For trumpy and certain other people advocating schools “open” (which is a term that means different things to different people, given people agree kids need to be back in schools but disagree with how), I wonder how many have them have spoken to even 1 teacher who’s going thru it
In a lot of places, it’s not good!
I have family, like many of you, who are teachers and care about the students and know how detrimental the current situation is to the kids. But judging a teacher or their union for reacting how they are under current conditions, when everything they’re doing is a direct...
...response to how badly this country (mainly, trump and his administration) has pathetically and weakly bungled the pandemic response, is mostly a misdirection of your rage. Your average teachers union is doing exactly what you would if you had the leverage to do it.
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I cannot think of greater emblem of the Trump era than Scott Atlas.
I mean this whole heartedly and this is not meant as a compliment
You could give me as much fame, media attention, career advancement, and flattery from the leader of the free world as I could stomach. Give me a lifetime’s worth of it. I could still not imagine any price so hefty that it would compel me to do a fraction of what he did.
purely anecdotal but: for years as i sourced up w/ admin & Trumpworld folks I found that it was useful to be immediately upfront & transparent & let the aide/official/Trump friend/whoever know off the bat how much I despised Trump & thought is policies, et al were garbage...
…It had an effect of establishing at the start “ok, we both know where each person is coming from, there’s no mystery here, if each wants to keep talking, let’s keep talking.” I found it way more useful than pretending that I was coming in as a “just the facts, ma’am” apolitical
…kind of guy. I saw that most of the time, the Trump person appreciated this, & considered me less of a phony, or w/e. My limited sense of trying this version of the approach, but w/ Biden people, is that it doesn’t work as well on them...
“I was advised by senior officials in the White House at the time that I should couch this in terms of countering violence, rather than countering domestic terrorism or white supremacy, when discussing it at the White House or in front of the president.”
"Neumann said that it’s been standard operating procedure for years among top officials and Trump aides to avoid “trigger words” when briefing the president—severely complicating efforts to respond to high-profile killings that have occurred during the Trump presidency.”
"She said that such trigger words have included “white supremacy,” “Russia,” “election interference,” and “domestic terrorism.” [Others, including Miles] Taylor, who announced his break with Trump and support for Biden shortly prior to Neumann, confirmed her recollection."
i might be marginally biased here but if you like great reporting, @ENBrown, and long reads on Josh Hawley, something should be dropping later this morning that u may enjoy.
@ENBrown "At the start of June, I mentioned this case on Twitter—prompting Hawley to accuse me of "praising human traffickers" and offering a misleading story about his supposed victory against an Asian trafficking ring.” reason.com/2020/07/14/sen…
For those who’ve read it is there a part of Bolton’s book where he at least tries for a second to grapple w/ the moral, or at least pragmatic, quandary of helping to prop up, serve, defend a president who he knows, or pretends to know, is a threat to american national security...
...and doing so whilst the words “national security” are literally right there in his job description, or is this Bolton using his months of detailed notes to colorfully and spitefully elucidate what was patently obvious at the time to anyone who isn’t a dipshit?
Again, this would be an examination of a period where John Bolton had a massive national and media platform and chose to use it to, generously speaking, conceal these things from the American public he claims he trying to help now.
PEPFAR is a great program but people who argue Bush wasn’t as bad as you’d think because the millions the program is credited w/ saving over 2 administrations should be weighted against the hundreds of thousands killed in wars are making a morally crooked & incomplete argument
We could go thru the long list of Bush’s legacy all day, but so I don’t thread forever, I’ll add that beyond bodies piled up, there are other ways to ruin lives & families at home & abroad than war dead. The wars displaced millions. Surely their lives matter too.
Also, this isn’t some bias against just Bush, there is a reason LBJ’s legacy of civil rights and saving numerous lives via healthcare programs is overshadowed by Vietnam