monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Yes. Rather boggling, isn't it.

There's a highly informative piece up at the NYT this morning on the history of anti-public school ideology and fervor in the US. Here's the final two graphs
NYT

Yes, and the same is true in the US actually. I don't know about Australia much, but wouldn't be surprised to learn he tried to disinform them as well.

Oh yes, Fox has significantly degraded US political discourse as well. But talk radio has also been a major influence in that direction. And in Australia, Murdoch has played the same game as in the UK and the US.

Maybe that would explain Brexit? Or at least a factor?

The role played by tabloids like the Mail and the Express was probably more influential in the referendum than that of the Sun.

The single cause was the Blair government's decision to allow lots of Eastern Europeans in three years before they were allowed into the rest of the EU. They seriously underestimated the amount coming in, the estimated figure for the whole country was covered by Polish people just moving to Southampton.

This allowed tabloids like the Mail to start a narrative about the UK being swamped by Eastern Europeans.

I believe that both you and the author of the NYT material you quote are ignoring prominent facts involving public and private education in this country. In the United States public schools have historically been the province of local government and local school boards, and not the Federal government. Both private and religious schools (of many denominations), funded by their supporters and users, have coexisted and competed with public schools throughout the last two centuries. Many of our prominent and currently very secular prominent universities, started their lives as religious or religiously sponsored schools. Harvard and Yale are examples.

Many changes have occurred since then, mostly involving the growing influence of professional education associations (NEA is an example), and as well labor unions, prominently including the AFT, that have greatly expanded their influence over Educational policy, practices and the administration of our schools - often working closely together, In particular they have influenced, and grown in major part as a supportive adjunct to the increasing influence of our federal Government in our educational system. This was abetted by Federal and state labor law and, significantly, by the efforts of the Federal government to end official (in the South) and tacit (elsewhere) racial segregation in public schools and other aspects of public life. This. of course, was a necessary and overdue reform, but it had many, mostly unforeseen, side effects, prominently including the development of a closely interconnected educational establishment of bureaucrats, the NEA and unions, all interested in preserving their monopolistic control of local educational governance.

Contemporary resistance to this monopoly and the growing collapse of public education , in large part abetted by it, that is seen increasingly across the country, is in no way the exclusive work of "religious fundamentalism" as you deceptively assert. The charter schools movement, which so frightens and threatens this self-serving education establishment, is itself a mostly secular phenomenon emphasizing parental choice and free market accountability- features this establishment steadfastly opposes. It's simply a fact that both private and religious schools have always operated in a free choice environment, and for the most part have delivered better services for their clients. However, they are not, and have never been, the driving force behind the charter school movement. The real driver for it is the ongoing failure of our Public schools at the hands of a monopolistic educational establishment interested only in the extension and preservation of its monopolies, and not at all in accountability for the product it delivers.

Thanks, that's news to me.

Never professed to be an A2K braveheart, and have been called a coward on several occasions (maybe even by you, but that's most often JTT's schtick)

I've posted my approval of certain Trump's achievements throughout this thread and in others and if you're really that interested in discovering them you can find them.

I'm really not sure why this is such a burning question for you, but I'm quite sure it's not because you are genuinely interested and open to the possibility that he has had some worthy achievements. Instead I suspect you would like to see a list so that you can than use each one to explain what a reprobate I am for valuing them.

Sorry, but I'm not willing to play your obvious game and if that makes me a coward, guilty as charged.

It's a highly opinonated piece that provides a great deal of specific information that I will assume, for the sake of discussion (and lack of desire to fact check), is accurate however that by no means renders Stewart's opinions and conclusions accurate.

Usage of the term "government schools" is not a particularly unique way to refer to "public schools" if one wishes to point out when they are run not by the "public" but by the "government." Not all "public schools" are governed by a School Board made up of elected members of the community, and even when they are, the governments of the States in which they are located (usually through Education Departments) have considerable influence on and control of how they are run.

Linking current usage of the term to slavery in America and the Jim Crow era serves Stewart in her effort to libel millions of her fellow Americans, but it is an absurd contention. It doesn't matter who used the term, or in what sense, over a hundred years ago or even decades in the past, and if it does, than why shouldn't it have the meaning Milton Friedman (who receives comparatively favorable treatment from Stewart) assigned it?

I don't dispute that at one time, those who wished to oppress African-Americans used the term in connection with the machinations of their oppression, but there are thousands of commonly used phrases that have lost any connection to their original meaning or intended utilization. To suggest that there remains discriminatory intent in the current usage of "government schools," is to ignore that a significant segment of those Americans who favor a voucher system are black. Have they somehow, unwittingly, become part of the conservative scheme to oppress them?

Likewise there are Christian fundamentalist groups who have used the term in connection with their efforts to inject Christian themes into public school curricula, and with their focus on home schooling, but it's foolish to suggest that every other use of the term is perforce motivated by Christian fundamentalism

This is simply another attempt to manufacture a "dog whistle" so as to identify anyone using it as someone sinister, vile, intolerant or anything else a progressive writer feels conservatives all are.

I certainly understand why you think it's such a great piece.

Damn bro - now... that's weak. Even for you.
It's certainly not an unreasonable question. It's pretty commonplace to ask why someone supports and defends a politician - especially the president. We're all going to have to live with this disgraceful man's ability (or inability) to produce useful policy and legislation for however long he holds the office.

You set yourself up for the question when you casually tossed off that he was doing some of the things you wanted him to do. If anyone takes you seriously even to the point of taking your words at face value, it is natural to wonder, "What things?". No, the only person for whom there's something wrong with that question would be you. And that's only because it reveals just a little about what an intensely phony blowhard you are.

That's when I noticed a change in mood. Prior to that Eurosceptics were quite marginal, but after that immigration became an issue, mostly because out of the way places suddenly had a noticeable Eastern European population. Those out of the way places tend to be most conservative and resistant to change.

The Mooch just resigned! WTF!! Guess he couldn't stand the idea of reporting to a chief of staff.

The well oiled machine keeps on running.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40782299

Cheesits!! Things move fast on this roller coaster.

What will Trump do now that the spotlight will be back on all his foibles?


...and who can possibly replace the twisted twit we never really got to know?
(for which I'm grateful)

Three major departures in the last ten days from WH.
And Scaramucci was less than a week on his job.

Edited: the decision to remove Scaramucci came at request of the new chief of staff, John Kelly, it is being reported

And with these cordial comments you've revealed, to anyone who might possibly have thought otherwise, that your question was tendered in bad faith.

BTW - You just demonstrated one of the behaviors of an A2K "coward," selecting a single sentence from a post and using it for an attack, sans context.

apparently not

That Scaramucci was even brought on. And that he was not let go immediately upon publication of the conversation with the New Yorker reporter, tells us again what we already knew about Trump. He should be nowhere near political power at any level. That Republicans chose him and that so many continue to support him tells us what we already knew about the GOP.