Dana Milbank has become my favorite columnist.
I hope you can open this column from the Washington Post, because he has added links to everything, too many for me to copy by hand. Since the Washington Post, like the New York Times, is making coverage of the pandemic open access, you might be able to open it.
The title: “This Cure for the Pandemic Is the Work of a Very Stable Genius.”
Forget vaccines and treatments. The very stable genius has a foolproof cure for the pandemic.
“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” President Trump said at the White House Monday.
Precisely! And if I stop weighing myself right now, I will gain very few pounds, if any. What we don’t know cannot possibly hurt us. This is very much a part of Trump’s governing philosophy.
If he stops John Bolton’s book from being published, there will be very few damaging revelations, if any.
If his Office of Management and Budget stops releasing economic forecasts in its midyear review, the economy will have very few problems, if any.
If Trump’s Labor Department asks states to stop the release of their unemployment claims until later, there will be very few jobless people, if any.
If the administration stops the public disclosure of recipients of the Paycheck Protection Program, there will be very few cases, if any, of waste, fraud and abuse.
President George W. Bush famously advocated for testing so we could know if our children is learning. Trump takes the opposite view: If sunlight is the best disinfectant, Trump’s administration is festering. The administration literally shut down the transparency website “open.gov” and another one called “open.whitehouse.gov.” As The Post’s Juliet Eilperin reported, it removed some 40,000 data sets from data.gov in its first few months.
The head-in-sand strategy has become endemic during the pandemic. Florida fired the manager of its virus-data website after she objected to the removal of records showing people had symptoms or positive tests before the cases were announced. Georgia reorganized its data in ways that made things look better than they were. Arizona attempted to stop the running of models showing the virus spreading. And the Trump administration for several weeks blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from issuing its guidelines for reopening.
Trump has evidently decided that if enough Americans are willing to suspend disbelief, there are few problems, if any, that can’t be solved by averting the public gaze. The thinking seems to go:
If we stop government reports and websites from mentioning climate change, Earth’s temperature will increase by few degrees, if any.
If we stop releasing certain information about illegal immigrants held by police, few will be denied due process, if any.
If we stop releasing records of visitors to the White House, we will have few unsavory visitors, if any.
If we stop disclosing violations of the Animal Welfare Act, few animals will be harmed, if any.
If we stop publicizing fines for workplace-safety violations, few workers will be harmed, if any.
If we stop collecting data on pay discrimination by race and gender, few employers will discriminate, if any.
If we stop the disclosure of administration officials’ ethics waivers, we will have few conflicts of interest, if any.
The administration has likewise stopped collecting various data on energy efficiency, police weaponry, labor-law violations, lending discrimination and discrimination in school discipline.
When Trump’s handling of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico came under scrutiny, the administration attempted to remove data showing the number of people without electricity and drinking water. Now that the administration is trying to implement a peace agreement in Afghanistan, it has stopped releasing data about insurgent attacks.
During impeachment, the White House withheld documents and witnesses from Congress, then claimed Trump couldn’t be convicted on the basis of secondhand information. The administration is still fighting, at the Supreme Court, to stop Congress from getting the grand jury material from Robert Mueller’s investigation.
The potential seems boundless. If the Trump administration stops measuring the federal debt, might it shrink? If Trump ignores the North Korean nuclear threat, might it go away? If he can stop enough people from believing the media, might the truth itself disappear?
He has, so far, gotten away with refusing to release his tax returns and refusing to provide a full accounting of his health. If he can stop Congress from seeing documents or talking to his advisers, stop inspectors general from investigating his administration and stop whistleblowers from blowing their whistles, there will be very few things Trump can’t get away with, if any.
And then comes the biggest test: If his voter-suppression efforts stop enough people from voting, there will be very few elections, if any, that he could lose.
Keep em ignorant…no data is good. Cover it up. Distract and pretend there is no loss worth caring about.
The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC) is an independent oversight committee within the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, created by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020. PRAC is supposed to ensure that $2.2 trillion in government funds are not misspent. Trump signed the bill and then promptly began sabotaging the work of the Committee.
The PRAC Committee has turned out to be another farce from the Trump Administration. See https://dianeravitch.net/2020/04/07/trump-fires-inspector-general-in-charge-of-2-trillion-relief-fund/
Also see this account of the churn in political appointees, designed to thwart any real accountability. Much of the churn is documented here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemic_Response_Accountability_Committee
Ignorance and lack of education is essential for totalitarian regimes to survive. I remember when the Iron Curtain fell in the early 90s, scholars were shocked to find incredibly high rates of illiteracy in Albania, which was the most closed nation in Europe and still Stalinist. When the Naval War College did a study to determine the obstacles of admitting Albania to NATO, the history they compiled noted the problems of engaging in counter propaganda efforts like the Voice of America. “The problem with written propaganda was that 80 percent of the nation was illiterate. On September 18, 1951, radio messages broadcast from Greece sent the same message as the newspaper, but once again the effectiveness was limited due to the small number of homes with electricity and radios.” https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=798879
The promotion of stupidity is essential for authoritarian regimes to survive. The rather substantial rumors that Sebastian Gorka is in line to become the head of the Voice of America fits into the plan. Now we will export our stupidity.
North Korea closely controls what their people may read or hear or see. When defectors sent balloons with leaflets across the border a few days ago, the NK regime burned down the building where peace talks were held with S Korea
It’s also happening in states, orchestrated by members of the cult in public office:
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article242937591.html
“If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any,” President Trump said at the White House Monday.
I know … and if there was a ban on mammograms, we’d put an end to all breast cancer.
DITTO colonoscopies & colon cancer … teeth X-rays & cavities … etc.
Hey, you know Trump may actually be on to something here.
Only in America. (& NKorea. &Nazi Germany. &c.)
It strikes me that if the Idiot had only said, “We don’t have any ‘illegal aliens'”, we could have been spared all this wall crap.
Even Trump does not believe in this magical thinking. Rather, it’s, “What people don’t know can’t hurt me.” This is deliberate hiding of information to foster ignorance as a supplement when lying is insufficient.
It’s “give the people what they want to hear”. Isn’t that the Fox slogan?
Yes, that is exactly the Fox slogan. Have you seen the short HBO series about Roger Ailes the first CEO of Fox News? The series was called “The Loudest Voice”. Roger Ailes thought just like Trump does. Ailes was one of Trump’s powerful deplorable supporters.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/russell-crowe-showtime-tackle-rise-fall-roger-ailes-1200329
The magical thinking demonstrated by Trump is indicative of arrested development at such an immature age that what it basically comes down to is, “If I close my eyes, you can’t see me.”
Combined with the size of his over-inflated, infantile, egocentric belief, “I’m THE center of the universe,” as well as a lifetime of getting away with being a con-artist, my guess is that he DOES believe he can have that kind of power over people, if only he tries…
Historically, his effort involves a HUGE amount of deceit, including hiring actors to feign support for him, constantly lying, hiding the truth, stupefying his audience, instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) & promoting a misplaced belief in one’s own over-sized abilities and white (male) supremacy.
He’s such a phony POTUS that he labeled the Americans who did not vote for him “enemies,” even though WE ARE THE MAJORITY in this country, but he has never even attempted to unite and lead our entire nation. To my knowledge, no genuine POTUS has ever done that before now.
That self-promoting “very stable genius” is actually severely lacking in cognitive ability and it takes a fully functioning brain to recognize that what THE MAJORITY have been saying is that we are determined to not let the electoral college discount our votes for the THIRD TIME time in the past 20 years!
Dear G-d, Please Save the World from FAKE POTUS Trump, his GOP puppets and his dictator friends in authoritarian countries who he so clearly aspires to emulate! (That means VOTE, people, WHILE WE STILL CAN!!!)
It’s diverting and perhaps reassuring to imagine DJT as a magical thinker lacking in cognitive ability, but I don’t think that’s what these examples are telling us. They suggest, rather, the routine use of facts/ news suppression by autocrats the world over.
I doubt Trump is very bright if he thinks that he can be easily re-elected with the support of less than half the country. If he believes he’ll succeed in instigating another Civil War with his limited base, I think he is sorely mistaken as well, especially after scores of former DoD and high ranking military officers came out against him (https://www.businessinsider.com/89-former-defense-officials-speak-out-against-trumps-protest-response-2020-6?op=1).
I don’t think Trump is nearly as smart as his tyrannical friends across the world –most of whom had the good fortune to inherit an already fearful, suppressed citizenry and just had to hang onto them.
I think most Americans are different from that and will “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Trump is counting on winning through the Electoral College vote like he did in 2016, not the popular vote.
Trump won the electoral college due to votes from states that have been leaning away from supporting him, such as Minnesota and Michigan. It won’t be as easy for him this time. See: http://www.270towin.com
See also, “Trump knows he’s losing his grip on his base”
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/06/trump-knows-hes-losing-his-grip-on-his-base/
and especially
“Trump’s Base Isn’t Enough” https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-base-isnt-enough/
The Trump acolytes are weaving their web of deceit to get ready for Trump’s “Covid Fest” in Tulsa. Fact check takes a look at how to spin a defeat into a victory.https://www.factcheck.org/2020/06/ahead-of-trump-rally-republicans-spin-covid-19-metrics/
A number of disgruntled Republicans including George Conway have formed an anti-Trump Super Pac. Their motto should be “we can go as low as Trump.” They are currently running an add that questions Trump’s health and fitness. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/503117-george-conway-group-hits-trump-with-new-ads-on-slow-walk-on-west-point-ramp
The video made me briefly ponder the amount of ego stroking Kellyanne has to do to keep her job with the Don.
cx:an ad
Interesting backstory about Trump’s controversial, new appointee to head the DOD’s policy shop. (Opposition to his confirmation is mounting because of his offensive tweets.)
Gen. Anthony Tata is a Broadie. His unpleasant tenure at the helm of a school system is detailed at the News and Observer (7-25-2015), “Tony Tata’s Timeline”. Included in the timeline, is Catholic University of America’s conference of his master’s degree and his further education at harvard’s Kennedy School of Government (a university noted for Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Summers).
As expected, school choice was part of Tata’s agenda as superintendent.
.
Military.com reported about the general, referencing his ex-wife.
The GOP- a family values party.
American justice-
a court order with forged signatures of two lawyers and a judge – forger unknown but, who could benefit, obvious, the male spouse in a divorce/child support contest. (Charlotte Observer)
You gotta watch this, pathetic comedy gold: https://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2020/06/craziest-maga-video-you-will-see-all
Yep- that’s a Republican moron in the video. She could have been coached by Sen. Steve Huffman.
It reminds me of a video of Barney Frank listening to a GOP voter shouting at House representatives to keep government’s hands off of his Social Security check.
Boy, she really put ’em in their place!
She messed up God Bless America. The words are NOT “from the oceans to the prairies to the mountains white with foam.” It’s oceans that are white with foam, not mountains, so the correct lyrics are “from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam.”
An example of the poorly educated who Trump has said he loves so much?
When one is foaming at the mouth, it’s difficult for them to determine where it’s coming from. Good catch. I was too stunned to pay much attention to details by that time.
There is at least one thing that Trump cannot hide. He cannot hide from the idea that all people are six, or fewer social connections away from each other.
That means word of mouth, the one thing Trump cannot control or even attempt to control, will defeat Trump and reveal the monster that he really is. Only Trump’s hardcore deplorable, totally deaf, dumb, blind, and ignorant followers will refuse to believe what they are told by a friend, a family member of a coworker.
That means the facts about the deaths of family and friends will spread until the majority of the population knows what Trump doesn’t want them to know: that he is a liar, totally corrupt in every way, a murderer, incompetent, et al.
During World War II, the US had 407,300 military deaths and 671,801 military wounded.
If the number of deaths in the US from COVID-19 comes close to or surpasses the military deaths from WW II, there will be few if any people in the world, that includes the US, will now what is really happening.
John Bolton’s new book shows what a traitor Trump is. He asked the Chinese government to help him get re-elected in 2020 He showed his complete ignorance–at one point, he asked Bolton if Finland was part of Russia. The Justice Department is suing to block the publication of the book but it is already in the hands of the major media. The cat is out of the bag.
And, Bolton who wouldn’t testify at the impeachment hearings should be described as a ____?
…opportunistic, selfish traitor.
Bolton recognizes in Trump, the same traits he has.
There is an old saying, “It takes one to know one.” So, Bolton must have known from the start that Trump held similar beliefs to him, but Bolton doesn’t even come close to Trump’s title as the Liar in Chief and Bolton is not a traitor selling out his country like Trump is.
It takes one to know one collectively speaking In my opinions. This is exactly what the government schools have done take no rape reports no rapes happen. Take no teacher predator reports, no predator teachers . Take no bullying reports no bullying happened.
This is nutcase gibberish and does not belong on this blog.
Donna Calvey, first, please define what you mean by government schools.
“The military currently operates 47 schools on military installations in seven states in the continental U.S., serving a total of about 20,000 students. The proposal, which has support from some parts of the Pentagon, would turn over operation of those schools to local school districts.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/newsletters/pay-benefits/2017/11/13/pentagon-may-stop-running-state-side-schools-for-military-children/
The U.S. Department of State also runs Overseas Schools.
“The mission of the Office of Overseas Schools is to promote quality educational opportunities at the elementary and secondary level for dependents of American citizens carrying out our programs and interests of the U.S. Government abroad.”
https://www.state.gov/bureaus-offices/under-secretary-for-management/bureau-of-administration/office-of-overseas-schools/
Public schools in the United States are not managed by the federal government so, by definition, they are not government schools.
There are 13,506 public school districts in the United States. Most of those districts are not even totally controlled by their state governments even though each district must adhere to state law. Most of those school districts have elections in the local area where each district is located and the school board of locals is elected to watch over each of those school districts to make sure they are following the laws of the state they are in. Elected school boards answer to the local voters of each district.
I taught in California for thirty years (1976 – 2005) and in California, there has been a state law for decades that requires teachers to report any suspected abuse sexual or otherwise or the teacher can lose their license to teach and their job. Back in the 1990s, I reported one such suspicious incident and the principal dismissed it, but I ignored him because that state law only holds the teacher responsible. The principal could not lose his job. I could, so I called the local police and filed a report. The police assigned detectives to follow through and visit the child’s home with social workers. There was an investigation and it was determined the abuse happened but not by his family or friends but buy a couple of strange men that broke into the family home before the boy left to go to school. The parents had already left to work. He didn’t know who the men were that molested him and the school had his counselor work with him to help him deal with the trauma of being raped by two strange men.
If you are going to spread blanket allegations like this, then provide links to reputable sources to back up the BS you are spouting. Identity what K-12 government schools you are talking about: military, federal, state, local, and make sure to provide links for every school and district that lad to reputable sources.
Do you work for Donald Trump and/or are you one of his ignorant supporters? Because you sure sound like it.
The term “government schools” is the dog whistle coined by Libertarian free-market guru Milton Friedman for trashing public schools and replacing them with private schools, including colleges.
See: “ALEC Exposed: Milton Friedman’s Little Shop of Horrors” https://www.commondreams.org/views/2011/07/19/alec-exposed-milton-friedmans-little-shop-horrors
I’ve read enough about Milton Friedman to last me a lifetime. If I had access to a time machine, I’d go back and smother Friedman in his crib so he was never born or make sure his mother and father never met.
Huh?
I just finished attending another of Diane Ravitch’s NPE-sponsored Wednesday discussions with prominent educators nationwide. To other readers of this blog: if you haven’t attended one of these, treat yourself. It is always an enormous pleasure to hear Diane speak. She’s one of the most articulate people ever. And she’s freaking brilliant. Again and again and again, she cuts to the chase and says the incisive thing that encapsulates her compassion and her vast knowledge and experience of U.S. education and has profound practical ramifications for public policy on the ground, in classrooms and communities, where it matters. So grateful for her.
Thank you, Bob. I saw you!
And this just in: The federal government is stuck with 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine. LOL.
Those millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine will be very helpful to people with lupus, malaria, and other medical issues for which it has proved helpful.
Dear Diane, Thanks for the amazing work you do. There’s an Op-ed I wrote that just was published. https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/17/marilee-coles-ritchie/ I think it aligns with your work. Best, Marilee
On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 11:02 AM Diane Ravitch’s blog wrote:
> dianeravitch posted: “Dana Milbank has become my favorite columnist. I > hope you can open this column from the Washington Post, because he has > added links to everything, too many for me to copy by hand. Since the > Washington Post, like the New York Times, is making coverage o” >
Great piece, Marilee! https://www.amazon.com/Abounding-Knowledge-Anthology-African-American-Literature/dp/1933486023
It’s a great op-ed. But Utah will NOT do anything about it. Unfortunately, I cannot tell the stories of things I have seen as a teacher in that state, because I would lose my job. But it’s disgusting.
How did I know WHit was going to say that cases were increasing because we’re testing, & if we stopped testing, “we’d have very few cases, if any?”
I must comment on this–don’t know if anyone saw this (as good an explanation as there is), Anderson Cooper put it all into perspective the other night w/2 words:
object permanence (a term early childhood people, psychologists, pediatricians & others who work w/or have infants would be familiar with. Anderson, who just had a baby
(adorable!) said he has been reading LOTS of books about infancy & parenting, & that WHit has no sense of object permanence, of which Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget had found to be fully realized by a child between 8-24 mos.), object permanence being the “understanding that objects continue to exist even when they can’t be seen, heard, smelled, touched or sensed in any way.” Anderson said that WH it clearly lacks object permanence.
Very well put: not a “very stable genius,” but the mind of an infant.
LOL!!
&, BTW, despite any previous criticism of the book, I highly recommend reading
Michael Wolff’s Fire & Fury. Looking back (I’d taken it out of the library when it just came out), it explains the worsening of the WH, because most of the people working there were truly trying to save the American people: they would take papers off WHit’s desk that contained harmful ideas & toss them, & he’d forget that he’d ever seen it in the first place.
John Kelly, Rex Tillerson, Mattis & (I think his name was John Porter)–would do things to defuse the WH it from putting so many harebrained (some from Jared) ideas into action.
You just have to read it for yourself.
You know It’s pretty bad when you find yourself rooting for an Exxon exec…
The Lincoln Project, a Republican super PAC partly run by George Conway, is hitting President Trump with a pair of new ads Wednesday as it works to undermine his reelection bid. The group, whose national profile has skyrocketed amid a longstanding public spat with Trump, released an ad Tuesday night suggesting the president is not physically well, underscoring his recent appearance at West Point where he appeared to walk gingerly down a ramp after giving a speech.
“Something’s wrong with Donald Trump. He’s shaky, weak, trouble speaking, trouble walking. So why aren’t we talking about this?” a narrator asks in the 45-second clip. “The most powerful office in the world needs more than a weak, unfit, shaky president. Trump doesn’t have the strength to lead, nor the character to admit it.”
“We’re not doctors, but we’re not blind. It’s time we talk about this.”
#TrumpIsNotWell
Jun 16, 2020
The Lincoln Project
Why did Trump have a secretive, midnight run to Walter Reed Medical Center? It’s time we talk about it.
#TrumpIsNotWell
We are all so tired of the mistake in the White House and of his bad clown show. Please, please make it stop.
Vote. Get others to register.
INT – DAY – OVAL OFFICE
MARK: Mr. President, we’ve just received a report that there is a large extraterrestrial craft hovering over Washington, DC.
DONALD: You’re surprised?
MARK: Mr. President. It’s not from this planet. It’s . . . its . . . it’s happening. It’s actually happening. Like in the movies.
DONALD: They probably want to talk to me. Get some tips on running things. I had an uncle at MIT you know. Get them on the phone.
MARK: Mr. President, they’re aliens. They are broadcasting some mathematical signals. They appear to be attempting to establish communication. We have people working on it.
DONALD: Good. Good. Ask them if they can help with my reelection.
MARK: We’re going to have to move you into the Bunker.
DONALD: OK. OK. But just for an inspection. This is good. Obama never got aliens. Where they from, the moon? the sun? I tell you what. Send one of those stealth planes. The invisible ones that you can’t see. Get some pictures, OK? I like pictures.
MARK: Sir, the stealth planes are not actually invisible.
DONALD: I guess I have to explain this to you. I’m surrounded by morons. Stealth planes, Mark. You can’t see them. They can be right next to you and nothing. Not there. Send some cheeseburgers down to the Bunker, OK?
MARK: OK, sir.
DONALD: This will be good. I like it. I’ll be first.
MARK: Mr. President, what if they are hostile?
DONALD: Antifa? No problem. We’ll build a wall.
MARK: A wall?
DONALD: Around the Earth. Tell Jared to get on it. Oh, and call up the Space Force.
MARK: Uh, OK. Certainly, Mr. President Sir.
Bob Shepherd: I was wondering why we needed a Space Force. Now I understand.
Aliens are much smarter than us and we don’t see them. They actually are now on all continents, even Antarctica. I don’t know why they have mathematical calculations but only the smartest will understand. Trump isn’t one of them. Anything beyond, “I am wonderful and my gut is smarter than most people’s brains.” or “I’ve achieved more than every president in the history of this country, except maybe Lincoln.” is all that he might understand.
I like the idea of a wall around the earth. Maybe Mexico will pay for THAT wall? How about building a wall around the WH instead? Even aliens wouldn’t want to get around Trump.
We already have an extraterrestrial alien in the White House. It’s name is Donald Trump and he is a small orange male of this species from a planet that orbits around another star called Hell.
Sounds authentic. Were a fly hiding in the Oval Office?
Trump is a SLOW learner.
……………………..
Twitter labels Trump video tweet as manipulated media, continuing its crackdown on misinformation
The label marks the fourth time Twitter has added labels to the president’s tweets.
Twitter labels Trump video tweet as manipulated media, continuing its crackdown on misinformation
June 18, 2020 at 9:16 p.m. CDT
Twitter on Thursday evening took the rare step of appending a warning label to one of President Trump’s tweets after the company determined it violated its policies on manipulated media.
The president tweeted a doctored version of a popular video that went viral in 2019, which showed a black and a white toddler hugging. In the version Trump shared, the video has been edited with ominous music and a fake CNN headline that says, “Terrified toddler runs from racist baby.”
“Racist baby probably a Trump voter,” the headline then says in a subsequent screen.
The video then cuts to the original clip of the children hugging, and then cuts to the message “America is not the problem. Fake news is.”…This is only the third time that the company has announced that it would take action against one of the president’s tweets.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/18/trump-tweet-label-video/
Really. Especially as educators & parents, you REALLY MUST SEE the Anderson Cooper clip (& accompanying articles) by searching “Anderson Cooper object permanence.”