Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

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

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We won’t go back.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

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Education

Late Night Open Thread: Dismantling the Machinery of Hope

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because i know this will get angrily shared approximately one million times, i am begging you to please read the second, third and fourth paragraphs before putting the outrage pedal to the floor

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— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) December 20, 2024 at 4:48 PM

What might have, should have, been… Per the Associated Press:

President Joe Biden is abandoning his efforts to provide some protections for transgender student athletes and cancel student loans for more than 38 million Americans, the first steps in an administration-wide plan to jettison pending regulations to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from retooling them to achieve his own aims.

The White House expects to pull back unfinished rules across several agencies if there isn’t enough time to finalize them before Trump takes office. If the proposed regulations were left in their current state, the next administration would be able to rewrite them and advance its agenda more quickly.

As the pending Biden regulations are withdrawn, nothing prevents Trump from pursuing his own regulations on the same issues when he returns to the White House, but he would have to start from scratch in a process that can take months or even years.

“This isn’t the way I wanted it to end,” said Melissa Byrne, an activist who has pushed for student debt cancellation. “Unfortunately, this is the most prudent action to take right now.”

She blamed Republicans for putting the Biden administration in this position. “It’s a bummer that we have a GOP that is committed to keeping working-class Americans in debt,” Byrne said…

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Saturday Evening Open Thread: The Real Horror of DEI

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When you see people like Elon Musk pointing to stuff like IQ to justify their disdain for encouraging diversity, it’s hard to avoid concluding that having a black guy in charge of something more than HUD, not as a novelty but as the normal state of affairs, was just too much for them to process
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— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:42 AM

Used to be, a well-to-do white man’s unambitious sons could count on a ‘gentleman’s C’ from the right prep school and a few properly sourced letters of recommendation for a slot at an Ivy and a following lifetime of sinecure(s). But now, there’s all this competition from outsiders — Irish Catholics, Central European immigrants’ outlandish offspring, even Jews! — what’s a white man [dry sob] to do?!?

When I was in middle school, I read (mostly mocking) variants of this sad plaint from Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt (not at his best, there), and Finley Peter Dunne. Only difference between the complaints during the first Gilded Age and our current low-rent knockoff era are that, during the original, Jared Kushner’s old man could never have gotten close enough to the Harvard board to write them a million-dollar check as an introduction.

We’re going to hit an inflection point where the older men in power/management age out (read die), and the 30+ years of women having higher educational attainment becomes suddenly visible in org charts.
And shit’ll get *weird* s a result.

— Wandering Hoo (@wanderlib.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:14 AM

This is what I’m saying! A lot of powerful men are feeling that crunch. They know that what comes after them will not be what came before, & it scares them. Above all it scares them on behalf of their kids who they know can’t compete with that
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— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:22 AM

Informed by 18 years as a divorce lawyer, I agree. There’s so much light and questionable heat on the most debated gender war issues.

Financial autonomy IS the heat, they’d love for you to take your eye off that ball, and there’s no world where it’s good advice to girls to give that up.
— Anselm (@gorobei.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 4:42 PM

Yep. And the talk on the right about the importance of trades (but never the importance of unions) & how you shouldn’t need a degree to get ahead (because your fuckup son needed five tries to fail out of college for good)

— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:25 AM

The Trump team’s proposed immigration bans are another piece of the jigsaw, here:

we simply must stop all these perfidious nigerians from coming to america and becoming doctors

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— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 11:24 AM

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Copping to the Con (Open Thread)

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I believe the story of U.S. politics in the Trump era is partly a tale of marks refusing to believe they’ve been conned. An example: my sister recently had a conversation with a MAGA relative who expressed a belief so incandescently stupid that I was momentarily taken aback.

In response to my sister’s query, our relative said he trusted Trump as president to put the country’s interests above his own in a national emergency. At least more than any other option, including Biden.

I’ll understand completely if you assume the person who said this is a blithering idiot, but I know otherwise. The thing is he’s prideful, and he refuses to admit he’s been conned.

Despite copious evidence to the contrary, he chooses to believe every other politician in the country is an even more rapacious crook than Donald Trump rather than accepting what’s glaringly obvious at this point — that Trump supporters have been taken in.

It’s a goddamn irritating dynamic. But apparently sometimes even poor judges of character and insight-free propaganda consumers wake up all on their own without a liberal blood relative beating some sense into their fucking heads.

Here’s an example in the form of a newly enlightened far-right school board member who ran on an anti-woke platform and then discovered who the real manipulators are. Most of the folks commenting here understood what the oligarchs were up to way back in 1999, but better late than never? (Texas Tribune)

When Courtney Gore ran for a seat on her local school board in 2021, she warned about a movement to indoctrinate children with “leftist” ideology. After 2 1/2 years on the board, Gore said she believes a much different scheme is unfolding: an effort by wealthy conservative donors to undermine public education in Texas and install a voucher system in which public money flows to private and religious schools.

Why did Gore run to overturn an indoctrination scheme that she later discovered didn’t really exist? It sounds like she genuinely believed the bullshit about children being exposed to Marxist and anti-Christian propaganda. That’s a sharp contrast to the cynical Republican political operatives who found Moms for Liberty-type groups — they know they’re lying to gain political power.

Anyhoo, here’s to waking up, however late the hour.

Open thread!

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Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Greg Abbott Decides to Make News At UT-Austin

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I guess Gov. Abbott couldn’t bear thinking that all the ‘MURIKA FVCK YEAH’ wingnut applause be garnered by sissy LEOs on elite coastal campuses, so he decided to Make A Show of sending out the Jackbooted TX Cowboy Thugs(tm) to clear out them pesky kids. Maybe he figured that state troopers bashing undergrads would somehow erase the memories of local law enforcement standing around while fourth-graders were slaughtered in Uvalde?

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TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Happy Nice Stories

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(See notes at bottom of post)

Even by recent (low) standards, this has not been a cheerful week, so…

Per the Associated Press — “National Teacher of the Year helps diverse students and their families thrive in rural Tennessee”:

… [Missy] Testerman has a special affinity for children from other cultures who comprise just a fraction of the 650 students at the pre-K-8 Rogersville City School. That is why, after 30 years of teaching first and second grade, Testerman got an endorsement to teach English as a second language in 2022…

On Wednesday, the Council of Chief State School Officers announced that Testerman was chosen to receive the national title from among the state teachers of the year. First lady Jill Biden surprised Testerman during a nationally televised appearance Wednesday morning with a bouquet of flowers and the news that she and the nation’s other top teachers will be treated to a state dinner at the White House.

As Teacher of the Year, Testerman will spend a year traveling the country as an ambassador, urging other teachers to become strong advocates for their students and fellow educators.

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The Denver School Board Election

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Colorado had itself an election yesterday. The big-ticket items, to my mind, were the Denver school board, and a very complicated tax bill called Proposition HH. I was going to write about both, but ran out of time, so, here’s your round-up of the school board election.

All three ‘status quo’ candidates lost yesterday by fairly resounding margins. Chalkbeat: Voters signal they want change by electing three new members

In a year of rising gun violence in and around Denver schools, and persistent allegations of dysfunction on the school board, Denver voters signaled Tuesday that they want change by electing three new board members.

In the citywide at-large race, former East High School Principal John Youngquist beat Tattered Cover bookstores co-owner Kwame Spearman by a wide margin. Youngquist will replace the board’s most high-profile member, Vice President Auon’tai Anderson.

The candidates who lost were all backed by the teachers’ union, but this election wasn’t really about that, if you ask me. Denver generally has a pro-charter streak, so being pro-school choice/curriculum autonomy doesn’t ding a candidate much. One example issue–a recent regulation says that you cannot start classes before 8:20am for middle school students and older. Okay, that sounds fine. However, due to bus schedules, this means that a particular high-performing charter can’t start until 9:30, and has had to cut an hour of education from their curriculum. Replacing this with voluntary enrichment courses has proven quite expensive, and Colorado schools are already famously underfunded. The school board could have waived this regulation for this school, but chose not to. The parents are understandably upset.

But, mostly, this was about school safety. The current board’s policies have failed here. There were a number of school shootings in the last year. Some were clearly caused by existing policy. Specifically, it is extremely difficult to expel or suspend a student, which has led to students known to be safety risks remaining in schools. I say ‘known to be safety risks’ because they have often been accused of violent crimes, and must be searched for weapons every morning. The board removed police from schools in 2020, so these checks are performed by school staffers. This policy combination resulted in the shooting of two deans earlier this year, during a weapons search–the third shooting at that school in the last school year. A principal who spoke out about this was fired. The board claims this was due to “sharing information related to confidential personnel matters”. You can decide for yourself; the voters certainly did:

In the interview, Dennis shared that he’d been notified that one of his school’s students had been charged with attempted murder. As a result, Dennis sought an extended suspension as well as a remote learning option for the student. DPS denied both requests. Denver police had also discouraged a return to in-person learning for the student.

In the termination letter, DPS said Dennis had also been fired for allegedly violating the student’s privacy by partaking in the interview. Dennis told CPR that, while he told 9News a student had been charged with attempted murder, he did not provide any information he was prohibited from sharing nor did he reveal the student’s identity or offer recognizable characteristics.

David Lane, Dennis’ lawyer, said he confirmed with Chris Vanderveen of 9News that Vanderveen was never shown confidential information.

So, every candidate associated with these policies (all incumbents up for re-election retired) was rejected by voters. The closest of these elections had a ten-point margin. Changing three members of the seven-member board won’t change which bloc controls the majority, but I do hope it makes them question some of these decisions they’re making. The board vote to fire the principal was 6-1, so that would have gone the other way.

The Denver School Board ElectionPost + Comments (48)

Excellent (Infuriating) Read: I Have a Pretty Good Idea Why Michael Oher Is Angry

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When the movie “The Blind Side” came out in 2009, I watched it with fascination because it overlapped with three big parts of my life.

It’s the story of Michael Oher, a young Black athlete who moves in with a white family, the Tuohys, and goes on to play for Ole Miss and in the N.F.L. I grew up in Alabama, where college football is the dominant mode of sports fandom (you’re either an Auburn fan or an Alabama fan, and there are no other options). I was adopted, as Mr. Oher believed himself to have been. And I’m a former equity analyst who’s a fan of Michael Lewis, the author of the book on which the movie was based…

But both the book and the movie tell Mr. Oher’s story in a way that conforms to insidious stereotypes about Black athletes as well as about adoptions of Black kids by white parents. Those stereotypes, and the possibility that there is another very different way to tell his story, are at the center of the lawsuit Mr. Oher recently filed. On its surface, the lawsuit is about money, but beneath that lie profound and troubling questions about what Black Americans are permitted to own and what they are expected to owe.

Mr. Oher, now 37 and retired from the N.F.L., is suing the Tuohys because he claims they misled him to believe that the legal conservatorship they held over him was essentially the same as adoption. He also says they benefited financially from the film, sold his life rights and did not compensate him adequately. Most of all, however, he seems angry at the way he was portrayed by people who purported to care about him — as a poor, unintelligent Black kid who succeeded primarily because he lived with the Tuohys for a year during high school…

It seems that it was particularly important to Mr. Lewis to cast Mr. Oher as intellectually inferior. In an interview in 2007, Mr. Lewis said that Mr. Oher was on the dean’s list at Ole Miss, “which says a lot about the dean’s list at Ole Miss.” He went on to say that big football schools take athletes, “many of whom are from the underclass or Black kids from ghettos around America,” and put them in easy majors to ensure that they can keep their G.P.A.s up. At Ole Miss, he said, “all the poor Black football players are majoring in criminal justice.”

I don’t know if criminal justice is an easy major, but it did not seem to occur to Mr. Lewis that poor Black football players might be interested in it because young Black men are disproportionately targeted by a criminal justice system that is particularly brutal to poor people…

The Tuohys were already wealthy, but “The Blind Side” made them wealthier. They insist that they saw no real money from the film, but they went on to monetize their story via books and appearances. Beyond the money, they benefited in ways that are difficult to explain to anyone who lives outside the Deep South, where college football is practically a religion, good season tickets are a major status symbol, and your preferred college mascot is an acceptable major theme for home décor.

Considering the other Division I schools that showed up to recruit Mr. Oher, Ole Miss wasn’t remotely the best choice for Mr. Oher. But surely it was for the Tuohys. For college football boosters, an association with a star recruit offers a special kind of status, a prestige comparable to owning a small yacht or having been invited to the White House….

An unsympathetic reader might imagine that the Tuohys figure they ‘bought’ a valuable sports animal, the way another couple might buy a promising young Thoroughbred from an obscure Kentucky farm to race in the Derby — and they did it at a real bargain price, too!

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