Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

The willow is too close to the house.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Bark louder, little dog.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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

In my day, never was longer.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.

We still have time to mess this up!

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I really should read my own blog.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Friday Morning Open Thread: Not So Fast, Squash Boy

Friday Morning Open Thread: Not So Fast, Squash Boy

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(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)
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And, of course, there’s this side note:

Reader Interactions

206Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    If I’m not mistaken, if Donald Trump were an immigrant he would actually fail to quailfy under the criteria listed in the cartoon: no masters degree.

  2. 2.

    satby

    What’s really bad is that a Fox poll is basically Trump’s in house polling outfit and they can’t even rig it to make him look like a winner. I assume the goal was to start pumping up his base, not to factually provide info.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    It’ll be kind of funny of all the lefty bitching about Hillary gives us Biden. But let the strongest candidate win.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The New York police department used a photo of Woody Harrelson in its facial recognition program in an attempt to identify a beer thief who looked like the actor, according to a report published on Thursday. Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy and Technology highlighted the April 2017 episode in “Garbage In, Garbage Out”, a report on what it says are flawed practices in law enforcement’s use of facial recognition. The report says security footage of the thief was too pixelated and produced no matches while high-quality images of Harrelson returned several possible matches and led to one arrest.
    …………………………..
    “It is one thing for a company to build a face recognition system designed to help individuals find their celebrity doppelgänger or painting lookalike for entertainment purposes. It’s quite another to use these techniques to identify criminal suspects, who may be deprived of their liberty and ultimately prosecuted based on the match.”

    In their defense:

    The NYPD said it had been deliberate and responsible in its use of facial recognition and that the technology was merely a means of producing leads, including in homicide, rape, and robbery cases.

    “No one has ever been arrested on the basis of a facial recognition match alone,” Sgt Jessica McRorie said in a statement. “As with any lead, further investigation is always needed to develop probable cause to arrest.”

    While I am sure they do, and it sounds reasonable enough, I still see a lot of time wasted investigating innocent people and a path for abuse.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    The New York police department used a photo of Woody Harrelson in its facial recognition program in an attempt to identify a beer thief who looked like the actor,

    Resulting in the arrest of a black male.

  11. 11.

    Aussie Sheila

    OT I know. But tomorrow (Aus time) we will vote for either the Australian Labor Party, or for the return of the the LNP. The LNP is the Aus equivalent of the Rethugs. Wish us luck. Everyone on the left of the lnp has worked their a… of to ensure a centre left victory.

    Let’s hope for a victory tomorrow for a (modest) redistribution in fiscal policy and a rejection of racist dog whistling against Muslim migrants. Keep tuned.’ Heute Australia, morgen the US? ‘

    Results should be clear by Sat 5 am US est. Who knows, perhaps a good result here might presage a swing in the US?

    The Hawke/Keating government did neo liberal reconstruction with a human face ( Medicare for all and national superannuation payments made by bosses, aka your 41k accounts which are paid by employers here, during 1983-1996). Now, the issues are wage stagnation and spending on social priorities.

    Fingers crossed!

  12. 12.

    Anne Laurie

    @Amir Khalid:

    If I’m not mistaken, if Donald Trump were an immigrant he would actually fail to quailfy under the criteria listed in the cartoon: no masters degree.

    Also, he probably couldn’t pass the English proficiency test at this point, and he certainly wouldn’t pass the civics test!

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud:

    It’ll be kind of funny of all the lefty bitching about Hillary gives us Biden. But let the strongest candidate win.

    To be honest, I think most of the Extremely Online enthusiasm about Biden picking Kamala Harris as his VP are hoping for months of she’s-gonna-shiv-the-old-man “jokes”. The horse-race touts like their humor, like their Hot Takes, extremely predictable and based in the 1950s.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A nice little story about 21st century life: I was filled with self-loathing after losing my novel on my laptop – Russell Crowe came to my rescue

    You dream of a novel long before you write it. It ferments in some depthless place in your subconscious and, when it’s ready to pop out, it will tap on your skull like a spoon against a hardboiled egg. Once the tapping starts, the best thing you can do is just clear your desk and your diary and get to work. This magical thing was happening to me – a novel was knocking around in my skull. I had a rough go at it last year. It didn’t work. I threw it out on 1 January and started again. I spent most of April writing, getting half of it down – about 35,000 words. It was good stuff. Not all of it. But some of it. And that was enough.

    So it was with a light heart and a heavy bag that I stepped off the plane at Melbourne airport on Friday night. I’d been in the Kimberley all week on assignment. I exited the plane, arms full, and put my four or so bags and coat down to adjust my bra strap or backpack – some small, fatal move – then picked my bags up and went to the loo.

    Washing my hands I realised something was missing. My bag was lighter.

    Oh fuck. My laptop.

    I used to write a bit and well know the feeling that comes when the muse takes over and can only imagine the horror of losing 35,000 words. This made me laugh:

    On Twitter, the messages of support flooded in. Many say Twitter is the worst place in the world, but it was the best. (I may be the only person in the world who goes to Twitter to feel better about humanity.)

  19. 19.

    germy

    @OzarkHillbilly: Same thing happened to Garrison Keillor many years ago. Left only copy of a manuscript on a train. Had to rewrite the entire novel from old notes and memory.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    I exited the plane, arms full, and put my four or so bags and coat down

    Four or so bags carried on board? Obviously a work of fantasy.

    :)

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Head? Meet desk.

    During cross examination Bannon defended the remarks as an attempt to calm the officers involved.

    “My reasoning behind that text message was not to be malicious, it’s to make sure the officer knew [he] was put in a bad situation,” Bannon said. “To try to bring him down to a level where you put him at ease.”

    The lieutenant who, records reveal, has been named as a defendant in at least one other recent use-of-force case, was then asked by prosecutors for the Civilian Complaint Review Board if he thought Eric Garner had also been put in a “bad situation”.

    He responded: “I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t know if he was or wasn’t.”

    I. just. can’t.

  24. 24.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Anne Laurie:
    Thank you!

    We got neo liberalism with a human face , thanks to the ALP in 1983-1996. Let’s hope the recovery from this disaster is multi continental and that the US can deliver a radical rethink of a world historic disaster without a global war. We are Sh…..g ourselves here that there will be a war again in the ME. However this time, if the ALP wins, I doubt that the ‘loyal aussies’ will be up for the ride.

  26. 26.

    Immanentize

    Good morning All!

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Baud:
    Y’all know that Woody Harelson’s dad was a for-real hit man for a drug cartel? He even killed a Fderal District Court judge — whose name is on the San Antonio federal courthouse (in an ironic twist, the Judge’s name was “Wood”)

  30. 30.

    Sab

    @Baud: I didn’t know that either. I just trotted downstairs to tell my husband, who rolled his eyes and said “that’s been common knowledge for about 40 years.”

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    John Wood (the Judge) was a product of the lawshool I taught at in San Antonio. And I lived about a quarter mile from the courthouse….

    Harelson shot Wood at his house with a deer rifle on behalf of the Chagra brothers who were running marijuana mostly through Mexico. Judge Wood was not known as a lenient judge and Jimmy Chagra was on trial before Wood at the time.

  36. 36.

    Barb 2

    Name recognition for the two old white dudes.

    But look at Harris and Warren — both are not afraid to go after Trump.

    The conventions are months away — the candidates are sharpening their message.

    Warren has a town meeting Tuesday on MSNBC after telling Fox no but he!! no. Lawrence O’Donnell made the announcement. I expect that Harris will also have similar exposure. She is strong and can take on Trump. She grew up in the Bay Area — so I sort of understand where she comes from. I went to two years of high school not that far from where she grew up.

    The Bay Area has changed but not the racial diversity of the area.

    Then Warren comes from Oklahoma — and I sort of understand that area as well. My mother was third generation Kansan and her mother grew up in Oklahoma with the bias against anyone who was part Native American or that old drop of blood b s.

    I’m glad that we don’t have to choose just yet — primaries are months away.

    Anyone with that drop of Native American who wants to honor their ancestors consider donating to the
    http://www.fourdirectionsvote.com
    Reservation Indians have all sorts of road blocks preventing them from voting. In 2018 this organization got out the vote in several states. AZ is of note — because most likely the heavy Democratic vote from the reservation helped get a Dem senator elected.

    I donated and will again. The WA state GOP is highly racist towards the tribes. They keep trying to add anti tribal plank to the GOP platform.

    Trump is on the warpath against the recognition of a Mass. tribe. Not surprising since he’s been on this path for his whole life.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Pretty sure they do but I have to wonder if they broadcast the real #s.

    I’m guessing they did.

    Of course, they selected their population set by asking “Do you think you’ll be allowed to vote in 2020?” Considering places like WI, MI, PA, NC, and the rest of the Slave States, I’m guessing they picked up a lot on non-Shitgibbon voters who will be (unwillingly) staying home on Election Day 2020.

    PS: And fuck Traitor Turtle for helping make this all possible. Yeah, I know he doesn’t control individual state leges. But he sure helped make it easier for them to get away with their shit.

  40. 40.

    Immanentize

    @debbie:
    I’m surprised the media doesn’t mention the chain migration fact every time Trump tries to limit family immigration.

    Ok, I’m not surprised, but they should

  41. 41.

    Kay

    Castro’s proposal would offer partial loan forgiveness for people who have received means-tested assistance for three years over a five-year period.

    Horrible idea. Now they’re identifying a subset of people on public assistance and making them the only beneficiaries, which will make the program immediately unpopular, especially among the group immediately above “people who have received means tested assistance” which is a huge group of lower and middle income people.

    Just use bankruptcy. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Let the existing debt expert court system do it!

  44. 44.

    mrmoshpotato

    @OzarkHillbilly: Oh The Guardian. So classics are now only 15 years old? I’m more than double classic!

    And only the first movie had an interesting twist to it. Two and 3 were torturous crap, and I didn’t want to see more.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Right. It’s a proxy for poor people, but the only requirement is “3 years on public assistance out of 5” which doesn’t have to be “poor people” but could be people “people qualifying for this program”, who then immediately stop being poor.

    What are the most popular public programs in this country? The programs that aren’t means tested. BROAD. How did FDR know this and Democrats then got mass amnesia? If they’re going to means test it at least let people who know how to means test do it. Bankruptcy courts means test now for personal bankruptcies, and they do it well, and fairly.

  47. 47.

    debbie

    @debbie:

    Note to self: Suggest to the authorities that immigrant assistance booths be set up outside Mar-a-Lago (or other Trump properties in the area).

  48. 48.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    Yeah, well, some of us aren’t commoners.

    Someone’s let Baud 2020 go to his head. :)

  50. 50.

    mrmoshpotato

    @debbie: I was thinking the whole place becomes an immigrant assistance center after it’s seized as Dump and the rest of the Soviet shitpile mobsters are carted off to prison.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    I wonder if the Trump Administration and media believe that Kushner is popular or a particularly good salesperson. There’s always this “he will sell it to Democrats!” thing that either assumes he is very talented or Democrats in Congress are easily-led morons.
    Is there some Jared Kushner fan club out there that I’m unaware of? Is Pelosi like “let’s see what Kushner says on this first, then we’ll counter”.

  54. 54.

    Cheryl Rofer

    NIne flop-sweat tweets so far this morning. Probably impossible to say what is scaring him, but the Fox poll is probably part of it. Also the way he has exacerbated the problem with Iran and John Bolton is now taking advantage of it. AG Barr is in El Salvador – no, he’s not looking to do anything useful on immigration – and has given an interview on HILLARYS TREASON. That last may well be directed from the White House.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    Bush tried immigration reform. It was this huge undertaking. They poured effort into it. They targeted two Democratic Senators as the immigration experts and tried to meet their threshold demands. It went on for a year and a half and they actually got close to a deal but it ultimately foundered over what Democrats saw as an effort to reduce Latino immigration and increase white people immigration, at the expense of Latinos. But it was a lot of work! The Bush people really tried! Does Kushner announcing his plan come anywhere near to what we have seen in the past as far as effort, or really QUALITY of effort?

    This isn’t congressional Democrats first rodeo. I just don’t see them being flim-flammed by a Trump nepotism hire.

  59. 59.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay: Through a weird confluence of events, my daughter and SIL met Javanka at a fairly small social event a couple of years ago, before the election but when T was a candidate. They were completely underwhelmed.

  62. 62.

    Leto

    @rikyrah: I would say we’ve noticed. I know we, on this esteemed top 10k, have been discussing it for years. Is it getting much press attention? No. It received some attention back in 2016, but has, predictably, fallen off the radar. Don’t know about county-by-county level or state level. How’s her project in GA coming along?

  63. 63.

    Immanentize

    @mrmoshpotato:
    You know what’s odd? Everyone seems to treat Melania and her parents as if they are not Trump’s family. They are! That’s how they got into the country. Chain migration (not a bad thing) from the only original citizen — Trump. These people are Trump’s family.

    Also, did Ivanna get any of her family into the country this way?

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Immanentize:

    You know what’s odd? Everyone seems to treat Melania and her parents as if they are not Trump’s family.

    It’s Republican logic. “Dump’s third wife isn’t part of his family, but LOOK! scary brown people!”

  67. 67.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    The number of MAGA farmers who voted for trump that are no longer on his side continues to grow.

    They’ll do what they do. Dem politicians in their districts can try to talk to them, but I don’t see a reason for the rest of us to worry about it.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    Nate Silver
    ‏Verified account
    @NateSilver538
    22h22 hours ago
    More
    I actually think de Blasio’s chances are slightly underrated just because the NYC-based media hates him for not-particularly-good reasons, but by underrated I mean I’d give him like a 1 in 100 shot instead of 1 in 10,000.

    I don’t know anything about DeBlasio and as I have mentioned I am a Warren supporter in the primary, but this sneering, snarky coverage from the NYTimes on him is really unprofessional. The GOP had a huge field in ’16 and none of their less than stellar candidates inspired this much snotty contempt. Why are they inserting themselves into this to such an extreme degree? Just fucking cover the candidates. That’s apparently difficult enough. Expanding into race-shaping might distract them from the work they’re barely doing.

    And from the same people who kiss Giuliani’s corrupt, racist ass? Forgive me if I question their judgment of character. I know they admire “strong” authoritarian types but this is ridiculous. That can’t be the only quality measured. Why not let D primary voters decide?

  69. 69.

    MomSense

    Trump is freaking out on Twitter this morning. It’s very convenient that the focus is on why Nancy Pelosi won’t impeach him this second meanwhile the GOP held both branches of Congress for two years through multiple impeachable actions and behaviors and Ryan and McCionnell weren’t asked every damned minute. And isn’t it strange that McConnell still isn’t being asked about it.

    Maybe it’s a backhanded compliment to Dems. No one expects Republicans to do the right thing so they don’t even bother to ask them why they won’t. The problem is this attitude just encourages Republicans to keep being terrible.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Nate Silver is the only high profile media person who calls them out on this stuff. You know, they were supposedly Trump Experts too, having worked hand in hand with him to promote his shitty “brand” for 50 years, and none of their supposed expertise paid any benefit to the public. Maybe they could just try covering these people, straight. Their insider savvy isn’t adding any value.

  73. 73.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @satby: Worth keeping in mind Fox has two halfs, the propaganda side like Fox and Friends and the serious as any other cable news, news side.

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Peter Baker
    ‏Verified account
    @peterbakernyt
    22h22 hours ago
    More
    De Blasio approval rating among New Yorkers: 42 percent
    Trump approval rating among Americans: 41 percent

    So clever! It’s at the level of a blog comment. I have a compare/contrast they can do, since they love those. Let’s compare the NYTimes coverage of the Clinton/Marc Rich pardon with the NYTimes coverage of the Trump/Conrad Black pardon.

    One was a year’s long scandal they all promoted and the other is just Trump being his adorable rascal self.

    Hillary Clinton/healthcare versus Jared Kushner/immigration. I could continue.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    If I thought they had really lowered standards across the board instead of using a special, low standard for the Trump Administration I could stand it, because at least it doesn’t skew the competition. I’m resigned to that fact that “standards” collapsed like a rotten floor and pitched us all into the basement. But we know they don’t, because we’re reading their shitty, petty coverage of the Democratic candidates where they (insanely) are still pretending there’s some “gaffe” idea out there that must be explored. Trump IS a gaffe.

  76. 76.

    L85NJGT

    Macro-economically, isn’t the immigration plan a variation of Japan’s lost decade? Aging workforce, low birthrate and low immigration leading to a moribund economy?

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    because we’re reading their shitty, petty coverage of the Democratic candidates . 

    I don’t, but they’re profits are soaring due to Trump and liberals who want to read the NYT so they don’t care.

  81. 81.

    schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)

    @Kay: Why is Kushner their expert on immigration. IANAL but I know more about it, just having gone through the process myself and seeing my friends and acquaintances continue to struggle with it

    ETA: Its like they have one non-expert to weigh on everything. Pathetic.

  82. 82.

    Patricia Kayden

    @MomSense: It feels that Trump is always freaking out on Twitter. As Secretary Clinton warmed us, he lack the demeanor to be presidential. He has proven her right each and every day.

  84. 84.

    tobie

    @Kay: I agree with your general point that programs that seem to be geared to the poor get stigmatized pretty quickly so there should be some other way of financing university that doesn’t have the odor of a program for the needy. Do you think bankruptcy carries a stigma? This is an honest question. I know two people who declared bankruptcy in their 50s and it worked out well and was a life-saver for both. But that’s just two anecdotes. I know little about this or how people in their 20s and 30s fare when they declare bankruptcy.

  85. 85.

    schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)

    India’s election is ongoing, polling is over in most places. And I found someone whose voice I find more grating than T’s. Modi. Its nasally and whiny and his Hindi lacks the natural cadence of a native Hindi speaker. I was actually surprised because some Modi loving bhakts in the family had led me to believe that he was a great orator. Just like the last BJP PM Vajpayee, who was a poet of Hindi and Urdu and was good with the language.
    I am no fan of T’s voice, I did not turn on TV news for one year after his election just to avoid seeing his face or hear him speak.

  86. 86.

    germy

    R.I.P.

    MORRISTOWN, Ariz. (AP) — Her owners say Grumpy Cat, whose sourpuss demeanor became an internet sensation, has died at age 7.

    Posting on social media Friday, Grumpy Cat’s owners wrote that she experienced complications from a urinary tract infection and “passed away peacefully” Tuesday “in the arms of her mommy.”

  88. 88.

    geg6

    @SFAW:

    Please don’t put PA in the voter suppression category. As of right now, there aren’t many barriers to voting in PA. The biggest problem with voting here has been electronic voting machines that are sitting ducks for any type of hacking anyone would like to do. However, after a few counties (including mine, which makes me suspicious of the big GOP wins the last couple of election cycles) decided soon after 2016 that they weren’t going to use them anymore and were going back to paper ballots. Not long after that, the entire commonwealth did the same. It has never been that difficult to register here and you don’t have to show ID to vote (though it had to go to the PA Supreme Court to cut off GOPer legislation to require voter ID). PA is backwards and fucked up in many ways, but this is not a voter suppression state, no matter how much the PA GOP would like it to be.

  89. 89.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    You convinced me completely. Just add student debt to the debts that can be discharged during bankruptcy. No need to re-invent the wheel.

    But…I do have to ask. What about the people who did the public service program, for 10 years, and their time just came up and DeVos only approved LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF THE APPLICANTS.

  90. 90.

    tobie

    @Barb 2: I really hope Warren is not doing an MSNBC town hall on Tuesday both because I’m already committed to going to a watch party for Beto’s CNN town hall that night and also because I think it’s really bad form for Democrats to step on each other this way. Warren recently took a key provision of Beto’s climate plan — using the federal government’s purchasing power to set new environmental standards for building materials — and pared it down for military infrastructure. Ideas are part of the commons and it’s fine for candidates to run with good ideas from other campaigns but giving credit once in a blue moon would be nice. The competing town halls, though, pisses me off.

  92. 92.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    I’m surprised the media doesn’t mention the chain migration fact every time Trump tries to limit family immigration.

    They absolutely should. After all, we still don’t know how the Birther Trophy Wife qualified under an ‘ Einstein’ visa.

  93. 93.

    geg6

    @Kay:

    Is there some Jared Kushner fan club out there that I’m unaware of?

    Of course there is. It is made up of NYT reporters and columnists and certain center-right pundits and DC/NYC media personalities.

  95. 95.

    germy

    @geg6: Do we know yet who the “person connected with congress” is? Devin Nunes?

    I took a peek at RightWing twitter, and they all agree it was McCain.

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    There is a stigma, and they’ll get dinged but I think that is important for the concept of fairness, which I think is underrated in politics. There really are people who sacrificed quite a bit and paid their student loans and they have to be considered. I think it’s enough of a hit to the debtors to satisfy them and it’s a well-established concept that applies to all other debt- other than taxes and child support and some others.

    I get it. They want to achieve “equity” but they’re playing right into the dynamic where working and middle class resent and shit on poor people by cutting them out of the herd like that. Do it on an individual basis. Then we don’t get into “well, I’ll forgive the debt of a public school teacher but not a person in a management program at the Family Dollar, because one is “teaching” and one is “business”. Who am I to say someone shouldn’t get a business degree? Why can’t a low income person go into business? I hope they do if that’s what they want! I took a secured transactions business course in college which I find useful to this day. I loved it. It’s how debt works! Fascinating. It’s the flip side of making fun of people who get liberal arts degrees, which is moronic.

    I don’t want to do all this parsing and sorting. We have a bankruptcy code and a set of expert courts. Just change the code. They changed it to bar discharge. They can change it again.

  98. 98.

    schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)

    @rikyrah: He lies about immigration all the time. Especially family reunification and the diversity visa.
    No one in the media corrects him. Even here I have seen front page posts and comments talking about “chain migration” instead of family reunification. Accepting T’s framing is giving him a victory.

  99. 99.

    germy

    Politico confirms WaPo: Russian hackers breached a county elections department in the Florida Panhandle where voters turned out heavily for Trump in 2018, according to a report confirmed by Politico. https://t.co/PVUrDHd5z3— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 17, 2019

  100. 100.

    geg6

    @germy:

    they all agree it was McCain

    LOL, they are too stupid to live.

    I’m hoping it’s Nunes or Graham. I despise them both so much (and for some different reasons) that if it somehow turned out to be both of them, I would do a happy dance.

  102. 102.

    tobie

    @Kay: Thanks for the explanation of the process. I can see that because bankruptcy is handled on an individual basis, it wouldn’t be treated like an exception for any one group. It also wouldn’t be subject to the whims of an executive who decides unilaterally to transfer funds from one program to another. We’ve seen what happens to various provisions of the ACA under Trump and can’t let ourselves be vulnerable this way again.

  103. 103.

    tobie

    @germy: Whoa…not just 2016, but 2018 too???? Trump wasn’t on the ballot in 2018 but Rick Scott and DeSantis were.

  108. 108.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @tobie: So, who should have asked permission first to schedule their town hall – Beto or Elizabeth? Why should she defer to him? Besides, with eleventy-million candidates running and limited air time, it’s rather hard to avoid schedule conflicts.

  109. 109.

    zhena gogolia

    @schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully): @geg6:

    I guess I’m that asshole, as S-C knew when she made that reference. Go ahead, go postal on me.

    You don’t want to know what is shaping the opinions of the vast majority of people who identify as Democrats, then don’t subscribe. But don’t shit on me for subscribing. I am capable of reading it critically.

  110. 110.

    Gin & Tonic

    @schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully): The way that’s going worries me greatly. My (native-born) son is planning to propose to his GF next week. She’s here on a TN, but she applied for an O-1 last year and was denied, despite voluminous documentation and the strong recommendation of her employer. But that job will have to end when they leave the country for a year in Sep/Oct for a fellowship he was awarded, and now they’re not sure how she’ll get back. This is anxiety they don’t need and would not have had if HRC had been elected.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    And you know it will happen. “She has a degree in French– why am I paying for that when I wanted French but instead took accounting to get paid immediately and pay off my loans”

    Food stamps/lobster, all over again. If we want to give a benefit to people who do work that is less profitable than they could make elsewhere just target those people. Employers can do it. In order to get nurse practioners and physician assistants here our for-profit rural hospital offers assistance with student loans. They have to. They won’t get any relocates unless they do.

  112. 112.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @geg6: @zhena gogolia: I wonder if people would apply the same logic to cable TV. If you have cable, aren’t you supporting Fox News?

    I am an on again/off again subscriber to The Economist. Its editorial slant is center-right, but, as long as I read it with that in mind, I come away from each issue a much more informed person.

  114. 114.

    germy

    @O. Felix Culpa: Fortunately, all these events can be watched on youtube several days after the fact. It’s not like the old days of three-channel network TV.

  115. 115.

    The Moar You Know

    a Fox poll is basically Trump’s in house polling outfit

    @satby: I get why you’d think that but you’d be wrong. They run a far more legit operation than Gallup or the worst of all, Rasmussen.

  116. 116.

    tobie

    @O. Felix Culpa: Beto’s town hall was scheduled well in advance of Warren’s. The MSNBC town hall was announced last night as an alternative to the FOX town hall she declined (for good reason in my opinion). The CNN town hall was scheduled over two weeks ago. Yes, all candidates have busy schedules and often appear on different networks at the same time, but a certain amount of courtesy with hour-long town halls should be exercised. And for the record: I would be pissed if he stepped on her toes too. It’s bad form in my book.

  117. 117.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @zhena gogolia:

    I am capable of reading it critically.

    I’m confident that you are. For me, it’s a moral, not an intellectual or discernment question. The NYT is important as an opinion-shaper. It does occasionally provide good reporting. And yet, it has done and continues to do grievous harm through grossly slanted reporting, including incessant coverage of relatively inconsequential but negative things about certain Dems and almost no coverage of terrible and true things about Republicans. This is a constant pattern, not an aberration, and has had disastrous consequences for our nation and the world. So at what point does one stop rewarding them for their egregious behavior? I’m not sure there’s a single right answer to that question, but I believe it’s important to consider.

  118. 118.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve subscribed to the dead-tree version for a couple of decades. I know who they are and what they believe, but they cover areas and issues I’d be hard-pressed to find covered half as well elsewhere.

    Plus it’s a handy thing to read while eating lunch.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    Chelsea Clinton
    ‏Verified account
    @ChelseaClinton
    Follow Follow @ChelseaClinton
    More
    In an October 2016 debate, Chris Wallace asked Trump whether he wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Trump: “That’ll happen automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the court…It will go back to the states and the states will then make a determination.”

    This is important because political media allowed Donald Trump to do a bait and switch. They portrayed him as liberal on “social issues” and that helped him. They insisted we look to his (supposed) inner motives, where he supposedly isn’t a partisan and ignore what he said. And now, what he does.

    The idea that Donald Trump doesn’t “want” to outlaw abortion or invade Iran doesn’t fucking matter unless you are his therapist or best friend. I don’t care what’s in his heart. The people he hires ARE his policy.

    Donald Trump is far Right. Period. He hires people who outlaw abortion and drum up an invasion with Iran. He is RESPONSIBLE for that. The rest is talk.

  120. 120.

    schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)

    @zhena gogolia: I never called you names. And I doubt that you are the only NYT subscriber among BJ commenters and FPers. Whenever NYT is raked over coals for some egregious content, someone or the other chimes in on the great work they do and their other content like the crossword puzzles. I personally like their recipes and food section and have looked at some of their recipes, despite my self imposed NYT ban over the last few years.

  121. 121.

    Sab

    @Kay: Lol. My absolute best accounting professor had an undergraduate degree in French, then he got his accounting degree to pay the bills.

    ETA last I heard he was partner in a national firm in NYC. Doubt if they would have taken him to NYC if he wasn’t fluent in French.

  123. 123.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @tobie:I work with campaigns. Conflicts are regrettable but unavoidable. And there are ample replay opportunities. See germy at #116. Not a thing to get exercised over, IMHO.

  125. 125.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Sab: Hah! I happen to be a highly-rated accounting prof with an undergraduate degree in German. Maybe having a good liberal arts degree is of value in being able to master and communicate difficult concepts.

  129. 129.

    tobie

    @O. Felix Culpa: If the tables were turned and Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders announced an hour-long media sit-down at the precise time that Warren’s scheduled town hall was happening, I think you would be irritated. Is it the most important thing under the sun and will it affect your support for the nominee? No. The daily reminder that democracy itself is on the line is sobering enough to keep all this in check.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    @Sab:

    Right? You never know where you’ll end up. I have an older sister who did a CPA because she had a child at 18 and a bad husband and she needed to earn immediately. But she was good in science! She still talks wistfully about this botany course she took. OK, so CPA’s make a lot more than botanists, or she does anyway, and maybe she can tromp around with a field guide on her ….estate in her spare time, so it worked out fine but I don’t want to get into parsing value of people :)

    We are a gorgeous mosaic.

  131. 131.

    germy

    I’m looking forward to the Democratic primary debates. June?

    And doesn’t 45 have a Republican challenger? Will he debate him or just laugh him off?

  132. 132.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: It’s adding value to their brands, ie, book deals, Punditlandia gigs, speaking engagements, Rethug Bully Daddy Love, win win.

  133. 133.

    Sab

    @O. Felix Culpa: I had a history undergrad. When I was at a national firm they let me write applications for private letter rulings and lots of routine correspondence because I could actually write coherent English. Everybody else was better at accounting than me, but writing was a rare skill.

  134. 134.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @tobie: Nope, I wouldn’t. Seriously don’t care. Conflicts happen and technology allows for viewing after the fact. I agree that democracy is on the line, so I’m putting my energies toward actually working to get good candidates elected. On that note, must get myself out the door to do just that. Cheers.

  137. 137.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: One bankruptcy exemption that might work for everyone and still prevent the asshole medical student bankruptcy move would be to not allow student loans to be dischargeable for five years after graduation (and even during that period with a hardship exception). And allow a easy/meaningful public service exception. Hell, the public service exemption is not so very lefty — it includes teachers in public schools, prosecutors, police, etc. This combo would both stymie the grifters and increase public service professionals.

  139. 139.

    Sab

    @Kay: My baby sister has a double major in botany and linguistics. She has eventually ended up doing telephone call in computer support for scientists around the world.

  140. 140.

    chris

    @Kay: Speaking of abortion and the people he hires, this came in under the radar yesterday. At the UN:

    C-Fam has emerged from the extreme right fringe on abortion, sexual orientation and gender identity to become a powerful player behind the scenes at the UN. With a modest budget and a six-strong staff led by the president Austin Ruse, it has leveraged connections inside the Trump administration to enforce a rigid orthodoxy on social issues, and helped build a new US coalition with mostly autocratic regimes that share a similar outlook.

    And that coalition has already significantly shifted the terms of the UN debate on women’s and LGBT rights.

  142. 142.

    raven

    @Kay: I am retiring in a little over 3 months. I’ve been in this job for nearly 20 years working in online education and faculty development. When I interviewed for the guy who ended up hiring me noted my background in kids sports. He had tow children who played high level highs school ball and he said “if you can run kids sports programs you can do anything”! He knew what idiots parents could be and, at that time, the resistance to online education was great and the faculty teams had lots of conflict. I guess he was right.

  144. 144.

    Sab

    @O. Felix Culpa: This same accounting professor gave this amazing lecture that tied some Italian cleric (Fra Angelico?) who adopted double entry bookkeeping from either India or Mesopotamia to Joseph Priestley in England who discovered oxygen because his father was a bookkeeper who did double entry accounting. Things have to balance out.

    I get goosebumps thirty years later about this lecture. The rest of the class just yawned.

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @raven:

    I don’t like sports myself but I came around to supporting them in schools because so many kids get so much out of it. They’re a net plus, IMO, even with the downsides. My daughter swam and played tennis. She wasn’t very good at either but she always finished- the game, the relay, whatever and she is tough. You can’t stop her. I think she got some of that from losing and losing and keeping going on those teams. They would play these big school suburban teams in tennis and just get slaughtered, but she would be busting ass every single match. I would get mad at how it was unfair but she never did.
    There’s really something to it. I would hire someone who was good at coaching or organizing teams. It’s a broad skill.

  147. 147.

    snoey

    @Immanentize: For doctors, the problem isn’t so much that they won’t locate in underserved areas it’s that they choose the high pay rather than doing primary care anywhere when looking at the debt bill.

  148. 148.

    Kay

    Mark Landler
    ‏Verified account
    @MarkLandler
    3h3 hours ago
    More
    “If it was up to John, we’d be in four wars now.” Inside Donald Trump’s muddled Iran policy, where the hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, is being restrained by Trump himself. W/⁦@maggieNYT⁩ & ⁦@EricSchmittNYT⁩

    The President is apparently 6 years old and not responsible for the people he hires. Or the far Right nutjob judges he picks. Or anything else, really. What’s important is his inner motives, which only these 7 political reporters know.

  149. 149.

    trollhattan

    @Kay:
    Similar here. Have a love-hate relationship with kid sports because while it’s great to have our little academically overstressed couch potatoes participate in a structured physical outlet with a different group of friends/frenemies different from the ones in the classroom, the kid sports industrial complex and the damn sideline parents are always trying to ruin it for everybody.

    I can say without a scrap of dadbrag that mine is in amazing shape, which will remain a benefit the rest of her life so long as the knees stay healthy.

    After our exchange student experience I now know Germans think our educational system is completely nuts.

  150. 150.

    Doug R

    @Aussie Sheila:

    OT I know. But tomorrow (Aus time) we will vote for either the Australian Labor Party, or for the return of the the LNP. The LNP is the Aus equivalent of the Rethugs. Wish us luck. Everyone on the left of the lnp has worked their a… of to ensure a centre left victory.

    We had a saying here in Canada: “ABC”-which meant ANYBODY but Conservative.
    We ended up with a Liberal majority which has been disappointing in areas, but BETTER THAN HARPER

  151. 151.

    schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully)

    @Kay: He also gets a pass on his inhumane, cruel and economically stupid immigration policy, which people blame on Steven Miller. Not T or the generals who manned the DHS and defense departments that set into motion much of this cruelty.

  152. 152.

    raven

    @Kay: Yea, my work was in community recreation programs so it was a bit different than high school. I coached in my own programs, partly to try to set an example, but it eventually got to me. I did it for 20 years and it was a constant struggle to educate folks to treat all kids well and not get all insane about winning and losing. The struggle continues.

  154. 154.

    Kay

    Asked if Mike Pence is a homophobe, Pete Buttigieg tells @hughhewitt, “Well, he advances homophobic policies,” but if “you advance homophobic policies, on some level it doesn’t matter whether you do that out of political calculation or whether you do it out of sincere belief.“

    Ask Iranian civilians if they care if Maureen Dowd has looked into Trump’s soul and seen a dove. It doesn’t matter.

    “Why do these people keep making me hire nutjobs?”

  155. 155.

    Brachiator

    @Aussie Sheila:

    OT I know. But tomorrow (Aus time) we will vote for either the Australian Labor Party, or for the return of the the LNP. The LNP is the Aus equivalent of the Rethugs. Wish us luck. Everyone on the left of the lnp has worked their a… of to ensure a centre left victory

    Interesting stuff. Thanks. I try to have some sense of international news, but didn’t know about this election at all. Had not even heard it mentioned on BBC News.

  156. 156.

    Kay

    @raven:

    I went to a little kids soccer community program Mother’s Day in Toledo – my son’s gf has a 4 year old. They’re hysterical to watch. I love when they go the wrong way because one does it and the rest have no clue either so they follow.

    I was scarred by unsupervised childhood neighborhood baseball. “Easy out”, and they all move up. I was so insulted. I might have gotten better if they hadn’t been so mean. We’ll never know.

  157. 157.

    Sab

    @Kay: An accountant I worked for who grew up in the inner city was lamenting a middle school teacher he loved who was really good at math, but couldn’t control her class. They fired her mid-year and brought in a disciplinarian who controlled the class but never taught them anything at all for the rest of the year.

    Made me completely reevaluate my thinking on their hiring practices. My other sister used to complain that she had math major friends who wanted to be teachers but couldn’t get jobs if they couldn’t also coach.

    I used to think that was terrible. Now I think how can you teach if you can’t manage and motivate them?

  158. 158.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    Asked if Mike Pence is a homophobe, Pete Buttigieg tells @hughhewitt, “Well, he advances homophobic policies,” but if “you advance homophobic policies, on some level it doesn’t matter whether you do that out of political calculation or whether you do it out of sincere belief.“

    But white people can never be racist, and extreme conservatives can never be homophobic. Always a phony setup question.

    OTOH, Hugh Hewitt has always been, and will always be, a horse’s ass.

  159. 159.

    trollhattan

    @schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):
    Yup, they have the parallel Technische and Gymnasium (sp?) school tracks. Our visitor pondered the insanity of having the exact six or seven periods five days/week–her Schule already uses a university-type schedule with courses that meet tow or three days/week for longer sessions.

    There are no school sports.
    There are no school social events.
    All those things occur separately from the educational system. Sports, especially, surprised me.

  161. 161.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:
    No, he couldn’t.
    He could get his lawyers to give them. But his knowledge stops at, “I did it to make money.”
    Now he could give examples of racism, hate, undeserved smug self righteousness and assholery.

  162. 162.

    Brachiator

    @Sab:

    They fired her mid-year and brought in a disciplinarian who controlled the class but never taught them anything at all for the rest of the year.

    Wow. This didn’t solve anything. Sad, and probably makes the kids hate school.

    Made me completely reevaluate my thinking on their hiring practices. My other sister used to complain that she had math major friends who wanted to be teachers but couldn’t get jobs if they couldn’t also coach.

    Coach what? This is a bit odd.

    A person who wants the job has to be able to actually teach. But the school has to support that person in being an effective teacher.

  163. 163.

    trollhattan

    @Kay:
    Yeah, that’s just freaking adorable. Have very fond memories of the little things following the ball in a large horde, like kittens chasing after a laser pointer with others scattered around the field–the daisy-pickers. Once on my kid’s team three of the boys stood in the middle of the field with their shirts pulled over their faces.

    You can’t buy entertainment like that.

    There’s always That One Kid, usually a girl, who knows the thing to do in soccer is shove the ball into the net and will rack up tens of goals until her coach subs her out. Quickly learned to loathe coaches that left that kid in the whole game.

  164. 164.

    J R in WV

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    @satby: Worth keeping in mind Fox has two halfs, the propaganda side like Fox and Friends and the serious as any other cable news, news side.

    You are so wrong here. The Fox and Friends show is more flamboyantly fascist than their “regular biased news” but their news side lies just as consistently.

    I don’t watch Fox at all, ever! Yet I have still seen them cover a Republican felon, yet ID them in their crawl as John Felon (D) Mississippi multiple times. Not an accident, trying to keep their minions convinced that only Democratic politicians ever break the law.

    Mostly seen while waiting for the dealership to bring the car around, back when they still ran Fox in the waiting room TV. They don’t do that any more, by the way. We’re getting out of that car, too many expensive repairs for what was supposed to be reliable transportation.

    We had pretty good luck with VW for 40 years, but this last one has been the least hard driven and the most failure prone of all. Before we typically got 200K miles before any actual repairs, not counting shocks and brakes etc. This one is a 2013 with 40K and we’ve spent close to $5K on two big repairs. Looking at a Mazda CX5 next.

  165. 165.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):

    Does anyone except any different from Hewitt? Why does he go on these shows and legitimize these bigots?

    TV is a racket, as is a part, but not all, of media in general. If you don’t appear on some shows, you become invisible.

    But what is the alternative? Where should he appear?

    Also, some folks cling to the idea that Democrats must only try to appeal to a Democratic Party audience, that all Republicans are totally and forever closed minded. I think that you have to get your message out to as many people as possible .

    And sometimes if you engage fools and bigots, you expose the weakness of their beliefs to some viewers.

  167. 167.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully):

    He also gets a pass on his inhumane, cruel and economically stupid immigration policy, which people blame on Steven Miller.

    There are people who simply cannot acknowledge that Trump is a bigot, or that he is a damaged, incompetent lout. It’s a psychological thing. They need to believe that Trump magically became presidential upon taking the oath of office. Otherwise, they have to accept the idea that there might be something wrong about America, and maybe something wrong about themselves.

    This infects reporters and ordinary citizens.

  168. 168.

    Raven

    @Kay: I struggle with kids that age in organized sports but it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry to hear of that experience, I’ve always had the idea that kids should work out their own shit but I know that is overly optimistic.

  169. 169.

    Brachiator

    @Kay:

    There’s really something to it. I would hire someone who was good at coaching or organizing teams. It’s a broad skill.

    This reminds me of a little story. I went along to provide a little moral support to a friend who was trying to get her daughter into a prestigious high school.

    My friend noted that her daughter had been captain of her school basketball team. The woman doing the interview got all sniffy and dismissed this and athletes as being by definition lesser creatures. To my mind, though, this indicated that the daughter not only was a good athlete, but also had leadership skills, like her mother, who was an exceptional manager.

    I think the daughter ended up going to a better school elsewhere.

  170. 170.

    Steve in the ATL

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    Maybe having a good liberal arts degree is of value in being able to master and communicate difficult concepts.

    No “maybe” about it! This is why so many lawyers were history majors, and is why I almost always hire liberal arts majors and almost never hire business majors. Vo-tech educations are not useful when comprehension, assimilation, analysis, and communication are important.

  171. 171.

    Leto

    @chris: I think I found the funding source for this “fringe group”:

    Ruse wrote: “Malofeev and many other Russians see themselves as a Christian nation sent to help other Christians around the world. For them, at least, that’s why they support the Assad regime. He’s better for Syria’s Orthodox Christians

    The sheer amount of international damage these fucking clowns are doing is so immense I seriously don’t know if we’ve banked enough goodwill to come back from this. All of this will have to be ripped out, down to the root. First order of business should be to fire every single political appointee Dotard has appointed. They’re all corrupt.

    @germy: I thought that the RNC already wrote the rules stating Trumpov is their guy, and that there will be no primary/challengers. Maybe the guy can do a debate with an empty chair.

  172. 172.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:
    I wonder if the difference is in the general demeanor of each publication. FTFNYT is supposed to be a NEWSpaper, people expect the truth from them, even though that is never how newspapers work or worked. The Economist is more a business magazine, and it is expected to have a slant. You mentioned it as a known fact that it is center right. What I see is that the FTFNYT also has a slant, as does every other newspaper, it’s just that many see that word NEWS and think it must be true, it’s NEWS.
    But all media has a slant, either of the author, or the publisher/owner. The reporters/writers/readers/presenters follow that slant or lose their jobs. And some newspapers have people on staff who do not follow the general slat of the overall. FTFNYT has Paul Krugman. He certainly doesn’t follow the general slant of the paper or even a unreasonable percentage of the readership.

  175. 175.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Ruckus: Economist has such a supercilious all knowing tone. They also have their own set of blinkers, the upper crust British type educated at Oxbridge. The Cambridge Analytica upper management had it too. We ruled the world, so we know everything.

  179. 179.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:
    I was pre med. Family business issues made a decision impossible to avoid. I went with family business, not because it was financially the better decision, but because it was family and I had a fair amount of time invested in that. Was it a better decision? Life never gives us that answer. What was, is. What could have been isn’t.

  180. 180.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Brachiator:

    My other sister used to complain that she had math major friends who wanted to be teachers but couldn’t get jobs if they couldn’t also coach.

    Coach what? This is a bit odd.

    You don’t have kids, do you?

  181. 181.

    Steve in the ATL

    @schrodingers_cat: for science jobs, that is critical, of course. Needless to say, I am not hiring scientists!

    In my experience, most (not saying all) super-technical people, be they chemists or accountants or coders or engineers, have great difficulty communicating their ideas effectively. That’s why patent litigators bill at $1,000 per hour–not many technical people who can write patent applications can also litigate effectively. Or why so many great products (including software) get invented but never take off–the creator can make something great, but can’t socialize it or market it or sometimes see how it would be useful in the real world for ordinary people. The people who can do all that often become billionaires.

  182. 182.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    The Economist is more a business magazine, and it is expected to have a slant. You mentioned it as a known fact that it is center right.

    The Economist does indeed have a slant, but their arts and science stories, as an example are usually well done, and free of any obvious bias.

    And even their news stories and analysis are fair minded. I’ve read stories in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere that quickly went from reporting on a business or industry to defending a business to actively lying to support a business or industry.

    Newspapers in the west began as subscription services that provided trade and market news and a little gossip to merchants. These journals succeeded if the news was at least a little accurate, and the gossip was interesting.

    This is probably still the case for many publications. But you have a chunk of them that willingly and willfully print lies. I get the impression that in the UK people know the bias and agenda of the bigger newspapers, and some of them openly put out misleading and dishonest stories.

    Here in the US there is more of a pretense that publications are fair and balanced.

  185. 185.

    Ruckus

    @schrodingers_cat:
    Oh absolutely!
    Wasn’t defending it actually, just pointing out that all media has a slant, just like all humans do. We base everything on our experiences and our appreciation/perception of them. The discussion of coaching above is exactly that. Look at the differences in how several people have discussed their experiences in kids participation and reflect upon how each is perceived. If you add in my work in professional sports, I can tell you that it isn’t only kids. Our experiences shape us, good and bad. We learn daily, unless we close our minds.

  188. 188.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @The Moar You Know: Raz is the semi-official Rethug putschmepollyou operation. They consistently construct turnout models biased in favor of GOP candidates in order to influence the MSM narrative, then (barely) skirt charges of statistical malpractice by gradually “refining” them toward reality as the election approaches (i.e., well after the intentional damage has been done). Were I the sentencing judge, I’d throw his “analysts” into the slammer & condemn them to working out multiple regressions with nothing more than a pencil stub on the backs of envelopes pulled out of the prison trash heap – truly a fate worse than death.

  189. 189.

    Gravenstone

    @Brachiator:

    What is the deal about coaching?

    Going to guess that many school systems require teachers to “dual hat”, teach their subject and fill some second role – like coaching. I’ve encountered far too many coaches who couldn’t teach worth a dam (Hello, Mr. Sheldon!, Mr.. Nye!), but relatively few who could teach yet not coach to an acceptable level. The latter usually got pigeonholed into the less competitive sports and/or younger grades. And this was nearly 40 years ago in small town Ohio. I have to imagine it’s only gotten worse as time advances and budgets shrink.

  190. 190.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:
    Don’t some outlets publicize that they are “Fair and Balanced?”
    You know, I think that if you have to tell me you are fair and balanced, you probably are lying most of the time. It’s like the guy who always finishes in tenth place telling us how great he is a whatever. Sure he’s better than 11th on down, but great? I used to race motorcycles. I started so that I could learn to ride better, in a closed atmosphere. I was middle of the pack as far as competing and I stopped racing because I learned what I wanted to when I started. Could I have been better? Was the problem drive or talent? Or both? Or does it matter at all? And yet I know some who think they are the best ever and they are in the same place I was, middle of the pack. Every one has a slant, some recognize that they do, some think that they are free of any slant. If we recognize that slant, we can gain knowledge and understanding from most anyone. Well except from faux news. Although one can learn what a closed mind sees from them.

  191. 191.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ruckus: I have never seen The Economist as a business publication. It does have business and finance sections, but much more real estate is taken up with regional news coverage. Hell, arts and science get as much space as business and finance. I started reading it regularly when I was in the army in Germany. It was as a godsend in a world where Stars and Stripes was most common source of news.

  193. 193.

    Ruckus

    @Gravenstone:
    How do you teach someone who doesn’t want to learn? Or has an issue with some subject and that issue is their perspective on the subject? Coaching is showing someone how to do something or how to see something so that they can practice and get better at it or motivating them to do that on their own. How is that different than teaching? We use coaching as a leader in sports, but really a good teacher is coaching/motivating their students to learn, just as a good coach is teaching/motivating how to be better at a sport. A poor teacher presents material and expects results, a poor coach pressures and expects results. There is far more to it than that in either case.

  194. 194.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It was as a godsend in a world where Stars and Stripes was most common source of news.

    I can’t decide to laugh or cry. Yes in comparison Stars and Stripes rates about the level of See Jane Run. And I’ve read the Economist and often liked it’s coverage. I do think it skews center right but it also at least attempts to present an issue, rather than 100% propaganda, like faux.

  196. 196.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    Every one has a slant, some recognize that they do, some think that they are free of any slant. If we recognize that slant, we can gain knowledge and understanding from most anyone. Well except from faux news.

    Fox News, the UK Daily Mail, most publications owned by Rupert Murdoch are useless. Same with Sinclair Broadcast Group. Clear Channel radio properties are often suspect.

    But then, after this, as you note, you just have to pay attention. Some reporters deliberately sling shit. Others believe their own bullshit.

  197. 197.

    Steve in the ATL

    @schrodingers_cat (HectoringBully): no, but it’s different. Liberal arts majors are accustomed to reading and assimilating broad concepts more so than science majors who, in my experience, tend to be more focused on detail. Different skill sets for different jobs. Science types tend not to do well as lawyers, and liberal arts majors tend not to do well in hard science jobs. I’m a good lawyer, but I wouldn’t feel safe working in a building or driving across a bridge or flying in an airplane if I had been involved in the design and testing of it.

    I often thank god for engineers and scientists and accountants, because with them around I don’t have to stuff I’m bad at. I represent a lot of heavy manufacturing plants and the engineers and such who run them and keep the machines running frequently express their terror at the things I have to do in my job. I’m at least as terrified of the things they have to do.

    Please don’t take my comments as denigrating scientists and engineers and accountants. They are great at what they do. My point is that people who are good at those things are generally not good at my things. And vice-versa.

    And my other point is that I find bachelors degrees in Business Administration to be mostly useless.

    All of this reminds me of a comment the late, lamented efgoldman made to me: “Not everyone does conflict for a living like you do!”.

  199. 199.

    Brachiator

    @Ruckus:

    If you only suspect Clear Channel…….

    I can only talk about the stations in my area. And I have not seen media stories about Clear Channel and biased news coverage.

  200. 200.

    Ruckus

    @Steve in the ATL:
    Agreed.
    My job is very detail orientated and as I age, I find that details are far easier to lose track of than they were not long ago. It was second nature to me for decades, it no longer is. It used to be easy, now I have to work at it and I find some details still are almost out of reach. And modern life is even more detail orientated than it was 50 yrs ago. That may be why a lot of people want to go back to a simpler way of life. That and racism.
    But the missing of details is what makes your job pay well, so maybe there is a balance.

  201. 201.

    Kay

    .

    @BernieSanders, opening his speech, stresses the impact of what he calls the “disturbing,” “grotesque” anti-abortion laws in AL and GA — states he’ll visit this weekend.
    These laws, he says, would force “women back into the arms of quacks” — and “quite literally kill women.”

    Credit where credit is due- his response to this is good. I think people are shocked at how aggressive this is and how fast it’s gone to total bans, and he captures that with language like “disturbing”. If there’s political pushback that’s what it will be around- how the religious Right are seizing on the Trump Presidency and the Trump courts to make really radical changes. I think there’s a substantial group of Trump voters who didn’t know they were voting for Mike Pence’s religious agenda. That isn’t what they sold to the (mainstream) public.

  202. 202.

    Ruckus

    @Brachiator:
    I know Clear Channel from my working in professional sports. They are evil, just in a slightly different way than anything/everything Rupert touches. Once saw one of those portable billboards on a trailer, that are often seen in gas stations or outside dinners in some parts of the country, parked along a country road in MO in front of a house, that had 3 words on it. Fuck Clear Channel. Had to stop and take a picture. Such a simple and profound message.

  203. 203.

    Kay

    You really can’t say abortion is murder and then make exceptions for rape or incest. So the most extreme anti-abortion position is also the only coherent one. It’s basically “tough luck, sister. It’s murder. You’ll remain pregnant and have the child because it’s murder”. And, unsurprisingly, they all ended up there. There’s no other place to go once you define it as murder.

  204. 204.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @J R in WV:

    You are so wrong here. The Fox and Friends show is more flamboyantly fascist than their “regular biased news” but their news side lies just as consistently.

    Did I not say “as serious as any other cable news show”? Rising to the level of CNN, the inventors of Infotament, is a very, very low standard, don’t you think? But the Infotament side is the one Trump is feuding with because they have to have some reference to reality.

  205. 205.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Kay:

    I think there’s a substantial group of Trump voters who didn’t know they were voting for Mike Pence’s religious agenda. That isn’t what they sold to the (mainstream) public.

    That’s been my experience. I point Mike Pence to my conservative friends and it goes like this,..

    Friend – R “We didn’t vote for Pence, at lest it wasn’t Hilary yuk yuk yak. God that Pence is such a creep”

    Me “This is isn’t a all you can eat buffet were you can refuse the parts of the Trump admin you don’t like. Pence is part of this.”

    Friend – R “oh,,,” worried look

  206. 206.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I know you’re long gone, but forgiveness amounts will need to be reported on taxes. That may not work out so well for some.

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