Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

The willow is too close to the house.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Cole is on a roll !

In my day, never was longer.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

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Long Read(s): Good Neighbors Make Good Fences?

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I read this NYTimes ‘Opinionator’ from Thomas Edsall in the wee hours, but it seemed like a lot to drop on people at breakfast:

How Fragile Is the New Democratic Coalition?
… In 1988, the Democratic presidential nominee, Michael Dukakis, carried 26 percent of the nation’s counties, 819 of 3144, on his way to losing the Electoral College 426-111 and the popular vote by seven percentage points. In 2012, President Obama won fewer counties, 690, but he won the popular vote by four points and the Electoral College in a landslide, 332-206.

The forces behind this shift illuminate the internal realignments taking place within the two major political parties. But first let’s look at how a candidate could carry 129 fewer counties but come out way ahead on Election Day.

In the simplest terms, Democrats started to win populous suburban counties in big states with lots of Electoral College votes beginning with Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992, at the same time that they began to lose sparsely populated rural counties, many of which lie in small states with very few Electoral College votes…

“The Big Sort” focuses on one of the key factors behind these geographic trends: people are increasingly choosing to move into neighborhoods and communities of like-minded people who share their political views, creating what Bishop and Cushing call “way-of-life segregation.”

Americans, in their view,

have been sorting themselves over the past three decades into homogeneous communities — not at the regional level, or the red-state/blue-state level, but at the micro level of city and neighborhood.

Other analysts, including Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist at Emory, have produced evidence of an additional factor encouraging increased local homogeneity: individual voters are becoming more consistently liberal or conservative in their views on a range of issues from abortion to safety net spending to gun rights.

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In a world where people have problems

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I read this letter from a Jets fan in Deadspin and it perfectly summarizes my feelings towards the Republican party.

The Butt Fumble changed my involvement as a fan. Before, I was disheartened, disappointed, let down by the hope of two AFC championship appearances. Now, I’m reinvigorated, excited to see how terrible this season will be. It’s like reading about Amanda Bynes, or seeing Donald Trump get elected President. It’s better than actual sports. It’s a full-fledged rebellion against sanity and rationality.

One day, when the dying vestiges of our culture raise up a flag in surrender to the greater forces of the future, I hope that flag has Mark Sanchez colliding into another man’s butt on it.

I’ll admit: an increasingly crazy Republican party may not be good for the country. Replacing Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander with stone cold wingers might be bad for the Senate. (Though also too, it might be good in the long run.) But I enjoy watching the craziness happen.

So this report from Ohio brought a smile to my face:

Kasich had worked to expand Medicaid coverage, a key component of the Affordable Care Act…..[F]or conservatives, the expansion has brought nothing but anger, not least because Kasich has defended his actions in biblical, moralistic terms, describing the move as something demanded by his Christian faith.

“In our Bible, compassion means the money comes from you,” Zawistowski told The Daily Beast. “Medicaid is for single women with children and for the elderly, for people who can’t work. What they are calling Medicaid expansion is health insurance for people who don’t want to work. You are not expanding Medicaid. This is a whole new program and it is with borrowed money.”

Love the anti-compassion stuff, love the idea of a Tea Party bible.

I like this too:

Neil Clark, a Republican lobbyist in Columbus, echoed Borges, noting that in a state so divided, Kasich and others were right to ignore the extremes of the party.

“I guess for some people in Ohio, unless you are a card-carrying Nazi you can’t be a Republican,” he said.

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Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…

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As the serial donnybrooks on this here blog illustrate, the Syria issue is dividing the hard left, medium left, soft left, just-right left, terminally centrist, etc. Might I offer a particularly smug Bush dead-ender to unite us all again for a moment of shared derision? Glenn Harlan Reynolds, ladies and germs, government teat-sucker / Galt wannabe and libertarian / neo-con:

Say what you will about George W. Bush’s diplomacy, but he nurtured relationships with our most important allies — like Britain — and managed to put together a huge multinational coalition for his own foray against an Arab dictator suspected of having chemical weapons. Obama’s diplomatic efforts — championed by Hillary Clinton and, now, John Kerry — are looking more and more inept by comparison: So far, our only ally in the proposed Syria venture is France, maybe.

I can say what I will about George W. Bush’s diplomacy? Good, here goes: He lied us into a ruinous, catastrophic war that killed tens of thousands of people, bankrupted America while enriching his cronies, burned our allies and tanked our global prestige so badly that it’s nothing short of a fucking miracle that any subsequent American president, including Barack Obama, could get the French on board for a resolution to discourage tourists at the Louvre from defacing the Mona Lisa with a Sharpie.

Reynolds goes on:

But that’s what happens when your diplomacy is a failure.

No, that’s what happens when the president’s immediate predecessor was an unindicted, unconvicted fucking war criminal, Glenn. It means we can’t have nice things, like broad international coalitions and federal budget surpluses.

I get why Team Obama didn’t go after the Bushies for their crimes, I really do, and I can accept that we have to live with the consequences and lack of justice. But it’s a little much to have that odious organization’s cheerleaders crawl out of the woodwork so soon and pretend that the GWB administration wasn’t an utter and complete disaster on virtually every front.

They’ll need a MIB neuralyzer to pull that shit off. Lacking that, Reynolds & Co. might want to mothball the Bush triumphalism for a generation or so and spring it on the freshman class of 2033. The W stench may have cleared by then. We’re still choking on it at the moment.

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The Negative Ratings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

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Rochester teachers just received their “ratings” under a new state-mandated program called APPR (“Annual Professional Performance Review”):

While a small percentage of teachers received the “Ineffective” rating, altogether too many dedicated and excellent teachers were rated as “Developing.” Even some teachers who received a perfect (60 points) or near perfect score for their Professional Practice were dismayed to find out that they were “developing.” […]

Apparently the “Professional Practice” score is one determined by the teacher’s principal. The APPR score is based in part on performance on standardized tests and on other not-so-clear factors:

Michael Occhino was among the teachers rated “developing.” The All City High science teacher has been teaching in the district for 23 years. He is one of only about 60 nationally board-certified teachers in the district. He’s a lead teacher and mentor. Occhino is also a visiting instructor of education at the University of Rochester. He’s now been labeled as needing help and must come up with an individualized improvement plan.

“For me, it is impossible for me to tell how my scores were computed,” Occhino said. “It’s thoroughly opaque. I don’t know how my pre and post tests were utilized.”

Rochester City Schools have terrible outcomes for students as measured by standardized tests and graduation rates. I’m sure a few of the teachers have issues, but they’re teaching students who enter schools with 1/10th the vocabulary of their suburban counterparts. Unfortunately, our political establishment has a long history of falling for blame-the teacher snake oil, so I’m guessing teachers will be subject to fresh, new humiliation as another school year begins.

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More Syria Polling

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syria_polling One thing that’s pretty clear about the Congressional vote on Syria: voting for an attack will not be popular. The Pew poll, (some interals at left), shows that people believe that there’s clear evidence that Assad used chemical weapons (53/23), yet opposition is 48-29 against. ABC’s poll was nearly 60-40 against, while Reuters-Ipsos showed a 56% majority opposing action.

The Congressional vote will be a “free vote”, with no whipping by either side, so it will be interesting to see if it’s they’ll be listening to the folks behind the greenroom door in DC instead of their constituents.

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