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

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.

https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-pay-gap-is-wider-than-ever-teachers-pay-continues-to-fall-further-behind-pay-of-comparable-workers/

www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/08/16/think-teachers-arent-paid-enough-its-worse-than-you-think/


http://www.nea.org/home/12661.htm

Yam meeting at the WH with Netanyahu today.

Time for Brits to pull another 1814

(i was all "wait wasn't that 1812" and looked it up, to learn that the 1814 white-house setting-fire-to happened during the IMO confusingly named "war of 1812", which ended in 1815)

and its last battle was fought several weeks after it ended

excellent work there

and then Francis Scott Key slapped words on an English drinking song and now heathens won't stand while it plays

and then Andrew Jackson

class dismissed, tomorrow we do dinosaurs

Meanwhile, a glimpse into the subtle mind of Scott Pruitt:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt dismissed evolution as an unproven theory, lamented that “minority religions” were pushing Christianity out of “the public square” and advocated amending the Constitution to ban abortion, prohibit same-sex marriage and protect the Pledge of Allegiance and the Ten Commandments, according to a newly unearthed series of Oklahoma talk radio shows from 2005.

Pruitt, who at the time was a state senator, also described the Second Amendment as divinely granted and condemned federal judges as a “judicial monarchy” that is “the most grievous threat that we have today." And he did not object when the program’s host described Islam as “not so much a religion as it is a terrorist organization in many instances.”

On the roffly side

WSJ says Cohen complained to friends that he had yet to be reimbursed for the payment to Stormy Daniels. He had been trying to reach Trump before the election about the payment, per WSJ https://t.co/eSIRq75Il9

— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) March 5, 2018

it's weird bcz trump is well-known for promptly paying all his employees and contractors