Extra! Extra! The Ten Second News Links We’ve Overlooked!
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to Ten Second News.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have one of these on the Sidebar at all times. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, when it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
Under the heading of Liar, Liar, Why Aren’t His Pants on Fire:
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-thanks-fbi-doj-after-passports-they-stole-are-returned-1734260Report
These sorts of stories should never be allowed to be overlooked:
Louisiana Woman Is Forced Carry Headless Fetus to Term or Travel to Florida for Legal Abortion
https://jezebel.com/louisiana-woman-is-forced-carry-headless-fetus-to-term-1849418243?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
A pregnant woman in Louisiana says she’s being forced to choose between carrying a fetus that lacks a skull and the top of its head (as a result of a rare condition called acrania) to term, or traveling several states over for a legal abortion, since Louisiana has banned abortion with very narrow exceptions.
“It’s hard knowing that I’m carrying it to bury it,” Nancy Davis, who’s 13 weeks pregnant and is already the mother of one child, told local news station WAFB9 on Monday. A few weeks ago, she had her first ultrasound and was told the fetus wouldn’t survive—but that she would have to either carry and birth the nonviable fetus or travel to Florida, the closest state where abortion is still legal. Davis is running out of time to make her decision, however, because Florida bans the health service at 15 weeks.
…
Before Davis, one Louisiana doctor testified in an affidavit challenging the ban that her patient was forced to endure a “painful, hours-long labor to deliver a nonviable fetus, despite her wishes and best medical advice,” after the ban temporarily took effect last month.
The doctor, Valerie Williams, said her patient was “screaming—not from pain, but from the emotional trauma she was experiencing.” It took hours for the woman’s placenta to deliver, causing her to hemorrhage about a liter of blood which placed her own life in danger. A simple abortion procedure would have lasted 15 minutes, Williams said. She claimed this was “the first time in my 15-year career that I could not give a patient the care they needed.” The state threatens doctors and abortion providers who violate the ban with 10 to 15 years in prison. Louisiana doctors have told Jezebel the ban has forced them to fear they “could go to prison just for handling a miscarriage as I always have.”
Republicans have been fighting for 50 years for this world we now inhabit.Report
There are no operating abortion clinics in Louisiana or Mississippi or Alabama.Report
See also that South Carolina state legislator who is shocked to his bones that the harsh abortion law he voted to leads to such things. He won’t vote to reverse it but he does cry. Bleh.Report
This is the America the GOP has created:
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1111344810/abortion-ban-states-social-safety-net-health-outcomesReport
I’ve missed Em. Is she still around?Report
This makes me happy.
I’m still here! I got a promotion a few months ago that sucks up all my time and energy so I’ve had to step back quite a bit. Hoping things slow down soon and I can get some writing done.
Thank you for asking!Report
I’ll second the notion that we need more Em around here. Tell your employers you have important legal education work to do here . . . .Report
I’m very happy that I made you happy.
Maybe you can tell us about the promotion when you get a chance.Report
Congratulations on your promotion.Report
So awesome! Congrats on the promotion! Their gain is our loss.Report
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Calvin Trillin calls these guys — still mostly guys, but the women, as a whole, are no better — “Sabbath gasbags.” None of these shows would be much of a loss if they disappeared.Report
There appears to be a phenomenon where saying a particular set of things can help people overlook particular bad action on the part of a bad actor.
I suppose that we can take comfort in the fact that repeated bad action will catch up with a bad actor…
Franken has been fully rehabilitated.
I’m sure that Dan Price will be as well.Report
Franken had far fewer accusations against him. He was never sued, nor criminally charged.
Price has resigned as CEO, and his actively fighting several lawsuits and other criminal charges.Report
There were a number of accusations against Dan Price from years ago, though.
Did you hear the one about him waterboarding his ex-wife? (This came out in 2015.)Report
See also, Catholic priests, Southern Baptist ministers, and Boy Scout leaders.Report
Remember 90’s band “Deep Blue Nothing” and their hit single “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”?
THEN I SAID
WHATABOUTReport
Its…the opposite of whattabout. Its MeToo.
Corporate CEOs, along with ministers and Scout leaders, use their power and moral standing as leaders of the community to shield themselves from accountability.
What is happening with Dan Price isn’t unusual or shocking, but part of the overall MeToo movement where finally the voices of women are being believed.
Sorry to see it happening, but if he’s guilty he should face the consequences.Report
Is there anything else that you would rather I talk about than Dan Price in the open thread?Report
If you were citing MeToo examples you would have gone with Hollywood. That was where the movement started, and it would have been a good example because it was powerful liberals who…oh, never mind. Boy Scouts it is. And Fox News hosts.Report
I actually typed out Hollywood, but reconsidered. People like Harvey Weinstein never presented themselves as paragons of virtue the way ministers and Scouts do. I mean, “sleazy Hollywood producer” is practically a Hollywood cliche.
But maybe Hollywood figures like Cosby or Kevin Spacey are good examples, as is AL Franken.Report
I don’t think that’s fair. Whatabout-ism is about deflecting criticism by pointing to something somewhere else.
As I read Chip here, it’s pointing out that the pattern exhibited by Price is one we’ve seen many times before. There is nothing novel about a person and/or institution using a facade of good deeds to hide their bad actions. Price is another in a long line of examples, all of which are awful and should be held accountable.Report
“Whatabout-ism is about deflecting criticism by pointing to something somewhere else.”
You mean, literally what Chip is doing here?Report
“We shouldn’t be mad about this guy because of those guys” = whataboutism.
“This supposed phenomenon is nothing new as exhibited by these other outrageous examples” = not.Report
The sex pest to male feminist pipeline is still going strong.Report
There’s no such thing as a good millionaire.Report
Large numbers of middle-class people who own their homes free and clear and have non-negligible financial assets are, literally and technically, millionaires. Maybe you need another zero.Report
Indeed. Through some good planning and some good luck, my wife and I are worth a bit over $1.5M at age 68/69. There is reason to question whether that’s enough, given her progressive dementia and (eventually) my inability to provide care for free, to see us through the end of our life in middle-class style.Report
Nope. I chose 6 of them with those people in mind. Home ownership comes with terrible incentives, and this country’s obsession with it is responsible for a number of its current problems, from sprawl and car-dependency to skyrocketing housing costs.
Granted, I take Cain’s point below yours: we effectively have two choices: horde enough in money and assets to be able to afford old age, or continue working until we are unable to (and then, if “unable to” doesn’t mean death, then hope we’ve got enough). That’s a problem with our economic and political system, and creates all sorts of problems, like say incentivizing home ownership, which itself comes with terrible incentives, which is responsible for…Report
He did it once via social media, so it’s entirely possible. Giving everyone in his company a giant raise probably didn’t hurt either.Report
I’m curious about the cause-and-effect.
Was he able to get away with the bad actions because of the good deeds and good words? Did he perform the good deeds and say the good words to hide or make up for his bad actions? Or is he someone who did some good things and some truly awful things?Report
He got a *LOT* of praise for the things he said online.
Here’s a tweet from a mere 10 days ago. Check out the replies.
(Pay zero attention to replies from the last couple of days. Only pay attention to the ones from 10 days ago.)
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So… guy-who-says-nice-things-and-does-awful-things-no-one-knows-about gets praised…? Color me shocked.Report
There were news articles about it, Kazzy. I linked to one of them above.Report
Huh?
I’m not denying any of the claims. I’m curious about what if any cause-and-effect relationship between them exists.
All you’ve done is reassert the claims.Report
Oh, I was looking at “no one knows about”.
People knew about them. There just wasn’t really a tipping point reached until very recently.Report
In the NYT piece linked in the tweet Jaybird posted above the author outlines Price’s social media strategy for burying the bad news. Price hired a former journalist to tweet under his name, and he did it pretty prolifically. Eventually, the bad stuff gets buried in the search algorithm, effectively erasing it.Report
That is different than this: “There appears to be a phenomenon where saying a particular set of things can help people overlook particular bad action on the part of a bad actor.”
Burying stuff so no one knows about it is not the same as people willfully overlooking it because they like things you said.
If Jay can point to people saying, “Well, yea, maybe he did some bad things but he also said some really GOOD things so I’m okay with him,” I can buy his argument.
As it stands, I don’t buy his argument.Report
Jay’s initial comment… as does so many of his comments… drives home that the issue isn’t actually whatever bad action someone did but that the issue is liberals.
He’s not upset that Price was able to hide his horrible actions through savvy social media manipulation. He’s upset because he thinks liberals are allowed to get away with being abusive towards women. So he concocts an argument about a supposed “phenomenon” and he brings up Al Franken.
If he were actually concerned about abuse towards women — or at least more concerned about it than he is about liberals getting away with it — he would have more to say about accusations against Trump and wouldn’t reflexively dismiss Chip’s comments as WhatAboutIsm.
As it so often is for Jaybird, it’s not that someone did something he actually thinks is wrong it’s that a liberal might be getting away with something. Sigh.Report
He’s not upset that Price was able to hide his horrible actions through savvy social media manipulation
Should I be upset about that?
he would have more to say about accusations against Trump
I argued for him to be impeached. I actually argued that you should use the names of the people he (allegedly) assaulted instead of hammering on the “grabbing” tape.
Would you believe me if I told you that people argued against me when I said that? Not by people in MAGA hats either!Report
“He’s upset because he thinks liberals are allowed to get away with being abusive towards women.”
Imagine if we could answer this with a strong, clear statement that liberals don’t get away with being abusive towards women, that it never happens, that they aren’t given a pass for Being Such A Good Guy Most Of The Time, for Being A Really Important Example, and back it up with news story after news story of some guy who didn’t get a free pass, who didn’t get his actions waved away or covered-up until they were so odious as to be uncontainable, etcetera.
Imagine if the answer were “that never happens, you lying bastard” and not “well you have to understand that it’s different, and besides, your side is worse and you didn’t say anything about them“Report
I can’t do that. No one can do that about any group of people. Because lots of men get away with being awful towards women for various factors independent of political ideology.
If someone only wants to talk about the bad behavior of one group of people — bad behavior that stretches across groups — I tend to conclude their concern is not the bad behavior itself but the group of people they’re targeting.
Jaybird wants to talk about Franken and Price. Why only them? It’s not their bad behavior.Report
“Jaybird wants to talk about Franken and Price. Why only them?”
Because, despite your desperate attempts to gaslight us, they really were both portrayed as exemplars of Manhood, shining beacons of What You Boys Ought To Be Like, feted as How Rich White Dudes Should Behave. And now it turns out, well, not so much.
And if you want to reply that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, well, the Church doors are always open and I hear they have a special dinner for reformed sinners.
And if you want to reply “well clearly he’s just interested in criticizing liberals“, well, sure? They’re the ones telling us how they’re morally superior, right?Report
Al Franken was run out of the Senate after a single accusation of improper behavior – by his own party. Donald Trump was ELECTED President after multiple credible accusations and audio tapes of being an open misogynist. One of these things is, in fact, not like the other.Report
after a single accusation
Here’s a story detailing Al Franken’s eight accusers.
What I am wondering is whether you knew it was 8 when you wrote what you wrote.
And if you did, why you wrote what you wrote.
And if you did not, why you did not know that it was 8.Report
I’m guessing you didn’t know it was 8. You honestly thought that it was that one lady on the USO tour and you never found out, for whatever reason, about the other 7 who came forward and also accused Franken of harassment.
For what it’s worth, at the time, the dynamic seemed to be “aw, come on! It was only one accusation! Give him a pass! It’s not like he has multiple accusers!”
And then he kept getting new accusers showing up. The whole “it was only one person” defense evaporated and then Franken resigned before they could easily pivot to “maybe we should just have a senate hearing!”
(It was also at the height of #MeToo, which didn’t help matters much.)Report
Wait, it was nine. Here’s an article about the ninth accuser.
(And if you want to see how we were discussing these things as they were happening in real time? You can do so here and also here.)Report
I am beyond tired of this whackamole we can’t possibly own anything because he didn’t get his quote or his numbers or his whatever exactly perfect. Whether it was 9, or 1 doesn’t really matter.
What matters is Franken was run out of power by his own party after accusations. Trump was empowered, backed, and elected by his party after the accusations. The body count is immaterial to the point being made.Report
Whether it was 9, or 1 doesn’t really matter.
Believe it or not, it mattered at the time. When it was just one accuser, people said stuff like “It was just one incident. I’m not *CONDONING* what happened but it only happened once.”
Heck, if you want to find examples of people complaining about how “Al Franken was run out of the Senate after a single accusation of improper behavior”, I can probably find you an example without much effort.
But, at the time, the issue came up that there was another accuser, and then another, and then another.
And then there were eight and then Al Franken resigned and then a ninth stepped forward after that.
And, even now, there are people who think that it was just because of that one USO tour picture where he was pretending to molest the sleeping woman who rebuffed his advances.Report
Franken is a Senator again. What state?
Don’t know what “fully rehabilitated” actually means. Is he out jail? Allowed out of his house? Not shunned by all people? Do we have probation reports to see what treatment he had? Has he been reprogrammed?Report
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Interesting. I had no idea but i’ve never watched Kroger brand Jay Leno. Must have been a really powerful rehab if i’d never heard of it. Shame guys who like to jerk off to non consenting women can’t get that same break. Oh wait, for some reason i heard all about that. Seems like it might be pretty common for entertainers to get consequences then move on with their lives and careers fine.
Good work you’ve proved to me that being cancelled means you’ll be back at your day job in a while.Report
For what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure that we’ll see a small handful of things happen:
Dan Price’s old company will get a new CEO.
In a year or so, the company will hire a receptionist or similar and, instead of paying $70,000, the job will pay something closer to what other receptionists at similar companies get.
Someone will say something to the effect of “man, that one chick should have taken one for the team” or “at least Dan Price also paid well”. “Now, I’m not defending Dan Price’s creepy behavior. But.”
(And CEOs resigning after a scandal is hardly “cancel culture”. Senators either, for that matter.)Report
Two things can be true:
Dan Price’s plan for wages was good
Dan Price is a monsterReport
Hits the like button for this comment.Report
Someone will say something to the effect of “man, that one chick should have taken one for the team” or “at least Dan Price also paid well”. “Now, I’m not defending Dan Price’s creepy behavior. But.”
Since no one is apparently saying that, lets invent such a person, conjure up what we hope they will say, and all get mad at them.
The worst sort of hypocritical crab bucketing virtue signalling liberals are the ones in our head. They are truly Bad People.Report
I was basing it off of little more than the whole “It really sucks how Franken was treated” thing that we sometimes see out there in the wild in the current year.
Do you think that such things won’t be said about Dan Price?Report
Well, of course.
Because as I said, this is a recurring theme, of liberals being hypocritical crab bucketing virtue signalling Bad People.
Even if you have to scour the dankest regions of the internet to find them, or even invent them out of whole cloth.
You’re really just putting forward a high toned version of Libs Of TickTok, except without the legions of winged monkeys.Report
Chip, people saying “man, it sucks how Al Franken was treated” is not “crab bucketing”.
And, I assure you, I’m not inventing them out of whole cloth.
“You’re nutpicking!” is probably the accusation you should be making when we aren’t in “you made that up entirely!” territory.Report
Nutpicking at least involves, y’know, real live people instead of the imaginary one who will be saying stupid stuff in the future.
The point is that you have no trouble adopting a tone of moral scolding when it comes to liberals. You routinely describe them as insincere hypocrites vying for power, even as you sneer at them as moral scolds.
Franken is the showcase exhibit for the difference between the two parties. Only the fringe defends Franken, while 90% of the Republicans defend Trump. The vast majority of liberals just sucked it up and did the right thing.
So saying “B-but Franken!” isn’t the flex you think it is.Report
It’s not moral scolding. Not quite.
It’s more of a sneering at their claims to moral stature.
Armpit fart noises are not scolding.Report
Oh right.
I’m not a moral scold, I’m just sneering at the sinners who really are moral scolds.
Cynicism is the pinnacle of moral smugness.Report
Your self-evident moral authority is not legible to folks who are not inside of your bubble with you.
You’re old enough to remember the televangelist era.
While I suppose that it’s true that the folks who were mocking the claims to moral authority on the part of the televangelists were being smug as they were doing it, that didn’t make the criticisms of the televangelists *WRONG*.
I don’t recognize your self-evident Moral Authority.
It’s not that I’m waaaaay up there above you…
It’s that you’re down here.
With me.Report
Ok gotcha.
So those of us sneering at the Wyoming Republican voters as preferring the Big Lie to traditional Republican principles might be smug, but we aren’t “WRONG”.
When I say the Republicans who want to force child rape victims to carry a pregnancy to term are monsters, I may be smug, but I’m not “WRONG”.
Am I doing this right?Report
I see you do remember the televangelist days.
“People who disagree with us are godless sinners!”
Yeah, you’re doing great.Report
Who me smug and self-righteous? Oh, not at all.
I’m simply mocking their claims to moral righteousness.
They aren’t up there, they are down here with me.
And so on.Report
And the question of the legibility of your self-evident moral authority?Report
You mean besides not making adolescents bear the spawn of their rapists, not giving other people a hard time because of the color of their skin or their religions, or their consensual, adult sexual preferences, not defending predators, or voting for would-be dictators?Report
“And that’s why they are bad people for not voting for Liz Cheney.”Report
Sounds about right.Report
Oh, I have no moral authority! None, whatsoever.
I am simply pointing out that the Republicans’ claim to be not-sociopaths is hypocrisy, and I reject their moral authority.
Likewise, their morally righteous claim to be not-racist is also phony and merely a virtue signal.
They are down here, with me and all the other moral degenerates.Report
I suppose you don’t see the difference between “I’m not a sociopath” and “I’m a moral authority”.
Oh! Is this one of those Manichean things? Like, if something is Not Bad, therefore is is definitely Good? And if something is Not Good, then it is, definitionally, Bad?
That would explain a lot, actually.
“I know that I am not Bad. Therefore…”Report
Where did I say that sociopathy and racism are bad?
I’m just saying Republicans claim they are not doing these things, when in fact they are.
I make no moral judgements, merely objective factual observations.Report
Objective facts would be a leg up, I suppose.
All you need for that are facts that aren’t in dispute and definitions that are agreed upon.
And, I suppose, if you don’t have those, a bunch of people that you’re in the middle of that enjoy the whole “I AM A MEMBER IN GOOD STANDING!” thing that deliberately doesn’t take additional perspectives into account.Report
Well, sure, which brings us right back to facts which are in dispute, like “Is it a fact that liberals are hypocrites who merely like to virtue signal and crab bucket their way to power?”
Because until you have demonstrated that as an objective fact, then you’re just a guy making a subjective moral judgement, like “Republicans are sociopathic racists.”Report
Eh, “I don’t recognize your moral authority” is a subjective moral judgment, but, in my defense, you haven’t come *CLOSE* to demonstrating it.
I’m sure you remember the televangelists, right?
It’s like that.Report
You really don’t see how silly this is?
Making moral judgements of people, but then camouflaging it under “Oh, I’m merely pointing out hypocrisy”, or “Oh, this is merely a statement of fact.”
Accusing someone of hypocrisy is very much an accusation premised on assumed moral authority.
It doesn’t matter how vehemently you deny it, you’re assuming an air of moral righteousness when you imagine liberals rushing to defend Al Franken or Dan Price.
And hey, don’t worry- We all do that, its a good thing to some degree. Just, don’t try to flimflam us with the pose of detached objectivity.Report
Accusing someone of hypocrisy is very much an accusation premised on assumed moral authority.
Nah, not really. All you have to do is catch the “IT’S IMPORTANT TO DIET PROPERLY!” people with their hands in the cookie jar.
This says absolutely *NOTHING* about the person who says “your hand is in the cookie jar”.
Though I would expect the cookie thief to start saying stuff like “other people steal cookies too!” or “you eat cookies! You *SELL* cookies!” or the like.
It doesn’t matter how vehemently you deny it, you’re assuming an air of moral righteousness when you imagine liberals rushing to defend Al Franken or Dan Price.
When it comes to the liberals coming to the defense of Al Franken, I assure you that I am not imagining them.
When it comes to the imagined future defenses of Dan Price, I’m just basing them on stuff like Al Franken.
And I’m not pulling some weird “I’m not *DEFENDING* Al Franken! I just think that this should have been handled by the Senate Ethics Committee rather than the court of public opinion! Besides, he only had just the one accuser!” kinda maneuver in between discussions of the importance of taking #MeToo seriously because of Donald Trump.
Did you hear what he said to that one member of the Bush Dynasty? Shameful.Report
“(And CEOs resigning after a scandal is hardly “cancel culture”. Senators either, for that matter.)”
Well yeah. Cancel culture is about 95% bs but the few actual cases that could be described that way don’t move the needle like rich people getting fired for being creeps.Report
Al Franken, former Senator from Minnesota, is still retired from politics, doing a podcast and some club comedy. Adm. Mike Franken is running against Grassley for the Iowa seat. I’m not sure which JB was referencing, or if he confused them.
ETA: Oops, too late.Report
It seems that Franken was insufficiently cancelled for Jay’s liking.Report
Aw, c’mon! He only made a joke about one person! He never even got a chance to tell his side of the story!Report
Take that up with whomever said that. Wasn’t me.
You rail about cancel culture.
You also rail about certain folks not being cancelled.
Maybe your issue isn’t with cancel culture but with who gets targeted.
I’m sorry you’re so unconcerned about violence towards women. I feel for the women in your life.Report
In news that probably surprises no one, Florida’s new Election Crimes Unit has made arrests . . . of 20 former felons who MAY have voted illegally in 2020. I say MAY have because there is a process in Florida for felons to have their voting rights restored, and 2020 was the first election where that was in play. My guess is a lot of these folks thought they had their rights restored.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2022/08/18/desantis-announces-20-arrests-of-floridians-for-voter-fraud/Report
I will admit that if I had the job of finding people who voted in violation of Florida law, and my salary depended on the number of people I caught, I would also start with a list of felons living in Florida. A large population base*, largely computerized records, confusing law, difficult process for “officially” regaining voting rights.
* As of 2020, an estimated 1.1M disenfranchised felons lived in Florida. That was far and away the most of any state. By percentage Florida was only fourth, handily beaten by Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. Just over 10.5% of Mississippi’s voting-age population are ineligible to vote because of felony convictions.
ETA: If 10% of a state’s voting-age population have been convicted of a felony, doesn’t that seem like a problem that the legislature should be worrying about a lot?Report
Ha Ha Ha!
No they aren’t worried about it because those people are morally bankrupt you see, and deserve to have their voting rights taken away. The fact that they are 61%+ black is only a coincidence.Report
This is the sort of thing that leads me to think that there is no long-term stable arrangement where my state can share a country with that state. No matter how lunatic that sounds.Report
Interestingly, if we adjust for race, Mississippi and Alabama have below average rates of adult men with felony records. The states with the highest rates of felony records for black men are California, Washington, Florida, Massachusetts, and Indiana. This is for 2010, so I suppose it’s possible that relative rates have changed since then. See figure 5 here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5996985Report
Yeah more recent data would suggest significant changes:
https://mississippitoday.org/2020/10/19/study-11-of-all-mississippians-16-of-black-mississippians-cant-vote-because-of-felony-convictions/Report
There’s been an increase in percentage of adults with felony records (possibly due to people who aged out of major crime-committing years before the War on Drugs and generational crime wave dying off). What’s less clear to me is how much this affected the differences between states in terms of race-specific rates of felony records. Note that this is different from rates of felony-related voting disqualification.Report
Not quite sure what race has to do with it. Probably more of a poverty thing, if I was to hazard a guess.Report
Three of his five states are liberal led, and adjusting for race is a way to dismiss racial inequity in incarceration.Report
I’m extremely wary of any isolated factoids about criminology that are put into service to a larger point.
As I’ve mentioned before, the raw data of criminology, the arrest report, is itself an unreliable source tainted with all the biases and flawed assumptions of the police officers themselves.
Not to say they worthless, just that they need to be put into perspective and given some context.Report
As I’ve pointed out before, arrest records are not the only source of raw data. We have victim surveys (the NCVS), as well as records of where crimes are reported and where (and whose) bodies show up. None of these alternative sources support the hypothesis that racial differences in arrest rates are primarily or even substantially to racial bias on the part of police. That simply is not a tenable hypothesis in general.
Possibly racial bias plays a role in racial disparities in arrests for drug crimes, since we don’t have victim reports for victimless crimes, although it’s worth noting that black people are actually less overrepresented in arrests and incarceration for drug crimes than they are for violent and property crimes, and non-Hispanic whites are only slightly underrepresented when accounting for age (50% of arrests vs. 60% of the overall population, and only 55% of the population age 20-39).Report
I’m talking science, not politics. I guess that’s not really your thing.
adjusting for race is a way to dismiss racial inequity in incarceration.
There was literally no discussion of racial disparities in felony records in this thread until I pointed out that looking at race-specific rates was important. Do you even think about whether the things you say make sense?Report
Racial composition of the population is a huge confounder for regional variation in crime and other things, and it has to be accounted for in any kind of even remotely serious analysis. Ignoring this is not the evidence of superior personal virtue that people seem to think it is.
Why does Mississippi have so many adults with felony records? Because Mississippi has a lot of black people, and for reasons that are poorly understood, a much larger percentage of black people than white people have felony records in every state. By adjusting for race, we can see that Mississippi actually has below-average rates of race-specific felony records. This is surprising and interesting, and would go totally unnoticed without adjusting for race.
As for whether it’s “more of a poverty thing,” that’s a reasonable conjecture, but there are two major issues here.
First, controlling for poverty is methodologically problematic. Since many of the same behavioral traits that predispose someone to criminality (poor impulse control, antisocial tendencies, low future orientation, etc.)also make people less employable, controlling for poverty without also controlling for these confounding traits will make it look like there’s a direct causal vector from poverty to crime even if no such vector exists, or make an existing causal relationship look stronger than it actually is.
Even if we ignore that, the hypothesis still doesn’t hold up. Large racial gaps in criminal offending remain even after controlling for socioeconomic background. A particularly striking example of this is that in New York City, Asians have the same poverty rate as blacks, but commit crime at roughly the same rate as non-Hispanic whites. Nationally, Hispanics have poverty rates similar to blacks, but have rates of criminal offending much more similar to non-Hispanic whites. Asians have slightly higher poverty rates than non-Hispanic whites, but commit much less crime.
To be clear, most black people aren’t criminals, because there’s no magical essence of blackness that both turns your skin dark and makes you commit crimes. But people really need to check their work on this stuff.Report
What kind of adjustment are you making? If felony convictions are over/under represented by race it has to lead you somewhere, and, at least to me, that somewhere is a place we need to be talking about.Report
This is where my thinking goes as well, because while black men in Mississippi my have lower felony conviction rates then black men elsewhere – which is what I think he saying- black men are arrested and convicted of felonies here is rates disproportionate to their proportion of the population.
Which is a significant problem pointing back to serious structural issues.Report
The rivers of Europe seem to be drying up.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/frances-river-loire-sets-new-lows-drought-dries-up-its-tributaries-2022-08-17/Report
I was on a Rhine cruise in the spring, and even then it was virtually a no wake zone.Report
Just a couple days ago there was a brief talk about SS and the R’s. Someone, Dark M i think, said “gosh golly the R’s would never go after SS.” Rough paraphrase, sorry if i remembered wrong. Weeellllll today i see this from Ron John R- Wall Street.
“Sen. Ron Johnson says Social Security ‘was set up improperly’ and would have been better invested in the stock market”
Lol. Yeah can’t see how that wouldn’t have been a disaster a few times over but would have made very rich people very richer.Report
Remove the cap.
How difficult would it be to remove the cap?
How difficult would it be to have a conversation about removing the cap?Report
That would undermine the important fiction that it is a savings program and not a transfer program.Report
Does anyone think it’s savings anymore?Report
I think the biggest constituency of people motivated to keep it have a strong incentive to look at it that way, those being current beneficiaries (i.e. the I paid in and am owed it back argument). Which isn’t to say I disagree with them on the question of keeping it, even if I look at it a little differently.Report
I’m starting to be at the age where I’d be really upset if SS went away. I also think removing the cap is a great way to keep it going. Heck, we could even keep the employer portion at the current cap to keep them happy.Report
If nothing changes, stuff runs out the year I turn 67.
Which I now understand is really, really funny.Report
Don’t forget that “runs out” means benefits are reduced to 75 cents on the promised dollar.Report
I have heard that but find myself feeling hopeful when I hear it so I assume it’s false.Report
The SSA actuaries have been very, very good all along. Absent the government collapsing the economy somehow, trust them.
Since no one’s mentioned it, the trust fund is being drawn down now according to plan. It grew to a staggering size because the Boomers were the first generation taxed to pay for part of their own retirement. The rest of you will have to twiddle with the tax rates/base.Report
The other issue is that it was originally set up when the assumption was that people wouldn’t live much past the age of 70. Now, after fifty-plus years of battling and fighting and math-wrangling, the program has grudgingly been updated with the assumption that people wouldn’t live much past the age of 71.Report
On a policy, and to some degree moral level, I think it’s a big part of keeping this a first world country. On a more immediate personal level, it’s a critical component of keeping my mother in law from becoming a dependent. You know, the stuff of nightmares.Report
Great lets talk about how to fix it. We’ve had those discussions for years with all sorts of solutions. Didn’t CPA or Actuaries have a tool where we could all go play with solutions. There are plenty out there. Then R’s do their Kool Aid Man routine with “lets give all the money to wall street…really what could possibly go wrong.”Report
One of the things we could do to fix it? Remove the cap.Report
Ron Johnson is not proposing removing the cap.
Rick Scott did not propose removing the cap.
Joe Biden proposed raising the cap but he had to give it away to get votes.
YMMV on what that means.Report
I’ve seen Yglesias make the argument that one of the more underrated, under discussed aspects of American politics is just how unpopular standard Republican positions are on some pretty major economic and safety net issues. I think he is right.Report
They are quite popular with people who believe those positions will hurt some hated other.Report
It’s becoming clearer each day that Senior Trump officials knew they had things that needed hiding as they exited the maelstrom:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/22/politics/ice-officials-wipe-phones-trump/index.htmlReport
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https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1562916200866267138
White House Twitter is on fire!Report
It’s a good zinger that should play pretty well on Twitter and turn all of the PPP =/= Student Loans people into sounding like humorless dorks.
I have started seeing the argument that the PPP thing proves that Biden didn’t forgive *ENOUGH* debt.
Which is probably not where he intended that to go but, hey. That argument probably won’t leave twitter either.Report
Yep, GOP-ers being pompous hypocrites is definitely all about Biden and how he F’ed up. [eyeroll]Report
https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/26/politics/ballot-hand-counting-regulations-approved-in-nevada/index.htmlReport
Inflation hawks may wish to consider:
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Gorbachev has died. He was one of those few people who stood at a crossroads in history and who I struggle to imagine not being there and having it end the same way. Such a pivotal figure and so hated by his own people; history, I hope, will be kinder.Report
The liberal reign of terror claims another victim:
Trump’s Truth Social barred from Google Play store over content moderation concerns
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/30/trump-truth-social-barred-from-google-play-store-content-moderation-concerns.htmlReport
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Right wing madrasas being created in Oklahoma this school year.
https://www.normantranscript.com/news/walters-asks-state-board-to-revoke-former-nps-teachers-certificate/article_546ab96e-293d-11ed-a184-d3d4f8caeb8f.html
Oklahoma Secretary of Education Ryan Walters said, “…there is no place for a teacher with a liberal political agenda in the classroom.”Report
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-election-lie-florida-schools_n_6312eaace4b0eac9f4cd1032
Huh… rogue teachers going off book and teaching f’ed up lessons isn’t a uniquely liberal phenomenon? WHO KNEW!
Wait wait wait… no that’s not how we discuss this. Clearly this is a sign that any conservative, Republican, or even right-leaning teacher is trying to groom kids for horrible outcomes and should be barred from schools.Report
I admit to gigglesnorting a couple of times during this:
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The Mexicans should check their privilege and embrace refugees from a country with a rigid racial caste system, destabilizing inflation, and an epidemic of violent crime.Report
There are quite a few people who, despite presenting as tolerant liberals, have reactionary and racist views of the world.
Like those fringe leftists who assure us that black people can’t be racist, or that nonwhite are just naturally liberal. Their worldview is rooted in an essentialist view of people- i.e. Chinese are like this while Italians are like that and of course white people are essentially good.
For these sorts, discovering that there is racism within the black world, and that other cultures are as hidebound and chauvinistic as anyone else, is a revelation. Oddly, though the revelation rarely leads to enlightenment but rather a strenuous effort to force the facts into the pre-ordered structure.
For example, upon discovering that Africans practiced slavery, instead of achieving a deeper understanding of the universality of human nature, the essentialist uses this fact to reinforce an existing bigotry- i.e., the Africans were morally compromised so white slaveowners couldn’t have been so bad after all.Report
The part of the video where the woman is saying “the people who are moving there are the same ones who complain when immigrants come to America” had me somewhat confused, though.
I can easily see how the ones moving down there would be the ones celebrating immigration (legal or not). The ones moving down there are urbane and educated and *NOT* Trump voters.
If I had to pick a spectrum, they’re somewhere between “voted for the School Board recall” and “voted against the Chesa recall”.Report
I’m being ridiculous. I don’t expect any more of them than I would anyone else. The human condition is just a funny thing, that’s all.Report
Oh, of course (and, of course, you shouldn’t! (and, of course, it is)).
Heck, I’d say that they even have something approaching a point in there.
But, even so, I gigglesnorted.Report
Somewhat related to the Mexico City tweet above:
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People are calling that an “own” but I’m not sure that it is. They’re having the immigrants show up and they are responding by declaring an emergency and setting up funds to deal with the emergency of having that many show up at once.
It’s part and parcel with what was done in 2018:
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Republicans round up terrified desperate and hated members of the Outgroup and pack them into
cattle carsbuses to be sent into exileDemocrats respond swiftly with compassionate humanitarian government assistance.
I can see how this is an “own”.
And as with so many things, perfectly illustrative of the two parties.Report
You’d think that the sanctuary cities would be nicer than the hostile bussing ones.
You’d think that the immigrants would be delighted to go to your city instead of the red ones.Report
And so the cities are nicer.
I’m sure that, if there is lack of delight at being in a city that welcomes them (there are “sanctuary cities” in Texas, or at least were before the state cracked down) that they are now even further from their families and the large, strong immigrant networks and NGOs in states like Texas that help people find housing and employment, provide legal protection, help with their children’s education, etc., all of which exist because we’re close to the border, so even if Texas isn’t their final destination, a substantial portion of the people entering this country stop here first.Report
I want to laugh at this but it so belittles the Holocaust that I’m really offended.Report
Man ya let one or two or a couple thousand tikitorch carrying white nationalists into your party, and it’s all Godwin all the time.Report
You make me feel so guilty for registering all those white nationalists. It well excuses your comparison of busing immigrants to systematic genocide.Report
Or maybe I’m looking at this backwards, and you think the Holocaust was no worse than a few bus trips.Report
Queen Elizabeth II has died. It’s very sad for me the passing of an era. My Grandmother was a staunch royalist and I inherited that from her. It feels like some small part of her has now, at last, departed the world too. HRM King Charles has some titanic shoes to fill.Report
It’s the end of an era for sure. My country (and probably yours as well) didn’t actually attain their modern constitutional structures until after the Queen was crowned, so in an important sense she’s the only monarch we’ve had.Report
Indeed, the Canadian royal coat of arms is one of the most beautiful in the Commonwealth and we referred to ourselves as a dominion up through to the 1960’s.Report
I admit to a certain fascination at this particular juncture, what with the UK looking at a potentially disastrous winter (blackouts and food riots some are saying), threats of Scottish independence, people making noises about Irish unification, whether well-to-do countries like Australia and Canada will tie themselves to Charles III the way they did to Elizabeth.Report
I just can’t believe the Brits put up with those layabouts.Report
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The struggle for carceral reform continues:
Hundreds of thousands of Californians may soon get their criminal records cleared
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/23340644/clean-slate-automated-criminal-record-clearing-felonies-california?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
The bill seals the records of many felons, making it easier for them to find work and housing.
What makes this important is that it is part of the much larger movement to find alternate methods of dealing with crime, by making it easier for felons to re-integrate into society.
Police reform, carceral reform- these things always are long term struggles wwhich are won by small incremental measures.Report
Attention Reasonable Republicans:
You can check out of this horror cult anytime you want.
Really, its not too late.
Mom says trans eighth-grader was questioned by Texas officials at school
On the morning of Aug. 30, a 13-year-old transgender boy was pulled out of class by his school’s administrators, his mother says. While his classmates continued their studies, he sat in a conference room at a Texas middle school where a Department of Family and Protective Services investigator began asking personal questions, court records state.
The nearly hour-long interview touched on a range of personal topics — from the teen’s medical history to his gender dysphoria diagnosis to his suicide attempt years back, court records state. The interrogation left the boy — identified under the pseudonym Steve Koe — shaking and distressed, according to a signed declaration from his mother, named as Carol Koe.Report
Time was no official in their right mind would question a kid without their parents there for liability reasons.
Dear God what are we coming to?Report
You never had a guidance counselor?Report
as in some I was sent to one on one for an involuntary “interview”? Nope. And especially where my prior medical history would have been discussed.
You do understand this isn’t that however? This is Greg Abbot’s “transgender treatment is child abuse and should be investigated as such” policy playing out.Report
That’s your interpretation of the Washington Post’s interpretation of the mother’s interpretation.Report
Um no. DPS isn’t school guidance counselors. And they don’t interview transgender kids outside the class – and likely outside their parents knowledge or consent – on a whim. And court records aren’t an interpretation of an interpretation of a … what ever.
This is what politicians on your side of the aisle in Texas have decided they need to do. DPS has to follow their direction until the courts or the legislature tell them otherwise.Report
What needs to be pointed out also is that this has nothing whatsoever to do with Donald Trump.
This wasn’t Trump, this wasn’t some isolated fringe or rogue county official somewhere.
This was done at the specific direction of Greg Abbot, the rising star and leading voice of mainstream Republicanism.
When people say they don’t like Trump but will vote Republican for “judges and tax cuts” this is what they are voting for.Report
Ukrainian counter-offensive making unexpected progress, breaking Russian front line in the east. Some sources saying they already took back Izyum.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ukraine-breaks-front-line-east-nearing-key-town-89636777Report
I pray to the God(ess?) that I don’t believe in that this turns into a route for the Russian Army but at the very least let it be what it appears to be- a significant and durable advance by the Ukrainians.Report
I operate under the assumption that anything I read is at least a little bit propaganda but seems like there could be something big happening. I’d also love to see the Ukranians break the Russians at this point… as long as it doesn’t result in the Russians resorting to tactical nuclear strikes. Though one also has to wonder what state the Russians’ tactical nuclear weapons are in now that we know how hollowed out so much of their army and equipment is. Not that we want to find out or anything.Report
Now I’m starting to see chatter that Ukranian troops may have advanced back in to Luhansk oblast, which is crazy if true.Report
I read the reports about the large numbers of towns, villages, and settlements that have changed hands, and the nominally long distances the Ukrainians are penetrating, then I look at the total area involved and realize that it’s all happening in what would be about half of my moderate-sized (for western values of moderate) county.Report
It’d be hard to justify using nuclear weapons against a territory you’re claiming to be liberating. You could probably only justify them against an infidel or an overwhelming aggressor. If Russia used them, they’d be admitting that they’re incapable of any conventional response, which would be humiliating. They’d also lose the “only the US has ever…” card.Report
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.Report
It seems unlikely but you can’t rule it out. The scenario where I’d be most concerned about it would be if Putin believes he is losing his grip on power. I’m very doubtful that anyone in the West really understands the internal dynamics of Russia. If it were to happen I suspect it would look to us like it came out of nowhere.Report
If I’m going to worry about things nuclear in Ukraine, I’m going to worry about Russians damaging the spent fuel pools at the big reactor complex in ways not easily repaired. I’ve seen stuff from Ukrainian experts suggesting that if the pools are drained and can’t be refilled, the result is probably much like Chernobyl.Report
That is also a concerning situation.Report
Murder shaming probably won’t *HURT*? I guess?
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Yet another reason to get rid of coal-fired power plants? BNSF carries a good share of Wyoming coal to points farther east where it’s still heavily used.Report
Hope for a warm winter, I guess. I don’t know that they’ll be able to put windmills in the bay quickly enough.Report
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/11/nyregion/hasidic-yeshivas-schools-new-york.html
Fascinating article that touches on so many topics: education, religion, private schools, testing, government funding and oversight, etc.Report
That is an excellent essay.
Is deliberately preventing children from assimilation into American culture effectively child abuse?
These kids should be watching Spongebob or whatever the hell it is these days. Teen Titans? Something.
On the other hand, it seems like saying “assimilate!” is, like, some weird form of cultural genocide. Like, if we busted up the reservations and told the Native Americans “seriously, let’s just stop lying to ourselves” and assimilated everybody, that would be bad.
I can understand the argument that “well, we shouldn’t be paying for them to not assimilate!” but there are just some weird dynamics in the whole situation.Report
Many weird dynamics. The one that most jumps out to me is the billions in funding for a school where 0% of kids are “proficient.”Report
If we want to say that the problem is not one that will be solved by funding, I think I could get most folks on board with that.Report
“For many Hasidic people, their schools are succeeding — just not according to the standards set by the outside world. In a community that places religion at the center of daily life, secular education is often viewed as unnecessary, or even distracting.”
I’m sure the secular relief dollars are accepted with gratitude.Report
Well, what do you think the problem is?Report
Yeah, I had a paragraph dedicated to “maybe we could reap some dividends by jumping to ‘is there even a problem? say what the problem is! say what it is out loud! SAY IT SO EVERYONE CAN HEAR IT!” but I thought it was over the top so I deleted it and just wrote my one sentence.Report
I remember you stating some strong feelings on schools with a wide delta between grade rates and proficiency rates.
Well, these have about as wide a delta as you can get.
Would you apply those same feelings here? Or is this different?Report
Were they teaching in Hasidic or in English in the other school?
Were they teaching Religious Instruction or were they teaching Math and Reading in the other school?Report
I dunno… you had researched the other schools.
You seem to be framing it as “Trying and failing is different than not trying and failing.” Which is a fair framing.
I’m framing it as, “Schools are using public money to ‘graduate’ students who don’t meet established standards of proficiency.”
Which was how you were framing it. Back then at least.Report
Well, let’s look at it this way:
The goals of the Hasidic schools seems to be “give these kids a Hasidic education to help indoctrinate them to become upstanding members of the Hasidic community (and *NOTHING* else)”.
I mean, if I asked “are the schools in Baltimore failing?”, my old assumptions led me to the conclusion that they were.
Maybe my old assumptions were bad?
“We want these children to be illiterate and innumerate so they never leave this community” would seem to be a goal that has these schools in Baltimore succeeding.Report
Judging success failure by whether a stated goal is achieved is a good measure, by my eyes.
The question is… what is the goal of that public money with regards to education? Is it to help kids gain proficiency in reading and writing and math? Or is it to keep kids locked within their communities?
The argument put forth before was that if Baltimore schools are going to have a major delta between “graduate rate” and “proficiency rate” then maybe we should consider whether the Baltimore school is “working” and what we want to do about that.
Given these schools have a massive delta between those two rates, it seems very reasonable that we similarly consider whether they are “working” and what we want to do about that.
Me? I’d propose letting them operate however they want but absent any public funds unless/until they are willing to hold themselves to similar standards as public schools.Report
Oh, is this just about defunding the schools?
Sure, take away the money.
I thought you were moving toward “I’m not saying they should stop being Jewish, just maybe explore being *LESS* Jewish”.Report
But one thing about the whole school funding issue for the kiddos in Baltimore is that, presumably, the parents were hoping for children that were not innumerate and were not illiterate.
I’m guessing that if all of the government funding was removed from the Hasidic schools and the parents were given vouchers and told about some great charter schools in the area that had great math and reading numbers that those vouchers would end up back in the hands of the Hasidic school.
Which makes this a very different problem indeed.Report
What’s being overlooked here is that the Hasidic schools just aren’t allowed to provide — deliberately — substandard secular education. In New York, all schools, private or public, religious or secular, have to offer prescribed instruction in secular subjects. (Schools doing a bad job of it, rather than not making a good faith effort at all, is a different issue.) Schools do not have the option in New York to say, in effect, screw it, we’re just interested in turning out people who can’t do anything but serve as freelance rabbis and become public charges. Whether complying with the law makes them, in their eyes or yours, “less Jewish” is irrelevant. If you run a school in New York, there are things you have to do, and the ultra-orthodox schools have been getting away for a long time without doing what they have to. Now that the rock has been overturned, maybe we’ll see some muslim school that does the same thing — though they won’t have the political clout to resist.Report
Now that the rock has been overturned, maybe we’ll see some muslim school that does the same thing — though they won’t have the political clout to resist.
Eh, they should just do a better job of masquerading as merely doing a bad job of it.
Maybe more funding would help?Report
To CJ,
Can you cite what law/regulation you’re referring to with regards to the prescribed instruction in secular subjects? It sounds vaguely familiar but isn’t anything I’ve ever actually run up against. I’ve been through the independent school (NYSAIS) accreditation process on both ends (e.g., on the accreditation committee and been the school being evaluated) and I know that is a criteria for accreditation, but that is all voluntary.
To Jaybird,
I personally have no issue with the school’s Jewishness. Let them teach what they want! My issue is that they are receiving so much state funding but are apparently not subjected to any state rules. Again, you previously seemed very flummoxed that schools could graduate 75% of kids but have only 65% of them deemed proficient and you wondered aloud about how that could be? Now we’ve got schools with literally 0% proficiency but who are graduating everyone. So if a 10% gap was concerning, why isn’t a 100% gap concerning? If you think that schools should not be allowed to graduate kids who aren’t proficient, I imagine these schools would really stick in your craw.
It can’t be about public vs private, since these schools are receiving so much public funding.
Can it really just be about parent expectations? If so, I can see that. But I have a bit of info for you: parents don’t set proficiency standards.Report
Again, you previously seemed very flummoxed that schools could graduate 75% of kids but have only 65% of them deemed proficient and you wondered aloud about how that could be? Now we’ve got schools with literally 0% proficiency but who are graduating everyone. So if a 10% gap was concerning, why isn’t a 100% gap concerning?
Well, in the case of the schools in Baltimore, the schools were (presumably) failing. Like, I assumed that their goal was to teach kids proficiency.
In the Hasidic schools’ case, however, I think that that is *NOT* the goal. Moreover, I think that the goals of the school and the goals of the parents *ACTUALLY ALIGN*.
Which is a *COMPLETELY* different dynamic than that of what I used to assume existed in Baltimore.
But now that I know that maybe the goal is to produce illiterate and innumerate people who will never leave the community, maybe the Baltimore schools are in light with community values too.
More funding!Report
From the parents. Graduating kids well versed in Hasidic tenets does society absolutely no good.Report
Ah, if we want something for the good of society…
What do we want?
Well, we want these kids to speak English, for one.
They need enough English language proficiency to get a good job.
They also need *CULTURAL* literacy. You don’t need a lot. The MCU and football season will get you across the 50 yard line.
It’s perfectly understandable that society would ask that these people to speak English and assimilate. These are reasonable things to ask for!
Edit: Good news! They still make these shirts. (And in 3X no less!)Report
The goal of school, and least it was in my day, was to educate kids enough so they’d be able to function in adult society. Being able to quote the Torah and cite the Talmud might be helpful if you plan on only living in a Hasidic neighborhood, but, again, do it on your own dime. If you’re going to suck on the government teat, you gotta do what the man tells you.Report
Eh, my take is that someone who graduates high school ought to be able to:
1. Write a five paragraph essay
2. Read a book about as tough as Animal Farm and summarize it
3. Do some light Algebra 1 stuff (multistep “find for x” stuff, squares and square roots, ratios)
4. Read a scale, measuring flask, thermometer
You know. The basics. I would also say that anyone who graduated without being able to do those things (yes, all of them) will have been *FAILED* by their high school.
You may be tempted to say “A high school graduate ought to be able to do a hell of a lot more than *THAT*!”
I’d agree. But I’d say that one that graduated without being able to do those things above will have been failed by his or her high school.Report
But does the goal of that money matter? I mean, presumably the money they get is earmarked for “education.” Would you say it is being used effectively in the Hasidic schools?Report
“being used effectively”
What’s the goal, again?
Because if the goal is educate these kids to become upstanding members of the Hasidic community (and *NOTHING* else), the schools seem to be exceptionally successful and in line with what their community wants.
If the goal is something else, of course, we should hammer out what that goal is.Report
Well, that’s public money. Are you cool with billions of public dollars going to fund a fringe ideology indoctrinating its children such that they can never exit that insular society?Report
Hey, I think that one of the main goals of high school should be to graduate kids either prepared for college *OR* (given that college ain’t for everybody) literate/numerate enough to get a job and not suck up money from the public.
If a high school is graduating a significant number of children who are illiterate, innumerate, and going on welfare, it should be dismantled and something else put in its place because it is *OBVIOUSLY* failing.
But that assumes that the goal is a literate, numerate public capable of getting a job, of course.
If the goal is something else, we should probably hammer that out.Report
“Hey, I think that one of the main goals of high school should be to graduate kids either prepared for college *OR* (given that college ain’t for everybody) literate/numerate enough to get a job and not suck up money from the public.”
If you truly think this, then you should be appalled by these schools. Many of the communities they serve have the highest rates of children in poverty and people on public assistance in the nation.
From Wiki (Cite link seems dead): “According to 2008 census figures, the village has the highest poverty rate in the nation, and the largest percentage of residents who receive food stamps. More than five-eighths of Kiryas Joel residents live below the federal poverty line, and more than 40 percent receive food stamps, according to the American Community Survey, a U.S. Census Bureau study of every place in the country with 20,000 residents or more.”
Monsey is another such community (at the heart of the East Ramapo School District): https://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US3648010-monsey-ny/
Kaser, the heart of the Monsey Hasidic community is even worse (63.3% below poverty line).
If schools receiving public funds producing communities with those numbers don’t outrage you based on your stated goals, I don’t know what will.Report
Am I allowed to be upset by other schools with low numbers too or just these?
Because if starting to say “you people need to learn English, you need to assimilate, you need to get off welfare, you need to be a maker and not a taker” is on the table, I’d like to see where we, as a society, can start applying such rules.
And, sure, we can start here.Report
You can feel whatever you want. YOU were/are the one saying those things… not me.Report
It’s funny… you seem to REALLY want to fight with people about how it’s the Jewishness of these schools that has people upset and everyone keeps pointing out it’s the money that upsets us and you just keep tying yourself in knots trying to get someone to take up a side that no one here is on.
GOOD TIMES!Report
If we find ourselves in a place where we’re going after these schools and doing our best to destroy them and replace them with new and better schools that churn out proficient English speakers capable of doing math but go back to not giving a crap about the other schools that churn out numbers like these schools do?
I’d have to wonder why.
Do you have a reason why?
Oh, it’s just the money? Like, things would be better if these schools got less funding?Report
“you seem to REALLY want to fight with people about how it’s the Jewishness of these schools that has people upset and everyone keeps pointing out it’s the money that upsets us ”
welp
you keep saying “it’s not the JEWS, the only one here saying ANYTHING about JEWS is YOU”
and you keep pointing to how these Hasidic schools have very poor Objective Measures Of Educational Quality and saying “this is why I’m mad, these schools are taking public money and doing a bad job by objective measures!”
and when Jaybird says “so what about other schools with similarly-poor Objective Measures Of Educational Quality”
you reply by loudly and angrily pointing even harder at how these Hasidic schools have very poor Objective Measures Of Educational Quality
and we’re left wondering why it is that you seem to keep returning to these Hasidic schools
and we’re left wondering whether the Objective Measures Of Educational Quality are less the reason and more the excuseReport
“and when Jaybird says “so what about other schools with similarly-poor Objective Measures Of Educational Quality””
They aren’t similarly poor. There are clear differences between the schools Jaybird wants to talk about and the ones being discussed in this article.
Also, no where have I said, “Those other schools are fine and dandy.”
It’s pretty obvious “Whatabout-ism” by Jaybird with a dose of “Liberals are the real racists/anti-semites.”Report
“Are you cool with billions of public dollars going to fund a fringe ideology indoctrinating its children such that they can never exit that insular society?”
surprising to find you, of all people, speaking so strongly against the notion of DEI educationReport
This subthread is exemplifies how so many issues become proxy battles in service to a larger war, and the actual participants are used as cannon fodder for other people’s interests.
In this case, in response to Kazzy’s opening complaint about the Hasidic schools, Jaybird moves the Baltimore schools into a shielding position, such that it becomes necessary to fight through them before getting to the Hasidic schools.
And in both cases, the actual participants are largely just cannon fodder in a larger battle over tangential issues like DEI or publicly funded schools.Report
And some people can’t seem to grasp, at least for the moment, the difference between trying to get students up to standard and failing versus blowing off the standard and not even trying.
But that very distinction will become the centerpiece of their argument when it suits them.Report
I’m 100% down with exploring the distinction between trying to get students up to standard and failing versus blowing off the standard.
But I’m also the guy who said stuff like:
This seems to add a dynamic that we don’t seem to want to talk about.
I mean, I assume that the parents in the Baltimore schools that have proficiency numbers in the single digits are displeased with that… right?
But those schools get a shrug and “well, there’s nothing to be done”.
These schools? These schools seem to be doing exactly what the parents of the children want them to be doing.
Which means that this now becomes a discussion about whether these schools should get public funding.
I’m down with pulling public funding! Indeed I am!
I’m just also noting that that ain’t gonna fix the problem.Report
Who “don’t seem to want to talk about it”? A few of us have said flat out that these schools are not allowed to do what they’re doing whether the parents want it or not. Maybe some repetition is in order. These schools are required to offer their pupils a program of secular education that meets state standards whether they or the parents want it or not. They may do a bad job of it, like some public schools in any major city you happen to know about, but they have to do it. Period. Full stop. And they don’t want to. That obviously has to be handled differently from just plain failure.Report
That obviously has to be handled differently from just plain failure.
If they can merely finesse it by saying “whoopsie doodle, we’re incompetent! WE NEED MORE FUNDING!”, then I daresay that we’re in a situation that yanking the funding won’t fix.
We’re in a place where we might have to fire the current teachers and hire new ones.Report
Is it possible to just say simply, that the leaders of the schools are abusing the public trust and should do a better job?
And that’s it. Just stop there.
No digression into DEI or public versus private, no segue into meta navel gazing about the purpose of schools.
Why does the issue need to be brushed aside in a headlong rush to a different subject?
Because this is why so many criticisms of schools (Hasidic, Baltimore, or otherwise)simply can’t be taken at face value, because the attackers insist on using the specific issue as a launching pad for all sorts of unrelated and concealed attacks.Report
unrelated and concealed attacks.
The schools are not teaching their students to be proficient. And, like, not even *CLOSE*. The school didn’t have a single proficient student.
Can you imagine?Report
Yes, and from what I can tell, not one person on this blog is saying that is acceptable.
So what are we really talking about?
Can we spit it out without sarcasm, sockpuppetry, or veiled references?Report
No.Report
not one person on this blog is saying that is acceptable
I am in full agreement with them that this is completely and totally unacceptable.
Heck, I think that the schools need to be disbanded and new ones built in their place (maybe we can use the old buildings, if we must). With new administrators and new teachers and new support staff.Report
I haven’t followed this thread (it looks awful) but do we know that the schools are the cause of the failure? That is to say, if you took the best schools in the word and put them into these communities, do we know they’d get better results?Report
do we know that the schools are the cause of the failure?
I touched on this, a little, when I said:
Report
Ah. Well, a quick review of this subthread, and I’ve decided that the most important topic to discuss is “why did Jaybird choose to discuss this?”.Report
But they can’t “finesse” it. They aren’t doing a bad job of teaching what they’re supposed to teach. They’re not teaching the stuff they’re supposed to teach. They’re up front about it. They can’t say they’re trying and failing and get away with it. Facts are sometimes obvious.
If they do start teaching what they’re supposed to teach, and the lawsuits to prevent that will be filed any day now, they probably will need to fire a bunch of current teachers, but as long as they refuse to teach what they’re supposed to, the competence of the current teachers to teach it is neither here nor there. And neither is funding.Report
They’re not teaching the stuff they’re supposed to teach. They’re up front about it. They can’t say they’re trying and failing and get away with it. Facts are sometimes obvious.
See? They need to *LIE*! “We’re trying so hard! We don’t have enough funding! We need stronger union protections!”
And we can get people to line up in defense of the status quo!
But, for what it’s worth, I also think that these schools need to be torn down and the earth salted.
And neither is funding.
You may be shocked to see the number of times that funding has been brought up by people who aren’t me in these comments.
Tell them that this has nothing to do with funding but with having a school that is maliciously churning out students who can’t read, do math, and are destined to be on the dole.Report
They may NEED to lie, but they can’t get away with it here, so what’s your point?
Wait. I’m sorry for assuming you had one. Never mind.Report
“So what’s your point?”
Merely that we’ve finally found a school that is churning out illiterate and innumerate children that we agree needs to change… instead of a rigorous defense of the status quo.
For what it’s worth: I agree that these Hasidic schools need to go away. 100%. These kids should learn English and need to get skills that will help them get real jobs in normal society.Report
Again, someone says “Private Hasidic” and you reflexively say “union(presumably Baltimore)”
Why?
Why do you insist on deflecting the the discussion to something else?
How can we take your comments seriously when you so obviously aren’t talking about this at all?Report
Chip, I’m *NOT* deflecting.
I’m wondering if there is a particular meta-ethic behind the importance of making sure that these kids learn to read more good.
So far, the main thing I see is that the teachers of these schools aren’t unionized and that the schools are operating in accordance with the wishes of the community.
Which seems a weird meta-ethic to call us to immediate action.Report
If that’s the main thing you see, look again.Report
Why do you pivot away from a simple query “(Are these schools abusing the public trust”) and carom off into a meta question which no one is asking, and then keep raising the word union which is entirely irrelevant?
This is my original point, is the conversations become toxic when people start speaking in meta coded language, and using them as a proxy stand in for something else entirely.
In this case, you really, really don’t want to talk about the Hasidic schools, but really, really want to talk about the Baltimore schools.Report
I didn’t pivot away from it! I’ve answered it several times so far when I said that these schools are failing and need to go away!
Do you need me to explicitly say that “they’re abusing the public trust”? Sure. They’re abusing the public trust.
There you go.
Now I’m wondering if the criticism of schools abusing the public trust scales at all outside of this one isolated example.
Oh, you’d rather I talk about how the Hasidic schools need to go away some more?
How would you like it phrased this time?Report
Is “these schools need to go away” a serious thoughtful position we should discuss, or a sarcastic jibe?Report
I take it that’s a rhetorical question.Report
They need to either become schools that have proficiency numbers in the 70s and 80s or be replaced by schools with proficiency numbers in the 70s and 80s.
I can’t say I particularly care which.
What’s the phrasing you’d prefer?Report
“But those schools get a shrug and “well, there’s nothing to be done”.”
Who said that?
There are major differences between the Baltimore public schools and these private schools in New York, such that any proposed solution for one is not going to be particularly useful for the other. Meaning that bringing up one group of schools in a conversation about the other is not particularly helpful.
Of course, I don’t think you did so with any eye towards being “helpful” except insofar as trying to make liberals look bad.
I want better for the students of Baltimore.
I want better for the students of these Yeshivas.
How we get them better are two different roads.Report
“Replace the schools with new ones. Fire the old teachers. Hire new ones. Fire the old administrators. Hire new ones.”
(There’s going to be tweaks around the edges, of course. But the schools are failing.)Report
Again, this is me not following the thread, but why are we assuming that the schools are the problem?Report
Because it is the best way to keep us from having much more difficult discussions.Report
Here’s something I said above and I stand by it:
Report
I don’t think that’s the goal of Baltimore schools. It’s evidence that at a certain point public schools by themselves are no match for numerous outside economic and cultural forces and other circumstances pushing in the opposite direction.Report
The Yeshivas are privately owned and operated. We — as a society — can’t just replace them. Or dictate who they hire and fire.
What we can do is deny them funding unless/until they improve their proficiency metrics.
Baltimore public schools? Yes, your proposals are all available options.
None are with the Yeshivas.
See how the specific of each situation kinda sorta matter?Report
Sure we can.
All we have to do is declare what they’re doing to their children as “child abuse” and a lot follows from that.Report
When the only tools in your toolbox are spite and cruelty, constructive suggestions are never going to be possible.Report
Let me know when you intend to have a serious conversation.Report
Trying to have one.
My problem with these schools is that they are graduating illiterate and innumerate children.
It’s not that they’re getting government money.
The government money is the smallest of the problems there.
The problem is the illiterate and innumerate children that it’s pumping out.
Your problem with these schools is that they’re getting tax dollars, is it?Report
“My problem with these schools is that they are graduating illiterate and innumerate children.”
Weird. Earlier you were arguing they were successful because they were meeting parental expectations.Report
Did we hammer out what “the goal” was?
Because, I agree, if the goal is to meet parental expectations, they’re succeeding.
If the goal is to product literate and numerate students, they’re failing.
What’s the goal? Did we ever hammer out what the goal of lower education is?Report
I appreciate that they may be untouchable in New York. Here, private schools have to meet the state’s curriculum/hours requirements, or they get shut down. Shut down as in doors chained and operators jailed.Report
These are probably better characterized as parochial than private. Shutting them down would have free exercise clause implications. Which doesn’t necessarily mean the schools would prevail if it were litigated but I don’t think it’s quite that simple.Report
I don’t know the specifics of NY law because I don’t know any private school that hasn’t voluntarily aligned themselves with state standards. So there may indeed be mechanisms for the state’s involvement.
But there are also going to be hurdles — legal, political, social, and otherwise — that, to date, elected leaders have been happy to simply submit to.Report
I find it pretty surprising that something that doesn’t meet state standards gets public money. Not really surprising at all that the schools exist as they do. Just part of a free society with free exercise of religion.Report
The case where someone challanges Colorado’s truancy law — which includes curriculum — on religious grounds would at least be entertaining.Report
Per your point, here is an article from back in March when the proposed changes (e.g., strengthening) of NY regulations were announced:
https://patch.com/new-york/midhudsonvalley/kiryas-joel-grand-rabbi-rejects-new-rules-ny-private-schoolsReport
Every accusation is a confession, Chip.Report
Please point me towards what schools are spending billions in public dollars on DEI education.
Then, please show anything that shoes that DEI is a fringe ideology that intends to indoctrinate children such that they can never exit an insular society.Report
I know nothing about New York law on the subject. In Colorado, all children between the age of six and sixteen are required to attend a public school, a private school, or be home schooled. All private schools, religious or otherwise, are required to have a curriculum that includes “communication skills of reading, writing, and speaking, mathematics, history, civics, literature, and science.” C.R.S. 22-33-104 (2)(b).
I believe this is fairly typical of western states.Report
I work in private schools and pretty much all of them submit to voluntary accreditation which requires offering a curriculum deemed equivalent to the public school curriculum. This may be in addition or because of such laws.
These sorts are operating way outside any of these systems. So if any such laws do exist in NY, they are most certainly in violation of them.Report
Here’s what I found from a bit of Googling. So, yes, NY has these laws but… they’ve been rather complicated for a while. They may get clarified soon.
https://www.jta.org/2022/09/12/ny/new-york-finalizes-rules-requiring-private-schools-including-yeshivas-to-prove-they-meet-standardsReport
Sorry, it’s not 19th century Poland. You want to pretend it is? Do it on someone else’s dime.Report
Heh, say what you will about the Canadian Residential schools… but at least they could read Canadian.Report
Because it is a Jewish school, because of the ugly history of anti-Semitism and complex status of Jews in contemporary America there should probably be a pre-emptive hammer ban on inflammatory statements or trolling. Because, damn, this is a pile of oily rags next to a gas furnace in a fireworks factory.
Having gotten that out of the way, if we assume this is any other religious Christian or Muslim school, we could probably have a fruitful discussion.
In my eyes, this seems like part of the normal push and pull of the negotiated interplay between Establishment and Free Exercise.
We want, as a matter of public policy, for people to be free to educate their children as they see fit, to exercise their religious tenets to the greatest extent possible.
We also, with as much vigor, want to avoid favoritism or establishment . So any public funding needs to be thought of as an equivalent provision, that we would do the same regardless of content.
And we also, with every bit as much emphasis, want to protect children from neglect, and establish a minimum threshold of education and literacy so as to assure them to be full functioning citizens.
Combining all of these, it doesn’t seem to be onerous or and unduly burdensome to demand that the schools get their students to a minimum level of literacy as a condition of their existence.
I can’t read the paywalled version so I’m lacking a lot of detail.
Have the schools explained why the scores are so low? I mean, are they trying but failing, or are they just refusing to accept the premise?
Is it a case of “They just need some help to get there”, or is it a case of “They don’t wanna”?
Can somebody fill in the details?Report
Excerpts:
I thought that this part was kind of interesting too:
Report
I think the best parallel might be the Amish. I don’t know that they receive any public money but my understanding is that their schooling as we would understand it is also minimal/focused on other things.Report
This is interesting: https://groups.etown.edu/amishstudies/social-organization/government/
“They prefer not to receive subsidies from government programs.”Report
Interesting and only semi-related… our state-wide accreditation group (we’re private and have private accreditation) has as one of it’s criteria for accreditation that we offer an equivalent curriculum as the public schools. It doesn’t have to be identical and “equivalency” is determined somewhat subjectively, but it is intended to deny accreditation to schools such as these. Now, a private org accrediting private schools is only worth whatever beans folks attach to it… so these schools and the parents they serve likely don’t give a damn about not being accredited. But just an interesting note that most private schools — most of which receive little to know public funding (though we are tax exempt) — voluntarily hold ourselves to standards that public schools must meet.
These schools are REALLY outside the norm in this regard.Report
Heh. Does anyone remember Chip’s comment rescue discussion?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-megadonor-peter-thiel-says-republicans-lack-positive-message-ahead-midterm-cycle
“The temptation on our side is always going to be that all we have to do is say we’re not California,” said Thiel, invoking the Golden State’s increasing embrace of far-left prerogatives. “It’s so easy, so ridiculous to denounce, but … should we maybe have more of a positive agenda?”Report
The NYCLU has weighed in on the yeshiva situation and they have found an elegant solution:
Report
East Ramapo has provided a case study in this sort of stuff for a while. The Satmar community in Kyras Joel, NY — at the time part of the town I lived in and which I wrote about here a few times — was pursuing a similar situation, though I think a different workaround was achieved there (we moved for unrelated reasons as things were reaching a crescendo).
There have been multiple SCOTUS cases regarding this stuff. It’s not new… but it’s making the news (again).Report
Last night, New Zealand ended its COVID protection framework aka the “Traffic Light System”. Mask mandates are now removed, expect for medical facilities. The few remaining vaccine mandates will end in 2 weeks.
The only noteworthy public heath measure still in force is the requirement to isolate at home for 7 days if you test positive for COVID.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/129854755/covid19-traffic-light-system-masks-scrapped-from-midnight-mondayReport
The New York State Board of Regents has now adopted the new rules, which you can see here:
http://www.counsel.nysed.gov/rules/indices-fulltext/2019/060
Lawsuits to follow.Report
I’m too tired today (20 miles on the bicycle) to read through it. How are they going to do enforcement?Report
Your guess is as good as mine. The hasidic community punches well above its weight politically, which is why things have taken this long already.Report
Colorado’s rules are all done at the state level, even though most of the enforcement is at the county level. Here, counties are very much creatures of the state. A local group may be able to vote out a commissioner who insists on enforcement. The state will eject them, and possibly hit them (or the county) with civil or criminal penalties.
When I worked for the state legislature, one project required me to work my way through the legal history of Colorado counties challenging the state over sovereignty sorts of issues. None of the counties’ legal theories in cases spread over a century ever survived contact with the state supreme court.
This contrasts with the next state over, where the state constitution grants counties a large degree of autonomy separate from the state.Report
Report
French New Wave director and pioneerJean-Luc Godard dies at 91 from physician-assisted suicide: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/movies/jean-luc-godard-dead.html
“A film consists of a beginning, a middle and an end, though not necessarily in that order.”-Jean-Luc GodardReport
Chess Cheating: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/crosswords/hans-niemann-magnus-carlsen-cheating-accusation.htmlReport
It’s interesting. I don’t know anything about Niemann, but I’ve never liked Hikaru Nakamura, and he’s really stirring up whatever he can without presenting evidence. Chess fanboys eat this stuff up. They’re like 12-year-old girls online. For the time being, there’s no way to judge the story.Report
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/politics/fact-check-republican-senate-nominees-2020-election/index.htmlReport
At least they’re admitting that they’re including “doubters”.Report
That’s a distinction without a difference.Report
Vague statements about voter integrity versus claiming that the president wasn’t legitimately elected? No difference?Report
Both positions are built on lies. The data presented by the 50 secretaries of state – including all the Republicans – show there were no voter integrity issues. Ditto the Feds – even Bill Barr agreed there was no “there” there. Where fraud has been detected – in what a dozen cases nationally – it has been prosecuted and sentences handed down. The system continues to work.
That aside, no politician currently serving who won in that election has questioned their own ballots. None have questioned the ballots of anyone below the President. So even the “vague statements” are about a single candidate and not the process. They are designed to both delegitimize him, and give Republicans room to take power in authoritarian ways.Report
I thought the Dem position was that it was ok to doubt the 2016 election but not deny the 2020 results. If you drop the distinction between doubt and denial, how many D senators / secretaries of state from 2018 belong in the CNN article?Report
No on on the left doubted Donald Trump’s election. We have all said, repeatedly, that he was legally elected. we have also said – and both Congressional and independent counsel investigations backed this up – that he benefitted from misinformation campaigns carried out by Russia. additionally we have said that Hillary ran a bad campaign, and we have said that a system that prioritizes the electoral college over the majority vote may not be democratic anymore.
That’s not what Republican “doubters” are saying however. Not even close.Report
I doubt the integrity of your comment.Report
On the basis of what – your dislike of me? Or are you telling us you have some sort of back door IP address tracker that would provide you data on whether, digitally, the comment was authored by me.
Whatever you thought you were doing – and it was a lazy attempt at trolling at best – you have essentially proved my point that doubts around the 2020 election are nothing more then expressions of sadness or anger or frustration at the outcome. And while its fine to say I don’t like Biden winning, that’s not the same thing as saying I doubt he was legally elected.Report
Is this a request for examples of this sort of thing or do you already know about all of them and you’re going to explain that this was a perfectly understandable emotional response rather than an actual statement about the integrity of the election or what?Report
This is just silly pedantry.
“No one is saying” in this context means “no significant number”.
Otherwise it would be perfectly true to say that the Republicans want to institute a Holocaust because well, I can a find a couple people on Twitter who are saying.Report
So long as we agree that statements like “no one on the left did X” has room to mean “of course there were people on the left that did X but it’s bad faith to bring them up”, then I’m good.Report
There is no issue where you will ever find 100% of anyone agreeing with every statement. That’s not how humans work. harping on the edge cases doesn’t tell you anything except that there are edge cases. And its tiresome.Report
I was not linking to edge cases in my link but, hey. You can get back to using words like “All” and “None” when you mean “Some” now that we’ve hammered out literal definitions.Report
following the 2016 election no democrats cast doubt on vote totals, or said that illegal immigrants had voted – or even that Russia had caused vote totals to be altered. We even turned on Hillary and reminded her quite publicly that her loss was in part due to her campaign making errors of execution in the midwest. We didn’t doubt Trump’s election as legal or fair or free – all accusations that are still lobbed at Biden openly, publicly and without evidence. We didn’t like trump being elected, but we didn’t question his legitimacy as President.
And again – if there is reason to doubt the integrity of the 2020 election – that reason can and should extend beyond Biden’s election. it doesn’t. Not in any way shape or form.
So I don’t know what direction you are trying to derail this in, but unless you actually want to make some clear statements backed with some sort of evidence, please move on.Report
So I don’t know what direction you are trying to derail this in, but unless you actually want to make some clear statements backed with some sort of evidence, please move on.
I saw a demonstrably false statement. It seems that we’ve hammered out that “no one on the left did X” should not be interpreted as “no one on the left did X” and so I’m good.
Here’s something I found after 15 seconds of looking, for example.Report
This took me even less time:
House GOP candidate called Hitler ‘the kind of leader we need’ in 2021 remarks
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna32876
Trust me, the pedantry of nutpicking is not going to work out for Republicans here.Report
Oh, well then.
I guess, nobody on the left said… um…Report
How about calling the Trump presidency “illegitimate”. Does that count?
ETA: I forgot the word “collusion”. Russian collusion, Russian collusion. How did I forget that one?Report
Wow.
Talk about reaching for the cheap seats on a bunt.
People called him illegitimate because a majority of voters voted against him. We called him illegitimate because his policies didn’t benefit most Americans. He still won the election legally. He was still President. Which we also said repeatedly.
These doubters keep saying they aren’t sure Biden won legally. Which is one of those truthy statement that even Jaybird can refute in 15 seconds of googling. Trump never suffered from that.
Though its nice to see the BSDI is still strong today.Report
ahsjdfahsd;gasjdhaslkdfh;slajdgklsajd;fklasd
THERE WAS A WHOLE-ASS CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE QUESTION OF WHETHER DONALD TRUMP’S ELECTION WAS LEGITIMATE AND I ASSURE YOU IT WAS NOT THE REPUBLICAN PARTY THAT MADE IT HAPPENReport
you linked to the Special Counsel’s report . . . The Senate Intelligence Committee – which was chaired by Republicans at the time was pretty clear:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/collusion-reading-diary-what-did-senate-intelligence-committee-findReport
I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but just for clarity, this isn’t a “cheap seats” bit of rhetoric. I and countless others find that four years of “illegitimate”, “Russian collusion”, impeachments, et cetera are very much equivalent to what the Republicans did until Jan 5th and what most of the Republicans did since. I’m not asking you to agree, but you should understand this.Report
Your side needs to knock off the BSDI.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/14/politics/jason-schofield-new-york-election-commissioner/index.htmlReport
“Democrats did not X.”
“Here is an example of Democrats doing X.”
“REPUBLICANS DID X TOO!”
“I’m arguing against the statement that Democrats didn’t X.”
“BOTH SIDES DO IT!”Report
Their weakness is that conservatives themselves were instrumental in demolishing this logic flaw during the battle against Communism.
“In America people don’t have to stand in line for food, so communism doesn’t work.”
“Here is a picture of Americans standing in line for food.”
The goal is not to persuade but just fight to a standstill and make truth unknowable, to where it isn’t possible to distinguish any difference between Soviet Communism and American capitalism.
Like here, the assertion is that any difference between the Big Lie and some fringe muttering is merely a difference of opinion, with both points of view subjective.Report
“In America, Democrats do not question the results of the election.”
“Here is a link to Democrats questioning the results of the election.”Report
“The Republican party does not support Hitler.”
“Here’s is a list of Republicans supporting Hitler.”
Seriously man.
Stop flogging, it’s not even twitching.Report
What isn’t even twitching? The strawman you just beat up?
That’s what strawmen do, chip. They just lie there while you pretend that defeating them is demonstrating something.Report
“No on on the left doubted Donald Trump’s election”
wut.jpgReport
Based on the article’s evidence, there are something like four actual deniers, and they seem to be in places like Oregon and Maryland where they don’t stand a chance anyway.Report
Further to my comment, notice the double standard here.
The overwhelming majority of Dems concede when they lose, with a statistically insignificant fraction being the exception.
Here the majority of the Republican base and dozen or more elected officials doubt the election, yet these are held as being equal.Report
And numerous of those politicians are nominated to run their state’s election apparatus.Report
You had one job…
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4573
Either a crisis of democracy or fundraising episodes…Report
I live in Mississippi. My Senators are on record as opposing this, should it ever get a vote. I keep trying to elect people with differing views, but it hasn’t happened yet.Report
Heh, sorry, that was the Royal Meme ‘You,” not you you.
The bill in committee has 9 R sponsors (though one of them is Lindsay Graham and, well, I wouldn’t trust him to sponsor a bake sale) and McConnell has signaled that some sort of reform is needed – and that makes 10.
I guess it’s only been in committee for 2 months… not sure exactly how pressing the other matters for the Rules and Administration committee might be, but it’s not exactly like we don’t know when the mid-term elections are going to be held; to be fair, I haven’t scrutinized the committee or co-sponsors to know if there’s any risk of change — but if there is, then probably smart to do it sooner rather than later.Report
as a matter of practice, the Committee chair and Ranking Member of the opposing party usually switch if the control by party switches.Report
So tarry not Lady Klobuchar?Report
The bill opens with this quote: “ The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on election day, in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to election day.”
I can’t find a source for this, or maybe it’s just part of the law (in which case the quotes are weird), but it sure does leave room for lots of state law shenanigans.Report
It’s a bill reforming how Congress conducts the constitutionally mandated counting of electors… it doesn’t (and can’t) change how the Constitution mandates a federally decentralized selection of electors.
A few boring, but operative, lines that close the loopholes opened by the ECA are:
(2) by striking “as the legislature of such State shall direct” and inserting “in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to election day”.
and
“(2) POWERS EXPLICITLY DENIED.—The President of the Senate shall have no power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate or resolve disputes over the proper list of electors, the validity of electors, or the votes of electors.
and, under OBJECTIONS (which must be made in writing and only for specific cause)
“(II) is signed by at least one-fifth of the Senators duly chosen and sworn and one-fifth of the Members of the House of Representatives duly chosen and sworn; and
etc. etc.
Basically, the nonsense surrounding the role of the VP and the frivolous grandstanding of Senators is being removed. The States still determine their electoral processes under the Constitution and body of laws and rulings by the Supreme court subsequent to various other amendments and stuff(TM).
It’s one of those things that doesn’t ‘fix’ what ails us, but a ‘simple’ fix to rules which were neglected and basically unread until someone bothered to read them. But to your original point, it closes the door (or attempts to) on State Legislatures taking over the election process *after* the election. I believe (but couldn’t point to it directly) is that challenges to the Constitutionality of any given State’s election laws *prior* to the election would be handled elsewhere.
If there are existential threats, then act like it and do the simple things first…Report
The impact I think is to clarify what everyone seems to have implicitly understood the rules to be right up until Donald Trump took us on our latest adventure in legal nihilism. Which is still an important thing to do but not particularly revolutionary.Report
It’s not revolutionary, no. I’d redirect slightly and say that the rules built for adjudicating 1876 election returns had assumptions about how the States (and congress) worked that are different from 21st century expectations/realities.
So, exactly to your point, this doesn’t matter if everyone adopts the ‘unwritten rules’ theory of law… up until people revert back to the written rules of law theory.
Which is one thing when it smacks citizens in the face, but quite another when the law writing body is smacked.Report
I don’t know that we had an unwritten rules theory of law so much as a comity that prevailed on at least a handful of issues. Now that it’s gone we need the letter. Which I would hope those law writing bodies see as an opportunity to address some long neglected housekeeping. I guess we will find out.Report
If I may gently push back some more… I genuinely think there’s a bigger issue than comity/norms. From a political theory perspective we’re currently stuck between two semi-realities: 1) The States are Sovereign governing bodies in Federal Union and 2) The States are administrative districts for the Federal Government.
The ECA assumes #1, the ECA-R has to thread the needle between #1 and #2.
If you don’t thread this needle, then #1 prevails. So IMO the comity/norms argument that we sometimes correctly invoke isn’t the right thing on this issue.
Fortunately it’s also an issue that doesn’t require a big Constitutional Theory bake-off since the rules/administration of Congress can manage this particular item — if they decide to expend any energy on it.Report
I don’t totally disagree on the larger issue. There are absolutely some tensions between our post 1865 constitutional order (to say nothing of post New Deal) and the black letter of the document, and relevant implementing law.
But to bring it to the matter at hand I also don’t think, for example, that anyone in 1887 thought they were giving the VP/President of the Senate the authority to do what Trump was apparently asserting or any remotely credible legal interpretation that says it does.
From my perspective this is more about where our political institutions are and where we are as a polity than constitutional theory. Like there are sound enough arguments one could make for a system where state legislatures do the voting for federal elected offices. It’s just that no one makes them because they’d sound insane to the vast majority of people in the context of 21st century America, so instead there’s this weird song and dance about the need to correct for fraud that of course no one can prove happened.Report
Hillary Clinton’s Concession speech:
https://time.com/4564480/read-hillary-clintons-concession-speech-full-transcript/
Nearly two years on we have yet to hear those words – or anything similar from Trump. Those continuing to cast doubt on the election would do well to remember that both sides don’t do it.Report
Both sides do slightly different things.Report
Slightly different?
Hillary Clinton – I congratulated Donald Trump on his win and pledged to work with him.
Donald Trump – the only I way could have lost is for the Democrats to have committed Fraud.
Apples and ice cubes dude.Report
I remember that Clinton speech. That’s the one she gave the day after the election because she didn’t show up to give her concession speech the night of the election. Then after the concession speech she’s spent the next 6 years talking about Russian collusion and Trump not being a legitimate president.
I remember being told for years that Republicans were gerrymandering. I’ve been told that they’re purging the registration lists of minorities. That voter id’s were intended to keep minorities from voting. Both sides tell slightly different lies.Report
These are very stupid people and things got out of hand: https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/13/phil-bryant-brett-favre-welfare/
Mississippi steals welfare money to pay Brett Farve. There are texts.Report
oh yeah. its a hoot to watch – the current governor replaced the “independent” investigator after he subpoenaed the former governor’s texts. Supposedly for lack of performance. The white good old boys got caught by the feds and the state doesn’t really have the capability to deal with it.Report
Report
We need a new Extra thread to take this up . . . . but Amtrak has to do this because it operates on freight railroad tracks except in the NE Corridor, and sometime with freight rail engineers. They will not be available, and there won’t be any dispatching if freight shuts down.Report
Yeah, this is worth a post.
The biggest disruption will be freight traffic and the already-disrupted supply chains.Report
I have one pending with the editorsReport
Despite large shifts towards natural gas and renewables over the last few years, there’s still a LOT of coal used for electricity generation that moves by rail. And surprising distances: the Scherer plant in Georgia, largest single generator in the state, is fueled exclusively with Wyoming Powder River basin coal that is shipped 2100 miles.
(As the coal cars are unusable for anything else, the empty cars are taken 2100 miles back to Wyoming to be filled again.)Report
It’s also staggering how much rail freight transits through the ports.
What is interesting is how much this is all hidden from our view.
In the WWII era the American manufacturing and shipping base was right close in large cities, but now the freight yards and frozen food storage and FedEx and Amazon distribution centers are all in far flung areas where land is cheap.
But hidden or not, virtually everything you eat, wear, or touch will at some point in its supply chain, have traveled by rail.Report
We probably need a post just to continually update this, as it looks to have legs:
Satanic panic is making a comeback, fueled by QAnon believers and GOP influencers
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/satanic-panic-making-comeback-fueled-qanon-believers-gop-influencers-rcna38795Report
“Well, for right now it’s Trump specific, but there’s always been this view that the right does it more than the left. But in surveys, when we measure generalized conspiracy thinking, we don’t find that it’s more the right than the left. When we look at large groups of conspiracy theories, we find that the left is just as likely to buy in as people on the right.
“So what a lot of this comes down to is what’s the media paying attention to, and given the biases in the media, oftentimes they’re going to pay more attention to the conspiracy theories that the other guy believes, that the other side buys into, and they’ll ignore the ones on their own side, right? And there are psychological reasons for that. Our conspiracy theories aren’t conspiracy theories, they’re conspiracy facts. It’s the other guys’ conspiracy theories that are conspiracy theories.”
https://www.niskanencenter.org/conspiracy-beliefs-are-not-increasing-or-exclusive-to-the-right/Report
Telling us “Its just media bias” may be true, but you need to do more than just wave your arms.
Until they can provide left versions of the Big Lie or QAnon, this is all just “cool story bro”.Report
It’s not me waving my arms. That was a quote from Dr. Joseph Uscinski, the expert cited in the NBC article, the creator of the survey. Get that. The person who provided the data in the article has also said that this isn’t a phenomenon of the right but can look that way because of biased reporting.Report
What “data”?
Without any support for his assertion, Dr. Uscinski is just arm waving.Report
The survey in the article you linked to!Report
OK so I looked at the survey in the NBC link, and have a problem with it.
First off, it is just the raw data, without a conclusion or reasoning behind it.
I am skeptical about laypeople trying to derive conclusions from raw data in fields they are well versed in so this is where I would seek out a professional expert like Dr. Uscinski.
Except I noticed that in the list of “conspiracy questions” there are these:
“Barack Obama faked his birth certificate”;
“Climate Change is a hoax”;
and then these:
“Donald Trump is a Russian agent”;
“The 1% of the richest people secretly control the Amereican government”;
The first two are just bonkers crazy, but the second two are perhaps exaggerated, but definitely plausible and definitely should not be on any list of “conspiracy theories” especially when given to just average people.
There is plenty of evidence that Trump is under some degree of Russian influence, and plenty more that the 1% do have an incredible amount of influence over the government.
And second, I didn’t see anywhere in the linked survey where they broke down each response by party. So it isn’t clear what percent of Democrats or Republicans believes in any of the listed theories.
So I’m back to asking for a left example of the Big Lie or QAnon.
If “Donald Trump is under the influence of Russia” is the best you can do, you make my case for me.Report
I should say something about this comment, but I don’t want to look like I’m spiking the football. So let me just post one more quote from the interview I linked to:
“Whenever I talk about conspiracy theories, the believers say, ‘Well, there’s good evidence for it.’ But here’s the interesting thing, is that for most of these things, the same evidence is out there for everybody, right? Particularly with something like COVID where it’s highly salient, but people interact with that evidence in different ways. So it’s not really the evidence itself, it’s much more what they already believe when they see that evidence.”Report
Well, if Dr. Uscinski says there is no evidence for Russian influence over Donald Trump, who am I, or the entire intelligence community , to disagree?Report
By “entire intelligence community”, you mean only those things that reinforce your preconceptions, and none of the things that don’t. Which is the fundamental flaw in conspiracy thinking.Report
Regardless of whether you believe them or not, there is plenty of plausible evidence for Russian influence over Trump.
Even if you think the evidence doesn’t amount to much, it is plausible, not crazy.Report
It’s not crazy, it’s just unnecessary by Occam’s razor. Thinking that it’s necessary or plausible, well, that does open the door to some craziness.Report
No, he means a report published by the intelligence agencies of the US government summarizing their conclusions on a matter. Something like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assessing_Russian_Activities_and_Intentions_in_Recent_US_ElectionsReport
WHY DOES IT MATTER WHO LINKED TO THE ARTICLE!
It’s distractions like this that we’re always talking about.Report
I’m sure you’re kidding, but the logic bomb is worth noting. The link is to a mainstream article about right-wing conspiracy thinking. The researcher cited in the article says you shouldn’t believe mainstream articles about right-wing conspiracy thinking. Either he’s right, so you shouldn’t believe the article, or he’s wrong, and you shouldn’t believe the article.Report
Looks like the railroads blinked:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/15/business/railroad-strike-averted-tentative-deal/index.htmlReport
“This is the quality of life issue we have been trying to get for our members since bargaining started,” said Dennis Pierce, president of the engineers’ union and the other union official involved in the talks.
Good. Sounds like a good deal, then.Report
if the attendance policies have indeed been changed then yes, its a good deal.Report
Trolling today, trolling tomorrow, trolling forever: https://twitter.com/AdamWeinstein/status/1570372070118424577?s=20&t=REs3AWQzaQuTv4VGsXpBMAReport
I thought “is this about the immigrants in Martha’s Vineyard thing?”
And it is.
I’m a YIMBY, just for other people. Is there a word for that?Report
Lisa Belcastro, the coordinator of the Martha’s Vineyard homeless shelter, speaks about the community response to the migrants flown to the island.Report
What’s amazing is that the Republicans think this makes them look good.
This, plus the national abortion ban tells me have lost the ability to read the national temperature.Report
I think that it’s not that they think that this makes Republicans look good, as much as it’s making the Democrats who spent the last few years quoting “The New Colossus” start screaming about all of the brown people who are now in their neighborhoods.
Imagine them saying “No human is illegal” in response to you complaining about your school district’s demographics changing, Chip.Report
In terms of the specific tweet I think Obama was in a pretty mainstream spot on illegal immigration. It was Congress that failed and perpetually fails on the subject.
Though to your point as long as the primary purpose of politics is to trigger the right people and hold up various hypocrisies for ridicule then it will no doubt succeed.Report
These are not illegals. These are people who arrived at the border claiming refugee/asylee status, and who have convinced at least one official they have an arguable case. They’ve been released pending a court hearing, which will be at least some months — if not years — out because the courts are overwhelmed. They have papers indicating their legal status. At last count, since Biden was inaugurated, more than a million people have been released into the country on those terms.
They are not eligible for normal welfare sorts of assistance. They are not allowed a work permit until they’ve been waiting six months. For practical purposes, they are dependent on state/local programs outside the normal welfare scope, and charities. Not a lot of states have such programs, at least that scale.
Maine has a program and has been providing assistance to asylum seekers from Africa. So many have shown up in Maine that the shelter and food capacity is exhausted.Report
Well, I’m not sure I believe the ‘asylum’ system we have is really functioning. Certainly not in a way that I defer to its determinations and particularly not where the immediate outcome is they turn you loose in the country to wait for a court date years away with full knowledge that resources to make sure you show up are ridiculously strained.
But all that aside I have no problem saying this stunt is morally repugnant and the problems of our immigration system doesn’t justify it.Report
This is irrelevant. The law of the United States is that people have a right to seek asylum in the United States. DeSantis and Abbot do not have the right to move the migrants or deceive them.Report
Did you read my second sentence?Report
Nor do DeSantis and Abbot have an obligation to provide food and shelter for them.
I admit that this is a subject I’m touchy about because of my time on a state legislative staff. State budgets are usually very tightly constrained. California’s recent $50B surplus, with the freedom to refund or spend on new programs, is very unusual; I stand in awe, at least until you guys reach a point where a $50B surplus didn’t solve the homeless problem. For the most part, if a state is supposed to come up with $100M in new spending for human services, it will be at the cost of reduced spending on other human services. To paraphrase one of my committee bosses during a year where revenues fell drastically, “It’s not whether people will die because of our choices; we only get to affect which ones and how many.” Hardest part of any job I ever had was to sit in front of a live microphone and say, in effect, “Staff recommends letting some poor oldsters die in order to feed poor kids.”Report
It’s the “let them eat cake” aspect that’s so maddening. We handled 50 people for a day, therefore anyone should be able to handle millions of people for years.Report
The state’s not providing them food and shelter, especially for these people, who are asylum seekers. That’s why this is such a ridiculous political stunt. They are literally barred from seeking government assistance. It cost Florida (and presumably Texas) more to transport them than it would to process them and pass them off to a church or other NGO who helps asylum seekers get housing, work, registered for schools, and money for necessities before they get a paycheck.
And this is why Texas is better for them than Massachusetts: because we are right next to the border, we have all that non-governmental infrastructure built up, not to mention communities of people from where they’re from, or at least who speak the same language (Martha’s Vineyard had to use AP Spanish students from the local schools to communicate with these particular asylum seekers!).Report
Maybe they should have flown them to Iowa instead:
Ernst Highlights Iowa Businesses Struggling to Hire Workers, Cites Democratic Policies As a Leading Cause
“During my recent travels across Iowa on my 99 County Tour, I couldn’t help but notice the number of ‘Help Wanted’ or ‘Now Hiring’ signs on storefronts along nearly every highway and main street.
“In an era where we seem to live through one unprecedented occurrence after another, the dire jobs situation has become the latest extraordinary event as millions of Americans remain unemployed despite an abundance of jobs that need to be filled.
“In fact, the number of available jobs has reached an all-time record high: 8.1 million positions that need to be filled.
https://www.ernst.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ernst-highlights-iowa-businesses-struggling-to-hire-workers-cites-democratic-policies-as-a-leading-causeReport
This reminds me that I have a t-shirt from a SXSW Interactive corporate party I crashed several years ago that reads: “Iowa: Move here and start a company! I mean, what else you got going on?”
Iowa, official state nickname “Gateway to Illinois!”, has for some reason long had trouble attracting both labor and capital. It’s inexplicable.Report
I would also add that nearly every immigrant sent north by Abbot and DeSantis, political comedy duo, seem to be from Venezuela. Congress has granted Venezuelans Temporary Protected Status. This means they have a right to live and work in the United States.Report
Thank you. I was hoping you’d show up in this subthread.Report
So it is government by internet trolls! The people of Martha’s Vineyard are responding by aiding the people. So does this backfire or will they find a way to not admit it backfired?Report
So does this backfire or will they find a way to not admit it backfired?
Depends on how shrill the “HOW DARE YOU”s get.Report
*Gavin Newsom enters the chat*
Calif. governor rents billboards in red states to tout abortion access
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/15/gavin-newsome-abortion/
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reelection campaign has rented billboards in six states with abortion bans, escalating the Democrat’s battle with conservative Republican governors and courting a First Amendment fight with Mississippi.
The ads on the billboards, viewed first by The Washington Post, direct women to a California state website that tells users how and where to get an abortion in the state, emphasizing that “you do not need to be a California resident to receive abortion services.”
Y’know, I’m starting to wonder if maybe these Democrats are actually good at this “politics” thing.
Or they may possibly even be in array.
ETA: One ad portrays a woman with her hands chained behind her back. “Texas doesn’t own your body. You do,” it reads. Another ad says that “California is ready to help” anyone who needs an abortion, adding a verse from the Gospel of Mark: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.”
Quoting the Gospels. *chef’s kiss*Report
A daisy ad for the 21st century.Report
“What’s amazing is that the [] think this makes them look good.”Report
Jaybird:
Are you saying it is morally acceptable for government officials from Florida and Texas to lie and mislead people about jobs, food, and shelter awaiting them somewhere else? People who might be then transported thousands of miles from the courts handling their immigration cases? Is this all okay if it owns the libs?Report
Are you saying
Lemme stop you right there.
What I am saying is that Chip is saying “Republicans think that this is making them look good” and that he is wrong about that.
Republicans think that this is making the Democrats look bad.
Whether that is true is up in the air.
Maybe we should raise our lamps beside the golden door and look around.Report
Answer the question asked please.Report
“Are you saying X?”
“No, I am not saying X.”
Does that answer your question?Report
To be scrupulously fair, Jaybird has repeatedly said he favors open borders.Report
Eh, not exactly. (Nobody is arguing for open borders, after all.)
But my preferred policies are a hell of a lot closer to open borders than not. Here’s a story from 2010 and I still pretty much stand by everything I said there.Report
Sure that’s fair..
In this context, “open” means embracing the policy implications of your post, that immigration should be simple and easy, not byzantine and difficult.Report
Oh, absolutely. The immigration process to get here is downright abusive.Report
But see, even this was a colossal error.
The Democrats responded with care and concern, not bigotry and hate.Report
To be fair, based on the population of Martha’s Vineyard and the percentage of illegal immigrants in FL, they’d need to accept about 1000 people. But I don’t think the idea was to trigger bigotry and hate, just equity and understanding.Report
And so, tiny Martha’s Vineyard shows that immigrants can be given welcome and assistance, and yet the world doesn’t topple over on its axis.
How do the Republicans shrieking hysterically about borders not come out of this looking both stupid and spiteful?Report
Well, obviously immigration response isn’t simply about being hospitable in the first 24 hours. That’s trivialization more than these busings have been. As for anyone who thinks the immigration debate is hysterical Republican shrieking, they’ve already decided what their take will be.Report
Jaybird provided a video link to someone in charge on Martha’s Vineyard. My summary would be, “We can handle 50, for a while, but fairly soon they’ll all have to leave.”Report
Yes.
If tiny Martha’s Vineyard can handle unexpected immigrants with grace and compassion, what’s Florida’s excuse for treating them with stupidity and malice?Report
I think it has to do with “50”.
What percentage of Florida’s Undocumented Dreamers is composed by that 50, do you think?
Is that… One percent, do you think? 5000 Undocumented Dreamers who only want a better life for themselves and their families.
Okay, that’s absurd. One tenth of one percent gets us to 50,000 Undocumented Dreamers.
Let’s go to one percent of one percent to finally get us to the ballpark. Here’s a breakdown of the Undocumented in Florida alone: 772,000.
So Martha’s Vineyard got less than one percent of one percent of Florida’s Undocumented Dreamer population and they are now finding themselves in a place where they’re doing the usual. Explaining how they’re doing what they can to help but pointing out how they don’t have the resources to deal with this sort of thing long term.
And, of course, the underlying assumption is “my circumstances are extraordinary!”
Here’s a tweet from 2019. Zoom in and enjoy:
Report
This doesn’t refute my charge.
Massachusetts by the way, is reacting precisely as you recommended in that 2010 essay. They didn’t let bureaucracy or red tape get in the way of delivering efficient and effective aid to these people.
Texas and Florida are reacting exactly as you complained about, making things deliberately painful for immigrants in stupid, ineffective, and unnecessary ways.
And since you stand by those earlier statements, I know you aren’t defending Texas or Florida in any way.
So if Saul gets confused on that point, I’ll make sure to correct him.Report
They didn’t let bureaucracy or red tape get in the way of delivering efficient and effective aid to these people.
And then they quickly had a government official come out and say “this ain’t gonna last, you know”.
I appreciate that Martha’s Vineyard is being taxed by these 50 unexpected people who require resources.
It takes a lot of resources to house and feed a person!
It was really unkind of Florida to send less than one percent of one percent of its Undocumented Dreamers to Martha’s Vineyard unexpectedly like that.
It’s unrealistic to expect people to take care of Undocumented Dreamers!Report
How much was Florida spending to house and feed these 50 people?
You can look that up and post it here for all of us to see.
I guarantee the answer will shock you!Report
Those 50? Rather than the 772,000?
I’ll see what I can google up. Huh. It’s awfully difficult to find good numbers for the cost of Undocumented Dreamers.
Here’s wikipedia.
You’d think it’d be easier to find numbers for this!Report
I can see why you are a strong proponent of a lenient and simple immigration policy!
This sort of information only makes DeSantis’ stunt look even more stupid and malicious.
By the way, how much was Florida spending to house these 50 people?
Let me know if you need help in finding that.Report
I make distinctions between legal and undocumented immigration.
Maybe this is part of the problem.
By the way, how much was Florida spending to house these 50 people?
I can’t find numbers for how much Florida spends on immigrants.
How much is Martha’s Vineyard spending?
I can’t find that either.Report
You mean it’s possible to be in favor of a simpler, better run immigration system but not be down with allowing the asylum process to become a sham in service of a massive influx of illegal low skill labor? Crazy.Report
It’s pretty hypocritical to like eating fruit but be against illegal immigration.Report
Heh I’ll be sure to mention that to my doctor next time we talk about my BMI.Report
We go through this every single time.
Immigration, even low skilled immigration always ends up being a net benefit for the nation. This has been proven time and again by empirical evidence.
Anti-immigration proponents always struggle mightily to explain why sure, the previous waves of immigrants including my ancestors were all low skilled immigrants and sure, we all ended up being net contributors to American prosperity, but THESE immigrants, well, sir, they just are different somehow.Report
Yeah, and it gets pointed out that people like us are the primary beneficiaries and other people pay the costs of increased immigration.
(“Costs? What costs?” was the next move the last however many times.)Report
First, lets note that you’re conceding that America overall benefits from immigration.
So we don’t have to regurgitate this one more time.
Second, don’t you think its weird how this is the exact dialogue we have about offshoring and globalization?
Manufacturing workers pay the costs, but middle class educated people reap the benefits.
And here, let me quote economic libertarians, and um, how does it go again, that the free movement of capital and labor has done more to lift people out of poverty than any other force in human history, and even our poorest would be envied by medieval kings.Report
Yeah.
I benefit a lot from these policies.
Other people pay the costs.Report
Since you are, very obviously, strongly in favor of a more lenient and simple immigration policy, this should delight you.Report
Well, I’m not very good at looking at “I’m benefiting from this, other people are footing the bill” and being delighted.
It’s more of a “Well, Omelas *IS* pretty nice. And all of my stuff is here. And the food is really good.”Report
I feel the same way about offshoring, but there doesn’t seem to be any other alternative, is there?Report
What’s the goal?
Legality?
Morality?
The ability to sit back and be delighted with the value and quality of the goods that we, the people who benefit, now have available to us?
If delight is your goal, I imagine you’d be delighted by our situation.Report
Aren’t these questions addressed in your 2010 essay?Report
No, my 2010 essay was about immigration policy, not offshoring.Report
Perhaps there’s a mixup between offshoring and outsourcing?Report
Read it for yourself.
It’s not about offshoring or outsourcing.
It’s about immigration policy.Report
It had the word “outsourcing” in it. That was the basis of my guess.Report
I’m just trying to figure out the trouble you are having with “I’m benefiting from this, other people are footing the bill” .
As you have said, you like the idea of more lenient immigration policy, and like you said, this creates benefits for some and costs for others, so then for you to go on to say that you “are not very good” with that seems like a logical disconnect somewhere.Report
I’m just trying to figure out the trouble you are having with “I’m benefiting from this, other people are footing the bill” .
I know you are, Chip. It’s one of those things that’s tough to explain to someone from another culture.Report
If I were an opponent of immigration, I would sarcastically reframe your comments as “Well, you have to understand…”
But the truth is, I DO understand ambivalence about policies that benefit many but harm a few; Those sorts of policies are common.
I think rather than just saying “Well you have to understand…” and trailing off, we fill in something after the ellipses.
Like, what would you suggest we do to ameliorate some of the harms of your preferred lenient immigration policy?Report
I’m not explaining “you have to understand”, though.
The fact that you can’t comprehend why someone might have trouble with “I’m benefiting from this, other people are footing the bill” tells me that I’m unlikely to be able to explain it to your satisfaction no matter how much effort I put into it.Report
Your feelings aren’t mysterious or difficult to comprehend at all.
You and I and everyone benefit from all sorts of things that harm others, everything from Chinese prison labor to sweatshop labor to laid off manufacturing workers in the Rust Belt.
Everyone understands this and we all have mixed, ambivalent feelings about it.
What is causing the conflict is the refusal to explore our ambivalence.
We like immigration, we don’t like it’s effects, so we collectively shrug and say “Well, you have to understand.”Report
I’m perfectly happy to explore my ambivalence.
It’s just that when someone comes out and admits “I’m just trying to figure out the trouble you are having with “I’m benefiting from this, other people are footing the bill” .”, you realize that there just might be a gulf that is too difficult to cross.Report
Ok which brings us back to the beginning.
We all here benefit from immigration, and we all here acknowledge that there are costs, and we all here feel ambivalent about that.
But we don’t all draw the same conclusions of what should be changed, if anything.
From what I can see, your policy preferences don’t seem any different than mine.Report
Probably not. I think something we need to make immigration easier and need to punish employers who employ illegal immigrants more. ESPECIALLY corporations that rely on undocumented status to be able to better abuse their immigrants more.
We should also do our best to tax the ever-living crap out of the corporations that rely on hiring immigrants rather than citizens and redistribute those taxes to the citizens whose jobs are displaced by immigration.
We ought to have a primary solidarity with American citizens first, and then to immigrants second. The moment we flip that around, we’re on a path to mutual defection.Report
I could get on board with most of these.
Like, if we raised the number of work visas from Mexico to match the demand, and combined with stricter enforcement of employers, we could bring illegal immigration down to negligible levels.
I don’t know what it means to tax companies that hire immigrants, though; Like, we give someone a green card, then tell their employer we will make it financially impossible to hire them?
That seems…counterproductive.
As far as solidarity, again, its not at all clear what this even looks like.
Like, a guy working on a visa, how would our laws treat him any different than a guy born here?
This seems almost impossible to effect.Report
“To match the demand”
This seems to mean “to allow employers to not pay more to citizens”.
Which is weird.Report
What does “make it easier” mean, if not increasing the number who are allowed in?
And why would any employer hire a citizen, if they had to pay more? The whole engine of illegal immigration is that immigrants are paid less.Report
And why would any employer hire a citizen, if they had to pay more? The whole engine of illegal immigration is that immigrants are paid less.
Do you understand the whole idea behind “unions”?
Like, let’s say that the police had a union. Would you understand why they might have one?
Could you extend this out to, say, people who do *NOT* have government jobs?
Are you with me so far?Report
Sorry, this isn’t making it any more clear.
Like, native born citizens would be like a super-union, and only they could be hired and green card holders would…what, get a lower salary or something?
You kinda need to flesh this out more.Report
Are you familiar with the term “scab”?
If you’re not, it probably won’t do much good to explore beyond this.
You’ll probably just say something like “if the union doesn’t want to do the work, why not hire someone who does?” and we won’t go anywhere.Report
This isn’t helping. Everyone here know what these terms mean.
What we don’t know is what you mean.
But even just looking at one point- punishing employers for hiring immigrants- means that really, your preferred goal is to have fewer immigrants.Report
I don’t know that we all agree on terms.
For example, I don’t know that we agree that “hiring scabs is bad”.
I know that I was raised in a culture that said that “hiring scabs is bad”.
Were you raised in one that said that? If you were, are you still a member of a culture that says that?
We don’t know the answers to those questions.
I mean, if you look at it from the perspective of people who identify with people in a union, you might be able to see why someone might support Police Unions!
Do you see why someone might support Police Unions?
If you can’t imagine someone who would do that, it might be tough to imagine someone refusing to cross a picket line at Safeway.
This comes down to the whole issue of whether we have enough shared assumptions to keep talking.
I don’t know that we do.Report
Yes we all agree on what terms mean.
And we’re not even talking about whether we support this or oppose that.
We’re still really just on trying to figure out what your preferred immigration policy is.
You seem very determined to make your ideas mysterious and unknowable but they don’t really seem mysterious, just not well thought out.
But what seems clear is you want to have fewer immigrants.
Which is a defensible position. Not one I hold, but I can easily imagine an ethical defense for it.
For instance, in your proposal to preference citizens, one defense might be that this would have the net effect of forcing wages higher and that would be a good thing.
Nothing hard to understand about that- I could even see myself getting on board with the concept.Report
You assert that we do and that we agree on what we’re talking about.
But I don’t think that we do.
You seem very determined to make your ideas mysterious and unknowable but they don’t really seem mysterious, just not well thought out.
I think that my ideas are neither mysterious nor unknowable but I do know that if we don’t agree on terms beforehand, we might find ourselves disagreeing on whether crossing a picket line because we need gravy packets is wrong.
And we might need to hammer stuff out on why crossing a picket line to get a gravy packet is wrong.
If you don’t understand how someone could possibly see crossing a picket line would be wrong (to get something as uncomplicated as a gravy packet), then we come at this from significantly different perspectives.Report
I completely understand how someone might see crossing a picket line as being wrong. Its how I think now.
I can also understand how someone might see it as being right.Its how I used to think back in the day.
I am gifted with with astounding powers of understanding here.
So yeah, I can understand your wanting fewer immigrants and higher wages for native born American.
I get it, I really do.Report
Well, now we’re back to your question that you asked here:
And why would any employer hire a citizen, if they had to pay more? The whole engine of illegal immigration is that immigrants are paid less.
It seems to me that employers would *ALWAYS* prefer to hire cheaper workers.
I mean, if the quality was the same, why in the world would you hire the more expensive quality? That’s nuts!
It’s like if you go to a grocery store and the cashier asks you “would you rather pay 50 cents for this candy bar or a dollar?”
DUDE I WOULD RATHER PAY 50 CENTS!!!!
It completely makes sense to look at things from the perspective of the employer and the employer alone.Report
In terms of starting from my comment this whole line of thinking doesn’t follow. Of course immigration, managed more or less well to meet the needs of the citizenry is a net benefit. It’s one of the most important things the government does or is supposed to do and is even more important in a country with our history.
On the other hand turning the asylum system into a sham that facilitates lawless entry does not provide legitimate benefits to anyone, though it certainly gives some best understood as ill-gotten.
There’s also more to it than the immediate interests of the economic winners and losers. It makes the government appear ineffectual and contributes to the ongoing crisis of legitimacy, especially in democracies where the citizens are the source of sovereignty.
For me personally, I think every degree awarded to someone on a student visa should come with a green card stapled to the back. I think we should be plundering the talent of the world, especially where people are held back by backwards and authoritarian governments and ways of life. I even think we need a workable visa system for temporary low skill workers that accounts for the interests of citizens first, but that may well include a path to permanent residency for those employed and otherwise minding their P’s ans Q’s.
None of that is possible with hundreds of thousands to millions of people making illegal crossings every year. It also isn’t resolved by creating a legal fiction that the law and order problems in Central America turns economic migrants into asylum seekers, which is what my original comment was about. That I also think stunts like the one in question are really disgusting and depraved doesn’t change any of that. The whole sorry display is only possible and has the political cachet it does because the system is completely broken.Report
Florida spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year on refugees. (The legislature is currently considering authorizing an additional $270M, an increase DeSantis supports.) Some of that is state money, some federal.
The problem we have here is a significant and rapidly growing group of people who aren’t officially refugees yet. Some months/years from now, they’ll get a court hearing to settle that question. Until then, they don’t qualify for the refugee support programs.
The very large majority of them are released in a handful of border states. Should those states be required to spend money supporting them? Should the local charities be required to support them? Congress has set up a stupid situation and refuses to fix it.Report
Just *DECLARE* them refugees but don’t give them official refugee status.
Then tell them if they don’t want to work for less than minimum wage under the table, we’ll deport them.
You know, like they do in Martha’s Vineyard.
Everybody’s happy.Report
If you want to know how much Florida was paying to house these 50 people, you should search Texas records.Report
So you don’t have the numbers either?Report
Yes. I have the precise figure.
The amount Florida was spending to house and feed these 50 people was:
$0.00Report
Wow! If only they could make that scale!
(What’s your source for that number, by the way?)Report
Will you say that Martha’s Vineyard is acting with stupidity and malice when, in two or three months, they put some of those 50 on the ferry and say, “Time’s up. Off you go.”? The woman’s remarks carry a clear message that that day is coming.
What terrifies me is that the day is coming when the US will face 100M climate change refugees over 15 years. Then another 100M over 10 years. In all likelihood, DeSantis is going to look like the soul of generosity compared to what happens then. That day is in sight, I’ll live to see it despite being an oldster.Report
Will I accuse the government of malice when they give these people a temporary visa and settle them with sponsors and allow them to find employment and contribute to the national economy?
Um, no actually. I really don’t think I will.Report
I am pleased there are people more optimistic than I am about the future.Report
It did not take two or three months.
Report
Almost perfectly a “let them eat cake” story. When we get tired of Martha’s Vineyard, we go Aspen or Hilton Head, so why don’t the immigrants just go there?Report
Additional Details (I raised an eyebrow at the “National Guard” detail):
Report
So are you willing to state that this “stunt” failed? Or is the desire to not concede to liberals too great?
“DeSantis’s whole political style is premised on the idea that conservative media is a closed information ecosystem. Reality doesn’t matter. The voting-sting operation fell apart when the targets turned out to have been informed by the government that they were eligible, but conservative media did not report that. He can claim anything he wants, as long as it flatters the correct heroes and mocks the correct villains. All he need do is continue supplying material for the right-wing media machine, and it will continue pumping out stories of his heroism, regardless of reality.”
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/09/desantis-tries-fails-to-prove-liberals-hate-migrants-too.htmlReport
It sounds like Jonathan Chait doesn’t approve of conservative media.Report
I don’t know whether the stunt failed.
All of the liberals are screaming about how awful it makes conservatives look and all of the conservatives are laughing about how awful the liberals are making themselves look.
I don’t know how it looks to the people in the middle and I don’t know whether the issue of immigration is one that benefits liberals or conservatives more when it’s front and center.Report
For example:
Report
Cape Cod is largely a summer town. There is not much going on there during the fall and winter. The residents and officials of the town explained to the people that they were going to be sent to a Federal military base which could help them more and transport them to preferred destinations. They were not lied to or misled.Report
This again how the reactionaries like DeSantis just assumed the Vineyard folks were as dickish as he is.
Instead of lying to the refugees, the Massachusetts folk are making good faith efforts to get these people settled and processed.
The display of humanity and compassion confuses and enrages the DeSantis types.Report
In conservative land, everything proves their point. EverythingReport
Come on, you both know that if the parties were switched you’d be comparing this to the National Guard being called out in Alabama against black kids in the 1960’s. No one reading these comments doesn’t realize that.Report
Got me there.
If a Democratic governor were to snatch a bunch of terrified refugees from another state and send them to a faraway isolated place to dump then in a cruel effort to humiliate them, I would compare it to the worst excesses of Jim Crow where white citizens councils sent desperate black people to northern towns.
I am once again, owned.Report
Let’s see, why might I have limited confidence in your analogies…
“and pack them into
cattle carsbuses to be sent into exile”ReportI’ll give you this much. I appreciate your comment below, “Please proceed, Governor.” You dropped the partisanship long enough to praise Baker.Report
See, this is what happens when your entire political worldview is rooted in spite and anger.
The entire stunt was premised on the belief that everyone is as depraved and cruel as DeSantis and you would have a good laugh watching the terrified refugees face persecution and trauma from the people of Martha’s Vineyard.
That flopped because the people of Massachusetts responded, not with hate but with care and everyone is witnessing that.
Your comment here is premised on the idea that I would reflexively throw hatred at the Republican governor of Massachusetts.
Except…I won’t, because Baker seems to be doing the right thing and using his state’s resources to help the refugees, not hurt them.
Republican or not, he deserves praise.
See, you guys have lost the plot.
The MAGA Republicans don’t have anything to offer the American people but sh!tposting and cruel sadistic pranks.Report
“The residents and officials of the town explained to the people that they were going to be sent to a Federal military base which could help them more and transport them to preferred destinations.”
sic transit “we’re showing how much better we are than those racist rednecks by opening our town and our homes to these poor misled people”, I guess.Report
Owning the libs cannot fail, it can only be failed.Report
I don’t think they care. It is about riling up their base and having liberal “hypocrisy” be proven regardless of what people of Matha’s Vineyard and Massachusetts do.Report
I don’t know what moral obligation a region in the US has over another region to care for immigrants.
Obviously, tricking people into moving locales is wrong, if that’s what’s happening, as is not informing the local support systems about arriving immigrants.Report
As both these things have been documented for for immigrants being sent away from Texas and Florida by Republican governors, what conclusions about the Republican response to America’s failed immigration laws would you like us to draw?Report
Report
From a Reuters article from yesterday:
Report
On Martha’s Vineyard, a rush to help migrants, from restaurant owners to Spanish students
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/09/15/metro/migrants-arrived-marthas-vineyard-residents-businesses-lined-up-help/?event=event25
Please proceed, Governor.Report
If you want to donate to the Martha’s Vineyard Gofundme and do your part to help the 50 migrants who were sent there, you can do so here.Report
https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-offered-west-bank-to-jordan-king-thought-was-having-heart-attack-report/
“The book said Trump believed he would be doing the king a favor with the offer, apparently not seeming to grasp its wider implications, or the fact that he was offering land that did not belong to the US.
The report did not say if Israel was aware of the offer at the time.”Report
This site’s many Trump foreign policy fans will be shocked – first of all, by discovering that they exist, but then by learning that a book written by a New Yorker writer and a NYT writer passes along an allegation that Trump said something stupid.Report
I gather you’re from there? Any assessment of the Swedish election?Report
Report
Well, that didn’t stay up long.Report
44 hours.
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Americans were suddenly faced with a flood of refugees from a dystopian regime and reacted with kindness and hospitality.
Republicans are apoplectic with rage and confusion upon realizing that Americans are not as cruel and spiteful as they are.Report
This isn’t a story about what the Americans did, Chip.
It’s about how they *FELT* after the Undocumented Dreamers left.Report
Jaybird,
Why can’t you just admit that all you want to do is own the libz and that facts are irrelevant to you? Why is that so hard for you? Part of helping is knowing your resources and the people of Martha’s Vineyard (who are not the millionaires in your head because those people are only there in the summer) did what they could for people who were dropped on their door and then sent them to people with more resources who could help further including taking them to desired transportation.
Your entire argument appears to be that doing anything less than immediately finding homes and jobs for the deceived immigrants is proving the point of the most xenophobic right-winger is pure BS. If it is not anti-immigrant in intent, it is so in effect.
There is a reason the Satre quote on bad-faith applies so well to you. Everything to you is “heads I win, tails you lose.” When confronted with something you can’t refute, you just signal you are bored now and move on or just talk about how you are a third party or something? And every Friday and Saturday, you try and cutesy bootsy hide this behind posts for weekend plans and games and old advertisements.Report
Saul, do you believe that this story makes Republicans/Conservatives look bad and Democrats/Liberals look good?
If so, then I am sharing a story that makes Republicans/Conservatives look bad and Democrats/Liberals look good.
This is me owning the Cons.Report
“Why can’t you just admit that all you want to do is own the libz and that facts are irrelevant to you?”
I think the fact here is that after much Shocked Expounding by the “libz” at the notion of stuffing these poor benighted souls into buses and shipping them off to a completely different state to be thrown onto the mercy of the community, the community has responded by stuffing said poor benighted souls into buses and shipping them off to a military detention facility, and the “libz” reply to that is “well what else should they have done with them, it’s not like you can expect anything more, right?”
“they just did this to own the libz!” yeah well I think the “libz” had a really good chance to not be owned here and they did not take that chanceReport
Would you like a story about how the reactionary Republicans *FELT* after witnessing refugees being treated with compassion?
One filled with rage and confusion?Report
This is the Ten Second News Links post, Chip.
It’s an opportunity to post it yourself. Hey, maybe we’d all like to read such an article!
Please share it with us.Report
Absolutely!
Here is a comment on a blog where the reaction by conservatives is sneering scorn, and an adamant insistence that the people of Martha’s Vineyard were not actually behaving with compassion, but were in fact treating the refugees with cruelty:
I think the fact here is that after much Shocked Expounding by the “libz” at the notion of stuffing these poor benighted souls into buses and shipping them off to a completely different state to be thrown onto the mercy of the community, the community has responded by stuffing said poor benighted souls into buses and shipping them off to a military detention facility, and the “libz” reply to that is “well what else should they have done with them, it’s not like you can expect anything more, right?”
See, notice the absolute refusal to believe that anyone anywhere could possibly accept or even welcome refugees; If people are doing so, it must be an act, a hypocritical bit of virtue signaling.
Notice the anger, the sarcastic scorn in terming them “benighted souls” and the dogged insistence that Martha’s Vineyard was treating these people badly, dammit.
And here’s another one, sneering:
If you want to donate to the Martha’s Vineyard Gofundme and do your part to help the 50 migrants who were sent there, you can do so here.
Yes, it isn’t possible to express concern- If you love these people so much why don’t you marry one, hur hur.
Oh, and one more:
All of the liberals are screaming about how awful it makes conservatives look and all of the conservatives are laughing about how awful the liberals are making themselves look.
Yes, conservatives ARE laughing. The sight of terrified refugees who are fleeing political persecution and having made a grueling trek of thousands of miles in search of freedom and safety, only to be tricked into being sent without preparation or resources into a small island, is FUNNY to them.
This is what tickles reactionaries, the sight of women and children, terrified and alone, being used as pawns in a cruel stunt to show up those hypocritical liberals.
The very best way to make conservatives look bad is to quote them.Report
So you don’t have an article written and published on, like, the New York Times or CNN or something?
The example you’re giving opposite a story published nationally is a comment on a blog?Report
Jaybird,
Are you watching the documentary on the Holocaust and the U.S.? I think you shouldReport
I don’t know which documentary you’re talking about.
If it’s on cable, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to watch it.
Is it streaming?Report
I thought it was better to go straight to the source and let them speak for themselves.
Here’s Steven Hayward at Powerline blog:
The spectacle of the left’s reaction to a mere 50 “migrants” turning up in Martha’s Vineyard has to be the most satisfying since Nixon’s Christmas bombing of Hanoi in 1972. Just when you think liberal hypocrisy and virtue signaling can’t get any more obvious, two airplanes and a few buses show how easy it is to find more depths to it. I believe this is what some notable person called “winning,” and I’m not tired of it yet. I think I’ll do my part and send a relief package of Mike Lindell’s pillows up to the beleaguered residents of MV.
Are you laughing yet? Get it, he’s going to order MyPillows for the refugee relief! Get it?
This is comedy gold, to reactionaries.
And here’s The Federalist, yukking it up by hilariously showing pictures of large homes on Martha’s Vineyard with- get this- plenty of room for illegal migrants!
12 Stunning Martha’s Vineyard Vacation Homes With Plenty Of Room For Illegal Migrants
C’mon, you gotta be laughing now, I mean, the image of terrified traumatized women and children showing up at some snooty liberal’s front door- Man, that’s just priceless innit?
But after America failed to get the joke, here’s the sulking reaction from the reactionaries at the Daily Wire:
After the immigrants were removed from the island, social media castigated the residents for what they saw as hypocrisy.
“I thought Martha’s Vineyard was a ‘sanctuary city’?” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) mocked. “I thought they declared themselves a ‘haven’ for illegal immigrants?? Just 50 arrive, and the socialist billionaires send them away—to a military base, no less—in JUST 24 hours.”
Yes, “hypocrisy” again. It is unpossible that people treat refugees well; It must all be a dirty tricksy plot by liberals to secretly treat them with cruelty, just like we does.
More example provided upon request.Report
I suppose I can’t complain about nutpicking.Report
Chip,
I assure you that I’m not laughing at the idea of refugees being put on a bus and sent to a military detention facility by people who they honestly expected were going to help them.
I’m very much not laughing at that.Report
I was just about to say something similar. Conservatives aren’t laughing at the migrants; they’re laughing at the liberals. And as for this idea that DeSantis and Abbott are trolling, I don’t see it that way. The trolling has been from the cities unaffected by immigration who called themselves sanctuary cities, and it’s been going on for years. It’s been about doing nothing and looking down on the people who are actually facing the immigration crisis. Now, some governors are making the trolls step up and act, and the liberals are in hysterics. They’re still claiming superiority, now for taking care of a few dozen immigrants for a couple of days. That’s trolling too. Because they haven’t acted to help the millions of other immigrants for the past years.Report
The large liberal cities have already assisted,, settled,, and housed more immigrants, documented or otherwise than any conservative town.
Have you bought a MyPillow to send yet? I’ve heard that it’s a hilarious way to make other people feel bad.
But look, if you want to lobby for more refugee assistance, greater ways to accommodate and settle immigrants, I promise to feel very owned.Report
The immigration crisis isn’t about you, how you feel, or how others feel about you.Report
“This is about how liberals are doing nothing about immigration!”
“We are doing something about immigration.”
“This isn’t about you.”Report
The trolling can’t fail, it can only be failed.Report
“The emperor is naked.”
“You’re trolling. Stop trolling.”Report
Oh now it’s the sulking sour grapes.
Liberals behave with compassion, but conservatives know it’s false and tricksy.Report
Sour grapes? What?
Here’s the original “The Fox and the Grapes” story translated into English.
My comment is not saying “oh, those immigrants wouldn’t have been good neighbors anyways”. It’s the people who shipped them off who were saying that.
(Hey, you know what Aesop’s Fable you guys should read? The Young Crab & His Mother.)Report
Yes exactly.
You’re saying the liberals are false and tricksy.
That their compassion is just an act.
This is why I keep referencing GollumReport
Not exactly, Chip.
I’m saying “Here. Look.”
And you’re saying “YOU’RE SAYING WE LOOK BAD! YOU’RE SAYING WE LOOK FALSE AND TRICKSY!”
Is that what you’re getting from looking at what I’m showing you?Report
Look at…what?
Liberals behaving admirably?
Conservatives chortle at a gratuitous display of cruelty?Report
Maybe we need to retrench. What did liberals do that was admirable? What did conservatives do that was cruel?Report
Then I will say what I said to Saul again:
Do you believe that this story makes Republicans/Conservatives look bad and Democrats/Liberals look good?
If so, then I am sharing a story that makes Republicans/Conservatives look bad and Democrats/Liberals look good.
This is me owning the cons.Report
Whether the story “makes Republicans/Conservatives look bad and Democrats/Liberals look good” does not depend on what Saul thinks about it. Why you did it or what you’re trying to accomplish doesn’t depend on what Saul thinks about the story.
What you mean to do or are trying to accomplish is something you have privileged access to. (Doesn’t mean you’d know, but you might.) There’s no “If so” relating to Saul about it. Whether you’re owning the libs, owning the cons, or doing something else entirely is a matter of what you yourself are up to, not what Saul, or anyone else, believes about the underlying story.
You could tell us, but that would mean committing to some definite stance and spoiling all the fun.Report
The reactionaries thought that using desperate asylum seekers as cannon fodder in a cruel stunt to “make liberals look bad” would be a master stroke of political posturing.
Now that it shat the bed and left decent people aghast, the smart ones are quietly backing away and washing their hands of it.
The rest of them are still rolling in it and telling us it smells like perfume.
But what we should note is how, at no point was this ever intended to actually solve anything or help anyone but was merely a performance intended to inflict humiliating pain on their hated enemies.Report
It isn’t like Abbott birthed these people. They existed before liberals even thought about them. I’ve seen no evidence that they were better off in TX or FL. I mean yes, relocating people up near New England Patriots fans sounds cruel, but they were down in Cowboys country.Report
Yeah, that’s it.
They were just…relocated. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
From Gateway Pundit:
WAYNE ROOT: Here’s How to Destroy Democrats: Make it Rain Illegal Aliens Everywhere Woke Liberals Live.
Most importantly, over a decade ago, I wrote the column urging GOP Governors to ship illegal aliens to deep blue Democrat towns. If Democrats love illegal aliens so much, let them live with them. Over the years I’ve repeated this idea hundreds of times on my TV and radio shows.
My idea was to ship illegal aliens by the thousands to exclusive, elitist wealthy towns and neighborhoods filled with rich liberal hypocrites. And to the lawns of Democrat politicians.
Places like Martha’s Vineyard.
Finally, someone had the balls and common sense to listen. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just did it. DeSantis carried out both ideas. He shipped illegals to fancy Martha’s Vineyard and to the lawn of Kamala Harris’s home. Bravo.
…
Bury all the rich liberal towns with illegals. Make sure elitist, woke, liberal Democrat hypocrites have to step over hordes of illegals to get into Starbucks, their hairdresser, nail salon, supermarkets, restaurants, and their kid’s schools. Make them scream “Uncle.”
How’s that workin’ out for ya, Wayne? Have the libs cried “uncle” yet?
Here’s “Bonchie” over at RedState:
In the end, the point isn’t to somehow stop illegal immigration this way. That’s impossible for a state governor to do, but what is possible is making Democrats pay for the policies they push. It also has the effect of keeping the border crisis at the top of the news. There hasn’t been much discussion of abortion lately, has there? That’s just smart politics.
Right.
The point of lying to frightened refugees and shipping them off to deliberately create a humanitarian crisis isn’t to actually solve something, but to keep the issue alive and make it painful. Just smart politics!
If you want to make an omelette, etc.Report
I’m out. If you want to have the last word on this, feel free. But I don’t think we’re talking about evidence or anything else anymore (if ever). We’re talking about whether you have complete confidence in your side always being right and good and your opponents always being wrong and evil, and the answer to that is yes. For some reason that doesn’t feel like a revelation.Report
To the extent that it’s a Rorschach blot, I suppose it’s funny to see who looks at it and sees death imagery versus who looks at it and sees sex imagery.
To the extent that it actually shows a picture of something, I think that it actually shows a picture of something…
But if it obviously shows that the democrats are goodness and sweetness and light, then my sharing the story is amplifying how good the democrats actually are.
“Oft evil will shall evil mar” and all that.Report
I know you think that you are washing your hands of this steaming pile, but you are actually just rolling in it because you’re still just fixated on theater criticism of the event, not the impact of the event on real people.
Portraying yourself as a disinterested observer, searching out hypocrisy and reversals…this is the mindset behind this appalling stunt, where the actual Venezuelan refugees are an irrelevancy, just collateral damage in the war against liberals.Report
The impact on “real people”.
The immigration crisis has been affecting real people for decades now.
It did before the people on Martha’s Vineyard saw it first-hand and will continue for much longer than 44 hours.
Assertions of virtue without a shared moral language comes across as trolling.
And, yes, reaping various benefits without acknowledging that costs are being forced on other people.
Some of those other people see themselves as real too, Chip.Report
You keep exemplifying my point.
That the suffering of these Venezuelans is an acceptable sacrifice if it leads to your goal of reducing immigration.Report
Chip, that’s *NOT* my goal.
But what’s wacky is that the people who claim to be good (and, indeed, have been claiming to be good for decades on this issue now) are less than good.
As it turns out, asserting goodness is not a plan.
I do think that this actually requires something more of an engineering solution. Like with legislation and everything.
“NIMBY” isn’t a solution. And the YIMBYs just sort of plotzed pretty hard when someone showed up and knocked on the door asking for use of the backyard.Report
Once again, your main focus is on proving that liberals are not good people to the exclusion of all else.
You witness an appalling performative display of cruelty by conservatives and an outpouring of compassion by liberals, and your takeaway is that the liberals “plotzed”.Report
outpouring of compassion by liberals
Speaking of performativeness.
Anyway, maybe we should try an engineering solution to solve the problem rather than going for the whole “I can top that” thing.
I mean, now that the sanctuary cities have put their immigrants on the bus, waved bye bye, and written stories about how much their lives were touched by the brief interaction.Report
I’ll let your comment make my point for me.Report
Since cut-and-paste is so frequently offered as an argument around here:
Whether you’re owning the libs, owning the cons, or doing something else entirely is a matter of what you yourself are up to, not what Saul, or anyone else, believes about the underlying story.
You could tell us, but that would mean committing to some definite stance and spoiling all the fun.Report
Eh, I don’t have to say “it’s death imagery” to enjoy the “it’s flowers being pollinated! Pretty flowers! SO MANY FLOWERS!” people being upset at all of the skulls with antlers being posted.
I think it’s *OBVIOUSLY* a skull with antlers. Like, to the point where I can just point at it and people will see a skull with antlers. Look. There it is.
“HA! So you *DO* think it’s death imagery!”
“I think it looks so much like death imagery that it doesn’t matter whether or not I say it looks like death imagery. Like, at all. It’d look like death imagery if I had never been born.”Report
Obviously, you don’t “have to say” anything. If you want to remain obscure, that is your prerogative.
Thanks for playing.Report
It speaks for itself.Report
But you don’t.Report
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”Report
I honestly don’t think that the reply is particularly absurd.
What is absurd is the juxtaposition of the “IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE” signs with the reality of the 44 hours of how long it took to deport the 48 immigrants out of Martha’s Vineyard.
Like, to the point where the best plan is to attack people who point at it and laugh.
“How dare you laugh at the pain of these Venezuelans escaping a communist government!”
I’m not. Seriously. That is not what I am laughing at.
Get this: I think that, deep down, you know that this looks bad too. And so the best play is to attack the people who are saying “Look at how bad this looks”.
How dare you point out the nudity of the emperor! You’re trolling! Stop trolling! You’re an anti-Semite!Report
Welp, looks like to stopped washing your hands and decided to roll around in it some more..
You’re mocking people who took in refugees and transferred them to a more permanent location to get better care.
See, this what happens when your worldview assumes everyone is cynical and craven. The idea that the people of Martha’s Vineyard could be doing the right thing is unpossible.Report
You’re mocking people who took in refugees
My definition of what Martha’s Vineyard did was not “took in refugees”.
I actually think that asserting that they did is absurd.Report
More information: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migrants-landed-marthas-vineyard-tricked-misleading-brochure-lawyers-s-rcna48390
“When roughly 50 migrants were flown from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, under a new program by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to highlight illegal immigration, they were given a brochure about housing, cash assistance and jobs for refugees.
But there’s one problem with what the brochure was promoting: The migrants aren’t anywhere close to being classified as refugees, a specific term under U.S. immigration law. The implicit promises of help, therefore, were misleading and potentially criminal, according to Lawyers for Civil Rights, a nonprofit legal aid group representing 30 of the people who landed on the Massachusetts island last week.”Report
It is not a juxtoposition. It is helping to the extent possible. It would be a juxtoposition if they did nothing. You can’t argue they did nothing though so you are grasping at straws and stating “well they did not live perfectly to this standard I have in my head about what X means so I declare it a win for conservatives.” This is bad faith. When confronted on it, you eventually went for “it speaks for itself” which is the lofty phrase that it is time to move on but you can’t or won’t concede any error because that means admitting the libs are correct and would rather not to do this anymore.
Jaybird, you can dish it out but don’t seem capable of taking the heat.Report
Saul, my expectation was *NOT* that they live perfectly.
My expectation was pretty much something to the effect of “they’ll be there a week, maybe two, and then they’ll quietly kick the immigrants off the island and go back to holding up those IN THIS HOUSE WE BELIEVE signs”.Report
“It is not a juxtoposition [sic]. It is helping to the extent possible. ”
I think what we’re surprised by is how the people who’ve been telling us it’s a basic moral duty as humans to help to the greatest extent possible turned out to have such a limited scope to their idea of how great was the extent possible.
Like, “what do you expect us to do? We don’t have the resources to keep them in our actual homes. We’re sending them to a military base with packs of clothes and food and toys and books, and community members are riding on the buses with them, and we’re setting up a rolling schedule of people who’ll stay on the base until every one of those people has a place to go“.
Not “(snort) what do you expect us to do? We don’t have the resources to keep them in our actual homes. We’re sending them to a military base, where they’ll be just fine.”Report
“Would you like a story about how the reactionary Republicans *FELT* after witnessing refugees being treated with compassion?”
(we’re still waiting to see this story, by the way. Like, the one with quotes from Republicans simply exploding with frustrated anger.)Report
Putin pet Michael Tracey decided to beclown himself by stating the American entry into WWII is what caused the Holocaust: https://twitter.com/beyerstein/status/1571658034568663042?s=20&t=htNf1bR7aaN4hWjYiF0URAReport
This thread disputes the whole yeshiva thing:
I don’t know which data is accurate.
If the schools are graduating functionally illiterate students, they’re failing.
The thread argues that the schools hold 19 of the top 20 spots for the Regents exam.
Which exam should we be using as our yardstick?
Because if the kids are not functionally illiterate (but are hitting it out of the park) then we don’t have a problem in the first place.Report
Let us know when you find out.Report
Comparing apples and oranges between the two tests. I’ve clicked through various links via the Tweet and can’t find the raw data they’re claiming to cite anywhere. Even the link that says “Download Data Here” doesn’t work.
The Regents is an optional test so you are indeed looking at a self-selecting subset of the population. The other testing is, far as I know, required. Though exemptions are sometimes given for students with special needs. The data I’ve seen shows higher rates of special needs within the Hasidic population, though there is lots of noise in that data.
So if we’re comparing tests that everyone was required to take with tests that people can choose to take, we need much more information to figure out how legitimate those comparisons are.
If anyone can find the data, I’m happy to dig in to it more. But best I can tell, it isn’t readily available to the public.Report
Yeah, I spent some time digging yesterday and wasn’t even able to find anything conclusive or that would even hint at where would be better to look.
Digging through the thread, there’s a handful of warning signs… the picture, for example, is from a different set of Jewish schools than the hardcore Hasidic ones. The guy pointed out “I don’t pick the picture!”
Lots of little things like that.Report
can’t say 100% but fairly sure he’s full of it.Report
That’s my read. The NYT is far from perfect but the article that seems to be the primary “source” was basically one of those nit-picky style ones where they quote a section of the original article and say, “Here is a reason to think this isn’t perfectly accurate,” and just lines all those up and says the whole article is bunk. But they offer precious few citations or data and, like I said, the supposed link to the data just returns to the article itself.
And, for what it’s worth, the NYT piece aligns with my observations and I lived in a town that had a large Satmar population so I saw many of these and related issues play out with my own eyes (I wrote about it on the site here years ago: https://ordinary-times.com/2013/04/09/sign-language/). As cited in that piece, there is a history of… interesting… things happening with schools in KJ and related communities.
But, hey, given that we have an investigative piece from the NYT on one hand and a Tweet on the other, we should probably be sure to teach the controversy.Report
I’m willing to agree that the tweet guy is engaging in aggressively motivated reasoning in service to maintaining the status quo.
We’ve looked at what is, presumably, the strongest arguments for “why this situation isn’t happening” and agree that those arguments are not sufficient and we need to go back to the previous set of assumptions:
These schools are churning out illiterate and innumerate children.
So… now what?
I’ve seen the argument that we should cut funding.Report
Having dug deeper into the matter, I see that the state has had laws on the books to regulate curriculum in private/parochial schools and that these laws were recently strengthened. So, I would look into actually enforcing those laws. However, this indicates that could make things worse/uglier, at least in the short term: https://patch.com/new-york/midhudsonvalley/kiryas-joel-grand-rabbi-rejects-new-rules-ny-private-schools
Note: That was written before the NYT piece was published.
Call me crazy but I’m not opposed to the idea of parents being able to pay to have their kids educated in ways I would strongly disagree with. But a key word there is that parents are paying for it. I don’t think public funds should go towards schools that want no part of preparing children for being a part of that broader public. Which is why I would look at the funding issue. But that’s me. And that perspective is inconsistent with the law.
To me, a school that is TRYING to meet established expectations and failing needs a different course of action than one that has said, “To hell with your established expectations… we’ll do it our way.”
If you think every school, regardless of the population it serves or the wants of the parents or the source of the funding, should have to teach certain things, I invite you to propose solutions that would help schools in Baltimore and Kiryas Joel. And I’m totally down with you having different proposals.Report
Here is a news report from 3 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5C3DepJXVQ
Monroe (of Monroe-Woodbury) is the town I used to live in. Palm Tree is the new town that was formed when Kiryas Joel — formerly a village of Monroe — became independent. That all transpired after I left but I believe that was to help resolve some of the issues between the two communities with regards to school funding and other matters.
There are major schisms within the community and intense pressure — not all of it what we would call legal — to squash dissent. Hence the father disguising his identity.Report
Well, to the extent that the schools have something in common, it is this:
They are failing their students.
They need to be replaced with schools that are *NOT* failing their students.
So, at the very least, we’re talking different administrators and different teachers with different goals (and the goals need to include getting the kids to be literate and numerate).
Now maybe that means different things for each school.
Maybe that means different reading material.
The kids in Baltimore can have word problems that involve riding bikes and city blocks and the kids in NYC need to have word problems that involve marbles and urns.
Maybe they’ll be asked to read different books with different protagonists that have different names…
But, at the end of the day, the goal should be someone who is capable of reading, say, a pamphlet discussing the importance of getting a flu shot. Having enough math under one’s belt to be able to ring up a customer and say “that’s in the ballpark of what they ordered” vs. “I must have pressed the 00 key and not the 0 key”.
And if the school is not capable of turning 4 out of 5 kids in any given district into someone capable of doing that, the school is failing.Report
“But, at the end of the day, the goal should be someone who is capable of reading, say, a pamphlet discussing the importance of getting a flu shot. Having enough math under one’s belt to be able to ring up a customer and say “that’s in the ballpark of what they ordered” vs. “I must have pressed the 00 key and not the 0 key”.
And if the school is not capable of turning 4 out of 5 kids in any given district into someone capable of doing that, the school is failing.”
Okay, cool! So here is where the rubber meets the road: you’d be okay with the state going into a private school — funded entirely through private means — and saying, “To hell with what you and your parents and maybe even your children want… you’re going to orient your school around OUR definition of success?”Report
Well, that is where the rubber meets the road, isn’t it?
I do think that if the children are not being taught to read and write and do arithmetic, then they are being harmed. As surely as if they were being maimed in order to become better beggars.
But if the parents are 100% on board with them being harmed in this way, we are not in a place where the problem is not one that will be solved by touching the funding.Report
“…we are not in a place where the problem is not one that will be solved by touching the funding.”
Can you write this in English?Report
I had an extra not in there.
We want to solve the problem of how the school is churning out students who are illiterate and innumerate.
The school is getting some funds… from the original article:
Hasidic boys’ yeshivas receive far less per pupil than public schools, and they charge tuition. But they appear to get more government funding on average than other private schools in the state, including other religious schools, the analysis found. And the money is flowing as New York City is cutting public school budgets.
I suspect that we could cut these funds off entirely and it would not change anything except maybe a hike in the tuition.
Which would then be paid.
And we would still have the same problem.
Because the problem is not that these schools get some government funding.
The problem is that these schools are churning out illiterate and innumerate students with the full blessing of the community.Report
I’m still not sure that the case of Hasidic Jews is the most illustrative example of this issue. Assuming accuracy of reporting I don’t know why NY subsidizes this and if I was a New Yorker my vote would be to put a stop to it if they won’t meet normal accreditation standards.
At the same time it seems to me like the best version of America is the one where we tolerate small, insular, religious minorities opting out to some degree from mainstream society. It’s kind of a founding principle. And I get that characterization may not totally fit the context of Hasidic Jews NYC where they are apparently a significant demographic. But I also don’t think that what they’re doing is like what’s going on in public school districts like Baltimore or wherever.Report
So if we’re in a place where we just say “welp, I guess there’s nothing we can do but yank the funding”, then we’re just in a place where we say “welp, we can’t do anything but yank the funding”.
And we still have the problem.
At least we’re not paying for it.
For small values of “we” and small values of “paying”.Report
I’m sure if NY state told them adults who’ve graduated from the educationally substandard schools would be ineligible for the dole things would get straightened out right quick.Report
I am 100% willing to run with that as a general policy.Report
I’m going to try not to get myself in trouble with this comment, and beg that it is read with charity. My opinion is that what’s going on here has a lot less to do with the schools and a lot more to do with those who attend them. This is also my opinion on the larger questions in play, including with respect to my friends up in Bmore. When students come from families who prioritize passing on a certain religion and specific religious way of life over modern educational achievement, their outcomes will inevitably reflect it. Same with when your students come from places of entrenched poverty, familial breakdown, and other social problems.
I think there may be far more efficient ways to attack these things. The issue is that they are monstrous, and involve stuff like breaking up communities and forced assimilation with a bad history, a lot of collateral damage, and go at least against the spirit of the 1st Amendment. So we don’t do it because that cure is worse than the disease. In the case of the Hasidic Jews (or the Amish, or whoever) it leaves us with less satisfying and effective options, like ‘well we can’t force people to change their beliefs but we don’t have to subsidize them either.’ It’s a big multicultural society after all and I don’t think the success of the nation stands or falls based on what happens with some tiny religious group. So we let it go.
The harder question is of course the one about the Baltimores of the world, though I actually think similar actions might be the only ones that would facilitate rapid change, albeit for different reasons. The question becomes how far you’d be willing to go. Will you remove children from absentee and/or dysfunctional parents/guardians but which do not meet the criteria for abuse or neglect? Will you bulldoze the section 8 and crummy apartments and forcibly scatter the occupants among better communities elsewhere? I think we have rightly as a society taken that off the table. So we’re left with a lot of lesser measures.
However all is not lost. I still think we can probably do better with less focus on the schools and more focus on the standards of living so that the students who come to the schools start being better than the students who come today. That and refraining from instilling common wisdom like that the attendance policy is white supremacy or whatever.Report
I agree wholly, InMD.
I’ll clarify a small bit that how significant a demographic they are — at least the particular sects under discussion — really depends on where you are and/or what scale you are looking at. In the town I was living in, the population growth within the community was such that they were bordering on being 50% of the town’s population and only going to grow from there (since I left, the communities separated into separate towns). In that particular neighborhood of Brooklyn, they are a sizable group. Zoom out to Brooklyn as a whole or NYC as a whole or to a county or state level and they shrink dramatically.
I think that is part of what makes it all very complicated to address. In my town, there was immense motivation to act (hence the eventual split). But they basically had to solve it on the local level. They couldn’t get the state involved because the state’s choices were:
A) Respond to about 20K people who live in this small town and who are otherwise not a particular aligned voting group and who are only really agitating for this one thing
B) Respond to about 20K people who live in a small town but who are connected to a much larger group that reside in small communities scattered throughout the state whom are likely to support one another politically and otherwise; also, they are a religious minority so all sorts of 1st Amendment issues are involved, even if they end up on the wrong side of them
This sort of connects with what you said up above. The system sort of incentivizes just letting this status quo persist. So unless or until there are some bigger changes within this system, I say just let them do their thing on their own dime and find better uses for that public education funding.Report
“Because the problem is not that these schools get some government funding.
The problem is that these schools are churning out illiterate and innumerate students with the full blessing of the community.”
Well then, you and I disagree on the problem. Or, perhaps, the prioritization of the problems.
I think schools churning out illiterate and innumerate students is a problem. But if parents really want that for their kids and are willing to pay a private school to pursue that, I’m somewhat loathe to insist on solving what I consider a problem and they consider a good idea. Plus, maybe they would not be able to fund the schools without the government assistance. And maybe they’d begin to compromise. Who knows?
Schools taking public funding and making zero effort to churn out children who can participate in public life is a big problem. To those schools, I’d either say try harder or lose your funding.
Schools taking public funding and trying-but-failing to churn out children who can participate in public life is also a problem. To those schools, I’d want to dig into the “trying-but-failing” part and figure out what solutions might work. That may involve adjustments to funding, it may involve something else. We’d need a diagnostic model.Report
it is very hard to illustrate for outsiders how much political juice in NYC certain corners (not all) of the ultra orthodox community leadership have.
I mean, this whole thing does a pretty good job of it, but the public funding angle of it is fairly widespread with certain ultra orthodox groups (a la monroe/kiras. the parallels to public schooling are both instructive (in that the pushed answer to bad schools is more money, generally – and don’t generate this kind of outrage) and also absolutely useless, because public schools are, at least on the label, actually trying. this specific selection of yeshivas are clearly not trying to do anything but collect public funding and skate under the radar. the abject poverty of large segments of this community is also part of this feedback loop.
I lived around the satmar for a long while, and it was mostly ok because i am an enormous human being and i have a penis, so no one was going to mess with me regardless. my wife had less good times, because they’re so remarkably sexist they make al qaeda look like, well, they look very, very similar.
i mostly felt great sadness every time i saw a young female child, knowing they were (from my decidedly secular, cosmopolitian, and thoroughly decadent pov) going to grow up to join that society as chattel and property. that sucks.Report
The entire issue with the Satmar and other Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups is very complicated. The Hasidim were really devastated by the Holocaust and spent most of the post-War period rebuilding from that both demographically and community wise. However, social changes during the same time period means that this isn’t necessarily seen as a good thing because Jews code white, they don’t invoke the same nostalgic feelings in many people that the Amish invoke, and generally there is a lack of romantic reverence towards them. I am not entirely fond of the Hasidim but I think many moderns, especially non-Jews, are not entirety understanding of the way Hasidim act in the way that they would for other minority groups.
I also find it rather annoying that the hijab and other Islamic modesty clothing has been adopted as a liberal diversity symbol in some quarters while Jewish modesty clothing is seen as something that represses women. On the Alameda County building, they have pictures of residents to celebrate the diversity of Alameda County. They include two women in Muslim modesty clothing and young boy dressed normally. There seems to be an assumption that all Muslim modesty clothing is voluntary while all women in Ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities are terribly oppressed and need/want to be liberated. This is again because Jews code white. You can’t have it both ways. You either oppose both or see both as diversity symbols.Report
“I also find it rather annoying that the hijab and other Islamic modesty clothing has been adopted as a liberal diversity symbol in some quarters while Jewish modesty clothing is seen as something that represses women.”
agreed. they’re both sexist af. but i don’t want the state involved in non-criminal matters, no matter how awful it is to be born female (or male for that matter, but it’s significantly differently awful) in very restrictive (generally religious, generally conservative) communities of any religion. so it’s like watching a trad car crash.
i live around a lot of amish now and it’s not like it feels any better to see their children, though they generally have a much larger degree of greater flexibility when it comes to the choice/”choice” to remain in the community.
tldr the 19th century is a mood, i guessReport
Eh, I kinda see the whole Hijab thing as similar to the Confederate Flag.
There are people out there who say “dude, this is heritage! not hate!” and, sure, I’m willing to run with how you think that. But you’re asking me to ignore a lot of baggage and you’re not even acknowledging that you’re asking me to ignore a lot of baggage.
There are people out there (like Linda Sarsour!) who looks great in a hijab and it’s a fun and funky fashion accessory and, sure, she should wear it if she wants to.
But Iran is, right this minute, having protests against the morality police who recently killed a young woman for not wearing hijab.
That’s hate, not heritage.Report
If the schools were getting government funds and churning out students with proficiency numbers that were 4-5% better than the rest of the schools in the area, I’d be cracking jokes about how we need to make the kids in Baltimore go kosher.
If the proficiency numbers were identical to the other schools in the area, I’d shrug and say that maybe we could have a talk about funding of religious schools but of all the fish we had to fry, we had bigger ones.
As it is, these numbers are in line with schools that we agree are failing and putting out students that are illiterate and innumerate.
In all three examples, the funding is the same. But the yardstick for the problem isn’t the funding.
It’s the fact that the students are illiterate and innumerate.
I’m somewhat loathe to insist on solving what I consider a problem and they consider a good idea
I get that.
But it also means that we’re not going to solve the problem by cutting funding.Report
“But it also means that we’re not going to solve the problem by cutting funding.”
Well, I guess I’m okay not solving the “problem” of parents getting what they want from private schools even if disagree vehemently with their goals.
The system as it is currently setup is, “Maybe we give you funding but, regardless, you need to meet the state’s expectations.”
I propose a different system, “Funds are available to schools that prioritize the state’s expectations. Funds are not available to schools that ignore the state’s expectations.”Report
“I propose a different system, “Funds are available to schools that prioritize the state’s expectations. Funds are not available to schools that ignore the state’s expectations.””
you’d be surprised how many people and schools would take that deal
(if the government were actually willing to live up to their end of the bargain and accept that students at non-funded schools would not meet the state’s expectations)Report
I am Facebook friends with this person. His entire education schtick is that parents should have total control over their kid’s education and the government or greater body politic should literally have no say even if parents make some rather bad choices.Report
At the risk of opening up a wide can of worms… speaking strictly from a curriculum standpoint (e.g., WHAT is being taught… not how it is being taught), what power do you think the state should have over what parents want their kids to learn? How far would you empower the state? Could the state take kids away because we don’t like what parents are teaching their kids?Report
I don’t think that the state should be allowed to take the kids away because they don’t like what they are teaching the kids. I do believe that a government should be able to have at least some rules on core subjects like reading, writing, math, and science in place though. There needs to be some immunity for the children from whatever wild ideas that people have. The Hasidic schools are not providing the skills necessary for their kids to have even low end jobs as adults.Report
So imagine a Hasidic school that simply refuses to comply. And parents who do not want it to comply. Do you chain the doors closed? Then what happens to the kids?
Like, practically, how far are you willing to go to enforce this?Report
I’m willing to cut all state funding they receiveReport
Cutting the money. State inspectors peering down and in the school everyday. I am not entirely unsympathetic to the Hasidim but kids need to be at least skilled enough for minimal employment after graduation.Report
Given the New York Regents ruling, kids in these religious schools will be officially truant. Checking online, New York state law calls for fining the parents of truant children, and allows for jailing repeat offenders. Probably won’t have to jail too many parents before things get changed.Report
I’m wondering if the jailing of Hasidic parents will end up backfiring. Kind of like how past attempts at going after FLDS did not work because it just looked like the state is being a big bully against a small community even though most people do not like the FLDS. There are obviously a lot of differences between the Hasidim and the FLDS, Hasidim do not have the rural imagery that gets Americans all weepy at times and the women don’t wear pioneer garb. Plus decades past and the liberals are feeling more aggressive towards reactionaries.Report
This is the comparison I was thinking of and why I keep stressing negotiation and compromise rather than brute force.
Between “doing nothing” and “sending in the SWAT team” lies a vast unexplored territory.
ETA: What I think is odd is that I haven’t really seen much commentary from the Hasidic parents themselves. Their voices and opinions are probably different than the outside commenters using this as a proxy battle for their own ends.Report
There is no world where that is a good idea or appropriate solution to this issue. It’s probably the one thing that could make it worse, especially if our priority is the well being of the children.Report
A lawyer friend of mine once said that every legal question has one correct answer which is “It depends”.
As in, yes, the state has the power to do virtually anything, depending on the facts and circumstances . It also is be prohibited from doing virtually anything for the same reason.
This why I like to use the term “negotiated” with respect to questions of rights.
What “cruel and unusual” means, or “free exercise” are really just consensus agreements negotiated by citizens over time.
There isn’t some objective meaning that we discover like archeologists.
So like, the bare minimum of what a school must teach is really just a compromise worked out in the political process.Report
I’m not arguing over what can be done. But what SHOULD be done.Report
The answer to any political question in a democracy is always “it depends.” Also “we have to muddle through this.” This is why many people looking for certainty do not like democracy.Report
Meanwhile, voting for Democrats brings progress:
California workers won’t have to worry about being fired, or not hired, for off-the-clock marijuana use
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed into law a bill that makes California the seventh state in the United States that does not allow employers to discriminate against workers who smoke weed “off the job and away from the workplace.” The new law goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024.Report
Good for California! (Here’s where Burt Likko briefly explained Colorado’s similar law back in 2014.)Report
“B-but LiBerAls dOn’t unDerStaNd bOrdEr StaTes!”
From today’s Los Angeles Times:
Eight Venezuelan migrants were flown last week from Texas to Sacramento with little cash — some without shoes — and the men have no idea why they were sent or who paid for the flights, an advocacy group said.
The men, who crossed the border in Laredo, Texas, had intentions to travel to New York, Florida or Utah and said they were confused as to why they were sent to California, where none of them had contacts or prospects.
Three migrants landed Thursday morning in Sacramento, then walked about 20 miles to an address listed on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement documentation where they were told they’d find a shelter. Instead, the men arrived at a closed office building in downtown Sacramento, said Autumn Gonzalez, a volunteer with NorCal Resist, which provides services to migrants and advocates for immigrant rights.
…
NorCal Resist provided the men with hotel rooms and helped them consult with an immigration attorney.
“We’re more than happy to get them help and get them situated,” she said.
The eight migrants had planned to go to other parts of the country where they were told about Venezuelan communities but are considering staying in the area. Some have donated their time to NorCal Resist, helping the group move furniture and other donations to a Syrian refugee family.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-19/migrants-transported-california-texas-abbott-desantis
So to sum up: California has numerous agencies, public and private which provide food, shelter, financial and legal assistance to immigrants and refugees.
They do this work quietly, day in and day out, on shoestring budgets, giving comfort and compassion to those who have traveled thousands of miles in grueling treks to seek a better life.
This confuses and enrages Republicans. They refuse to accept the reality of people behaving with kindness and sincere altruism. They insist this must be some sort of act, that these people must surely be hypocrites, cynical and craven. They expect the worst out of people, and sulk when they don’t get it.Report
“So to sum up: California has numerous agencies, public and private which provide food, shelter, financial and legal assistance to immigrants and refugees.
They do this work quietly, day in and day out, on shoestring budgets, giving comfort and compassion to those who have traveled thousands of miles in grueling treks to seek a better life.”
Sounds to me like there should be more people being sent to California, then.Report
No need to sulk.Report
A strange game that you’ve invented for us; the only winning move is not to play with you.Report
An alternate strategy, and I’m just spitballing here so bear with me…but what if, when you hear a story of private organizations of Americans providing assistance to refugees, you respond with something like “How wonderful! I’m so proud to be an American! We should do more of this!”Report
You mean like when I said “sounds like there should be more people being sent to California, then?”Report
Report
One would think, in a nation experiencing the labor shortage that we have, arrests would be down.Report
Have you seen how expensive strawberries are?Report
Blech! I know that eggs are through the roof. Thank God my father-in-law has a coop.
On a more serious note, perhaps the prices we’re paying now are more in line with what they should have been all along. I always found it hard to believe that $1/dozen eggs would be even marginally profitable for a grocery store. It would be interesting to see what would happen to prices if a bracero program got started again in the U.S.Report
Or, alternatively, what the price would be if all the work were performed by documented citizens.Report
I think we’re seeing at least part of that now.Report
Nazi Punched:
The kid was calling his mom when he was hit but, in defense of the guy who hit him, the guy who hit him thought that the kid was calling for his Nazi friends to back him up:
The good news is that he has made bail and is now out and about again.Report
Looks like he’s in trouble. https://www.ndlegis.gov/assembly/65-2017/bill-actions/ba1203.htmlReport
He should go to prison if found guilty based on competent evidence and beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers. What’s your point?Report
It’s a ten-second news link, Saul.Report
Tucker Carlson accuses schools and hospitals of “sex crimes” and tells viewers they have a moral duty to dole out “instant justice” “no matter what the law says”
TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): The reality of all this, behind the euphemism, is horrifying. It’s sexualizing children. And they go completely hysterical when you point that out because it’s true. And the real question is, “Why is everyone else putting up with this?” In a healthy country, with an intact social fabric, neighborhood dads would give out instant justice to anyone who even thought about sexualizing their kids. And if you doubt that, go out and try it in Bulgaria or South Africa or the Solomon Islands. Good luck. Let us know how that ends, if you can still speak.
These are not people who want to leave you alone or your kids alone. These are weirdos getting creepy with other people’s children. That’s exactly what it is. Say it. Say it. That’s what it is.
https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-accuses-schools-and-hospitals-sex-crimes-and-tells-viewers-they-have
Huh. And when the inevitable violence occurs, how many people will pretend to be shocked, shocked, and insist that this is an aberration, wholly unrelated to anything else?Report
Did you forget to comment on Jaybird’s link immediately above?Report
A guy is accused of murder?
If he’s guilty he should totally go to prison.
What’s the connection to this?Report
If I said there definitely was one, do you think you could work it out on your own?Report
No, you need to support your assertions.Report
I wouldn’t even have thought of asserting that you couldn’t see the connection. You brought that to the table.Report
Humor me, because I don’t really see it.
In one situation, you have someone behind bars because they attacked and killed someone over a political disagreement.
In another situation, you have one of the most popular public figures advocating violence en masse against school and hospital personnel for… reasons?
Help me connect these dots.Report
Note: He is not behind bars. He made bail.Report
Chip explained it himself: “And when the inevitable violence occurs, how many people will pretend to be shocked, shocked, and insist that this is an aberration, wholly unrelated to anything else?” A man drives over a teen because he thinks he’s a Republican, and you and Chip see this as an aberration, wholly unrelated to the things your side has been saying for years.Report
Speaking of the Hasidim, I sometimes encounter non-Jews that say things like they wish Jews didn’t abandon Yiddish as a language. Then they look at the Hasidim. who still speak Yiddish, and say “no, no not like that.”Report
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