Two interesting articles in the New York Times today:
A list of possible choices for the new Trump cabinet.
A profile of the climate-change denier in charge of the transition for the Environmental Protection Agency.
An article about the corporate lobbyists rushing in to “help” the transition..
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Grow the swamp!
Also a good LTE in today’s NYT by Brit comparing feelings about Brexit and Trump.
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What’s LTE?
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I believe letter to the editor.
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Sorry, my fault. Yes, letter to the editor.
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Thanks both!
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The Swamp Things are taking over. The fact Sarah Palin makes a list shows how comical this presidency is becoming.
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Mr. Trump has said he wants to drastically shrink the Education Department and shift responsibilities for curriculum research, development and education aid to state and local governments.
Is that not one of the things you are in favor of??
Local control and local accountability?
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Republicans always talk local control, but once in power, fully exert state or federal control on local governments. I highly doubt we’ll see “less government” under Trump.
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Unlike some on this board. I see nothing wrong with some degree of Federal control, to see that all children have adequate resources and are given an opportunity to learn equally. As well as providing tax dollar to those who need it most.
My biggest complaint with Common Core is not that it was a federal program . But that it was designed with little input by a small group . never field tested and may be (I am not an educator ) pedagogically in appropriate . Same with standardized testing . State and local control may not eliminate either .
It has become very popular for right wing politicians to bash Common core . They were all for ed reform and the narrative of failing schools before they were against it . But the one thing they have always been against is public schools . The one thing he and they are for is vouchers to for private schools at the expense of public schools
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Exactly.
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Of the possible choices for Secretary of Education: Dr. Ben Carson Former neurosurgeon – which will qualify him better than Duncan.
and
Williamson M. Evers Education expert at the Hoover Institution, a think tank. Besides him being assistant secretary of ed under Bush, and his CA Math Wars involvement, and his poly sci research; what else do we know about him?
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Hoover Institution is a phony baloney right wing/libertarian think tank that offers free market solutions. Limited government, deregulation and privatization. Nothing but right wingers, that’s all we have, they are in charge of everything. What could possibly go wrong under their steady guidance? Just look at the Bush years and you have your answer.
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Silly me. I should have known.
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Hoover Institute is at Stanford and members include Condoleeza Rice. Very conservative NGO.
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Joe Arpaio, Sarah Palin? Glad they have a sense of humor.
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I smirked at those choices as well.
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Sarah Palin for Dept. of Interior…there would not be a single wolf left on this continent, nor any trees…but all cattle would be allowed to graze at no cost to ranchers, on public land, and all oil corps would be allowed to do fracking wherever they wish…coal would be burned, and the EPA would be DEAD.
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I hope arts educators will not swoon with joy when they see Mike Huckabee’s name on the list. Huckabee has said he was saved from a horrible life by learning to play the guitar in junior high.
He has combined several careers, Governor of Arkansas, Rockabilly performer, preacher, political commentator. I tracked his work as chair of the National Governor’s Association some time ago. He had forwarded arts education as a major focus for their deliberations.
I concluded he is a performance artist, an expert in presenting ideas he has not examined critically. In that interlude he recycled talking points from Washington insiders.
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Aren’t they all performance artists? You can even add con artists to their resume.
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You have to give the devil his due. He defeated all the 16 or 17 GOP contenders, he defeated Hillary with the help of the wonderful (sarcasm alert) electoral college. The man has never held any elected office, he has never been appointed to any governmental position and he was never in the military. Amazing and appalling all at the same time. He made the most outrageous and offensive comments that would have ended any other politicians’ careers. I guess being a high profile TV personality is what lubricated his obnoxious campaign plus playing to hatreds and prejudices. It just blows my mind that nearly 60 million Americans fell for all his clap trap.
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“Amazing and appalling all at the same time.”
Why? Because he’s never run for political office or not been a part of a government? Because he was never in the military? (I consider that a major plus not negative). Neither of those two things are required to run for the office of president. Why blame him?
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In my own living experiences, political games or Party is depicted in this profound meaningful link. Yes, the ideology in fascism, communism and capitalism with bottom-less greed, will enforce their power upon commoners to “DIG” or “DIE” for their wealth that they cannot bring with them into “six feet and under” but only a sufferance of bad karma for many reincarnated lives to come.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP9cfQx2OZY
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Finale
I hope that the power and the rebel will reconcile based on our common goal in peace, humanity and civility. The power and the rebel need to learn how to respect and to accept the boundary of our own privileges – to love and to work uniquely in our own potential, pace and path. (= greed loves to be a workaholic and eats buffet, and artist loves to live simply and to work for arts, music, and poem. So please let it be, why should the greed wants to destroy environment and to pollute the Earth and ocean where our livings depend on it? Is it being ignorance?
How much and how long one can eat, dress and enjoy materialistic life with inevitable old age, sickness and decay PLUS natural disasters like Tsunami, earthquake, fires and hurricane to come unexpectedly?
In short, the compassion that goes with being intelligence, cultivated or opened mind, wisdom, and mutual respect for the welfare of all sentient beings, will ALWAYS bring us happiness, tranquility and peace for the current life and many re-incarnated lives until we are capable to detach all emotional trivialities, but fulfill our giving love, hope and nurturing to the unfortunate, so that we complete our task on Earth and then we simply enjoy our enlightenment. Back2basic
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One of my all time favorite movies, May. And yes, not only was it a statement on greed but on the insanity that is war.
“You dig.”
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Thank you señor Swacker:
My intuition is correct to choose you, KrazyTA and Susan Lee Schwartz who understand my thought. Yes, I particularly love this BEST scene of this movie.
The triangle of 1) the academe with power (=Clint Eastwood character), 2) the greed corporate (the invisible character appears from nowhere to surprise the academe), 3) the poor, the calculated rebel, and the short term gain in greed (=the digger)
We have seen all. We cannot educate all. As my mother said :’life is the real teacher”
Ego keeps eluding the intelligent WITHOUT HUMANITY APPRECIATION that they can conquer the world.
Time is the eternal history to capture all repeating stories of few wonderful era of civilization, BUT enormous sufferance from wars that are created by greed, ego and lust for sexual fantasies = selfish desires with so many REASONABLE (=patriotism) and FABRICATED (=love the unfortunate) excuses.
In short, life would be simple for people who have decency and respect for humanity.
Respectfully yours,
May
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I’m with Eric Holder, abolish the electoral college. This from huffintonpost: Hillary Clinton not only won the popular vote in Tuesday’s election. It is now clear that she won it by a margin larger than two candidates who went on to win the presidency.
David Leonhardt, a columnist for The New York Times, noted on Friday that with a 1.7-percentage-point popular vote lead over Donald Trump,Clinton will have a larger margin of victory than Richard Nixon had over Hubert Humphrey in 1968 or John F. Kennedy had over Nixon in 1960. (Her edge is also larger than Al Gore’s popular vote victory over George W. Bush in 2000, though he too was stymied by an electoral college loss.)
In raw numbers, that amounts to an edge of roughly 1.8 million votes as of Saturday.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-popular-vote-victory_us_5827a2c5e4b02d21bbc91bbc
It looks like Hillary was more popular than we thought.
Please sign the moveon.org petition to abolish the electoral college.
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Of course, the next time it helps a democrat, than what?
Sometimes it works out for “the other side,” c’est la vie as the French say…
But it’s not official till December. Some electoral members may change their vote out of fear of repercussions. Which would create an even bigger problem than what we are looking at now.
The violence during these demonstrations does not help anyone. Why destroy property of people who may have voted the “right” way?
But that, too, seems to become a habit. Ferguson, Boston, New York, Cleveland… violence never solved a problem in a democratic society.
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Rudy,
It is called freedom of expression. First Amendment.
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Not the violence and destruction part, Diane.
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“But that, too, seems to become a habit. Ferguson, Boston, New York, Cleveland… violence never solved a problem in a democratic society.”
First . I do not recall rioting in NY , There is a huge difference between civil disobedience and rioting.
But I dare say instead of rioting in Ferguson, perhaps they should have gone to the state capital armed with AK47s and taken it over.
Let the Bundy’s show you the way. For some reason I don’t think it would end the same.
Yes some anarchist in Portland did abuse their 5th amendment rights . Rioting will always end with the movement being crushed . It allows the forces of repression to paint with a broad stroke about overwhelmingly peaceful and justified movements.
That said :
Having personally witnessed the abuse of the NYPD, to the civil liberties of the Occupy demonstrators. . I would caution all to not assume that a Police arrest translate to violence . It even may translate to police action, that the average American would find offensive. But don’t take my word the hundreds of millions of dollars
in judgements against the City of NY bare witness to the abuses of the State and the NYPD. . This is on top of the previous huge settlement a few years back at the RNC convention.
My favorite riot
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Correct that : 1st amendment rights . Pretty soon we may all need our 5th amendment rights
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The time to have changed the Electoral College system was before your candidate lost under the rules of the current system. Can’t retroactively change the rules just because you lost – that’s sore loser behavior. Besides, democracy didn’t seem to be that much of a concern in the primaries.
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Who the heck’s talking about changing things retroactively? Not I.
No, the time is to change it “now” for future elections. This election is over and done with, it cannot be changed. The electoral college should have been abolished decades ago. It will be a heavy lift and it will take a long time; the GOP will certainly fight its abolition tooth and nail. Moving elections to the weekend also seems to be a mission impossible. Universal health care seems to be another mission impossible. But Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid were once ideas that seemed impossible, too.
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And what makes you think the democrats will not put up a struggle? Remember, it works both ways.
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Electorates in the College should be assigned proportionately based on each state’s popular vote. Not quite a pure national popular vote tally, not quite the skewed system we have now.
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Donald Trump has called for the Department of Education to be eliminated
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The good news: Diane Ravitch will become Secretary of Education.
The not-so-bad news: The US DoE will be reduced to this blog.
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Diane…Protesting is freedom of expression. Rioting is not. The first amendment doesn’t offer one the freedom to destroy property and assault people.
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Who in this comment thread advocated riots?
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I agree. I haven’t read calls for violence or threats on this blog. I have heard threats and calls for violence at Trump rallies and on conservative blogs if Trump lost. It also seems alt-rights have taken Trumps election as a mandate to threaten and intimidate those not like them.
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These aren’t protests. I don’t think that they are allowed to destroy property and use violence. I would unleash the national guard on them, but that is just me.
Now we see where the violence and intolerance is. Generation snowflake and the massive criminal underclass are rampaging. In a way it’s good because it is just pushing more and more people in the middle to the Right. This plus massive deportations will lead to a second election for Trump. It is a kind of liberal fascism and lawless intolerance. Everyone now knows where the division, intolerance and violence lies. These leftist anarchists must be dealt with harshly.
Please get rid of the Dept. of Education!! Don’t all of you remember the last 8 years with Arne Duncan and the destruction of public schools? That would be a gift from above..
On another note, can I get my teacher bathroom back now? It was turned into a multi-gender bathroom. What about teacher’s rights? Don’t I as a teacher have a right to have my own bathroom?
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Just what the nation needs, another Kent State. Geesh. Violence and destruction are not what any normal person wants right now. But in your black and white world, the Right can do no wrong. I can only wonder how many alt-righties with their violent threats and ample arsenals would have done if Trump lost. One dimensional thinking will be the norm the next 4 years, it seems.
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And I’ll add the one dimensional thinking isn’t limited to authoritarian responses by Trump conservatives. Democrats seem to be unable to regroup and again focusing solely on identity politics.
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