified of the thought of their kid ever going to public school, but are yet somehow experts on it and how it should be run)

a significant chunk of Republican voters never benefited from public school teachers themselves

what

a lot of Republican voters are rich people who either went to private schools or religious/Catholic schools that basically function as private schools

or not even "rich" per se, just upper-middle-class

I don't think you can support that with any kind of reliable statistics, I'm sorry

also a lot of people are so dumb that they don't realize how poor their evaluations of teachers are

Republican orthodoxy is, and has been for as long as I've been alive, that anybody who gets directly paid from the state coffers is a subhuman leech, unless they wear a uniform (cops, firefighters, the troops).

do they even care about firefighters though

I mean, school vouchers and similar programs effectively siphoning resources that would otherwise go toward public schools toward private schools are a plank of the Republican platform, which would not be the case if they didn't go there

your reasoning is that they wouldn't support privatizing schools if they hadn't been to private schools?

the GOP would hand the DoD to the likes of Erik Prince if the Army itself wasn't standing in the way, because no bureaucracy can be trusted with our precious debt, according to capital dogma

the enrollment in private schools tends to be A) religious and B) wealthy (stats: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2015/demo/school-enrollment/2015-cps.html), which are two demographics that skew Republican. I don't know why this is controversial

I'd like to believe that at least someone stood up and booed when Trump "joked" about becoming president for life.

At this rate, Trump won't just be 45th of 45, but 90th of 90, if this nation lasts that long.

(the latter stat breaks it down by income level; religion is more complicated because not everyone who attends, say, Catholic schools is Catholic, although tuition is generally higher in the that case)

I disagree with the phrase "significant chunk" - I don't think it's that meaningful of a proportion. Most of them never did ten minutes in uniform but god forbid you discuss cutting the defense budget at one of their watering holes.

I mean, school vouchers and similar programs effectively siphoning resources that would otherwise go toward public schools toward private schools are a plank of the Republican platform, which would not be the case if they didn't go there

― algorithm is a dancer (katherine)

i think the goal is to please the small segment of people who own the private/charter schools (or subcontractors who benefit from them), not to please whatever amount of conservative voters have children who attend such schools.

i admit that opinion is mainly just because i view that as the primary goal of pretty much any conservative policy, even though it's never the stated goal

so the Xi comment...here's how it will play out

"The President was obviously joking"
"The President's comments were taken out of context"
"Though you know, the President is not wrong. We've been led afoul by some bad politicians. And the 22nd amendment was a bad piece of legislation, and even Barney Frank has advocated for its repeal"
"It would be easier to drain the swamp if there weren't so many redundant politicians gumming up the works - why not consolidate and streamline into one legislative body which just happens to be one person?"
"KNEEL BEFORE YOUR KING"

*trump chokes on KFC chicken bone and shuffles off this mortal coil*

the WV strike seems to have a decent chance of spreading to oklahoma

http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/statewide-teacher-walkout-the-idea-is-gaining-traction-online-and/article_11c81ce5-e2fe-5051-be0d-bf7c8441bc3c.html

The Oklahoma teacher’s strike Facebook page now has more than 40,000 members. They’re fired up. pic.twitter.com/1e6h1bVRNO

— Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) March 4, 2018

Making it illegal to strike is yet another thing these fucked up GOP states have done to hurt their teachers.

who else in this country goes 10 years without a raise? Oh, I don't know, people who work at Veterans Affairs

El Tomboto: the South is weird. Here in New Orleans, anyone with remotely middle class aspirations, including plumbers and electricians, sends their kids to private schools. And without middle-class participation, the public schools are poorly funded and poorly administered. After some decades of this, in which even the physical state of the schools would embarrass a banana republic, the State took over running the local school district. The modern Republican party is dominated by politicians from the old South, where this is often the norm. It was totally foreign to my experience in a Texan suburb, and still further from the state of public schools saner parts of the country, like Minnesota or New York.

private schools should be illegal

i always feel very alienated when these things come up. there weren't any private secondary schools where i grew up (SE MO) (although there was a catholic elementary school). we all went to public school. it took me a long time to even figure out what people were talking about when they talked about private schools.

er, alienated is too strong. i guess i just don't how common it is to be in an area with no private option? seems like everyone else is always talking about private schools.

I didn't even know we had private schools where I grew up until I met one of my best friends in junior year, after she had been kicked out of her private school.

Re: Oklahoma, here's a quote for you, from a Tulsa teacher:

"If we strike, I double dare you to fire us. We'll just go to Texas; they're looking for new teachers," said Cagle.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Record-885K-vote-in-Texas-primaries-12725903.php

Texas voters didn’t just set a record for early voting in a primary during a non-presidential election.

They obliterated the records.

More than 885,000 people voted in the Texas primaries through early voting or by mail in the state’s most populous counties, according the the Texas Secretary of State’s office. That is a 50 percent increase from the previous high of 592,000 in 2014, the last election cycle with the governor on the ballot.

For the first time in a decade more people voted in a Democratic Primary than a Republican Primary in the state’s largest counties. The last time Democrats beat Republicans was in 2008 when the battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton drove record turnout in the primary battle for president.

Nice.

I had to unfollow Ned on twitter for unironically RTing Joy Ann Reid, an unforgivable offense given what she tweeted recently about the striking WVA teachers

(still <3 u ned)

I dunno how many ILXers are products of private religious education (worth a thread?), but I am, and you can't understand the contempt that parents of those children have for The System.

commuting to private schools isn't unheard of either

OK I give you guys are right 49% of america went to private school

Good news about the Texas primaries! Hopefully they roll it into something meaningful in November. A few days before the primary, the strongly-worded nervous text of a 11th-hour GOP fundraising email was circulating on lefty FBs & Twitters. Heat is being felt, but I'm not ready to gloat.

Abbott is a lock. I don't even know who's really the front-runner against him, some lesbian ex-sheriff from DFW I think?. Good luck with that. FWIW, Abbot's ads focus on the basic achievements (business, schools) within Texas during the last several years. Seems like he won a coin toss, BECAUSE...

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is doubling down on Trump. Two-Scoops' name is invoked as frequently (if not more) than Patrick's own. The Wall, Banning Sanctuary Cities, Liberal Agenda(s) are all discussed. Not sure who's running against him either, but he's really put out the ammo to any takers.*

I do feel Ted Cruz has something to worry about. Beto O'Rourke is really catching fire with progressives, and above all he was the reason Dem turnout was so high this time. Cruz still has the strength of running as a Republican in Texas, with the added bonus of being on the ticket alongside Abbot & Patrick. But what was once a cakewalk is now more like being the caboose to a partially loaded coal car and a steam engine. To my knowledge, Cruz hasn't started running ads.

*In a related story, Land Commissioner George P. Bush (aka "The Brown One") has been running ads boasting of an endorsement from Donald Trump (wait for it) JR. Said endorsement is a Tweet saying something along the lines "George P. Bush really helped us in Texas!". Yeah. Although I now read Two-Scoops has offered his own endorsement, possibly just to show up Jr. again.

you can't understand the contempt that parents of those children have for The System

counterpoint: those parents cannot understand the contempt that I hold for them

today I learned that when I said "a significant chunk of Republicans" I secretly meant every Republican in the world from now back to Abraham Lincoln

he was the first one, you know

freed the slaves

xposts

There are 33,619 private schools in the United States, serving 5.4 million PK-12 students. Private schools account for 25 percent of the nation's schools and enroll 10 percent of all PK-12 students. Most private school students (79 percent) attend religiously-affiliated schools

the URL has "facts" in it so you know it's right
http://www.capenet.org/facts.html

I do feel Ted Cruz has something to worry about.

He doesn't. Beto's awesome. Inspiring. He has zero chance of beating Cruz. I'm going to let myself get my hopes up anyway, because what could feel worse than what happened in 2016? Everyone hates Cruz. But Rs vote for the R, not the person. Soon, I expect to hear a bunch of Democrats start tearing O'Rourke apart, talking themselves into not voting for him. My prediction is Cruz beats O'Rourke 52-45. Close, for Texas.

...and Cruz is also quite possibly the luckiest motherfucker who ever lived.

well, yeah, he got to live in Texas

As in th UK, it’s not about the percentage of the general population who pay for/attend private schools, it’s about the percentage of the group who set policy/generally run things being privately educated (and how that affects attitudes toward and the shaping of public schools). The latter percentage is MUCH higher than that of gen pop, and the ideologues running down public schooling favour privatisation of education.

the URL has "facts" in it so you know it's right
http://www.capenet.org/facts.html

gonna not click on this and assume it's a Cape of Good Hope FAQ

latepass but

people don't buy american cars outside the US because, outside the amazon reviews for household gadgets written by people who are worried about "toxins", "made in the USA" is not a synonym for quality and hasn't been for 50+ years.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Sunday, March 4, 2018 8:52 AM (eleven hours ago)

you guys actually bother to ever look stuff up?

This statistic illustrates the number of cars sold by Ford in the United Kingdom (UK) between January 2014 and December 2017. With more than 333 thousand units sold, Ford was the biggest car seller in the UK in 2015.In 2016, the sales numbers dropped from the previous year but Ford continued to perform as one of the strongest car manufacturer in the UK, selling more than 318 thousand cars etc etc

― It's not delivery, it's Adorno! (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, March 4, 2018 9:15 AM (eleven hours ago)

There are a couple of private schools where I live (which has a good school system and in particular a stellar high school and super high taxes that fund it) and the handful of nutballs who pay the high taxes and *still* send their kids to private school seem to do it for good (or at least, not terrible) reasons. I have two friends we've known since (Montessori) pre-school who helped establish further elementary classes there, so their kids have continued on in Montessori rather than pop into the public system (curiously, both have boys already in public middle school, so we get to watch the experiment play out in real time). The school is great and we loved it, too, and I'll be first to concede they are getting a great education, but the numbers bear out that when a private school or otherwise better prepared kid enters the public high school (which is their plan, since the high school is great), the numbers soon even themselves out. Other people we know going to private school, there's one family who felt their public school wasn't attentive to their gifted and talented super kid, so they send him to a neighboring village for a progressive private school. Same with friends with a transgender daughter, who tried in public school (where their other two kids are) but couldn't make it work out and decided to send her to the same very progressive private school, which is understandable.

The key is that all these folks are sucking it up and still paying the super high taxes while sending their kids out of the system, which really actually benefits the community, since the kids still live and participate here and the parents pay into a system they don't really use. On the other hand are some parents pushing lately for a charter school, which is some bullshit, because they think their kids are special enough that they need their own separate school (for various reasons, not all ill-intentioned) that nonetheless siphons public funds. Fuck that.

We have a Catholic school or two around here, but my understanding is that a lot of their students come from nearby elsewhere, and not where I live. I don't think I know anyone who sends their kids to Catholic school.

"And without middle-class participation, the public schools are poorly funded and poorly administered. "

I know that this is the case, but I still don't get why this is the case. If this is true (and it appears to be, everywhere), this means the school itself is too underfunded by the state. It should not matter how wealthy the populace of the school is; the school should be funded well enough to run independent of PTA and parent participation. Right? Maybe I'm saying something obvious.

In california schools with a significant number of children on the free lunch program get a bump in funding (our son's elementary school lost that funding in his last two years basically because the income levels of the population rose so much).

I had to unfollow Ned on twitter for unironically RTing Joy Ann Reid, an unforgivable offense given what she tweeted recently about the striking WVA teachers

Since I missed that -- I don't follow her and have no inclination to, the post was RTd into my feed -- I just took her separate sentiment re the Philando Castile fund as it is. Which struck me as true.

Fair enough.

what did she tweet? I saw this: "Meanwhile, teachers in West Virginia are on strike for better pay and healthcare. If they start voting for politicians who actually support those things, look out GOP." which, I'm not seeing what's so terrible about this.

this means the school itself is too underfunded by the state. It should not matter how wealthy the populace of the school is; the school should be funded well enough to run independent of PTA and parent participation. Right? Maybe I'm saying something obvious.

Schools are funded ~10% by the federal government, ~45% each by state and local taxes. This is the cause of massive inequalities in funding. PTA/parents pay for 'extras,' but they don't form a line In school budgets. On the whole, PTA and parent participation magnifies the effect the local tax burden. High local taxes are correlated w/ high parent / PTA engagement. Low local taxes are correlated w/ low parent / PTA engagement.

is there a good link for Oklahoma donations yet?

Public education from pre-K through graduate / professional schools is horrendously underfunded throughout the country. It’s stupid and immiserating and obvious to almost every single person in the country.

However, like maintenance spending on infrastructure, the political rewards for fully funding education are seen as minor (read: “not worth it”) and they take longer than most terms of office to be realized. So again, as with infrastructure, there are perverse incentives to do new things and potentially highly disruptive things, but not to do simple shit like pay the fucking teachers a living wage and buy them some goddamn books and pens.

Aargh that first paragraph is terrible I need to not multitask while writing

xpost

My question is still this: "High local taxes are correlated w/ high parent / PTA engagement. Low local taxes are correlated w/ low parent / PTA engagement" and why is this? It shouldn't fucking matter. Is this reflective of the voting base? I suppose partly it is; Berkeley, for instance, passes a supplemental funding bill that comes out of our property taxes all of which goes to fund schools (how they spend it is another matter that no one agrees on, but it does get passes, or has been passed, fairly regularly). Maybe I've answered my own question.

I also cannot type or make coherent sense this morning. Good thing I'm not on twitter like the presidetn.

One of the least known (by the public) and most catastrophic SCOTUS decisions:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1972/71-1332

Absolutely. It shouldn't matter. But the same advantages that make a district high-income in the first place are the ones that encourage effective parental interaction w/ the providers of their childrens' education. These things include the quality and extent of the parents' own education, economic and geographic stability, common language, community health, privilege of hiring teachers appropriate to their community (i.e. not under-trained white do-gooders right out of college), etc., etc...

Jesus christ. Thanks for the link, Alfred but...jesus christ.

I don't recall that even being touched on in my college educational policy class.

seconding the ty for the link. i feel like a fool for not coming across oyez.org before! that is an incredible resource. *bookmarked*

One of the least known (by the public) and most catastrophic SCOTUS decisions:

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1972/71-1332

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, March 4, 2018 10:52 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*sees link, sees Alfred posted it*

this better fuckin be saisd v. rodriguez *clicks* fuck yeah

fun fact 1: i teach in the school district from which demetrio rodriguez filed the original suit in 68 which was spurred on by student walkouts. its 50 years later and our school is still 98% latinx (<1% white)

fun fact 2: saisd v rodriguez was the first case heard by all 4 of nixon's SCOTUS appointees (they all voted in the majority obv), initiating the reversal of decades of progressive jurisprudence

what did she tweet? I saw this: "Meanwhile, teachers in West Virginia are on strike for better pay and healthcare. If they start voting for politicians who actually support those things, look out GOP." which, I'm not seeing what's so terrible about this.

― akm, Sunday, March 4, 2018 11:40 AM

there are like 10 things that are terrible about this just like everything she ever says. she is an awful human being. misplaces blame for low pay/inadequate healthcare coverage on teachers for their bad voting decisions, or assumes that there were politicians available to them to vote for who would have given them those things. implies voting is more powerful than going on strike when obviously striking has done more than voting for hypothetical politicians has ever done for them.

also, plenty of WVa people have responded to remind her that many of the issues the teachers are currently facing originated with Dems like Manchin

exactly. i'm a government employee making way less $ than i should be and someone once told me it was important to vote for governor to get a raise but they forgot that most of our pay freeze issues started with the last shitty democrat governor.

yeeeep

fun fact 2: saisd v rodriguez was the first case heard by all 4 of nixon's SCOTUS appointees (they all voted in the majority obv), initiating the reversal of decades of progressive jurisprudence

― NBA YoungBoy named Rocky Raccoon (m bison),

yet Powell and Blackmun became "moderates" because Reagan's picks were even worse! It's insane.

I think teacher pay is also massively misunderstood and/or spun by districts, politicians, and pundits for the purpose of union-eroding. The semi-decent "average teacher salary" numbers that're busted out during each contract negotiation are essentially a mean total compensation package per full-time employee in each district. In other words, if a district announces their "average teacher salary" as $50k/year, what they are actually saying is that an average teacher paycheck in the district compensates the employee $50k/annum (less employees' mandatory health-care contribution, less mandatory 10-15% retirement/pension contribution, less insurance share, etc., less uncompensated classroom expenses, less taxes) and so an 'average' teacher might end up w/ $35k. However, the "average teacher salary" is far more than the majority of teachers in a system teachers make; it sure as heck ain't a median teacher salary. When you figure in longevity increases and incentives for additional degrees, it means that professionals at 15-20 years in their career are making (in total compensation) 1.5 x 2 as much as new employees on the top line of their pay check, and losing a much-smaller overall proportion to health, pension, insurance, etc.

However, the "average teacher salary" is far more than the majority of teachers in a system teachers make;

I don't know if this is still the case, but in our district schools that are less economically diverse, which is to say, relatively more affluent, are actually often at an academic disadvantage, because funding for kids who need more help reading or whatever does not kick in. So the more economically diverse school - again, relatively speaking - often might get 2 or 3 reading specialists, and our school, which is relatively less economically diverse, might just get one. Which is I suppose the way it should be, but just because a school is more or less economically diverse does not necessarily equate to a proportional number of kids who need extra help. For example, the better off school might have just as many kids who need extra help, they just don't get the funding for it because they are better off. And none of the schools, at least our district, is radically better than the other.

"I don't know if this is still the case, but in our district schools that are less economically diverse, which is to say, relatively more affluent, are actually often at an academic disadvantage, because funding for kids who need more help reading or whatever does not kick in." yes, same thing in California. (I thought i posted this but maybe not). it's run off who qualifies for free school lunches here (which they make us fill out at the beginning of the year). our son's elementary school lost this funding his last year because there weren't enough disadvantaged kids. that money paid for a number of additional programs (which the PTA then funded, luckily).

From Alfred's link:

The Court refused to examine the system with strict scrutiny since there is no fundamental right to education in the Constitution...

ffs, this shitty line of reasoning could have invalidated Brown vs. Board of Education, too.

The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right is essential reading imo

I'm going to let myself get my hopes up anyway, because what could feel worse than what happened in 2016?

Um, I get what you are saying but I am not sure how far I would go in applying that logic.

I could take a ball-peen hammer to my toenails right now, and it wouldn't feel worse than happened in 2016. That doesn't make it a good idea.

yeah but man you're gonna get disappointed whether or not you get your hopes up, so why not get your hopes up? right?

idk the feeling of being completely blindsided by the election results was a very sizable part of why I had a nervous breakdown that night

the question of whether it's worth getting your hopes up when you're going to get disappointed anyway is universal and unresolved imo

the dumbassery of hope

idk the feeling of being completely blindsided by the election results was a very sizable part of why I had a nervous breakdown that night

― had (crüt)

sure i spent most of the day after uncontrollably shaking but my fear of how the election might turn out put me through several weeks of acute suicidal depression. i probably would've run into it after the election anyway - i do have a friend who killed himself in november 2016 - but either way it's something one has to deal with. hope for the best, expect the worst, that's how i try to live my life.

'm going to let myself get my hopes up anyway, because what could feel worse than what happened in 2016?

It feels worse if you're black, gay, Hispanic, and a woman.

Or Jewish, dude. We honestly had a what-to-do talk the morning after.

serious question: you figure anything out? i'm not sure i ever did.

we stayed put, and a good thing too, or we'd have missed out on gold in hockey and curling.

xpost No. We have family overseas and they did, just in case, leave out an invitation. But mostly we've been watchful, waiting ...

If I had no family I think I'd be gone, tbh.

Family here, that is. My wife's cousin from Nebraska is coming in a few weeks. Unlike me, she lives in Trump world and knows Trump voters. I'm curious to get her perspective, being Jewish, being a rape survivor, being a woman, with a gay brother, in Nebraska.

Oklahoma teachers have voted to strike

https://www.facebook.com/Oklahomateachersunited/posts/2012657982321790

Good. Where to donate?

It's so fresh that I haven't seen anything about a strike fund or anything yet, will post here when I do.

xp didn't have the connections or the money to get out of the country altogether. moved from indiana to oregon, though. when all this shit is being done in your name and for your benefit it's hard to know what to do. didn't want to be tempted to make compromises we'd later regret.

yeah but man you're gonna get disappointed whether or not you get your hopes up, so why not get your hopes up? right?

I'm saying whatever I do (and getting excited about Beto isn't really something I can honestly choose to do or not do, I live in Austin, I am left-wing me, so it will happen) his losing cannot be worse than how I (and probably a lot of people) experienced 2016, where for months I was terrified Clinton would lose but didn't believe she actually would. Then she did.

That’s great news from OK. Wish the whole damn country would strike.

Except for internet providers. Sorry internet workers.

shut up and watch the goddamn Oscars

if that scotus case goes the way everyone is saying it will I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we had some wildcat May 68 shit sometime this year

what if Warren 'n' Faye flub again

Get Out

I just went to a park in Mexico and at the end they had this big 2 hour show covering an abridged history of the country. For the grand finale they had a bunch of people marching around with the flags of every major country in the world, plus most of our neighbors. Notably absent was the American flag. Felt pretty significant given that half the visitors appeared to be from the USA. I think I’m just gonna tell people I’m from Canada for the rest of the trip.

oscars news dump???

JUST IN: Mueller subpoenas documents from Trump, numerous campaign associates https://t.co/YgVVIOpVT2

— NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) March 5, 2018

Kicking off the new week well!

I would really love it if in lieu of sentencing, Mueller just clocked Lewandowski on national television

wow. that's a LOT of documents.

Donald it's ok go ahead and resign we'll spare you the embarassment, you can go back to firing people weekly on faux television

Subpoena, Subpoena, Sub-POE-na

yes, that's right, sound it out

Perdido

The Academy should give Mueller an honorary award.

Though as Renato astutely points out: "This tweet doesn’t match the content of the story it cites. The subpoena doesn’t seek documents from Trump, it seeks documents *about* Trump from an unnamed witness."

...However, the "average teacher salary" is far more than the majority of teachers in a system teachers make; it sure as heck ain't a median teacher salary. When you figure in longevity increases and incentives for additional degrees, it means that professionals at 15-20 years in their career are making (in total compensation) 1.5 x 2 as much as new employees on the top line of their pay check, and losing a much-smaller overall proportion to health, pension, insurance, etc.

― rb (soda), Sunday, March 4, 2018

Hate to be that guy but iirc isn't this exactly what teachers' unions have bargained for?

Wish the whole damn country would strike.

If there were a consistent set of demands attached, this would be beyond awesome! The General Strike is one of the most potent weapons in the arsenal of labor. Too bad the USA has no labor movement worthy of that grand tradition.

there have been murmurs of teacher's strikes in other states as well but I can't recall which atm. KY maybe?

The Academy should give Mueller an honorary award.

plz, the Russian doping doc won, more than enough from the MSNBC crowd

Hate to be that guy but iirc isn't this exactly what teachers' unions have bargained for?

Not at all. Teacher pay has been stagnant or declining due to relative purchasing power of salary for last decade or so. employee health care costs are eating up big chunks of the total compensation package... and they are paid at a flat rate by all employees. For employees who make 100k/year this is not a problem. For those who make 40k it is. Unions are trying to level out pay, but that can take decades. Union, also, have asked for increases in total compensation to offset some of these costs, but working conditions and not money is (surprisingly to those outside the unions, I guess) not the first issue in most negotiations.