Former Secretary of Labor @ElaineChao just said on @BloombergTV that workers have “a patriotic duty” to take jobs companies can’t fill. What about an employer’s patriotic duty to provide jobs with decent wages and benefits? (Cricket sounds here.) pic.twitter.com/ndocwpawZX
— Eve Tahmincioglu (@EveAsks) November 8, 2021
Mrs. Mitch McConnell: Patriotic workers will glady chose to service The Glorious State!…
It’s fascinating to see the party of “let the market decide” complain when the market, you know, decides.
— Justin Is Making Vague Guitar Noises in a Corner (@justinmwhitaker) November 9, 2021
"Complicating the job search for the long-term unemployed is the explosion of companies using #Robots to sort through job applicants .. excludes anyone who is not a near perfect fit .. reject candidates who haven’t worked in more than six months .." #AI https://t.co/wkanPkfMUe
— Christina Ayiotis (@christinayiotis) November 8, 2021
Some of the workers quoted in this article will break your heart (and not just because their stories hit close to home):
Even as the United States has a near-record number of job openings and companies complain they can’t find enough workers, some job seekers remain frustrated that they have not been able to get a job despite filling out dozens of applications daily on popular job sites like ZipRecruiter, Indeed, LinkedIn and Craigslist.
American workers are increasingly seeking higher pay, more flexibility, and remote options as they flex their leverage in the current job market, but many companies are not necessarily being more accommodative, continuing to favor candidates with several years of experience in their industry, more availability to work evening or weekend hours, or a preference for those willing to work in-person.
This mismatch in what both sides prioritize is yet another challenge complicating the country’s economic recovery, helping explain weaker hiring in August and September. In many ways, supply and demand forces in the labor market are still out of equilibrium…
Per an economist on twitter:
Two-part answer. The first is that a lot of people have left the workforce in the past few years. Boomers are retiring at a significant rate now – they held a lot of jobs. Add in COVID-19 deaths and you have millions of positions that are suddenly open. https://t.co/NCh508Sa5H
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) November 9, 2021
But suddenly…there isn't. And people can get better jobs than retail (which is designed to suck.) So people do, and retail suddenly has to raise salaries to attract workers. And that leads to a sudden rise in salaries across the board.
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) November 9, 2021
If your wages go up 10% and prices go up 5%, you won. And that's what's happening right now at the middle and low tiers. Not as much for the rich – but the rich will manage.
— Jeff Fecke (@jkfecke) November 9, 2021
True — Elaine Chao will, I suspect, somehow manage to struggle along…
The things people say when they are going to inherit $100,000,000 from their fathers soon. https://t.co/vwesyB9ySd
— Fred Will Not Subscribe To Your Newsletter (@LesserFrederick) November 9, 2021
trollhattan
Fucking Pol Pot wanna be says “Wha?”
JPL
Rather than ask someone how much a gallon of milk cost, maybe ask Mrs. Mitch what child care costs, and for good measure what the hourly wage is. I hold those who decide the true patriots in disregard.
EDIT I’m a fucking patriot and I’m allowed to say I hate her and everything she stands for.
okay that felt good.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and IIRC, Papa has already given you and your siblings a $25M advance on your inheritance, each.
laura
The arrogance, the dehumanization and the demand that you people need to debase yourselves for the convenience of The Aristocrats. Low tumbrel number for Mrs. Turtle.
trollhattan
Nintendo and the long view. Very long.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
What a fucking creep. If only she and her repellent husband would go ahead and die already.
delk
I’m a good patriot by no longer shopping at Mariano’s (Kroger’s) since they appointed her to their board of directors.
VeniceRiley
You couldn’t pay me whatever her inheritance is to sleep with Mitch.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.): in Jane Mayer’s long profile of McConnell of a year or so ago, she said McConnell’s first wife was writing a book about him
Almost Retired
@VeniceRiley: My guess is that you couldn’t pay Elaine to sleep with him either.
Baud
It is their patriotic duty to eat cake.
–Marie Antoinette Chao.
debbie
Is Elaine exempt from her patriotic duty? //
Leto
*Looks around, checks that he’s still in the States* When the fuck did we collectively move to China? Did I miss something? I have a “patriotic duty” to tell them to go fuck themselves. How about you perform some “patriotic” waitressing, or truck driving, or pig shit slinger. FFS I hate these people
Edit: reading about her dad’s company, they’re the largest dry goods shipper in the US and they don’t even order new ships from US shipyards. Someone should ask her, “Isn’t it your patriotic duty to buy American? Why are you ordering Japanese ships? Why aren’t American ships good enough? Isn’t American blood, sweat, and labor not good enough for you?” Again, just hate these people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that’s Hounshell’s typo. The RNCC says, of course, “woke mob”
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Secretary of Forced Labor
Ten Bears
You first comrade …
lowtechcyclist
Looking forward to Ms. Chao leading by example.
Leto
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: State Farm put out a mealy mouth defense of them retaining him for their shit ads. Glad I left them 15 years ago. Shit company then, shit company now.
sab
Back before she was an American Elaine Chao was a rich Taiwanese from a family that fled from China to help set up a fascist ( KMT in Chinese) government in Taiwan. Taiwan has since struggled into having a pretty strurdy democracy, but Elaine Chaos’ family did not help them one little bit. Now they (the Chaos) are sucking up to the Communist government of China because that is better for their business now. They are extremely competent Trumpists. The one redeeming feature of Trump himself was his utter incompetence
ETA Their family business is international shipping. Kind of like the Onassis family only astronomically bigger and more corrupt.
eclare
Asking the hive mind: does anyone have any experience with spam phone call blockers? I get one or two per day, they want to buy my house, sell me a car warranty, etc. The buy my house ones are really annoying, they come from my area code, but the next three digits change every week or so.
I’ve seen something advertised called Robokiller. Any opinions?
DFH
She’s a typical cheap-labor Republican, but clearly untypical due to her husband’s job, and her family’s foreign wealth.
DFH
@Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly, Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.):
I’m rooting for injuries every day.
The Dangerman
I bet if more people did their patriotic duty and had the vaccine or did their patriotic duty and wore masks, more people would go back to work.
The Grating Generation is really getting on my nerves.
Sure Lurkalot
@David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch:
Good one, but she was Secretary of Transportation.
Peale
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So I’m guessing Freedom now means the right to take $2,500 monoclonal antibody treatments as prophylaxes when a $15 vaccine will do the same thing. Plus the right to elevate homeopathy and astrology to medical equality with evidence-based medicine, regardless of what big government says.
MattF
@eclare: I’ve been using Nomorobo. It’s free for VoIP landline phones (e.g., if your phone service comes with your internet connection) and catches about half of the robocalls, making them ring only once. The remaining calls don’t leave a message, so I assume they are also spam.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eclare: what kind of phone? my iPhone 11 has a really effective setting for blocking unknown callers. I have to turn it off from time to time when I know I might be getting some first time caller
ETA: I’ve been getting fishing texts lately. “You’re a winner! click here for your $100 Home Depot gift card!”
dmsilev
Comrades! The success of the latest Five Year Plan depends on your labor! Your efforts in the People’s Fifty Third Tractor Factory of Greater Omsk are necessary!
dmsilev
@Sure Lurkalot: She was SoL during the second-worst GOP administration of the last twenty years. Amazingly, the worst GOP administration managed to find someone even worse than her for SOL, tapping Scalia’s son for the job.
Peale
@The Dangerman: Yep. GOP officials have no moral authority to call on us to come together to work out our issues.
I can think of something that will help our labor shortage! Lets tank the stock market to 10% its current value, forcing retirees with 401(k)s to go looking for work. Somehow, I don’t think Elaine Chao would favor that approach.
eclare
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Samsung S10e through Verizon, if that matters.
eclare
@MattF: Thanks, but cell phone here, no landline.
Kristine
@eclare:
I signed up with Nomorobo for the landline through Xfinity and have been pretty happy. I now get more spam calls on the cellphone even though T-Mobile does their own filtering.
Sometimes, legit calls do get filtered. When a call is filtered, the phone rings once.
MattF
@eclare: They also have a mobile service, but you pay for that.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve won half a million in the PCH sweepstakes. //
mrmoshpotato
What the shit is this?! Fuck you, comrade!
eclare
@MattF: I’ll have to look into that, thanks.
jimmiraybob
And, it should be obvious, parents have a patriotic duty to send their children into the mines again for pennies a day. Bring back coal! MAGA!
Peale
Reminds me that I was talking with a co-worker last week who thinks that Biden needs to call out the national guard to solve the stevedore shortage. Like that’s what the Guard is supposed to be doing. Like its 1880 and dockworkers spend all day putting sacks on their backs and walking down gangplanks. What could possibly go wrong with having a bunch of people crowded together who don’t know how to unload cargo ships?
Sure Lurkalot
@dmsilev: Thanks for the clarification! I guess the 1st worst erased any memories I had of the 2nd.
mrmoshpotato
@jimmiraybob:
Oh, so that’s how that Kremlin-humping, orange fascist was going to bring the coal industry roaring back after generations of slow death.
Kristine
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Getting those in email form. No texts yet.
Kristine
@eclare: I mentioned Nomorobo working with my landline. It’s free for those, but you need a subscription for cellphones ($1.99/mo or $19.99/yr per device).
eclare
@Kristine: Thanks.
RaflW
I know this is crazy talk here in decrepit, late-stage capitalism, but retail jobs don’t actually have to suck. Maybe the worm has turned, but for a long time I’ve heard that Costco doesn’t have nearly as hard a time as other retailers.
I managed a store in a Minneapolis suburb ~25 years ago. It was an alright place to work. But we were dead as a f*king doornail from 10-noon Mon-Thurs (and slow even Fri mornings). I asked the owner one day why we wasted so much money on those dead times. It was an iron clad requirement of the lease. Dang! His costs would have gone down, and my job satisfaction would have risen. But no wiggle room.
The upscale strip mall is still there, but the shop is long gone. I wonder if the leases still require that 10am crap Mo-Sa? Why?
dmsilev
@Sure Lurkalot: It’s amazing, isn’t it? The GWB administration was horrifying on any number of levels, but little did we realize back in 2008 that worse was still to come.
Or, as certain tag lines at certain blogs would put it, peak wingnut is a lie.
Danielx
What the fuck does Elaine Chao know about patriotism or work either one?
Dog Dawg Damn
Seems a lot of the Dems are getting the message that the online woke activist class is more hated than Trump and will cost us elections in the future. I remember everyone here saying “CRT DOESNT EXIST” but guessing y’all are being educated about what the debate actually is about and why we are losing it. First step to remedying it is acknowledging it.
Major Major Major Major
Reminds me of when W told us to Go Shopping!
RaflW
I also still have not forgiven the press for giving the Chao-McConnell relationship a total, scot-free pass for four godforsaken years. The top dog of the GOP Senate doing pillow talk nightly with a cabinet secretary under loose lips Trump.
Absolute information superhighway. Zero probing, questioning, or concern. Our liberal media, everyone!
Central Planning
@Peale: I learned what stevedore means today. Thanks!
david
Nancy SMASH! cozying up with billionaire oil baron families and multi-millionaire celebs? Wonder how much that gig paid? Was her husband there getting more insider trading info? How committed is she to a “green new deal” when she’s this close to the other side? Not a good look.
Danielx
Once again, I question why “fuck those guys” is not a rotating tag line.
Baud
Did the trolls just get out of a team meeting?
Major Major Major Major
Found a new staple recipe
scav
@Baud: They clocked in doing their patriotic duty by working for an unsustaining quantity of stale RNC dog-bisquits.
japa21
@Baud: Looks that way.
delk
@Baud: infrastructure on bridges must have started.
Danielx
@david:
Tbogg explains it much better than I can.
https://mobile.twitter.com/tbogg/status/1036415161102360576
Dorothy A. Winsor
If it’s a patriotic duty to take those jobs, then why hasn’t Chao taken one?
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Of course CRT exists. I read Derrick Bell in my law school jurisprudence class. But no one is teaching even watered down Derrick Bell to third graders. Trying to teach kids to be nice to one another is what Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street have been doing since I was a tot.
Omnes Omnibus
@david:
Sounds like a fun party. Sorry I missed it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Earth Wind and Fire… that sounds really cool, and it’s not even the 21st night of September!
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I actually agree with D3 on this one. Chatted with Betty and Kay about it earlier. Gotta scroll for the whole thing of course https://balloon-juice.com/2021/11/09/its-the-education-stupid/#comment-8338516
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: CRT is explicitly cited as informing the policy of schoolboards in multiple states. You keep saying “it’s not being taught” when in fact, it is. Sure; they aren’t holding graduate level theory seminars in grade school but the ideas behind CRT are explicitly being used to determine curriculum and school policy. That is an objective empirical fact. If you would please acknowledge that instead of gaslighting us …
Relatedly, “CRT” is just a proxy term for the chances being implemented at schools in the name of social justice or equity. So it’s a bit of a straw man that you raise and avoids the actual debate. If you can’t acknowledge that these changes are real; then there is the reason we are losing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: London Breed has endorsed the recall of the SF school board member who wanted to take Lincoln’s name off of schools
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Was that so hard? Of course, a lot of my friends out there think she’s an awful conservative who has no business being mayor.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
There’s always going to be extreme, over the top stuff. It’s fine to call it out, but we’ll be chasing our tail if we respond to every generated controversy that way. Give them an inch, etc.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: ETA: misread your comment. Right, exactly. Say a few sentences and move on. It’s an improvement over saying that CRT isn’t taught in schools when asked about it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Cited by whom?
japa21
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Please provide some concrete examples. Serious request.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
We not disagreeing. But don’t think calling out real crap will be enough.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Major Major Major Major: yup. It’s a while host of things. The change in standards (standardized testing being done away with, now grades). The exorbitant prices spent on divisive DEI consultants. The cultural revolution – esque exercises of forced genuflection required to even participant in the profession anymore. And then the name changes and obsession with casting everyone in a Racial light — even math. It’s not popular! People hate it more than they hate Trump.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Unraveling the philosophy.
Job = “patriotic duty”
Voting = not so much
//
narya
@Major Major Major Major: I subscribe to Sitka Salmon Shares (and they are fabulous)–but they also have a ton of fish recipes on their website.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Pretty much the only response I’ve seen–from twitter activists, most Dem politicians when asked–and obviously I don’t see everything–has been “CRT isn’t taught in schools”, which very obviously doesn’t address the actual substance of the claim and looks like a dodge. The term has a different meaning now for most people. Might as well argue with a dictionary (although I know many of you are fond of that).
People need to take this as seriously as Obama took Reverend Wright–which, if you’ll recall, required all of one speech. Just do slightly better. It’s all I’m suggesting.
Gin & Tonic
@japa21: DNFTT.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Ok, we agree. Sometimes we have to deal with bullshit, and we shouldn’t assume it makes us look weak to do so.
Dog Dawg Damn
@japa21: sure – here is the evidence CRT was explicitly used in Virginia.
https://thenationaldesk.com/news/from-the-desk/documents-reveal-mcauliffe-pushed-virginia-schools-to-teach-critical-race-theory
schrodingers_cat
Have you guys taken the Pew political typology quiz?
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: I guess I don’t have an issue with kids getting told that Black people have gotten the shaft throughout US history. The Black kids know it. Why should the white kids deserve less knowledge? Let’s not even start in on indigenous people….
Major Major Major Major
@Dog Dawg Damn: You’ve just woven a bunch of disparate, low-occurrence phenomena into a tapestry of scary cultural change, quite expertly.
The thing is, folks, each of those pieces is definitely something that is happening.
“We only teach Critical Pedagogy to teachers, who use it for curriculum design–they don’t teach it to students!” is not a very interesting response.
(For the record, I like Freire a lot.)
I would just like to see a sliver of political instincts by us here.
Jeffro
100% (or more, if I’m allowed)
There is a HUGE pushback to be had here, Dems, if you’ll. just. take. it.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic: Had to Google that, but yes.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Dog Dawg Damn: here is a discussion of how CRT has impacted California’s educational standards. (Please read this and explain how this isn’t toxic)
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Bad link.
Central Planning
@Dog Dawg Damn: Page not found.
And always check your sources: The National Desk brings you award-winning local storytelling from Sinclair Broadcast Group’s 70+ newsrooms across the USA and live feeds from throughout the world. I’m sure there is no bias there.
Ruckus
@delk:
I stopped shopping at Ralph’s here in CA when Kroger purchased them. I had more than enough from having to shop at Kroger in OH when I lived there and they were the only market anywhere near me. A new better market opened across the street. A lot better. A lot, lot better. And now that I know they hired Chao I feel even better about my decision. And yes I know, any big grocery store is likely not a lot better but I’ll take what I can get.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Exactly. There are ways to defend yourself that don’t weaken you or your position. There are entire martial arts based on this philosophy :)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Magdi Semrau, known to many here as the tweeter Mangy Jay, argued in the Washington Post today that Biden’s election is proof that Democrats can talk honestly about race and still win.
I would add that ,in this as in all things, Biden talks like a Normie, not a twitter activist or a grad student.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat:
If this is some kind of cat related quiz, I shall be quite cross.
ETA: To no one’s surprise I come out as
Establishment Liberals
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We need more Biden-fu.
Dog Dawg Damn
Kendi’s “Stamped” is being taught in public schools. It accuses Frederick Douglas of being a racist since he’s an assimilationist.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2016/04/15/the-racism-of-good-intentions/
Jeffro
It’s funny…between W and trumpov, it’s so hard to decide which was worse. Huge tax cuts for the rich in both instances. 9/11 and Iraq on W’s watch. Covid (non) response on trumpov’s. But the rank corruption and 1/6 put trumpov over the top (under the bottom?)
Dog Dawg Damn
And of course San Francisco’s school board is run by a crazy person who sued because she was censored for calling Asians “racists”. She compared them to white supremacists and now is suing the school board for 87 million dollars for infringing on her rights. This stuff is out there y’all and we deal with it or we lose.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Click and you will find out.
@Jeffro: Orange T was way worse than Bush II. Bad as Bush was he didn’t put a target on every immigrant’s back.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: Apparently I am a Democratic Mainstay. I sometimes get (on similar tests) Post-Modern/Neo- liberal, due to my support of trade and immigration and nuclear power and such.
schrodingers_cat
@Major Major Major Major: I am an Establishment Liberal
divF
@Major Major Major Major: Progressive Left here. Whatever.
Major Major Major Major
@narya: I will give that a look-see, thanks!
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m a Maine Coon.
Or wait, I took the cat quiz.
JPL
@david: why not.. Nancy has no problem passing laws that tax the wealthy, so I think it is a good look
edit.. I wasn’t wild about the dress though.
Central Planning
@Dog Dawg Damn: So? You clearly haven’t read the review (or Kendi)
Peale
@Dog Dawg Damn: I’m not exactly certain how “we” are supposed to deal with it. Since those tweets were written before she was elected to the school board, it was up to the voters of San Francisco to find them and not elect her in the first place. (Hard for me from 3,000 miles away to research school board candidates in districts where I don’t live).
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh-oh, move over, AOC:
DogDawgDamn
Welp, i really suck at gathering links.
Here goes again:
California CRT
Virginia CRT
Kendi’s Stamped
San Francisco School Board Woke Racism
Apologies for the bad links earlier.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Hmmm, I wonder where you and I diverged.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: How is possibly bad that people be exposed to varying ideas?
DogDawgDamn
@Central Planning: I read the review. It confirms exactly what I claimed, and is even more persuasive since it is a positive review. The review clearly states that Kendi posits Douglass espoused racist beliefs. Read it please.
Jeffro
@zhena gogolia: is one of the categories “quiet fascist”? b/c I would like to let my born-again ‘Rockefeller Republican’ family members (their actual words!) know that they’re not fooling anyone.
Once you go MAGA, you’re MAGA, full stop.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: me too
I was not surprised
and I wanted to rewrite most of the questions and answers for some nuance
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
@zhena gogolia:
Just took the quiz, and I also scored as Progressive Left. I dare say quite a few Jackals would be PL or PL-adjacent.
debbie
I’ve missed most of the posts about CRT, but isn’t the problem that the Right has twisted CRT so that it includes Toni Morrison and other AA authors, and shouldn’t the response be to call them out on that distortion?
Central Planning
@schrodingers_cat: +1 for progressive left. BJ must represent almost 6% of the population.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, I had trouble with the question about trade. It was such a blunt instrument.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Peale: we deal with it by not electing these people. By denouncing them. If you can’t tell who among us will be a “woke racist” then look to those who can.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: I’m a ‘Democratic Mainstay’
Not sure how that differs from ‘Establishment Liberal’?
Let’s just bring back highly progressive taxation in this country and let good things happen!
MagdaInBlack
@zhena gogolia: Yes, me too, Look out, here we come !
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: It was, but I squared the circle by thinking that, if I need to decide between isolationist and internationalist, I side with the latter.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Here is a Forbes article about US shipbuilding.
Written this year, it notes that less than 10 ocean going freight ships are built in the US per year. Forbes tries to make it about the government not doing enough but it is Forbes prime focus group, the money grubbers than tell the story of US shipbuilding, along with the fact that we actually make an attempt to control the quality of the ships we do build and the cost of labor, materials and locations of adequate harbor facilities to actually build those ships in. To build those container ships you need building facilities and labor at the harbors and that property is more valuable if those large land usage concerns are removed from our harbor areas. A number of our naval bases have been closed in the last 30-50 yrs and along with that a lot of our ship building. And China decided a few decades ago that actually being a modern, industrialized nation would be in their interest, while many of our economic geniuses decided that making money with and from having money and selling stuff to 330 million people that was made where it was cheaper was first priority.
CarolPW
@schrodingers_cat: Progressive left – seems we are the most open to legal and illegal immigrants. I’m quite old for the group though.
Dog Dawg Damn
@debbie: I mean the Toni Morrison thing was stupid and McAuliffe had a great opportunity to turn the tables but he fumbled it. He could have pointed out that the child in question is now a general counsel and quite wealthy. Could have mocked Youngkin for not appreciating classics of American history. Etc. instead he said parents shouldn’t have a say in their childrens education. Just impossibly bad optics for him to say that but he did.
Central Planning
@DogDawgDamn: Kendi posits everyone has racist beliefs, so to call out someone (even Douglass) for that is not a BFD.
Baud
Now I’m curious about the distinction between a Democratic Mainstay and an Establishment Liberal.
CarolPW
@SiubhanDuinne: Click the link on the site Read More About Progressive Left. We are both way above the general age of the group. Some of the other stuff where I don’t fit into the general group (and I suspect you wouldn’t either) is interesting.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie:
That’s exactly it. The narrow graduate school version isn’t being taught, and the idea that anything that might make the most sensitive white person blush is anathema is clearly bullshit. There is room for debate on how much should be taught when, but kids can either learn in the classroom or from their parents’ Public Enemy and NWA albums.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Central Planning: fine. I don’t think we should be teaching that in public schools.
Ruckus
@eclare:
I only have a cell phone which I set to not allow any phone call to ring unless they are in my address book. If someone calls that I actually need to speak to I call them back after checking their number online and/or their website if they tell me who they are. I also block any number if it isn’t important or a what I see as a shit call. Which you call spam. Spam, Shit, same difference.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Why not? What should we be teaching?
Peale
@Baud: I’m not sure how they made a lot of the distinctions between the two. I’m going to guess that in the survey alchemy, they were timing how long it took you to answer. If you immediately answered “this country sucks. other countries are better” immediately, you got “progressive”. If you responded “some places are better, but its still pretty good here”, you got mainstay. If you spent 2 minutes going “well, actually….” before responding and talked yourself into a contrarian position, you got “Establishment Liberal”.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Progressive left. I have a hard time taking those quizzes as I often think, “Who the Fuck picks THAT answer.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus:
Fried spam makes a better breakfast food or so I would suspect. Maybe you navy guys know different.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: it’s a non-falsifiable assertion that is almost religious in nature. It’s akin to original sin. The science is still out on the issue. It’s extremely inflammatory. Why on earth would we teach it? It’s not even something sociologists and anthropologists agree is true. But worse; it’s not falsifiable.
to answer your question — it’s not necessary to teach exactly what percentage of Americans are racist. Much less claim that Frederick Douglas is a racist.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
Nice, the all purpose response to conservative assholes.
Major Major Major Major
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I get annoyed by questions like “most businesses pay the right amount of taxes” since that is absolutely true, the majority of incorporated businesses pay the right amount of taxes. But I also know what the question “really” means…
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: Maybe they could use my high school American history textbook, in which my 95% Black classmates and I had to read about carpetbaggers and unqualified Black legislators being put into office by damn Yankees during Reconstruction. Maybe that would be good enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Most stuff in the Humanities and Social Sciences is not falsifiable. Should we just eliminate those subject areas?
ETA: Is there a procedure by which we could prove Jude the Obscure?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Spam that arrives by phone, email or snail mail is shit.
Spam in a can is the common man’s all purpose breakfast whatever the hell it is. Therefore I like it with eggs.
schrodingers_cat
If you took the quiz, vote in my unscientific Twitter poll.
Peale
@zhena gogolia: Chapter 17 – Reconstruction and how those corrupt Afrian Americans ruined their chances by being corrupt and demonstrated that they weren’t ready for democracy.
Chapter 18: Urbanization, industrialization, the rise of political machines and all those Grant Administration scandals, which totally weren’t like that other kind of corruption we wrote about in chapter 17. Just section that off.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat:
Done.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: I think the humanities in elementary school should steer clear of avant garde social theory. Call me crazy.
Btw, you’ve gone from “this is all made up” to “actually, teaching children that Frederick Douglas was racist is good!!” Remarkable.
Lyrebird
Sorry this doesn’t have the link but it’s traceable…
and such good news if true!!!
#JoeMamaDrumDrumDrumDrumDrumDrum Retweeted
Kim Mangone
@KimMangone
·
4h
BREAKING: The January 6 Committee issued subpoenas to former Trump officials: including Kayleigh McEnany and Stephen Miller.
Retweet if you think this is a GREAT first step!
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
@eclare:
I should have said I have an iPhone which allows me to do that, I’d bet any Android phone would do something similar.
With the iPhone I can block any number and can set the ringer to only sound when the number calling is in my phonebook. Blocking takes a while before they stop calling at all but their computerized dialing systems seem to take into account any number that never answers, and stop calling after a short while.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks fellow Establishment Liberal.
Dog Dawg Damn
@schrodingers_cat: I too am an Establishment Shill! My peeps.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Nope. People aren’t teaching CRT to kids. And a lot of what people are calling CRT and crying about is stuff that is quite educational.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Lyrebird: Bennie Thompson is on the Hayes program talking about the investigation now
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: Man, you keep conflating has racist beliefs and is a racist. They’re not the same thing.
You’re going to be very hard pressed to find any individual who doesn’t have some racist beliefs because we’re not separated and apart from our societies and our societies embed racism in structural ways. Some of them are more overt than others. What makes a person a racist is far more driven by their individual behaviors, especially relative to their peers, and not what beliefs they may or may not harbor.
Lincoln saw blacks as inherently inferior to whites, and also ended slavery. On net, moved us far closer to equality. But thinking that shipping all the black people back to an Africa that many of them had never been to was some kind of solution is still rooted in deeply racist beliefs. This is not a contradiction or a problem. People are imperfect and social values shift with the culture.
That you keep making this basic error is exactly why having conversations on these topics is important.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Quiz blew up on me. Sigh.
Ruckus
@Danielx:
That is the correct answer and I thought that was where you were sending him. Always nice to read that once in a while.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: you’re back to the Motte. Or is it the Bailey? Regardless you’re back in the defensive semantically correct position that cedes the argument to others.
It’s best if you understand that CRT is a proxy for social justice & equity demagoguery, defund the police, being pro-riots, eliminating grades and standards, doing away with accelerated programs for high aptitude children—a whole host of things that are real and the voters just lump in under the banner CRT because Fox News told them to.
Matt McIrvin
I broke the quiz!
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: of course you’re right about all this. I’m making a pragmatic argument about electoral strategy.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
You are unclassifiable?
Baud
@Lyrebird:
How is that a first step?
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: I’m not sure any of those items on your list is a position held by any mainstream Democrat. Even fewer elected Democrats. Grade and standards abolishment is generally not happening on anything resembling a national level, no one is pushing for it to be inside the Democratic party, and it’s certainly not happening in the districts that are voting Republican.
So even if we allow CRT to be broadened to that extent, it’s still not being taught in schools. These are made up issues. And sure finding a better way of countering the rhetoric is important, but this shit is still entirely made up as a going concern
Like, ffs, anarchists and white supremacists are the only people who are pro-riot. There isn’t anyone in the Democratic party. We have no control over those groups
It’s like trying to argue that if there’s even one child kidnapping Satanist in the world then all of these stories about child kidnapping Satanists should be taken seriously, because it’s a real thing.
Peale
@Dog Dawg Damn: O.K. Things have changed since I was in school, and the type of elementary school education on those topics just is going to be met with pushback, and rightfully so. I don’t know where you went to school, but we certainly did have Wisconsin State History in the curriculum in the 5th grade. Pretending it was innocent…LOL. A long time ago, there were native tribes in the state, then one day Jacques Marquette arrived in Green Bay and shot a pistol in the air, and all the natives were awestruck. Something, something, Black Hawk War, and all the natives were gone. Then the Germans, Scandinavians and Poles and whatnot showed up which gave us our distinctive Wisconsin culture.
O.K. there are reservations in Wisconsin. They’ve always been there. And they kind of didn’t mention all those African Americans moving to Milwaukee. I guess since they came later than the Germans, they weren’t “settlers” or “pioneers” so not really part of the tapestry of the state. (Quilt being the theme of the textbook).
Not sure how you’d go about teaching something else, but it certainly isn’t tenable.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: standardized testing abolition for college admissions has already happened.
California is doing away with accelerated learning paths.
People are very upset about this; particular Asian Americans who feel that whites are doing away with these things the minute their children can outcompete.
This is all easily available information and people are talking about it everywhere I go. Why are you not aware of this ?
frosty
@schrodingers_cat: I just tried, quiz is broken. It won’t accept my last submission. Oh well.
ETA @Matt McIrvin: So you’re to blame!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: So your argument is really that Democrats are too woke? FFS, CRT and woke are like neoliberal. They have simply become a stand in for something someone doesn’t like.
As a far as education goes, I think it is important for people to be exposed to wide varieties of ideas and to learn critical thinking. That process should start when kids are quite young. We also shouldn’t teach them bullshit that they later need to unlearn like how good Blacks had it under slavery, etc. A better educated populace means a better electorate. A better electorate means the good guys win.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Peale: I went to school a long time ago at a fundamentalist Christian academy so not sure it’s pertinent.
Omnes Omnibus
We are just bad people I guess.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: Colleges decided to do that themselves for entirely pragmatic reasons and it wasn’t driven by democratic politicians. And why the ever loving fuck should residents of rural VA give a shit about what’s happening in CA when no one in VA is proposing doing anything similar?
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: yes I think democrats are too woke.
Barack Obama **himself** has said Democrats are too woke. It’s pure tribalism around here but if you won’t listen to me, then listen to him!
Central Planning
Huh. I didn’t realize there were two DDD nyms to pie.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: again I think you’re missing the forest for the trees. We live in a very fluid globalized world. Things get distorted on social media etc.
it is a fact, though, that test scores have dramatically decreased during the pandemic. A significant dramatic drop across the board. Really stunning when you look at the data. And people are upset about it! “CRT” is the overblown boogie man they can blame. And yes it’s way overblown. I’m just dealing in reality though. If you don’t understand why we are now less trusted on education than the GQP, then this is a start.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Okay, which part of the Democratic coalition should we tell to go fuck themselves so that we seem less woke?
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: Colleges decided to do that themselves for entirely pragmatic reasons and it wasn’t driven by democratic politicians. And why the ever loving fuck should residents of rural VA give a shit about what’s happening in CA when no one in VA is proposing doing anything similar?
And like, I don’t live in CA. I don’t give a shit what y’all do over there. That’s up to the people living there to decide. There’s no national movement here.
gwangung
@Dog Dawg Damn: Oh, you’re the moron who doesn’t understand why things are happening and are insisting that bad things keep being done to fight the right.
That’s about 10% right, 10% full of crap and 80% on insisting the worst way of going about it.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: the hyper woke that turn on us anyway. Listen to Obama and Carville.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: We have no agency with respect to the decision making of colleges here. We can talk about how bad the pandemic has been on education outcomes but that’s about it.
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin:
Correct me if I’m wrong–haven’t read this stuff since college–but there’s definitely a line of thought that “unless you’re actively anti-racist, you’re racist”, and Kendi is a proponent of this.
Dog Dawg Damn
@gwangung: thanks for calling me a moron. Really makes your point. I’ve posted here for coming up on 10 years.
schrodingers_cat
@frosty: It was also covered on the Snooze Hour, its probably getting more traffic than the site can handle.
brendancalling
One of the reasons I got certified to teach was because the robots kept sifting me out. I had an easier time getting stagehand work over writing at one point.
Ksmiami
@JPL: as a fellow graduate of her college, double fuck Elaine Chao
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: it’s not about changing that particular outcome. It’s about signaling that you would. Do republicans care that they can’t stop video games or porn or whatever? No? They actually signal on it regardless.
dems need to Sister Souljah the radical woke and signal that they aren’t crazy like them. That’s all. They don’t even have to do much else.
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: Even under that definition, actively anti racist people are likely to have racist beliefs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: I also wouldn’t be surprised if colleges were aware of the things that have happened over the past couple of years to all students and taken it into account during admissions.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: when everyone is racist, no one is racist. It’s a bad posture to take.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: We don’t have the same base. Making clearly delusional appeals about things we can’t affect does not help us with democratic voters the way that it helps the right with their base.
We can’t just lie to people and expect that to help.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: it helps with independents who just elected a GOP trifecta in liberal Virginia. Keep on doing what y’all are doing. It really seems to be working out.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: No one is taking that posture.
gwangung
@Dog Dawg Damn: And acting like a moron equally makes your point.
You are point blank asking us to knife segments of the population (for dubious reasons) to retain power, just like Republicans. That’s the bullshit part of your postings.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: Isn’t that what Kendi argues? Am I going crazy or isn’t that what was said up above ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
what percentage of Northam>>Biden>>Youngkin voters read Balloon Juice comment threads? We need to know.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: If it comes at the cost of base voters we still lose, and uh. No they didn’t. The state senate is still in democratic hands.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: So you are floofy not fat!
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn: Ah yes, let’s make big sweeping judgments base on an election that was decided by 2% and fit a historical pattern. I am sure that will not lead to overreacting in any way. Not at all.
Dog Dawg Damn
@gwangung: I’m saying that we should denounce the woke authoritarian illiberal wing of the party in order to shore up the independents and moderates. That’s politics. Btw, people of color hate the woke shit. The polling in it is terrible. “BIPOC”, “Latinx”; etc. these terms are turning off working class voters of color. We are LOSING vote share amongst these groups and you think the messaging doesn’t need to be adjusted ???
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Oh my I never would have guessed.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: Baud can be both. Baud defies classification.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: oh that’s good to know. Phew. I stand corrected.
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: yes, for sure, I’m just saying that the line between belief and action is blurrier when we’re also calling inaction an expression of racism. Like, to use the classic example, running a colorblind college admissions department would be racism under that rubric.
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I doubt any Youngkin voters read Balloon Juice.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: There is no woke illiberal authoritarian wing of the party! @#$&
The people holding those positions are not part of the damn party.
Peale
@Dog Dawg Damn: Number of Students taking SAT by Year
2018 school year: 2.1 million
2019 school year: 2.2 million
2020 school year: 2.2 million
2021 school year: 1.5 million
California didn’t cancel the damn test because they were so interested in equality. They cancelled the test because fewer students were able to take the test during the pandemic. The whole university admissions process is going to have to be rethunk because of COVID because academics know there was a disruption and that many students will have fallen behind. They said so when they temporarily suspended the test for 4 years as they work out what to do about incoming freshmen classes that are 2 years behind.
When New York City suspended its Gifted and Talented program it replaced it with a broader program. I was also initially skeptical of that, because I only heard about it for 30 seconds on 1010 WINS radio while driving around. However, once I read about it, yeah, I agree with that change. The old program was in fact too limited and served too few students and started too early. Seriously, it started in Kindergarten. Lordy. I am ambivalent about tracking and need to read the studies on it, but I’m pretty sure testing 4 year olds for tracking is a bit too early.
Dog Dawg Damn
@gwangung: I don’t see how denouncing woke overreach is knifing people. I don’t see that. Barack Obama happens to agree with me so I doubt what I’m suggesting is all that bad.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Peale: good stuff. Cancelling gifted programs in California is different though. My co-workers in California are livid.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: You are not reading what is being said correctly.
gwangung
@Dog Dawg Damn: As a person of color, don’t lecture me.
It shows you don’t know shit about about what you’re raving about.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: okay.
really great podcast series in this topic by Matt Yglesias: https://www.slowboring.com/p/critical-race-theory-and-actual-education-f81
Dog Dawg Damn
@gwangung: I’m not sure what your skin color has to do with it. You came in here using ableist language against me. I’ve been polite and listened to everyone else. Now you want to play the race card? Again, take it up with Obama.
if you’re so inclined; here’s Matt’s write up in the topic:
https://www.slowboring.com/p/critical-race-theory-and-actual-education
Kay
The polling on schools doesn’t align with people being really upset about them:
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: To be fair I think it’s kind of stupid to label people as racist when racism is a behavior not a quality. People do racism. Arguing over whether so and so is a racist is kind of pointless. It’s better to focus on how what they’re doing is bad rather than on whether they’re bad for doing it. And when you take that away a lot of these seeming contradictions go away too. People will do a mix of neutral, racist and anti-racist actions. You can call out or celebrate those as appropriate.
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: there are absolutely illiberal and authoritarian democrats. It would be weird if there weren’t.
gwangung
@Dog Dawg Damn: You’re white splaining me to my face about Asian Americans and the various communities of color and you say you’re not sure what my skin color has to do with it?
Listen to yourself. You’re burying whatever points you had in tons of arrogance and bullshit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Peale: I was missed in the G&T picking early because I was very young for my class and then was bored through the beginning of 4th grade when a teacher who was unsure where to place me gave me a test. I was the only student who had ever maxed it. It turned out that when I read I basically turn the words into a movie in my head. Until late in third grade, I couldn’t read fast enough to make the movie appear. I preferred having someone read to me. Once I hit that critical level, things were almost exponential. Tracking too early would have hurt me.
debbie
@Kay:
We have some people here doing the same thing, apparently.
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: They are not part of the party apparatus though. Which is rather necessary to be considered a wing of the party, to my mind. If we even have any national dems that those labels would apply to they are so few in number as to have no operational power inside the party.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat: I came out “Progressive Left” on that typology quiz and I’ll bet 90%+ of Juicers will too: The most salient opinions for differentiating me from the average American, and thus likely driving my group assignment, are:
It would be OK if another country became comparably militarily powerful to the US.
There are other countries that are better than the US.
Greater social acceptance of transgender would be good for society.
Overall, people who are convicted of crime spend too much time in jail.
I’ll wager the vast majority of Juicers share at least three of those opinions with me, and would get assigned to Progressive Left as well.
Dog Dawg Damn
@gwangung: should I point you to Asian Americans voicing these criticism or are you comfortable speaking for everyone who shares your background and shutting down conversation on the topic?
Yeah, your skin color is irrelevant.
You use ableist slurs and now want to represent a billion people who look like you. That’s some nerve.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Matt Y is so not an expert on this.
lowtechcyclist
@Dog Dawg Damn:
I’m the father of a ninth-grader. None of this is happening here (except possibly the DEI consultants, since I have no idea what (Opus?) DEI is.
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: yeah for sure. This is not an easy topic to discuss at scale lol. And way too many academics and journalists have books and substacks to sell you, which does not always lend itself to great discourse.
Kay
@debbie:
Well, I was one but I’ll be thrilled if I’m wrong. I really, really don’t want Republicans running public school policy. The fact is they don’t support public schools. It won’t go well.
Eolirin
@lowtechcyclist: Diversity, Equality, Inclusion.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: yeah…but he’s far from the only one. Steve pinker, Martha Nussbaum, Brian leiter, Barack Obama…I could go on. At some point you recognize that there’s an issue that needs to be addressed or you keep losing on it.
Central Planning
@lowtechcyclist: Diversity, Equality, Inclusion.
I don’t know if those consultants are overpriced or not since I haven’t seen any uproar about them.
Kay
@debbie:
This was just polling on covid and schools. I suppose they could still be really mad about schools on other things :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: It strikes me as similar to those surveys of Congress that say that Congress suck but their own Rep is decent.
The Pale Scot
@MattF:
How do they make money? If you’re not paying you’re the produce.
It would be interesting to use a VPN and see if it worked.
Ph line. That’s better than reading your mail.
And it’b interesting to see if they’re recording voices. ’cause they are, there’s no other way for “QC”
The boilerplate must be interesting
Dog Dawg Damn
@Kay: but it does look good. Things change fast though.
Omnes Omnibus
Hey, is my undergrad too woke for doing this?
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: at a political apparatus level it mostly shows up in cities and other small scale venues that are more easily captured. There’s also some disagreement about terms that always comes up here. What is ‘liberal’? Open borders? Protectionism to support unions? Protecting the right to free speech? Restricting rights I hate like gun ownership? It’s an overloaded term claimed by libertarians, classical liberals, neoliberals…
Getting kind of annoying, sorry. I’ll stop.
Eolirin
@Dog Dawg Damn: I respect Obama a lot, but he can and has had very wrong takes on things too. Obama says so is not a compelling argument for anything. And I’m not saying our messaging doesn’t need a lot of work.
But I don’t agree with the direction you seem to think we should take on that front. And I don’t find a lot of the base premises you seem to be building your argument on to be particularly compelling.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Except Congress gets horrendous generic grades and public schools usually hold up pretty well, despite how often they’re attacked. Teachers poll really well on “trust” too and have as long as I’ve been reading polls. They’re up there with nurses.
Teachers are way more popular than the politicians that attack them, really :)
phdesmond
Rachel just played a hilarious parody political ad for the Freedom to Vote Act. the product being pushed, FTVA, successfully treats electile disorder.
Fair Economist
@Dog Dawg Damn:
What “woke authoritarian illiberal wing”? For one thing, “woke” is opposed to authoritarian and illiberal, insofar as it means anything anymore. It’s all about pluralism and a fair shake and a voice for everybody.
For another, I’ve never had the opportunity to vote for an authoritarian illiberal Democrat, ever, nor can I think of even one in a substantive position in the party. There is no authoritarian illiberal wing to denounce.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: that’s a cool project and I should hope not!
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: I mean, “wing of the party” is not a few local officials or a couple of cities as far as I’m concerned. It’s a part of the governing coalition.
Anyone can call themselves a Democrat. Hell, all of the state Supreme Court justices in my area were running as both Democrats and Republicans/Conservatives this election. But to qualify as a wing of the party you need organizational pull with the party, not just to appropriate the name. Where are these people? Totalitarian and Authoritarian were parts of that phrase.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@phdesmond: Electile dysfunction
debbie
@Dog Dawg Damn:
McAuliffe lost that election because of his strategy. I hope every other Democrat running for office was paying attention. Skip trying to turn your opponent into Trump and instead do what Democrats have always done: Campaign on the programs and things you want to do for your community. And if you can’t dance, just don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
I picture it like this.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Fair Economist: you might check out the book “Woke Racism” on the topic.
I am not the only one voicing this idea. Many stalwarts of liberalism are sounding the alarm. Martha Nussbaum is another. The fact you don’t even know what I’m referring to is troubling. Woke illiberalism seeks too silence dissent. It centers identity above truth. (“You are whites planning!”). It is deeply illiberal and not a fan of free speech but rather a set or mantras and shibboleths to communicate woke status (Latinx, BIPOC, etc). This isn’t just a right wing fever dream. I’m an establishment democrat. This is something that is happening in the country right now. Maybe not where you are, but it is happening.
Cameron
Gosh. I never realized ‘retromingent wanker’ was a political category until I took that Pew quiz.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: this video explains woke racism quite well
https://youtu.be/Ev373c7wSRg
Major Major Major Major
@Eolirin: they’re very much sidelined once you reach the scale where people pay attention, yes, although sometimes those same people will ride coattails to minor appointments. Where they generally are unable to do anything. But vigilance is good.
debbie
@Kay:
They’re Grover Norquist-ing public education. Rip it apart until it dies a horrible death.
I was happy to see most of the school board incumbents won reelection instead of the newbie lunatics. All that money Jane Timken pissed away is icing on the cake!
Dog Dawg Damn
@Eolirin: Robin DiAngelo spoke to the democratic caucus recently. That happened. There is definitely a woke wing. Also, I keep seeing “it doesn’t exist” and “it’s good actually”….both cannot be true.
edit: off to bed. Thanks for engaging. I respect everyone here very much. Cheers.
Fair Economist
Oh, incidentally, my radio station, KUSC (classical) has gone all “woke” by deliberately emphasizing African-American composers, who have generally been neglected. And I LOVE it. I am a modern, with modern tastes, but I generally despise the movement to atonality in modern classical music. These composers are mostly very late Romantic to modern day, but for the most part they stayed tonal, producing exactly the kind of music I most like. The frequent references to spirituals and other African-American music traditions also appeals to my scalywag Southern heart – as much as Southern Whites hate to admit it, African-American culture is heavily influential in Southern culture. That so many of their works have been lost speaks to how profoundly f*cked up American culture was in the first 2/3ds of the twentieth century. It’s delusional to say a screwup of that magnitude has just disappeared.
debbie
@Kay:
It seems to me they’re mostly mad about the pandemic closings. I don’t see how that could have been avoided. Dead teachers wouldn’t have been able to teach their kids.
Major Major Major Major
I wish I had something to give y’all another thread about lol
Fair Economist
@Dog Dawg Damn: I don’t care about nutpicking. Illiberal authoritarians have ZERO influence in the Democratic Party. Do some exist if you go looking? Sure, and they’re as irrelevant to American politics as Maoist revolutionaries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie: McAuliffe was also up against a smooth fraud. Youngkin didn’t spook the horses. And he successfully kept his more trumpian campaigning low-profile, on the internet, and campaigned, as Obama observed, the friendly neighbor in a fleece vest on his TV ads. Also I believe the state party (ahem) rigged the nomination process so he wouldn’t have to get trumpy and make self-owning oppo videos for the general.
II believe you’re in Ohio? so you would know better than I, but I don’t think Mandel or Vance can pull that off. Sununu I’m guessing could have, but (I’m guessing again) he didn’t want to go through a trumpy primary (I’m betting his father would have relished it, and gone all in). We’ll see what the R primaries cough up in NC, GA and AZ.
Speaking of AZ, this is yet another Thiel acolyte running for the R nomination in AZ. I think I read McConnell is trying to recruit the governor (Ducey?) to make a Youngkinian campaign
Kay
@debbie:
Our incumbents won too. There were two insurgent candidates- they both lost. I worked the polls. One sort of vehement voter (make me think “Trumpster”) asked me which of the two for one seat currently held the seat and I told her I’m not allowed to talk about the candidates :)
I don’t know if it’s true but it sounds right. I said it very firmly, like it’s obvious.
Eolirin
@Major Major Major Major: Sure. Vigilance is definitely important. I’m just not sure who we’re supposed to be denouncing that anyone will have heard of. Feels like making a big fuss about stuff that no one is actually paying attention to would be an own goal.
oldgold
Source: CNN
A federal judge will allow the US House to access hundreds of pages of documents from Donald Trump’s presidency leading up to and about the January 6 attack at the US Capitol, in a forceful rejection of Trump’s recent attempts to control information from his White House.
The ruling from Judge Tanya Chutkan of the US District Court in DC is a blow to Trump’s efforts to keep more than 700 pages of records from his White House secret — and the decision is likely to be appealed by his legal team.
Yet now, the National Archives remains on track to turn over to the House on Friday White House call logs, video logs and schedules related to January 6 as well as three pages of handwritten notes from Trump’s then-chief of staff.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat:
Done! And the site saved my answers to show that I am …
Progressive Left!
WTF? No, I don’t like leaders that identify as Democratic Socialists. For one, it’s a stupid name and gives the Rs a target. Why the hell didn’t they use Social Democrats like all the European parties? Idiocy!
James E Powell
I’m an Establishment Liberal. Based on what I read back when I was on twitter, that means I – along with 13% of other Americans – am responsible for everything bad in America.
Poe Larity
Biden should just empty the jails and let them fill all the McDonalds jerbs as long as they’re wearing ankle monitors.
Even the mayor wants the school board out:
So what part of “as California goes…” is going to infest America? Boards quotaizing Asians or their recalls?
James E Powell
@frosty:
Are you sure that the Republicans would not consider Social Democrats to be a target just as good as Democratic Socialists?
frosty
@zhena gogolia:
I think for me it was deciding the government should be bigger and providing more services instead of just a little better than now.
I must have disappointed them when I said the US should remain the only military superpower. Those other guys are crazy! (wait, so are we)
Peale
@Omnes Omnibus: I got tapped for G&T in grade 4. In the “Language Arts” track. Got on PBS when they came to film our class. Thinking back on it, they were basically showing us muffing our assignment. But we were cute. Were told to try to convince someone to move to Alaska or Massachusetts. We had Alaska. We were supposed to go to the almanac and look up the facts about both places and come up with an argument based on facts. We decided it was hopeless so we just went with intangibles and made it up. “We think you should move here because the people are nice.” What we were supposed to find out is that Juneau Alaska has a nicer climate and highlight the outdoors.
I shouldn’t have really been in there, but my dad was a teacher at another school and my mom wanted me in. In general I enjoyed it, but the kind of enrichment activities we did weren’t actually very rigorous and these programs weren’t accountable for results.
frosty
@James E Powell:
Sure, they’d be just as good a target. But they’d have to stop and think, and maybe count on their fingers, to figure out that Social and Socialist are the same thing.
Omnes Omnibus
@frosty: I think Democratic Socialists see themselves as a tick or two to the left of Social Democrats. Not snarking.
Omnes Omnibus
@James E Powell: Welcome to the club. Maybe we should have someone knock out a tie for us.
Fair Economist
@James E Powell: Any guess what might have steered your assignment to Establishment Liberal as opposed to Progressive Left?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Where do Social Democratic Socialists fall?
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Mandel and Vance could never pull it off. Like that scorpion ? in the fable, it’s just their nature.
PIGL
@Dog Dawg Damn:
@Dog Dawg Damn:
j
@Dog Dawg Damn:
@Dog Dawg Damn:
lo, a troll attempting subtlety. I’m sure you only want what’s best for our party.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@oldgold:
I wonder how long he can drag it out. I assume, if he can, he’ll take it all the way to the USSC
Eolirin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well if he doesn’t manage to get an injunction, he’s got until Friday. We’ll see how that goes.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The DC circuit can probably move within a week or two. If he loses there, then it depends whether the Supremes will throw him a lifeline. If not, then it should be over in month. If they do, then probably several months.
gwangung
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He’s hoping until after the 2022 elections, when he’s hoping for a change in the House.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist:
I did not see other countries a better than the US. I wasn’t for burning down and starting over. I was okay with the US remaining the only superpower. I gave Dems a 90 and the GOP a 0. One would have like more nuance in the some of the questions and answers, but I went with general inclination when in doubt (hey, other countries can suck too).
I would bet that I answered virtually ever other question just as everyone else here.
frosty
@Fair Economist: I ended up PL while only agreeing with
12 of your 4. Interesting.ETA re-read your post a little closer this time
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: They hung out at the bar where AOC used to work. Duh.
Fair Economist
@debbie: Vance *did* used to pull off the “reasonable thoughtful conservative” act with his “Hillbilly Elegy” book. Quite a few actual “thoughtful conservatives” got fooled by his act, and Ron Howard even made a movie of it!
Maybe not now after the self-immolation and obeisance to Trump; he’s left too many tracks. But he did have it in him in the past.
Eolirin
@PIGL: I don’t think they’re a troll to be honest. Just someone living in a really specific kind of bubble where extremely fringe positions are actually relevant.
Availability and confirmation bias do the rest
We’re all subject to this, so I think it’s best not to judge too much.
James E Powell
@Fair Economist:
This could be a straight line for any number of snide remarks. But the honest answer is I have no idea.
debbie
@Fair Economist:
Was he faking it then, or is he faking it now? ??♀️
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fair Economist: he was never-trump-ish for much of 2017, IIRC. I think like a lot of R’s, he thought trump would implode.
So did I.
Eolirin
@Baud: If they don’t order an injunction won’t the files get handed over this week at which point it’ll be kind of too late for any of this to matter? Or would congress have to give it back?
Gin & Tonic
@Major Major Major Major: Sometimes the boss man would just say “open thread” and give no content.
Fair Economist
@Omnes Omnibus: I could see those two questions about American military supremacy and America as not the best country as being key to separating Progressive Left from Establishment Liberal. Also possibly the intensity of anti-racist sentiment, although my answers there were (surprisingly?) not quite as unusual.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: D3, as they stated, has been coming here for a while. I tend to disagree with them a lot (make of that what you will), but I would not call them a troll. Now, the dude who tried the Nancy Pelosi was at a party with Anya Taylor-Joy thing, that was an attempted troll.
frosty
@Omnes Omnibus: Aha! I only gave the Dems an 80 while giving the Repubs a 0. That’s why I’m a PL. I guess. Who knows?
Soprano2
@Dog Dawg Damn: This is just like the “On Point” discussion I heard this morning – are you Ruy Texaria? Even if “Democrats” (not sure exactly which ones you’re talking about) did what you seem to want by strongly denouncing CRT and promising nothing “controversial” about race would ever be taught in any public school ever again (meaning stuff that makes white people uncomfortable), Republicans would just go on Fox and lie about it anyway. I agree that we need to take this issue seriously even though it’s ginned-up bullshit, but accepting Republican framing of the problem isn’t helpful. Haven’t you noticed that almost no elected Democrats have embraced that dumb “defund the police” idea, yet Republicans and Fox still say they do? Any discussion of how to address this that doesn’t talk about the huge Republican messaging apparatus isn’t that helpful.
I’m also not sold on the idea that there are things we shouldn’t teach in public schools at all. A lot depends on the grade level. Should 1st graders learn about Kendi? Probably not. What about 12th graders – they can’t even have a pro/con discussion about his ideas? That seems wrong to me.
Lyrebird
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Thanks. I am hoping those wheels of justice keep on grinding. Rep Thompson does not seem to be someone who can be easily distracted.
@Baud: you’re right as usual. but I was too pleased to see the news to quibble much with Mangone’s wording. She is someone who had the guts to run against McCarthy.
Anyhow, having McEnany see any consequences at all from her constant lying would be a good first step, not first step for the committee as a whole of course.
Lyrebird
@Omnes Omnibus:
I couldn’t tell if it was an attempt to troll for real or some Doug J wannabe. Figured it was tongue in cheek. I mean, the haters tried to get on Pelosi’s case about her having a good stock of ice cream for f’s sake. That wedding sounds awesome.
Fair Economist
@debbie:
Por que no los dos? Seriously, fascist types will say anything to get into power. Vance has been close to Peter Thiel, who is an unapologetic Dark Enlightenment fascist, since he was in college. I strongly suspect both Vance’s past “classical liberal” views and his current Trumpist views are both faked to gain the support of those groups for political ends. He switched once Trump made it clear there are few genuine classical liberals in the US.
debbie
@Soprano2:
I am beginning to really hate that program. I had to change stations she was ticking me off so much.
Soprano2
@debbie: The Obama guys interviewed Danica Rohem, who won her 3rd election in VA, and that’s basically what she said.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist: Trade. That’s another one.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Respite threads require no associated content.
Jay
I can confirm the “robot” problem.
Three applications for my current job, over 4 months got 0 response. Having gotten fed up with nobody in the job for 2 1/2 years, the DS went through the “round file” pulled out the three “best”, scheduled interviews, I was the only one who showed up.
I could pronounce carburetor, so I got the job. Only took me 6 months to clear the hidden backlog, ( during all but 2 months of Covid).
Right now, we have 41 open positions, the “robot” hasn’t recommended anyone for what are pretty basic jobs, and have resorted to hiring anyone who walks in off the street with a resume, many of whom have turned out to be good employees.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soprano2: it reminded me of the twitter storm CBS provoked the other day. lots of responses like this one
SiubhanDuinne
@Fair Economist:
Have they featured any works by Florence Price? I’ve heard a fair amount of her symphonic music and it is absolutely gorgeous. I need to seek out her chamber, vocal, and choral music.
ETA: Here’s her Wikipedia article. She was prolific as hell; check out the list of works.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Price
Oh, and she weaves a lot of spirituals and Black traditional music (dances, etc.) into her compositions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NotMax: a picture of a cat and the words “Talk about whatever” imposes no restrictions
Fair Economist
It’s impossible to meaningfully “denounce” CRT. CRT is a pretty broad umbrella for a bunch of scholars with widely divergent goals and a lot of mutual disagreements. Such opinions that they hold in common are pretty much incontrovertible – there is still a lot of racism in US society, laws can have racist effects without having explicitly racist goals, etc. It would be highly dishonest to “denounce” them.
Insofar as individual CRT scholars occasionally express intemperate or inaccurate opinions, the best option is to change the subject to real issues like the aggressive attempts to cover up atrocities like the Tulsa massacre. Talk about important stuff, not Republican wedge issues about individual authors with small print runs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: But what if I want to talk about something or other? What about that?
Fair Economist
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, I’ve heard several pieces by Florence Price on KUSC and I agree she has some excellent work. I’ve heard some of her songs and dances and they were good, well worth hunting.
gwangung
@Eolirin: Oh, he has a point in there. But he doesn’t count nuance as his friend, and his rather broad approach is likely to do as much harm as good.
Benno
@Sure Lurkalot:
What do you think the transportation is for?
Soprano2
@debbie: She wasn’t making me as mad as Ruy was. If he’s talking about the Bernistas, then HE SHOULD SAY THAT! This crap about “the LEFT” is dumb, and he should be challenged on it. She tried, but couldn’t get him to answer. And he never mentioned Fox News or the rest of the conservative media at all!
Peale
@Dog Dawg Damn: Cancelling G&T programs in California actually isn’t much different. Not all G&T programs are the same. California’s GATE program is based on testing in the 3rd grade. You know who really really fell behind during COVID? Well that would be the early learners. So WTF are they looking for “Gifted” students for? Beyond the test, students can be recommended by a teacher or administrator – who have not exactly been able to spend their time with their students in the past year. Another criteria is demonstrated leadership – in what activities? Students haven’t been interacting with each other? Who knows who those “natural leaders are.”
Digging more deeply, the programs themselves seem very similar to the types of programs that actually don’t do what they purport to do. A lot of nebulous activities in the curriculum that probably doesn’t actually do much to advance the students outside of class. Yeah, I get it. Its a good social marker. But not all of these programs are created equally. If a student gets placed in a gifted program for academic achievement in Math in the 3rd grade and doesn’t actually do any math at a higher level than they are doing in class, what is the point? How is this “talent” being cultivated?
I mean, FFS, Massachusetts has .5% of its students designated as gifted. New York City had around 4%. California has 17%. I really doubt gifted programs that large were developed to find those piano prodigies and idiot savant poets.
Gin & Tonic
@SiubhanDuinne: This Saturday’s concert by the RI Philharmonic features her “Dances in the Canebreaks” – a work I’m not familiar with. Here is their writeup.
Jeffro
I knew we had something in common.
Soprano2
@Jay: I heard a program a few years ago about one of those robot programs that couldn’t find one person out of 200 applicants who qualified for an entry level engineering job! Is the problem the way they program it?
Fair Economist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ooh, yes. And definitely one where the lack of nuance hurts. Freer trade does bring prices down and helps developing countries develop, but I said it was generally bad because current deals amplify corporate power and have allowed excessive deindustrialization, which is now becoming a serious problem. The devil is in the details of the actual trade agreements.
zhena gogolia
Wait’ll you guys hear about afro-pessimism.
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw some of that.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: I can’t even deal with the white doomers on Balloon Juice.
Fair Economist
@Gin & Tonic:
Ooh, that’s one of the Price pieces I really liked on KUSC, although I heard a piano version performed by Althea Waites.
Omnes Omnibus
@Soprano2: I was once told to put all the buzz words from the ad in a white on white footer at the bottom of my resume. Supposedly, the computer will see what it is looking for and send your resume on. When you interview, the interviewer should be find out what the really want to know, which is can you do the job and do they want you around.
NotMax
@Jim, Foolish Literalist
You just had to go there, huh?
;)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
speaking of Youngkin and his targeting
White, male Gen-Z voters, as I read it
Yutsano
I broke the test on my laptop, but it worked on my phone for some reason. I ended up Establishment Democrat. I could feel my nose being led all through that quiz.
EDIT: are we gonna T-bogg because we’ve been abandoned again?
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s the kind of trick that got JC Penny kicked off Google for awhile years ago.
NotMax
@Yutsano
FeastBigfoot or famine.:)
Fair Economist
@Yutsano: I like the long threads.
Yutsano
@Fair Economist: It’s an observation, not a complaint. I’m always chuffed when we hit 500 especially on later evening/night threads. It makes me feel less creepy over here on the Left Coast.
zeecube
Wow, turned pie filter on one guy and turned half this thread into dessert.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
we could talk about this, the 29 YO “Deputy President” who helped get the attempted coup going
Pretty sure he was also the one they called the Music Man, the guy who would put on Barbara Streisand records to calm The Beast down.
Feathers
Establishment Liberal. I suspect the dividing line with the Progressive Left may be the questions about is there usually a candidate on the ballot who reflects your views. Where you live probably has a bearing on this. My Senators are Liz Warren and Ed Markey. My Congresswoman is Katherine Clark. If I lived elsewhere, I might very well not be happy with the Dems on the ballot.
Jay
@Soprano2:
yeah. For 25 years, it was an Employer’s market. You could program a series of algorithms to weed out for example, all the resumes that didn’t have 5 years of recent experience in the Corporations field along with all the certifications for that specific area,
so for example, our Corporate robot kicks out any candidates for our Plumbing isle, who arn’t Red Seal Plumbers. For 25 years the Corp could hire retired/crippled/underemployed Red Seal Plumbers desperate enough to sell replacement toilet ball cocks to clueless home owners for a bit more than minimum wage, sucky hours and tolerable benefits.
They almost all took the 4 month Covid Leave the Corp offered, then the EI extension and never came back. One transferred to receiving where they don’t have to deal with the public.
So we now have two young former Cashiers “running plumbing”, who know nothing about plumbing, but have learned where we keep the “long 90 elbows” and the water heaters. They have back up in the form of smart phones, a internal digital “link” system connecting them to every other employee, and a core of about 20 people with broad based reno/construction experience.
NotMax
@Yutsano
Yeah, later evening/night threads ain’t what they used to be.
But then so few things are.
;)
Chris Johnson
Dammit, you guys got to play with an actual working troll hammering divisive talking points, like a properly trained one, and didn’t invite me? Booooo.
:)
prostratedragon
@Fair Economist: Same in Chicago with WFMT, and it’s the best thing! They’ve been building on it for a couple of years, and really kicked it up a notch recently. Also, the new director of musical programming is a youngish Latino and they’ve recently brought in a new regular program host who is African American. But all the hosts are playing this music.
NotMax
@Yutsano
Howzabout some music with which to pass the time?
When Yuba Plays The Rhumba On The Tuba.
:)
prostratedragon
@Omnes Omnibus: I was with you on the first two; if we ever need to consider starting over from scratch, now is way not the time. Also went reluctantly for international trade, though the alternative, that trade has damaged many workers and industries, is a serious and inadequately addressed point. That’s one that should have somehow allowed more nuance, or maybe been addressed by more than one question. Anyway, I think one or more of those is why I came down as Establishment Liberal.
Feathers
@Omnes Omnibus: There is also beginning to be a real pushback against G&T programs from kids who were in them. Why? The reason why a lot of these kids weren’t being well served in ordinary classrooms wasn’t as much that they were very smart, it was the combo of smart and either/and/or autistic or ADHD. The programs, however, were (still are?) designed by and for neurotypical students by neurotypical educators. Kids did wonderfully in these programs, only to end up flunking out of college Turns out you really don’t need to encourage creativity in these kids, you need to teach study skills and how to ride one’s natural deep interests to actually produce finished projects. One name for this is 2e, AKA twice exceptional, generally meaning falling in the the top 5% in at least one skill area and the bottom 10% in another.
If we are going to continue the GT programs, we have to end the gifted kid to depressed adult pipeline. It really is about serving the needs of all the kids. Whether this is all in one classroom or with some sort of tracking, we’ll have to see.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Baud prefers “big-boned,” I think.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks for that pro tip. I’m pretty much past the age of trying to get hired in my area of “expertise” — I probably should just retire, officially — but if I ever try again, I’ll try to remember this comment.
SFAW
@schrodingers_cat:
Fixed
Mike G
And people can get better jobs than retail (which is designed to suck.)
This is an American phenomenon. It sucks less in some other countries with more regulation (grocery clerks get to sit down, for example) or less assholish corporate culture where they realize these are low-paid stressful jobs and need to make them a little tolerable and flexible so people will stick around instead of burn-and-churn. I know asking an MBA not be a maximum micromanaging asshole (because the power flex seems to be part of the appeal for some of them, with profitability as the excuse) is a big reach, but maybe they could try it sometime.
frosty
@Feathers: I got scored as a PL but I said there was usually a candidate who reflected my views. Oddball scoring. I must’ve done One Weird Trick to make me a Democratic Socialist.
frosty
I had no idea. I got tracked G&T in 4th grade (via IQ tests I think) and I’m pretty sure all of us belonged there, but they missed a bunch. I hope they’re a lot smarter now about this stuff.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: “Democratic Mainstays”
I was uncomfortable about some of the answers.
Interesting survey. Thanks for the pointer.
Cheers,
Scott.
Brachiator
I am so glad that the GOP said this out loud. Republicans fought extended unemployment compensation and a higher minimum wage and unions and other measures because they fundamentally believe that the economy depends on having workers grovel for shitty jobs at shitty wage levels.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I ranked as Outsider Left on the Pew Quiz.
Sounds about right.
One outlier. I rated the Democrats 100 and the Republicans 10. I fully back what Biden is trying to do and think he has put together a good cabinet.
Felanius Kootea
Progressive Left. Interesting because I can’t stand most Bernie followers.
lowtechcyclist
@DogDawgDamn:
Your Virginia link is from some right-wing outfit calling itself The National Desk. Not what I’d call a trustworthy source.
Geminid
@Felanius Kootea: I do not have an affinity with many Bernie supporters. But it’s only a minority of them that I can’t stand. Those are the ones who undermine the Democratic party among their peers because they cannot control it.
Ironically, these people have just enough influence in the party to provide the caricature of a leftist, socialist Democratic party that conservatives propagate. Gullible people believe the Democrats are dominated by the beliefs and politics of a few politicians who also happen to be supported by the Democratic Socialists of America. But the “Squad” apparently does not even represent the rest of the House Progressive Caucus. I think Friday night’s vote on the infrastructure bill showed this.
This Republican caricature is a problem, at least among the few Republicans I talk politics with. But I am not sure what we can do about this beyond demonstrating that we are pragmatic progressives. I think that once implemented, the legislation we have passed and are about to pass will help do this.
Baud
@Geminid:
We have the samw problem on the other side. Most of the party is not Manchin and Sinema, but it’s easy for people to turn use them to turn progressives away from the party as a whole. Like you said, it’s just something we have to deal with.
Baud
Speaking of the dangers of CRT.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Here is the Pew article that talks about the categories – Pew Political Typology 2
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I thought CRT was over the head of school kids, but the way it makes you people howl makes me for for it.
SFAW
So apparently I’m a Demon-crap Mainstay.
I gotta say, that “quiz” was pretty shittily executed. Too many of the questions were black-or-white, with no context, and no “gray scale.” Life/politics is rarely about absolutes. [Unless you’re a Rethug.]
Minor peeve: the lowest I could go for Republicans on the Warm-and-Fuzzy-O-Meter was zero. They’re negative one gazillion (at least) to me, but I would have modified my assessment to negative-50, because I’m charitable that way.
SFAW
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Your problem (so to speak) was that you tried to read his/her loosely-connected-but-not-necessarily-coherent stringing of buzz words/phrases as an actual coherent comment.
trnc
I’ve thought for a long time that every dem who is asked a question based on republican framing of an issue should first say, “Well, it’s difficult to have a conversation about _________ when republicans lie about what it is and you base your questions on that lie.”
J R in WV
@Dog Dawg Damn:
Fine! I just decided YOU belong in the pie safe… buh-bye baby!!
And in doing so, I discovered you have two nearly identical nyms, one with spaces and one without spaces — to me this is a sure sign of a troll with installed sockpuppet names. Or a mis-configured bot. All of the nyms are in the pie safe, now, also too.
J R in WV
Commenter “Dog Dawg Damn” also has the nym “DogDawgDamn” which is pretty suspicious to me. And the dogged persistence in extreme views is another clue. Either a poorly designed bot or a studied Troll. I was amazed how many comments turned into fruit desserts when I pied Dog Dawg Damn AND DogDawgDamn once I noticed the alternate spelling of his nym.
Who does that? So grateful to Watergirl for the very slick implementation of the pie filter!! Will never have to put up with DogDawgDamn again, ever!