One of the curious effects of the recent election is the Republican Party’s dramatic turnabout on Russia and Putin. Those of us old enough to remember Senator Joseph McCarthy find this change both starling and amusing.
Oddly, some on the left defend Putin because they think that any criticism of Russia is red-baiting. But Russia is no longer red or Communist, which is why Republicans are eager to join in the Great Billionaire Barbecue.
This article by James Kerchick tells the the story of the Republican-Russia romance. Now even Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin are fans of Putin and his revival of state capitalism and conservative white Christendom.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Huh? What love affair? Just looking to try to stay peaceful in a chaotic world with a another world power…I do recall a Hillary Putin “Red Button” reset failed attempt not long ago….no outcry of love affair with that? With terrorism kicking into high gear these days, internationally…and sadly, now nationally…allies are better than foes!! I’m sure most can agree on that!? Lots of “broad brushes” these days! No love affairs with Putin here…just trying to “keep the peace!”
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Putin didn’t choose Hillary.
Putin’s choice was Trump.
#notmypresident
#Putinspuppet
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I wonder how long it will take for the Catholic Church to make Putin the Holy Roman Emperor. Probably not from the current Pope. Maybe the next one, and of course Putin will have to conquer and rule over Germany and Italy first.
http://www.holyromanempireassociation.com/list-of-holy-roman-emperors.html
And of course, the GOP has so easily forgotten that Putin attempted to destroy the U.S. economically at one time and even tried to recruit China to help achieve that goal. It’s obvious that for years, Putin has had a goal to destroy the United States as a world power.
“The Chinese told Hank Paulson that the Russians were suggesting a joint pact with China to drive down the price of the debt of Fannie and Freddie, and maximize the turmoil on Wall Street …” (during the 2007-08 global financial crises caused by Milton Friedman worshiping greed-is-great, trample the masses, acolytes).
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26609548
At the time, the Chinese refused to help Putin destroy America.
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We don’t really need Putin to destroy our status as a world power; we are doing the job ourselves by voting in the rabid Republicans. We are rapidly becoming a “banana republic.”
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Exactly, and this explains why Putin wanted Littlefingers Donald Trump in the White House and obviously a GOP majority in both Houses of Congress.
The fastest way to destroy America is to help neo-cons, neo-libs, libertarians, tea party people, and fundamentalist Christians rule the country.
What could be better than having a minority of Americans in charge who firmly believe God made everything in six days six thousand years ago.
Putin must have had a team study the United States to find its weak points, and then he directed his hackers to focus on getting power into the hands of those elements that would destroy American fastest from within.
I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Putin is Funding the British and American flat-earth societies.
“According to the Flat Earth Society’s leadership, its ranks have grown by 200 people (mostly Americans and Britons) per year since 2009. Judging by the exhaustive effort flat-earthers have invested in fleshing out the theory on their website, as well as the staunch defenses of their views they offer in media interviews and on Twitter, it would seem that these people genuinely believe the Earth is flat.”
I wonder if Littlefingers belongs to this group.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26609548
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Lloyd, don’t worry, that ain’t gonna happen. The Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church have a millenium-long history of separation and antagonism, trust me on this one. Putin is Russian Orthodox, and the Catholic Pope would never want to do this.
(OTOH, there is some agitation among the Russian Orthodox to declare the Russian Orthodox Patriarch in Moscow the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as opposed to the current EP, the Patriarch of Constantinople- yes, we still call it that. I doubt that will happen, but even if it does, the EP doesn’t have nearly the religious power that the Roman Catholic Church Pope does. The EP is merely “Primus inter pares”- first among equals.)
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I know that many of us trace the lunacy of the Republican Right back to Reagan, but it is my sincere belief that future historians will rightly identify Newt Gingrich as the malignant oncogene most responsible for the metastisis that the modern Republican Party has become. Whether we agreed with Reagan or not, he had principles (however wrong we might think they were) and he never demonized his political opposition as being un-American.
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You are so right. The GOP is no longer a normal political party, it’s a far right wing movement that is determined to erase the New Deal and the Great Society social programs off the face of the earth and to return us to 1929 (1829?). The GOP is a menace to this country, it should no longer exist or the moderates should retake it from the extremists. Once Trump gets rolling, the SCOTUS will become far right wing for possibly decades. Trump has tapped Monica Crowley for a top national security communications role. Crowley is a far right hate wing radio spewer and propagandist. She is very dangerous. She plagiarized large sections of her 2012 book, a CNN KFile review has found. When will Trump be appointing Hannity and Limbaugh to his administration? Crowley is just as evil and bad as Hannity and Limbaugh.
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Crowley got her start as a personal assistant to Nixon near the end of his life. Go figure.
Joe, how’s your head? I’ve started to bang walls with the back and sides of my head to even out the damage. 🙂
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I had to stop banging my head against the wall. The wall is in ruins.
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I hear there will be a nice new one on the southern border soon. Time to plan a vacation!
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Pardon the interruption, but I can’t believe something this good was published in the LATimes: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-abrams-good-business-models-for-education-20170108-story.html
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Thanks LCT!
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Great article, LCT! Thank you for posting this.
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Glad to see this clear and succinct article reach the LA and probably national media: Hats off to : Samuel E. Abrams, the director of the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the author of “Education and the Commercial Mindset.”
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“…schools are not groceries…”
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Not sure whether it was SUN TZU that said this … keep you friends close and your enemies closer … No one is really sure of the source, but the tactic is one that has you operating from a position of strength not weakness.
If you have ever studied any of the martial arts all of the moves are to make your body strong. But the lessons teach you to avoid having to use those skills. The result is that if you are attacked you are prepared, rather than a weakling searching for what to do next…oops, you are already dead … you took to long to respond.
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Sun Tzu actually wrote: “It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles…”
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To Linda Giffin:
Not sure whether it was Confucius that said this… you are the sum of your friends, so that you befriend with evil, you will act like evil.
My father was a martial artist. He always advised his children to stay away from enemies. Also, he reinforced the concept of friendship in which friends should be independent from the influence of fame, fortune and lust.
Death is not from surprise, BUT from ignorance, cowardice, and greed. Back2basic
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I have yet to speak/interact with any Trump supporters who “love Putin”. And I’m surrounded by those trumpistas. While the sample size is small (just like THETrumpster’s hands-oops, wait a minute, isn’t that being misandristic or perhaps female chauvinistic?) 100% of the trumpistas do not “love Putin”.
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Hi Señor Swacker:
Happy New Year to you. Best wishes to you and your loved ones in 2017.
IMHO, those trumpistas do not qualify to be Trump’s friends. But GOP’s new cabinet personnel and Trump’s advisor(s) befriend with PUTIN thanks to Trump’s recommendation.
If you agree with me that greed will always cloud the savage mind, then this will surely yield their own demise. May.
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Best to you and yours in 2017 and beyond (think of Buzz Lightyear’s “To Infinity and Beyond”)
Not only will greed cloud the savage mind but also supposedly quite civilized and “proper” minds to the harms that their actions cause. I’d like to believe that the avariciousness and greed would “yield their own destiny” but I’ve seen too many avaricious and greedy characters live far too long in acquiring and holding more than their share. I wish I could believe in karma and what one begets in this life determines the next but I’ve seen no scientifically valid evidence of that phenomena ever.
I’ll confront and fight those bastards challenging them on their deeds in the here and now.
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I do have four pro-Trump friends (again, not a huge sample size) who were previously very alarmed by Putin and Russia, who are now twisting themselves into pretzels trying to excuse Trump’s Putin-love. It’s not “Putin love,” but it’s “Well, Trump is just trying to get along with Putin and Russia, so it’s okay.”
I think, as May said, it’s mostly his cabinet picks and his advisors. Also, a lot of the GOP Congress, except for McCain and Graham and a couple of others.
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Since Obama just gave Iran enough Uranium for 10 nuclear bombs it might be an excellent idea for the U.S. and Russia to achieve a symbiotic relationship.
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Linda,
Trump is a neofascist.
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Diane, Linda is a Trump apologist, and has apparently never read the history of Russia, or anything about Putin’s background.
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Dumb as a rock.
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I am no apologist usually, but I misspoke earlier this evening. I stated that Obama had approved the distribution of Uranium to Iran … That was not completely true. Obama DID approve the Uranium to Iran but not from the U.S.. He approved the transfer FROM RUSSIA TO IRAN. I don’t see Trump ever doing such a dangerous thing.
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Where is a link to your reliable source?
I can’t find any fact or fact checking from reliable sources that Obama gave permission to Russia to give uranium to Iraq.
Since when does a U.S. president tell Russia/Putin what to do?
Politifact says “MOSTLY FALSE”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-inaccurately-suggests-clinton-got-pai/
Snopes says “UNPROVEN”
http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-uranium-russia-deal/
Russia isn’t even mentioned.
CNN Politics rates this “FALSE”
http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/22/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-speech-fact-check/
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If you checked the net you would find plenty of sources … The Wall Street Journal, ZeroHedge, and numerous sources around the world.
You got lucky. I usually tell my students to research it themselves. Guess I am feeling generous or maybe it’s the baby crying. What ever “happy reading”.
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No, No, No!
You provide the links to the sources you allegedly claim exist. Don’t throw it back in my face and tell me to find them, that they are there. Prove they are there by providing the links to them. It’s called copy and paste. It’s easy to do. It takes seconds to do.
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No … this is NOT a class assignment. If I spoon feed you the information you learn nothing except what I tell you. Prove it true or false so you learn. That is a big problem in education today. Students need to seek out the truth. They need to question everything and seek answers everywhere.
Critical thinking does not come if someone gives you the answers.
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Linda, if you tell Lloyd he is wrong, prove it. Don’t tell him to find the links.
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Linda Giffin: It might be good to make a distinction in your own thinking between (a) teaching in the classroom and (b) discussing issues on a blog with other teachers and interested adults–different set of protocols in a world that has no “one-size-fits-all” form of communication. What is common, expected, and accepted in one environment is overreach and even arrogance in the other on the part of a recalcitrant, even obtuse, pedagogue.
Now I’ll go put on my hair shirt–again.
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Again, you do not know what critical thinking or problem solving is. You are clueless. This isn’t a class, I’m not your student, and you are not my teacher.
This is a debate and in a debate it is your responsibility to provide the facts that back up your allegations. If you are unwilling to do that, then you have no valid and reputable facts to back you up.
Once again, provide the links to those reputable and valid sources you allege exist but I couldn’t find when I Googled “Obama told Russia to supply nuclear fuel to Iran”
Try it for yourself.
Nada came up except links where mobbed-up Littlefigners Donald Trump alleged that Hillary Clinton did it and the fact-checks did not support Littlefigners.
Here’s two of many sources to support my allegation that Littlefingers was or still is mobbed up.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910
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Lloyd, Linda does not seem to realize that she is not our teacher and we are not her students.
She is being very condescending and, frankly, rather obnoxious. That undermines whatever points she is trying to make. (Such as they are.)
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Much name calling and nastiness., Glenn
Greenwald sums it up.
Whether we like it or not, he is the President.
I remember when Reagan was elected, never liked him, but he was our President,
and I respected the position. If we can’t do that, the experiment is over, then you will see,
what has been called “neo fascism”, before the person was even sworn in.
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Joseph,
I liked Ronald Reagan. I have only contempt for Trump. He is a liar and a scoundrel. He is not my president. He defiles the office.
And please don’t quote Glenn Greenwald to me. He is so far left that he has become a Trump acolyte.
Trump’s press conference showed him at his best/worst: vain/arrogant/stupid/. He is an embarrassment to the nation.
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