President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

The U.S. has six intelligence-gathering agencies (CIA, NSA, NRO, NGA, DIA, FBI) and 11 "active partners" who basically just refine and distribute passive intelligence (stuff they see in their daily activities).

And even among the intelligence-gathering group, I do not believe the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (maps and predictive modeling) or the National Reconnaissance Office (spy satellites) spent three nanoseconds gathering intelligence on election hacking. They basically did what 15 other "intelligence agencies" did --- said "sounds good to me" when the CIA and NSA reported their opinion.

 

Education Secretary DeVos criticized teachers at D.C. school she visited — and they're not having it

It sure seems like Betsy DeVos is going to bring nothing but negative press for as long as she serves as Secretary of Education. Take her visit to Jefferson Middle School Academy in Washington, D.C. At first, protesters blocked her from entering the building. After her tour of the school, she came out praising it.

Then a few days later, she said the teachers were in "receive mode," just waiting to be told what to do. The district defended its teachers on Twitter with a series of brief stories of teachers' creativity and leadership. DeVos responded by saying the teachers were awesome, but they need more freedom. D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson went on the tour with DeVos and pointed to the "dynamic classroom instruction" they observed.

Here's the fun quote from one of the Jefferson teachers.

"I find it very interesting that the chancellor saw teachers that were pushing rigorous learning, students asking each other high-level questions and cultivating high-level responses, and teachers who take initiative and give their lives to the education of these children," said Jefferson teacher Caroline Hunt. "DeVos saw something so different. ... Maybe if DeVos knew more about education she would realize just how amazing the students, teachers and staff are."

I really do believe that DeVos meant to praise the teachers while saying the need more freedom to be innovative. She just expressed it badly, which is an issue in itself. That fits into her message, with the next step being the argument that teachers in private schools have more freedom than those in public schools. Of course, that ignores the fact that they also often work with lower standards and built-in advantages, such as the school's ability to pick and choose which students it wants.

That is a matter of policy, but that isn't my point. My point is the teacher was right in her criticism. DeVos has no credibility because she lacks the background in education. This shows in her resume and it showed in her confirmation hearing. This school visit and response became a story because she has made herself a target. John King was not a good choice for the position, either, but he wasn't as easy a target as DeVos. I certainly wasn't a fan, but he had some qualification for the job other than a history of donating money to the president's political party.

You can dismiss the importance of the job all you want, but it is an issue for the Trump administration, which takes one action after another to damage its own credibility.

 

The point being, no matter how many there are, he's ignoring them, because he knows better, or so he thinks. And that's how we end up being an international laughingstock.

Swedes scratch heads at Trump's suggestion of major incident

Not having a lot of background in a given area seems to be the perfect qualification for work in DC nowadays. Including the White House.

But she did manage to keep the grizzly bears away, did she not?

 

Sooner or later our President will have a real incident to cite and use to play to his supporters.

And Bowling Green and Sweden will be forgotten.

#heremailsthemessIinheritedonlyIcansaveyou!

 

Also ready to serve (or volley) to help his homeland through this crisis:

 

I love how when making a point he ends with"K?"

Was doing that in the 77 minute performance the other day.

My President speaks textese. Cool.

 

So how is this school doing? Students are thriving?

Oh.

 

"The tweetstorm singled out teachers like Jessica Harris, who built Jefferson's band program "from the ground up," and Ashley Shepherd and Britany Locher, who not only teach students ranging from a first- to eighth-grade reading level, but also "maintain a positive classroom environment focused on rigorous content, humor, and love. They aren't waiting to be told what to do."

"JA teachers are not in a 'receive mode,'" the tweets concluded. "Unless you mean we 'receive' students at a 2nd grade level and move them to an 8th grade level."


If a middle school is receiving students who read on a first or second grade level, it is hard to say that the middle school is failing them. The elementary school they attended did, and so did their parents. I don't know the facts re Jefferson Middle beyond the article and the tweets, but what is presented there sounds like the middle school teachers are busting their asses trying to make things better for their students.

 

As well as she's doing, considering ...

 

Why Do So Many Americans Fear Muslims? Decades of Denial About America’s Role in the World.

 

This is brilliant, deep stuff. I quoted a chunk below but there's a lot more to it.

When will Republicans wake up?

Don't Dismiss Trump's Attacks on the Media as Mere Stupidity

Consider this recent exchange he had with Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly asks:

Is there any validity to the criticism of you that you say things that you can’t back up factually, and as the President you say there are three million illegal aliens who voted and you don’t have the data to back that up, some people are going to say that it’s irresponsible for the President to say that.

To which the president replies:

Many people have come out and said I’m right.

Now many people also say Jim Morrison faked his own death. Many people say Barack Obama was born in Kenya. “Many people say” is what’s known as an argumentum ad populum. If we were a nation of logicians, we would dismiss the argument as dumb.

We are not a nation of logicians.

I think it’s important not to dismiss the president’s reply simply as dumb. We ought to assume that it’s darkly brilliant — if not in intention than certainly in effect. The president is responding to a claim of fact not by denying the fact, but by denying the claim that facts are supposed to have on an argument.

He isn’t telling O’Reilly that he’s got his facts wrong. He’s saying that, as far as he is concerned, facts, as most people understand the term, don’t matter: That they are indistinguishable from, and interchangeable with, opinion; and that statements of fact needn’t have any purchase against a man who is either sufficiently powerful to ignore them or sufficiently shameless to deny them — or, in his case, both.

If some of you in this room are students of political philosophy, you know where this argument originates. This is a version of Thrasymachus’s argument in Plato’s Republic that justice is the advantage of the stronger and that injustice “if it is on a large enough scale, is stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice.”

Substitute the words “truth” and “falsehood” for “justice” and “injustice,” and there you have the Trumpian view of the world. If I had to sum it up in a single sentence, it would be this: Truth is what you can get away with.​