Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

People are complicated. Love is not.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

No one could have predicted…

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

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

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / SunBund Brief (Open Thread)

SunBund Brief (Open Thread)

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Someone — maybe Churchill? — is rumored to have said Americans always do the right thing, eventually, after exhausting all other possibilities first. America’s Wang has a different M.O.; Florida always does the wrong thing, then does the wrong thing again and then gets buyer’s remorse when it’s too late to mitigate the damage. Exhibit A, from Florida Politics:

New Florida polling shows Ron DeSantis out of favor with voters in the state, a stunning shift in the year since his successful re-election.

The Cygnal poll of 800 likely General Election voters, reported first by Florida Politics, reveals the Florida Governor is at 50% disapproval against 47% approval.

Though 85% of Republican registrants and 87% of those who voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election still regard the Governor favorably in the poll conducted Nov. 11 — 13, other sub-groups have soured on DeSantis early in his second term.

Well, I’m glad those chuckle-fuck independents and assorted others finally got smacked upside the head with a clue-by-four and caught up with the 50% of Democrats in the state who bothered to show up to vote in 2022. But it’s too goddamn late now.

Unless Trump chokes on a Filet-O-Fish, we’re stuck with Hinky Boots as governor until 2000-and-fucking-26. Just imagine the havoc he can wreak in that interval. Oh wait, we don’t have to imagine it. Here’s a progress report on a DeSantis hire from Politico:

‘This guy is a charlatan’: University of Florida turns against Joe Ladapo
Colleagues say the state surgeon general rarely is on campus and has “sullied” the reputation of the flagship school.

Ya think? Your humble correspondent/Florida grad figured that shit out long before DeSantis hired Ladapo and UF gave him tenure, i.e., when the crackpot physician stood alongside the “demon sperm” doctor to spread dangerous lies about COVID-19 mitigation efforts in 2020.

Ladapo earns a $250,000 salary as surgeon general and a $262,000 salary from UF, according to state and university records.

But some of Ladapo’s UF College of Medicine colleagues were concerned he bypassed crucial vetting during his whirlwind hiring process, regardless of whether it was legal…

“For some reason the medical and public health communities aren’t outright investigating him … probably because he isn’t operating as a scientist or a faculty member,” [United Faculty of Florida-University of Florida President Meera] Sitharam said in an email. “He is operating in the murky world where public health is held hostage to political fortunes, which is in part because public trust in health related institutions has been deeply eroded.”

Yep, and we know exactly who eroded it too.

Meanwhile, Ladapo’s boss, the governor, is threatening to bomb the Bahamas?

Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to let people in the Bahamas know it’s a bad idea for anyone to be “firing rockets” at South Florida.

During remarks Tuesday in Manchester, New Hampshire, the 2024 presidential candidate once again analogized the war between Israel and Hamas to a hypothetical involving a malefactor shooting missiles from the Bahamas toward the state he runs.

“You know, as Governor of Florida, if somebody from the Bahamas was firing rockets into Fort Lauderdale, we would not accept that,” He said. “We would flatten it, like, in no time. We would never accept that happening to our people.”

It wasn’t just a one-off — that’s a stump speech line. But I’m pretty sure Joe Biden controls the ordnance, not Ron DeSantis. Let’s keep it that way.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  2. 2.

    Raven

    We’re heading home from the gulf. He pulled his annual bullshit “special red snapper season “ complete with babbling about Biden choking small businesses. Of course his control only extends 9 miles off shore and a tiny minority of charter boats are “state licensed “ to take advantage of it.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    🤞 that his low polling carries over to the presidential election.  Even if the Republicans have to invest money in Florida, that’s a win.

  5. 5.

    Old School

    Quote Investagator says Churchill probably didn’t say it.

    They find Israeli politician and diplomat Abba Eban saying a more generic version in 1967:

    Commenting that the passage of time offered the best hope of an end to the problems of Israel and her neighbors, he said: “Men and nations behave wisely when they have exhausted all other resources.”

  6. 6.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    Is Ladapo the doctor who declared dump to be a super-duper superman, the healthiest president ever? Figures.

  7. 7.

    trollhattan

    Repost from downstairs dead thread. Petrostate provides perfect host to climate summit.

    Leaked briefing documents reveal plans to discuss fossil fuel deals with 15 nations.

    The UN body responsible for the COP28 summit told the BBC hosts were expected to act without bias or self-interest.

    The UAE team did not deny using COP28 meetings for business talks, and said “private meetings are private”.

    It declined to comment on what was discussed in the meetings and said its work has been focused on “meaningful climate action”.

    The documents – obtained by independent journalists at the Centre for Climate Reporting working alongside the BBC – were prepared by the UAE’s COP28 team for meetings with at least 27 foreign governments ahead of the COP28 summit, which starts on 30 November.

    They included proposed “talking points”, such as one for China which says Adnoc, the UAE’s state oil company, is “willing to jointly evaluate international LNG [liquefied natural gas] opportunities” in Mozambique, Canada and Australia.

    The documents suggest telling a Colombian minister that Adnoc “stands ready” to support Colombia to develop its fossil fuel resources.

    There are talking points for 13 other countries, including Germany and Egypt, which suggest telling them Adnoc wants to work with their governments to develop fossil fuel projects.
    BBC

    We are so truly fucked. Sorry, kids, can’t be bothered. Best of luck!

  10. 10.

    trollhattan

    Guessing there’s added frustration knowing DeSantis does not consider governing the state to be of any personal value, given his god-ordained future role as preznit, and yet somehow squeezes in enough effort to still fuck it over between campaign appearances.

    Now let’s do Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    @Raven: I’d bet a cooler-full of fat snappers the representative of that tiny minority of state-licensed charter boats donated generously to the DeSantis campaign. It’s all about pay-to-play with these chiseling grift-mavens.

  12. 12.

    p.a.

    It’s a continuous surprise how a political party with >50% of supporters thinking the earth is 6,000 years old keeps puking up so many deranged functionaries!

  14. 14.

    Chief Oshkosh

    That Politico story has a lot of malarky in it. It’s written as though the UF Medical College faculty didn’t know that low-quality hire Lapado was full of shit. Several at the time openly argued against his hire, and especially against his tenuring. Some of them even pointed out what their colleagues at Lapado’s previous institutions had said: He’s a quack.

    The concerns of the UF MC faculty were simply ignored. I know of two who took early retirement and a third that moved to a non-Florida institution (taking millions of federal grant dollars and a group of super-bright, productive people with him) over this and other DeSantis malfeasance.

    The guy is leeching a cool half a million off of the state coffers every year and he’s not doing the work. Which, as with Trump, is a blessing. Just think of how bad it would be if the guy applied himself. The kicker is, the Florida taxpayers will continue to pay his salaries because, as with authoritarians everywhere, DeSantis can’t get rid of him because DeSantis can’t admit he made a mistake.

  15. 15.

    Ned F

    I wouldn’t be so hard on the guy, he’s just an average “Joe” tryin gto hold down two part time jobs.  Not his fault he can only scrape by with over half a mil.

  17. 17.

    scav

    @p.a.: puking up non-functionaries continuously would require exactly that sort of consistently and thoroughly dense bench / steno pool as they’re all going to get their 15 minutes eventually — either as cannon fodder, diner interviewees or outright candidates.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    “The Bahamian Rockets” doesn’t even work as a fictional band name, Ron.

    Glad to see he is focusing on the issues that matter, though, and showing that tough-guy swagger that makes voters swoon.  (NOT)

  19. 19.

    teezyskeezy

    @trollhattan: I presume there is some threshold temp at which oil extraction operations in SA become measureably more expensive due to workers dying at an alarming rate?

  21. 21.

    cain

    Since it is an open thread. My wife has been embroiled in a drama with her school district here in Oregon. The administration is trying to kick her out – and has been using various ways to intimidate her. Last week they blindsided her saying that she did not properly support the principal (she’s an assistant principal) – this principal has been put on corrective actions – because she’s unbelievably cruel to teachers and to the kids. Naturally, the parents, kids, and teachers have been coming to my wife because they trust her – nobody trusts the principal. Anyways, because she was mildly critical of the principal while helping console the teacher – she got written up – no warning  – straight up written up and put into her file.

    Today, she was called in and now they accuse her of being antisemitic because she was at a training for teachers – which she could actually do herself – and many folks reported that she was on her phone, and was talking to her friend, and then she scoffed at something. So she’s been put on administrative leave while they conduct an investigation. My wife just two weeks ago conducted a training on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She’s written curriculum for minority voices in social sciences, hell – she got visited by the proud boys. None of which can be proven since being on the phone is called multi-tasking since you still an administrator and still have a school to run.

    She’s lawyering up – this is why she’s been ranting about racism in this country because trust me – she is one of only 2 POCs in the whole school system and of course singled out. Meanwhile, the principal has been fucking up and creating situations with parents, children, and teachers – 2 years ago nearly the entire staff had to be refreshed. But principal has a protector – the assistant superintendent.

    I fear that her career as an educator is over. But my wife excels at being at teacher and as a principal – the school improved quite a bit when she was bought on board. Realize that she’s only been on the job as assistant principal for 4 months – with no guidance or training. The school system is a shit show.

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    @Chief Oshkosh: Great point about the slant of that story. Local reporting at the time documented the objections of many UF faculty. IIRC, it was folks like the DeSantis megadonor who chairs the board of trustees, etc., who made sure Lapado got the high-salary, no-show gig. The DeSantis admin is breathtakingly corrupt, which doesn’t get nearly enough attention nationally, IMO.

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    OT but Catherine Rampell did an interesting piece on our ongoing economic “she-covery”:

    College-educated moms are powering the recovery…guess why that is?

    Three years ago, as covid-19 was ravaging the nation, child-care closures and remote schooling disproportionately forced women out of their jobs. Economists warned of potential scarring effects: Once these women stepped away from their careers, the fear went, they might struggle to get back on track.

    Instead, the opposite has happened. The she-cession flipped into a spectacular she-covery.“Women today see themselves as ‘people who work,’” says Brookings Institution researcher Lauren Bauer, “and the pandemic was not going to get them down.”

    Women in the workforce are doing better than ever, with a record share of those considered prime working age (25 to 54 years old) holding a job. Their employment gains have benefited more than just those women and their families. They have also helped power our post-covid economic miracle and, so far at least, steer the country away from recession.

    Managers appear to be getting more understanding about family responsibilities. Access to paid family leave has been rising over time, especially for higher-paid and white-collar workers, as more states have mandated it and more employers see it as necessary to retain staff. Perhaps more important, men seem increasingly willing to take advantage of their leave benefits, as corporate culture shifts and more high profile men model taking time off. Last month, the number of workers on parental leave reached an all-time high, primarily because of increases in leave-taking among fathers.

    If there’s a takeaway from the recent employment milestones achieved by working women, and especially college-educated moms, it’s this: A lot of factors needed to align perfectly for this to happen. Women had to invest in the right skills and credentials to get into just the right occupations. They also required more supportive partners and co-parents, plus available child care and maybe backup child-care arrangements, too. And they needed more accommodating employers — or at least economic conditions that forced employers to become more accommodating, because companies short on staff need to keep their workers happy.

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    @cain: I’m so sorry to hear this, cain.  It’s terrible when people turn against you, especially when it’s based on lies and bullshit that can easily be seen if only people open their eyes.  So painful, even when you know they are full of shit.

    I feel really bad for your wife, having to go through this.  Tell her to hang tough, and remember who she is, and hang on to that, in spite of the trumped up bullshit.

  28. 28.

    mrmoshpotato

    Winter has arrived in Chicago for a couple days.  27/15 forecast for today.  24 currently.  Hoorugh.

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    @Betty Cracker, @Villago Delenda Est:

    I think you have to go back farther. Trump’s private physician, Dr. Harold N. Bornstein, was the one who said Trump “would be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” Adm. Ronny Jackson, now a GQP congressman from Texas, was the one who said Trump was a svelte 239 pounds at a commanding height of 6'3". He did say that Trump was in excellent health and (I think) was the one who half-joked that Trump could live to be 200. 😲

    ETA: I ran this down because I was reminded that there was (is) so much accumulated crap with Trump that it’s hard to remember it all, much less keep track of it.

  30. 30.

    MattF

    What I get from all this is that DeSantis is still out there. The difference is that people now know who he is— which is bad news for the Fancy Boots Man.

  34. 34.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MattF:

    What I get from all this is that DeSantis is still out there. The difference is that people now know who he is— which is bad news for the Fancy Boots Man. 

    You misspelled Fuck-Me Boots Man.

  35. 35.

    trollhattan

    @cain: Sounds like a ghoulish vendetta and you may never find out why, so are left to “round up the usual suspects.”

    Very sorry it’s cone to this and I hope your lawyers are better than their lawyers. Unfortunately, they have orders of magnitude more resources if they choose to spend them.

    This sounds similar to what LGM’s Campos is going through at the UC Boulder School of Law.

  36. 36.

    J.

    So municipalities that suffered serious damage from Hurricane Ian are furious at DeSantis and the Republican legislature for telling them they aren’t allowed to make any rules or regulations to protect property owners and businesses from future disasters, negating any rules and regulations that had been put in place after the hurricane. Local control now belongs to the state. I live in heavily Republican Collier County currently (UGH), and it makes me laugh to hear my city’s Republican mayor and government railing against DeSantis and the Republican legislators they no doubt all voted for. So now they are planning on writing them a letter pleading with them to reconsider. To which I say, good luck with that. Idiots. All these a-holes are just fine with cruel and stupid laws, until those laws affect them.

  37. 37.

    Betty Cracker

    @eclare:  I made it up to refer to fascism in the Sunshine State. The “Sun” part represents Florida and “Bund” alludes to pro-fascist organizations in the U.S. before WW2 that called themselves “bunds.” It’s too obscure to make sense to normal people, but the assonance appeals to me. ;-)

  39. 39.

    Paul in KY

    @cain: Wow! I feel for you and your wife. If she’s like civil service, there are beaucoup hoops they have to jump through to get her out. They seem to realize this and have put some stuff in. However, you can’t just ‘ambush’ someone with bad stuff in their file. You have to let them know they are messing up & meet with them & inform them of this, etc. etc. BEFORE you can shove stuff in the file & it be usable to them.

    Think the lawyer is probably a good idea.

  44. 44.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @eclare: @cain:
    “Lawyer up” is right. My daughter (special ed / early childhood teacher) has faced bad actors in admin (not the principal in her case, the special ed. dept.)

    Just the threat of a lawsuit may get your wife’s attackers to back down. Good luck to you both. Maybe some testimonials from supportive parents would help too. Write everything down!

  46. 46.

    Bill Arnold

    @Betty Cracker:

    The “Sun” part represents Florida and “Bund” alludes to pro-fascist organizations in the U.S. before WW2 that called themselves “bunds.”

    Thought you were doubling up that meaning with the “a road or path across water or wet ground, that is higher than the area around it” meaning.
    Anyway, gets a laugh every time you use it.

  47. 47.

    Gravenstone

    Fair warning, Betty. Ran across a Reddit post talking about some folks apparently trying to push Casey DeSantis to succeed her husband. And you thought he was already a disaster…

  50. 50.

    Subsole

    @eclare: I’m 6 foot something and weigh 260.

    If Trump weighs 230 pounds, I will kiss his bare ass in broad daylight on camera in the middle of Times Square.

  51. 51.

    Martin

    But I’m pretty sure Joe Biden controls the ordnance

    What does Bruen say about the matter? Do we have any pre-Civil War opinions that preclude DeSantis from appealing to Elon Musk to repurpose some Falcon 9s into medium range ballistic missiles? Load them up with some of that phosphogypsum you’re having trouble getting rid of.

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    Elon Musk went to Israel to stanch the flow of exiting advertisers, and Netanyahu gave the X shithead the head of state treatment, including a tour of a kibbutz where Hamas murdered lots of innocent people. Israel journalists were not amused, according to Rolling Stone:

    “Blatant antisemite [and] publisher of antisemitism Elon Musk should be persona non grata in Israel,” Esther Solomon, the editor-in-chief at Haaretz, wrote on X. “Instead, Netanyahu – plumbing new depths of amoral sycophancy – gifts him a PR visit to the kibbutzim devastated by Hamas. Profane, venal, bilious, both of them.”

    Amy Spiro, a writer at The Jerusalem Post, wrote that it was “Hard to stomach welcoming someone who just days ago endorsed a virulently antisemitic trope, has dabbled for years in antisemitism and has turned this platform into a cesspool of hate. It’s quite frankly gross.”

    Well said, Ms. Solomon and Ms. Spiro.

  59. 59.

    mrmoshpotato

    @WaterGirl: I was combining a sarcastic “Hooray!” with “Ugh.” :)

    I need to hop on the bus to go grocery shopping, and I’m not ready for this cold snap.

  64. 64.

    Subsole

    @mrmoshpotato: So far so good, weather-wise. In the high 40s here, cold and crisp. 60s in the sunshine, 40s at night.

    Beautiful day out, really. Big gorgeous blue Texas skies.

  65. 65.

    Soprano2

    @cain: I’m so sorry, sounds like that sucks. My Jazzercise teacher who is also a high school math teacher and adjunct professor told me on Friday that she’s actively seeking to become a college professor only, and is leaving the high school where she teaches. She used to love that job, but she says the micromanagement and bullshit from some in the administration have worn her down, and she’s so miserable that when she realized she had to go back to work after the Thanksgiving week off she cried.  I hope there is a chance your wife can find employment at another school.

  66. 66.

    coin operated

    @cain:

    She’s lawyering up

    Good, because they won’t listen otherwise.

    Realize that she’s only been on the job as assistant principal for 4 months – with no guidance or training

    Sounds like they set her up for failure. Hope if shit hits the fan you can get a jury trial…arbitration is sketchy anymore

  68. 68.

    Martin

    @Betty Cracker: What stands out to me is how diminished UF is as an institution in this scenario, that they couldn’t not hire this obvious dipshit, even just citing their own policies on hiring.

  70. 70.

    geg6

    Read an article over the weekend (don’t ask me where because I don’t remember…maybe The Economist?) about the brain drain in red states.  Betty, I’m sure you’ll be proud (not) to know that FL is #1!  Shortages in pretty much any career that requires a degree, especially any graduate or professional degree.  And I am not sure how admissions departments at colleges and universities will evaluate high school transcripts for FL students based on the extremely low level of educational attainment now required to teach K-12 there.  There are going to be some huge education gaps in a few years.

  71. 71.

    BellyCat

    @cain: Fuuuuck…. She should lawyer up but also immediately start looking for jobs in another state. One does not “win” these battles (meaning: keep your job) once targeted. At best, she “may” get some settlement money.

    Seen it all too often, sadly.

  72. 72.

    gVOR10

    Is DeUseless planning to buy intermediate range missiles so his pet State Guard can deter the Bahamas? He might as well. His State Guard doesn’t seem to have any other useful purpose.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @Martin: Yep. DeSantis, a product of Harvard and Yale, is destroying a public education system that was generations in the making.

  74. 74.

    trollhattan

    @Betty Cracker: @WaterGirl:

    Bibi and the IDF really, really fucked up ignoring the threats leading up to 10/7, years worth. BBC has a roll-up of the planning and this jumps out for being so typical. (“They’re girls, what do they know?”)

    The exercises were reported on in Israel, so it’s inconceivable they were not being closely monitored by the country’s extensive intelligence agencies.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have previously carried out air strikes to disrupt Hamas’s training activities. In April 2023, they bombed the site used for the first Strong Pillar drill.

    Weeks before the attacks, female surveillance soldiers near the Gaza border reportedly warned of unusually high drone activity and that Hamas was training to take over observation posts with replicas of their positions.

    But, according to reports in the Israeli media, they say they were ignored.

    Brigadier General Amir Avivi, a former IDF deputy commander in Gaza, told the BBC: “There was a lot of intelligence that they were doing this training – after all, the videos are public, and this was happening just hundreds of metres from the fence (with Israel).”

    But he said while the military knew about the drills, they “didn’t see what they were training for”.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    So, another day of my living experiment dodging covid. Ms Martin is upstairs under strict quarantine. My son just tested positive, but my daughter and I feel fine today and have tested negative, but could still test positive tomorrow – just how this works.

    Mostly anecdotal, but not entirely, my daughter and I shared an 8 hour drive home in a Prius with my wife having active covid symptoms the entire way and so far we have no symptoms. That can still change, but all 3 of us were wearing N95s the entire way, and we kept windows open to maximize air turnover in the car. Not exactly a high tech approach, but if my daughter and I dodge this, I think we can say with a fair degree of certainty that masks do work given that was about the worst case environment for trying to avoid an infectious disease.

    Annoyingly, she caught it from her evening class at the community college – a situation that was almost certainly avoidable if our institutions ever took this shit seriously.

  77. 77.

    eclare

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yep.  I grew up in TN, so I went to UT, but UF was known as the best in the SEC for academics.  Well, there is Vandy, but I always forget that they are SEC.

    It’s such a shame.

  80. 80.

    Martin

    @Betty Cracker: To be fair, a LOT of academics who come out of privates wind up destroying publics once they land administrative jobs there, not out of malice but out of sheer incompetence. The dynamics and politics of public institutions are wildly different than privates, but the cachet of privates usually leaves these people airdropping in believing they are saviors.

    It’s really fucking annoying, especially for the administrators <cough> who are stuck running around cleaning their shit up.

  81. 81.

    Chetan Murthy

    @eclare: As do I.  Basically all foreign buildings/public transit unless I have a good reason to unmask (like, say, eating that delicious pain au chocolat with an espresso, with my sib at the local coffeeshop).

  82. 82.

    cain

    @eclare:

    @WaterGirl:

    Thank you – it turns out that the principal is the one that’s been sabotaging her. We are talking to a lawyer. The principal is doing whatever she can to keep her job – but the school system is uncritically taking these reports without doing proper due diligence. When I say my wife is an exceptional teacher, she is _exceptional_ she’s been on TV, she got a state wide teacher award.

    She gave her school her all, providing comfort to teachers, kids, and parents. She was very well valued – they could have totally pumped her up and improved the school substantially. Her departure will set off a wide condemnation and a lot of people are going to leave as it signals the fact that the district is not interested in helping that school.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin: Fingers crossed that you and your daughter dodge it.

    I assume, though, that you are making just-in-case plans for having food etc if all of you do end up sick at the same time.

  84. 84.

    cain

    @trollhattan: Likely what’s going to happen is that they are going to negotiate her leaving and that is going to be the end of her career as an educator.

    She’s planning on learning scrum and becoming a scrum master or a host of other. She impresses anywhere she goes – I’m not worried about where her next job is. But the school system is the one that has lost – and will continue to be a mediocre school system.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    @cain:  I hope you’ll keep us in the loop.  If you can vent here, that might help put you in a better position to be there for your wife when she needs to vent, or just needs your support because she is in a shitty place.

  86. 86.

    cain

    @Paul in KY:

    @cain: Wow! I feel for you and your wife. If she’s like civil service, there are beaucoup hoops they have to jump through to get her out. They seem to realize this and have put some stuff in. However, you can’t just ‘ambush’ someone with bad stuff in their file. You have to let them know they are messing up & meet with them & inform them of this, etc. etc. BEFORE you can shove stuff in the file & it be usable to them.

    Absolutely – and note – the double standard. She got put something in her file without a warning prior, and then this new thing today. But the principal who is directly responsible for a lot of things going down (that my wife has been firefighting since she got there) has nothing in her file – even though that school has shown poor standing for the entire time she’s been there.

  87. 87.

    cain

    @Subsole:

    Sorry your wife is putting up with that garbage. What part of Oregon? Portland?

    Part of Portland metro – but not Portland (who by the way, the teachers union won big against the district, go Portland!) – the school district is further south of Portland.

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @trollhattan: A number of the woman IDF soldiers who manned those observation towers were killed in the first minutes of Hamas’s attack October 7. That compounds the outrage that the survivors’ stories have generated among the Israeli public.

  90. 90.

    cain

    @coin operated:

    Sounds like they set her up for failure. Hope if shit hits the fan you can get a jury trial…arbitration is sketchy anymore

    They absolutely did – and get this – the principal’s boss asked my wife to help mentor the principal who has been doing the job for ten years.

  91. 91.

    cain

    @BellyCat:

    @cain: Fuuuuck…. She should lawyer up but also immediately start looking for jobs in another state. One does not “win” these battles (meaning: keep your job) once targeted. At best, she “may” get some settlement money.

    Yep, her career as an educator is effectively over at this point. But now there is going to be some “finding out” now that they are “fucking around”. She’s going to make sure there is a ‘teaching moment’ – pun intended.

  92. 92.

    Old Man Shadow

    “You know, as Governor of Florida, if somebody from the Bahamas was firing rockets into Fort Lauderdale, we would not accept that,” He said. “We would flatten it, like, in no time. We would never accept that happening to our people.”

    Okay, now, I want you to try something. I want you to close your little eyes and imagine. I know, I know, it’s dangerous to use your mind. But just try…

    Now, I want you imagine that the UN decided that your half of Florida really belongs to the Cubans.  Probably makes you angry, right? And then Cubans with guns show up and start fighting you for the land the UN gave them so they can form their own state and you grab your semi-automatic penis substitute and you fight your heart out, but you lose. Badly. So now you and the rest of the non-Cubans in Florida get moved to a much smaller piece of Florida than even the UN promised you.

    How would you feel?

    Pretty angry, I imagine.

    Now the years go by and you can’t even vote anymore. You have no say in the government that now resides in Florida and is currently telling you what you can and can’t do and there are a lot of “can’t dos”. You can’t go fishing. You can’t travel really. You have to go through security checkpoints to get to hospitals. And now immigrants from Cuba who really believe in Cuban supremacy over all of Florida keep forming militias and they come into the area you’ve been forced into and they beat the shit out of you. They set fire to your homes and farms. They drive you further and further into smaller and smaller plots of land and steal your homes and no one does anything about it. No one cares.

    Now, a fiery asshole preacher shows up and says it’s better to fight and die now than to slowly die without a fight, so grab your guns and go kill as many of them Cubans as you can! And a lot of people are angry too and they listen to him because they’re angry about how things are going for them and no one cares enough to help them, so they go and they attack and kill a lot of Cuban civilians and now you have bombs raining down on your heads even though you didn’t go kill innocent people. Maybe you just watched your kids get blown to bloody pieces.

    How exactly would you feel, Ron?

    You can identify with the side you’re cheering on, Ron. Now think about how you would feel if you were the other guy going through what he’s going through. How would you feel? What would you do? Would you find it easy to pick up arms against the people bombing your home and denying you political voice and human rights?

    Because it’s not a black and white situation. It’s all sorts of gray. It’s fucking messy. There’s a fucking reason it’s gone on for 80 years now (arguably thousands of years) with each side having a list of grievances longer than War and Peace.

    Now imagine how much skill it must have taken to even get the two angriest and most armed sides to agree to stop shooting each other, no matter how briefly, so some innocent people could be saved. And maybe, just maybe, you can pray that the people, the diplomats who secured that brief peace and expand on it so more innocent Jews and more innocent Palestinians don’t die. Maybe, just maybe, you can stop being a selfish asshole and ask how you can help those people.

    I know, it’s probably a fantasy.

  93. 93.

    Martin

    @Chetan Murthy: Thank you. I mean, eventually we’ll all get it, so I’m not concerned about getting it, but as with many things, later is better than sooner. And I’m the kind of person that *enjoys* running the experiment. It’s a game for me that I enjoy playing (perhaps to the annoyance of my family). And part of why I enjoy this is to have a living example that yeah, you can do this and here’s how hard it is. Wearing a mask is annoying, but not really any more than that. Airflow is annoying, but not really any more than that. When I took care of my son for a week, sharing a 1BR apartment, it was February and we had the windows open – and it was cold. That sucked, but wearing an extra shirt and having an extra blanket on wasn’t the end of the world for the 5 days that we did that.

    I have the same approach with climate change. How much of a burden is it *really* to do this, and man, you can do a lot without that much of a burden. A lot of the things that were hard at first, are easier to keep going than reverting because there are other benefits. Cutting meat out of my diet has made keeping my weight in check a LOT easier. And it’s cheaper. And after a while of doing it, I don’t miss it. Stuff like that.

    So yeah, we’ll see how it goes, but I feel like there are lessons from having successfully dodged this for almost 3 years now.

  94. 94.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cain:

    But the principal who is directly responsible for a lot of things going down (that my wife has been firefighting since she got there) has nothing in her file

    Oh wow, this is a real blaring siren here.  Do the people to whom the principal reports — do  they know that the principal is a problem ?  You wrote

    this principal has been put on corrective actions

    but it seems like that doesn’t go to actually initiating a formal administrative process for that person ?  I have to say, there’s a thing I learned the hard, hard, HARD way: you don’t work for the stockholders students/parents-of-student/taxpayers, you work for your direct supervisor and at the limit, their direct supervisor.  If you make them look bad, you’re outta there, regardless of how valuable you are.  And if you go stirring up trouble among the hoi polloi, you’re outta there even faster.

    Those who can’t stomach those bare facts, don’t last long.  My last job, I lasted 5mos (before rage-quitting) b/c I finally realized I couldn’t stomach the absolute dysfunction.

  95. 95.

    Miss Bianca

    @cain: I’m so sorry to hear this. My school district has been hemorrhaging teachers and staff at a prodigious rate because our nutter-butter Board of Education hired an unqualified and frankly incompetent Superintendent and a very young, inexperienced (but local girl!) Principal who needs a lot more support and guidance than she’s getting.

    I feel your wife’s pain.

  96. 96.

    justinb

    I’m curious as to whether any jackals have ever made the transition to us citizen to resident of another country, and how that process went. How long did it take? What were the steps? How long did it take, how much did it cost, what about employment? What about visa requirements, how long for visa requirements? Did you have to buy land – preferential treatment depending family? *ANYTHING*?

  97. 97.

    cain

    @WaterGirl:

    @cain:  I hope you’ll keep us in the loop.  If you can vent here, that might help put you in a better position to be there for your wife when she needs to vent, or just needs your support because she is in a shitty place.

    She’s had shitty mental health for the past two years. Her previous job at another school district – almost same issue – harassment and the manager showing favoritism. She had to take a 6 month leave of absence – she was so happy to get this job as assistant principal.

    It’s really opened eyes on what a privilege life I lead with my work given the horrible things that happened to her. It didn’t had to be this way – support your women of color teachers and administrators – it’s swimming upstream constantly.

    I’ll keep ya all in the loop and let you know how it ends – but my wife is already looking for jobs in other sectors.

  98. 98.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cain:

    the principal’s boss asked my wife to help mentor the principal

    Was this request made in writing?  Another thing I learned was that “if it isn’t in writing, it didn’t happen”.  An MBA friend once told me that for the cases where others refuse to commit to things in writing from meetings, being the person who takes meeting minutes is absolutely  essential: you write up the minutes and send them to all  participants, asking them to provide corrections, and if the minutes are accurate, to reply with their confirmation.  If you establish a track record of doing this, people stop lying about what happened.  I have another friend who kept clothbound notebooks in which he  recorded *every single meeting* with date/time/participants and all topics and actions.  For, like, a decade.  It was really valuable, b/c he could just open ’em up to previous meetings and remind some asshole who’d had a convenient case of amnesia, about what they said and committed to.

    But whatever: the thing is, if the hierarchy is closing ranks around this principal, the best thing is to get your wife’s lawyer to negotiate a cushy/cushy/cushy severance.  She’s not going to get anything better.

  99. 99.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cain:

    She’s going to make sure there is a ‘teaching moment’ – pun intended.

    Another thing that somebody once taught me: never tell the truth on your way out the door: there’s no upside for you personally, and nobody will do anything about it.   All that’ll happen is that people will remember you as vindictive and an asshole.  That is to say, as Jimmy McNulty in _The Wire_ (“a gaping asshole”).

    The best “teachable moment” is when you cash the big, big severance check.

  100. 100.

    cain

    @Chetan Murthy: That is exactly what happened. The principal doens’t have any teaching background and can’t even understand the problems teachers face. But also she’s rude and antagonistic and screams at teachers. As I said there are a lot of stories of things she’s said and done.

    But she’s the person behind all the “reports” – so she’s definitely trying to get rid of my wife.

    Yes, it blows my mind on the whole supervisor thing. Even worse, you can’t get hired elsewhere if you’ve had a conflict with your supervisor. I’ve had conflicts with my manager that lead to my being let go. I can still get a job because I don’t have to depend on my last manager unlike the educational system.

    Mind blowing.

  101. 101.

    Martin

    @WaterGirl: Oh yeah. We had groceries delivered (something we never do) in part to stock up while I run around and prepare things, and in part so I don’t roll into the grocery store and make other people sick.

    My son doesn’t have all the boosters – he has a legit needle phobia, so he has one shot. And that leaves him a bit vulnerable to a more severe case.

    The rest of us have had every booster including the most recent. Ms Martin is sick, but no worse than the flu. She’s managing just fine. Our cases should be pretty mild thanks to the boosters. Like I said above, we’re all going to get this, and it’s already moving into the ‘societal annoyance’ stage, at least if you are otherwise healthy and have your boosters. So, we’re fine. It’s noteworthy for me because it’s still a project for me, as it was in early 2020 as you know.

  102. 102.

    Tony Jay

    @Betty Cracker:

    The FTF Guardian had an opinion piece on that topic today. Continuing its slow-quick-slow moonwalk back from the 2017-19 censorship of any Jewish opinion that was to the Left of Alan Dershowitz. Reading it you’d never know that The FTF Guardian was one of the loudest voices insisting that only frothing Jew-haters could possibly have an issue with the IHRA definition of antisemitism, but on its own merits it’s a damning piece nailing the pro-Israel lobby for its willingness to reputation-wash the Right kind of antisemite.

    Read alongside this piece on the Israeli Government trying a bit too hard to ‘Do A Corbyn’ on the Irish Prime Minister, and it’s pretty clear that The FTF Guardian’s editorial honchos are reading the tea-leaves and betting that the Israeli Right have diplomatically overreached in a big way.

  103. 103.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @eclare: Yep, I work with a guy who is, coincidentally, 6’3″ and 240 lbs. He eats crap foods, drinks at least three 6-packs of beer per week, and never exercises. He’s not grossly obese, but he ain’t slim, either. If he stood next to Trump, he’d look svelte.

    My bet is that Trump is 6’1″ and 260 lbs.

  104. 104.

    cain

    @Chetan Murthy: No, it was done during a meeting. The person who made the request was assistant superintendent eg the principal’s boss. But he actually violated confidentiality rules by revealing that.

    You’re absolutely right that – at least from an administrative level that they might see her as vindictive – but the teachers and the parents she is a hero and really lifted the school up.

    The teachable moment is to definitely get a severance check and thrive elsewhere. But once you lawyer up, you’re pretty much done – I don’t think any other school district in the area will hire you at that point.

  105. 105.

    cain

    Thanks everyone for your kind words. We’ll be fine – she’s going to thrive somewhere else that know how to take advantage of her prodigious amount of skills.

  106. 106.

    Chetan Murthy

    @cain: BTW, I’m  glad  your wife and you have realistic expectations.  Speaking as someone who didn’t …. for well over a decade.

  109. 109.

    Paul in KY

    @cain: If they can’t document the sitting her down & counseling her stuff, then the stuff just shoved in the file is completely unusable as disciplinary/termination ammo (IMO).

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    @justinb: I saw your email message this morning and have been trying to figure out whether there might be a way to frame a post around this.

    But I’m sure that the details change dramatically from country to country.  I’m guessing that you probably have a country or a set of countries in mind?  It would super helpful if you could share the countries you are thinking of.

  112. 112.

    Timill

    @justinb: I haven’t – I went the other way, from UK to US – but my wife did. It was relatively easy for me to get her temporary, then permanent residency, and then citizenship.

    As WG says: what countries, and do you have an existing connection there?

  113. 113.

    West of the Rockies

    If it’s not been said already,  what a giant, ludicrous strawman argument… the Bahamas aren’t attacking Florida, and the state of Florida has no weapons with which to return fire.  Also, too, DimSantis is an idiot.

  114. 114.

    cain

    @Chetan Murthy:

    @cain: BTW, I’m  glad  your wife and you have realistic expectations.  Speaking as someone who didn’t …. for well over a decade.

    I think she still wants to tear shit up – but she’s in the rage stage of where she’s at. But all she’s looking for is to GTFO. But from a social justice point of view – she wants to punish them for going after a non-white woman and holding a double standard.

  115. 115.

    Chetan Murthy

    @justinb: I recently saw an article about this subject that listed requirements for various visas & citizenship for a number of different European countries.  They were quite, quite varied, so it really does matter which country, and what  your status and pre-existing connection (if any) is with the country.

  116. 116.

    cain

    @Paul in KY:

    @cain: If they can’t document the sitting her down & counseling her stuff, then the stuff just shoved in the file is completely unusable as disciplinary/termination ammo (IMO).

    Yeah, only a legal challenge is going to do that – but once you pull that trigger – your growth is stunted. So I think she’s just going to leave education and go somewhere else.

  117. 117.

    eclare

    @justinb:

    Many years ago I got a temporary leave to remain in the UK.  An accounting firm sponsored me because they needed my knowledge of US taxation of individuals.  It took several months for the paperwork to go through.  I didn’t have to buy property, but having a company sponsor me was key.  I’m not sure how it works without that.

    One of my friends and her husband just bought a place in Canada, their escape hatch.  He did not have a job before he moved, now he works remotely.  She made it sound pretty hassle free, but they are also loaded, so if there is a property requirement, they had no problem with it.

  119. 119.

    KM in NS

    @cain: is you wife still in the union as an Assistant Principal? If so, there should be a grievance process to follow. Some unionized employers have policies for non-union people that mirror the collective agreement. Maybe check out the employee handbook for non-unionized staff?

    Also, there may be some protection through the labour laws in your state. Her lawyer would know about those processes.

     

    ETA: I posted this before reading all the comments…sorry for any duplicate advice.

  120. 120.

    rekoob

    @justinb: My 4 years in Europe were too long ago to be fully relevant, but generally, you’ll need a work permit and a residence permit. You’ll have to apply for both more or less simultaneously, recognizing that you can’t work without a work permit, and can’t get a residence without a residence permit. You’ll therefore be bouncing around, using up whatever period you have a valid tourist or similar visa to establish yourself. The permits are usually for a limited period of time (1 year is typical) and after a series of renewals, you may be eligible to apply for a longer-term permit.

    You’ll be screened for employment, and if you have a unique skill, it will be easier to get the work permit.

    As a US citizen, you will be required to file tax returns in the US, but there’s an exemption for a portion of your overseas earnings. You will pay taxes in the country where you’re living/working, of course.

    Those are some of the basics. Portugal had a generous program (the Golden Visa Program), but that changed recently. Good luck! You might also investigate Estonia’s e-resident program:

    https://www.e-resident.gov.ee

  121. 121.

    Nettoyeur

    So the Tallahassee Tyrant would flatten the Bahamas, presumably with his proposed Florida SS, if they launched rockets at Florida? Someone should remind him that as a former UK colony, the Bahamas are part of the British Commonwealth, and King Charles III is their head of state. A UK attack on the US ILis so 1812. Maybe Death Santis wants FL to become a separate country?

  122. 122.

    cope

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:  I am six years past my last day of high school teaching but during 28 years, the default position of my school board when taken on by well lawyered plaintiffs was to cave. I don’t know if this is still the case and I worked at the other end of the continent from Oregon so I am not sure how universal this is but it was consistent throughout my whole teaching career.

  123. 123.

    cain

    @KM in NS: Thanks! She does have a lawyer. I’m not sure in regards to this school district – she was a union bargainer and president of the teachers union in her last job. But not sure what they have in terms of protections – but she told me there is no protection for administrative staff eg principal.

  124. 124.

    Paul in KY

    @cain: Sounds like it is like that in Educationland. I feel sorry for her having to leave a profession she is great at.

  125. 125.

    Anonymous At Work

    Fort Lauderdale is a bad example.  DeathSantis wouldn’t care, might even approve, if The Bahamas launched a bunch of rockets at a major Democratic area.

  127. 127.

    La Nonna

    @justinb: We did that transition in 2010, it was fairly simple to become legal residents in Italy, started with the Italian consulate to understand all the rules and regs, the took appropriate steps to comply.  Legal residency here entitles us to all the rights of citizens except voting, i.e. universal healthcare, social safety net, education, etc.

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