US politics: Manchin to the beat of a different drum

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Maybe more like every 5?

I'd be encouraged if it's every 5!

[Mlle. Zabzie]

10 minutes ago, DMC said:

I'd be encouraged if it's every 5!

I don’t think that books could physically survive children for longer!

[Rorshach]

My experience from Norway is every 15 years or so. Possibly longer.

Because school budgets are tight, and replacing textbooks are a big expence.

[Starkess]

I think too that as classes fall behind schedule, recent history is going to be the first thing to go since it comes last. I mean, history gets longer every year but the school year stays the same length!

I can't remember how far we ever got in my US history classes. Definitely remember a lot more early American history than later, but that's partly my own bias, because I find that more interesting so it sticks better in my mind.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, as someone in high school in upstate New York 15-20 (I suppose more like..18-22) years ago, nope.  That was not my experience at all.  We definitely didn't mostly stop at WWII in AP history (I mean, seriously, WTF?).  Plus, while my memory of my childhood broadly sucks ass, I know we went over recent history at least once in middle school.  I don't think this is a region thing inasmuch as it's just the quality of schools - and apparently there's very few of adequate quality anywhere in the country.

I had a graduating class of 110 kids; only 17 of us went directly to a 2- or 4-year college the following fall. So yeah, not exactly the most academically rigorous school.

The worst was still middle school world history. We got up to around the 15th century in 7th grade, and just started over and got up to around the 15th century again in 8th grade. Never actually covered anything past that. Plus it was of course incredibly euro-centric.

[Fury Resurrected]

I have been wondering if textbooks will be democratized by ebooks. Not needing to buy physical books should lower costs and make switching the curriculum easier, and provide wider choice of materials. That hasn’t seemed to come to pass yet, but the infrastructure for distance learning could be useful for this application. It would certainly be helpful to break the Texas textbook monopoly

[TrueMetis]

9 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I have been wondering if textbooks will be democratized by ebooks. Not needing to buy physical books should lower costs and make switching the curriculum easier, and provide wider choice of materials. That hasn’t seemed to come to pass yet, but the infrastructure for distance learning could be useful for this application. It would certainly be helpful to break the Texas textbook monopoly

Might be one of the areas that a subscription based service would make more sense.

[Wilbur]

Let's learn about some additional financial damage resulting from the Cyber Ninja Festival of Election Audit Fun in Arizona.

The Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has notified the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors that she will not certify the vote-counting machinery that the State Senate Republicans subpoenaed for the Cyber Ninjas to "audit".

This is because the Senate and Cyber Ninjas broke the chain of custody when they received the machines from the County.  The Cyber Ninjas failed to have an observer from the Secretary of State present when they took possession of the machines, and the Cyber Ninjas failed to account for the whereabouts or have an elections observer track the whereabouts of the machines, which also did not appear on the livestream of the Cyber Ninjas audit process.  The Cyber Ninjas are the first private company (other than the manufacturers) to ever gain physical access to government voting machines, so the loss of security is unprecedented.

Hobbs criticized the handling of the machines by the Senate and in particular Cyber Ninjas, who failed to take basic security and custody precautions.  Maricopa County leases the voting machines, and replacements for the vote-counting machines will cost several million dollars.  Maricopa County will also still need to pay the final year of lease costs for the voting machines that it cannot continue to use.

Maricopa County attorneys are now discussing what course of action to recommend that the Board of Supervisors take next with respect to the unsecured voting machinery.

Hobbs issued her letter after Arizona's final consultation with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/05/20/katie-hobbs-may-not-let-maricopa-co-reuse-voting-machines-after-audit/5185817001/

[horangi]

22 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Might be one of the areas that a subscription based service would make more sense.

At least at the elementary school level, this seems to be case.  The pandemic certainly accelerated this change.  My daughter was issued a laptop and, other than basic school supplies (paper for art, white board, markers, etc.), everything is app based or shared screen demos by the teacher.  It also provides the added benefit of giving kids from disadvantaged backgrounds the ability to access the internet, oodles of books to read, and academic games that have been curated by the school system.

[Jace, Extat]

57 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

Let's learn about some additional financial damage resulting from the Cyber Ninja Festival of Election Audit Fun in Arizona.

The Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has notified the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors that she will not certify the vote-counting machinery that the State Senate Republicans subpoenaed for the Cyber Ninjas to "audit".

This is because the Senate and Cyber Ninjas broke the chain of custody when they received the machines from the County.  The Cyber Ninjas failed to have an observer from the Secretary of State present when they took possession of the machines, and the Cyber Ninjas failed to account for the whereabouts or have an elections observer track the whereabouts of the machines, which also did not appear on the livestream of the Cyber Ninjas audit process.  The Cyber Ninjas are the first private company (other than the manufacturers) to ever gain physical access to government voting machines, so the loss of security is unprecedented.

Hobbs criticized the handling of the machines by the Senate and in particular Cyber Ninjas, who failed to take basic security and custody precautions.  Maricopa County leases the voting machines, and replacements for the vote-counting machines will cost several million dollars.  Maricopa County will also still need to pay the final year of lease costs for the voting machines that it cannot continue to use.

Maricopa County attorneys are now discussing what course of action to recommend that the Board of Supervisors take next with respect to the unsecured voting machinery.

Hobbs issued her letter after Arizona's final consultation with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/05/20/katie-hobbs-may-not-let-maricopa-co-reuse-voting-machines-after-audit/5185817001/

The fact that there is an... entity called Cyberninja being granted custody of civil property is -in itself- highly disturbing. The person who allowed such dispossession of the machines should be brought up on appropriate charges. After they're codified, if needs be. And if someone bleats about ACHR 4.9 then simply change the calendar for a day when we sign the new laws, then change it back. 

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Back to tax :

• latest proposal on global minimum tax from Biden administration is 15%
• If, as is very likely, there still is a capital gains preference, carried interest will be ordinary income.
• US corporate rate probably 25%
• People are still talking about 39.6% for top individual rate (but more to come on that)
• Green Book probably delayed until 5/28, though tax lawyers who want to enjoy Memorial Day (meaning me) are hoping it gets delayed further.

 

[S John]

I don’t remember much past WW2 in high school history but I know that we did go past it. 

my history teacher’s dad brought home a bunch of sweet loot from WW2 that he brought into class. I remember coming in one day and there was a gigantic Nazi flag in the room that his father captured. Also a Luger which got passed around the class. Hard to imagine kids passing a handgun around a classroom today.

Anyway, that week kind of overshadowed whatever we did the rest of the year.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Bad look, UNC:

Quote

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's journalism school is not offering Nikole Hannah-Jones, the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of The New York Times' "1619 Project," a tenured professorship after facing pressure from conservatives.

NC Policy Watch first reported that the UNC-Chapel Hill's board of trustees had decided not to approve tenure for Hannah-Jones at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media. According to the 19th, she is the first person in this role at UNC-Chapel Hill to be denied tenure by the board.

The university announced last month that Hannah-Jones would join the school as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism in July. Conservatives quickly condemned the university's decision to offer Hannah-Jones the tenure-track position.

"This is a very political thing," one trustee reportedly told Policy Watch. "The university and the board of trustees and the Board of Governors and the Legislature have all been getting pressure since this thing was first announced last month. There have been people writing letters and making calls, for and against. But I will leave it to you which is carrying more weight."

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/unc-withholds-tenure-1619-project-journalist-after-conservative-backlash-n1267979

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Bad look, UNC:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/unc-withholds-tenure-1619-project-journalist-after-conservative-backlash-n1267979

Another example of conservatives embracing cancel culture.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Another example of conservatives embracing cancel culture.

Pretty much. Conservatives were the biggest fans of cancel culture for years until it got turned on its head and directed at them.

I really don't get the outrage over the 1619 project if one is trying to be objective. It's just laying out a more accurate and expansive look at U.S. history. I've only read summaries of it, but it seems a far cry from the idea of courses that teach white people to hate themselves, and I say that having taken a cultural psychology course in college that did pretty much begin with the a statement that (paraphrasing) "in America, only white people can be truly racist." That didn't go over well with a rather diverse class, but I gave her a pass because I thought see was a pretty young PhD candidate ant not a full on professor who may have phrased that better.

[ThinkerX]

The election audit insanity in Arizona looks set to go national.  More audits in other states.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/inspired-by-arizona-recount-trump-loyalists-push-to-revisit-election-results-in-communities-around-the-country/ar-AAKaNOQ?ocid=ob-fb-enus-580&fbclid=IwAR3ZSbrqWwkayPYCPuDsCWPCdb7MjBnff1MKdwST00HsWrirdAR7FyPGU04

[Martell Spy]

GOP Opposition To Jan. 6 Commission Bolsters Case For Filibuster Reform, Democrats Say
One Democratic senator said Republicans’ refusal to accept a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riot will “make the point that the filibuster is primarily a destructive force in American politics.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/january-6-commission-filibuster_n_60a69467e4b0a24c4f797681

Quote

 

“If Republicans can’t agree on a commission to investigate a violent insurrection at the Capitol, forget about their claim to want bipartisanship,” added Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

Even Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a vocal preacher of bipartisanship in the upper chamber, noted that Democrats made significant concessions to Republicans on the Jan. 6 commission. 

“How much more can you do?” Manchin asked. 

Still, the West Virginia Democrat told HuffPost he believed there is a “very, very good chance” of a bill establishing a Jan. 6 commission passing in the Senate. He didn’t explain how.

The issue will come to a head soon. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday placed the House-passed bill on the Senate calendar, meaning it could get a vote on the floor as early as next week. The New York senator expressed hope that enough Republicans would eventually come around.

 

 

[DMC]

24 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Still, the West Virginia Democrat told HuffPost he believed there is a “very, very good chance” of a bill establishing a Jan. 6 commission passing in the Senate. He didn’t explain how.

Joe Manchin never needs to explain himself.  He's simply a force of nature.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

Joe Manchin never needs to explain himself.  He's simply a force of nature.

He and Susan Collins, just a couple of Charlie Browns cutting it up.

[DMC]

More seriously, they could try bootstrapping it to a reconciliation bill.  The authorizing act would require funding, of course.