US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6598

On January 20 2017 13:58 LegalLord wrote:

I think the point is, "don't start a nuclear war over Estonia," not that you should just let it happen.

In any case, it's probably a moot point - Russia doesn't really want Estonia all that much. They might be willing to fuck with it for the political equivalent of funsies but ain't no one want to administrate that shit and pay for its upkeep. It's not Crimea by a longshot.

On January 20 2017 09:05 xDaunt wrote:

I haven't looked at her record in detail or watched the confirmation hearing, but given her extensive history of working with education-related nonprofits at the state and national level, she probably is qualified.

In Detroit, parents of school-age children have plenty of choices, thanks to the nation’s largest urban network of charter schools.

What remains in short supply is quality.

In Brightmoor, the only high school left is Detroit Community Schools, a charter boasting more than a decade of abysmal test scores and, until recently, a superintendent who earned $130,000 a year despite a dearth of educational experience or credentials.

On the west side, another charter school, Hope Academy, has been serving the community around Grand River and Livernois for 20 years. Its test scores have been among the lowest in the state throughout those two decades; in 2013 the school ranked in the first percentile, the absolute bottom for academic performance. Two years later, its charter was renewed.

Or if you live downtown, you could try Woodward Academy, a charter that has limped along near the bottom of school achievement since 1998, while its operator has been allowed to expand into other communities.

For students enrolled in schools of choice — that is, schools in nearby districts who have opened their doors to children who live outside district boundaries — it’s not much better. Kids who depend on Detroit’s problematic public transit are too far away from the state’s top-performing school districts — and most of those districts don’t participate in the schools of choice program, anyway.

This deeply dysfunctional educational landscape — where failure is rewarded with opportunities for expansion and “choice” means the opposite for tens of thousands of children — is no accident. It was created by an ideological lobby that has zealously championed free-market education reform for decades, with little regard for the outcome.

And at the center of that lobby is Betsy DeVos, the west Michigan advocate whose family has contributed millions of dollars to the cause of school choice and unregulated charter expansion throughout Michigan.

Unqualified

President-elect Donald Trump has made a number of controversial cabinet nominations already. But none seems more inappropriate, or more contrary to reason, than his choice of DeVos to lead the Department of Education.

DeVos isn’t an educator, or an education leader. She’s not an expert in pedagogy or curriculum or school governance. In fact, she has no relevant credentials or experience for a job setting standards and guiding dollars for the nation’s public schools.

She is, in essence, a lobbyist — someone who has used her extraordinary wealth to influence the conversation about education reform, and to bend that conversation to her ideological convictions despite the dearth of evidence supporting them...

...Supporters call Betsy DeVos an "advocate" who cares for children. And she may be that.

But the policy expression of that concern has been one-sided, and as much about establishing an industry as it is about kids.

The DeVoses have helped private interests commandeer public money that was intended to fulfill the state's mandate to provide compulsory education. The family started the Great Lakes Education Project, whose political action committee does the most prolific and aggressive lobbying for charter schools.

Betsy DeVos and other family members have given more than $2 million to the PAC since 2001. GLEP has spent that money essentially buying policy outcomes that have helped Michigan's charter industry grow while shielding it from accountability.

This summer, the DeVos family contributed $1.45 million over two months — an astounding average of $25,000 a day — to Michigan GOP lawmakers and the state party after the Republican-led Legislature derailed a bipartisan provision that would have provided more charter school oversight in Detroit.

GLEP also pushed hard — and successfully — to lift the cap on charter schools a few years ago, even though Michigan already had among the highest number of charters in the nation despite statistics suggesting charters weren't substantively outperforming traditional public schools.

And in 2000, the DeVos extended family spent $5.6 million on an unsuccessful campaign to amend Michigan's constitution to allow school vouchers — the only choice tool not currently in play in Michigan.

Even if Betsy DeVos ceased her substantial contributions to pro-school choice lawmakers, or to GLEP’s PAC, what credibility would she have in a policy job that requires her to be an advocate for all schools? Would her family divest from the PAC if she were Secretary of Education? Rein in campaign spending? And even if it did, how could she credibly distance herself from her history as a lobbyist?

On January 20 2017 18:17 mustaju wrote:

I am so glad you understand what that maniac is thinking, even as his incursions and opportunism have shown people like you consistently wrong. What is the point of Eastern Ukraine upkeep? Maintaining Abkhazia and South-Ossetia? What is the strategic importance of these places? And what makes people want to pay for Crimea in your opinion that could not equivalently be applied to the justification of being an empire again? Paying upkeep for a million people to destroy NATO and gloat over the remains of American credibility sounds like a pretty sweet deal to some people. Especially if you can do away with the troublesome ones. You show yourself as remarkably short sighted here, it's astounding, not to say disturbing

Transactionalism is not just morally bankrupt but also highly unstable. Why would anyone want to make deals with someone who throws their allies under a bus and has been proven to be a serial liar? Trust is something that does not carry a price tag, and it pains me that so many people do not seem to take that into account.

On January 20 2017 22:38 zatic wrote:

Nothing better for a documentary 50 years from now than a shot of Trump saluting tanks rolling down Pennsylvenia Avenue next week.

On January 20 2017 23:53 LegalLord wrote:

I could answer every single one of your objections here, but I can't say that it would be very productive to do so, given that you seem to have an emotional statement of your unyielding disdain for all things Russian rather than any logical perspective on what actually happened.

Starting with "that maniac" isn't a great way to have any productive discourse on the matter and you know it.

On January 21 2017 00:09 mustaju wrote:

Stop acting like you have a moral high ground after calling my country "shit". This is a rather serious issue, and you keep acting as if it was a simple trade transaction. Outrage is a completely appropriate reaction to your flippancy.

On January 21 2017 00:35 LegalLord wrote:

Oh, I see. Let me just explain the expression to you then, since I assume this is a matter of not understanding an English-language expression (I would say it's a fair assumption that English isn't your first language).

The expression as I used it - "no one wants to administrate that shit and pay for its upkeep" - roughly means, "no one really wants to go through the trouble of having to deal with the costs of administration and upkeep" rather than, "no one wants to administrate that shitty ass country" which is what I'm guessing you thought I was saying. In this context, "that shit" doesn't refer to the country but to the situation of having to administrate the country.

On January 21 2017 00:58 LegalLord wrote:
Even if Russia were to take all of East Europe successfully without any retaliation, that would be little more than an expensive addition to its payroll.

I'd draw the analogy of Mexico: the US wouldn't bother to annex Mexico even though it probably could, because it's just more trouble than it's worth. But it would be pretty pissed if foreign nations came and set up anti-American alliances in Mexico.

They would defend "actual" Europe. If Putin tried to snatch Finland and Sweden, the US would intervene. But at the end of the day, Russia really just doesn't have any reasonable cost:benefit prospects regarding taking over other countries right now.

On January 21 2017 00:57 mustaju wrote:

People said roughly similar things before WW1 and in the interbellum period, for context. Given how much money they have spent maintaining their current holdings, and the potential gain, the argument is not exactly bereft of logical deduction, as you want to make it seem. Being an international pariah is irrelevant to them, and given that whoever comes after Trump might reinstate the former system, I would not exclude the possibility as casually as you do.

On January 21 2017 01:13 mustaju wrote:
With the exception that they did it not once but several times.

On January 21 2017 01:13 mustaju wrote:
And the exception that in that analogy, Mexico, after being liberated, would ask foreign countries to help defending itself. Suddenly quite a different picture.

On January 21 2017 01:13 mustaju wrote:
But understandable, given the presumption that you have no academic background in studying the region. This leap of logic is quite common, especially in, funnily enough, Russia, and far less anywhere else!

NATO happens to be big deal. Not exactly just an "expensive addition."