How should elite U.S. universities distinguish between students from different schools? If a student in one schools is successful making a social or personal connection with a teacher, that might translate into greater perceived "growth" than another student from another place who doesn't have that connection with his teacher. And maybe at some level that does more accurately model getting jobs, promotions, etc. But presumably elite universities should also be admitting students of elite academic potential. Are there way objective ways to determine that besides standardized tests?

I took Latin in high school just because I knew that teacher gave everybody A's. It was a nice GPA boost. There weren't similar ways to manipulate the SATs or LSATs. And I probably would have been challenged more in a French or Spanish class with a teacher that gave you a C if you were average.

That's an interesting approach. However, how do we know Finland is elite? Every study I've ever seen on international comparisons between nations to rank them has been based on ... drumroll plz ... a test given to students in those countries. Are you aware of any I could look at that aren't?


None that I'm familiar with, but that really wasn't the point. The fact that personal issues, however you choose to define them, can impact any kind of performance: test or not, school or not, etc. was what I was referring to.


I don't see how the age or different instructors are relevant. Obviously using information is more important than merely knowing it, but you have to know something before you can put it into practice, don't you? Following changing instructions(involving retaining the information you are given), using reasoning and logic abilities, basic mathematics and science, long-term recall, etc. are of pretty universal importance in a lot of careers.

If organizing the 'school day' differently helps improve learning efficiency and reinforcement of concepts, etc. than I'm all for aspects along that line. I just don't see any way to get around the fact that at a certain point, you can either demonstrate that you know enough math to give someone correct change or calculate the right amount of product to order for the warehouse, how many employees to hire, etc. or you can't. You either know what conditions are best for various plants to grow, or you don't. Same for whatever aspect or situation you find yourself confronting in your life or job.

You cannot improve if you do not measure.

Not saying testing is end all but its a way for us to measure and its better than nothing. What are some "realistic" alternatives?

This is where Finland, Singapore, and others are light years ahead of the US. Make it much harder to become a teacher, pay them accordingly, then get out of their way.

In Finland you have to complete your master's degree before you are allowed to teach. 90% of the people who apply to the 8 universities that license teachers are turned down. Teachers are paid on par with doctors and lawyers. Once the teacher is in the classroom, they are assessed solely by the people involved with that school (principal, teachers, students, parents). There is no external source to rank teachers or schools because it's not necessary. There is no "Teach for Finland" and they rarely have teachers quit the profession.

Do the heavy lifting up front and you'll reap the benefits later.

The thing is: Kids generally do not know things, they merely memorize them short term. Because that´s all you need: Know the stuff on one specific day.

re: Finland and comparative tests. Without knowledge of the specifics, i dare say that there are tests out there that kids will do better if they learned how to tackle problems, rather than skipping straight to the solution by "learning" it for a test. They don't know how they get to the right result universally or can use the method on similar (but not the same) issues.

Just to chime in real quick with my own personal "anecdote" on the test-issue: I sucked in a test-heavy climate in HS (well, the equivalent in germany) back when national comparisons in educations were getting en vogue again here, especially in the science classes but even to some degree the humanities. Basically i barely graduated after repeating a grade, finishing with a 3.5 average (on a 1-6 system with 4.0 being the last passing grade) and had no shot to get to university, thus i went into the workforce. 6 years later i had a growing frustration with the fact that i basically had to move every year for a new job and had developed an urge to read and write on history in my spare time.

Due to special rules of entry i could then study pretty much whatever i wanted (time spent working counts as waiting-period if you then apply to college) and got my Bachelors degree with a near-optimum 1.1 average and am well on my way to get sth. in the same ballpark for my masters degree, have had some good profile internships and am flying to NZ for a semester on a scholarship next week. Fortunately both my fields of study have essentially no tests, instead you earn your grade by doing research papers and the odd oral exam. Basically, i am very much excelling in a field where my test-based HS performance alone would have deemed me unqualified despite not bearing any resemblance to it. There is literally no connection between HS performance and College performance and not just for me (i also work in the students association and basically working with first year students throughout their first semester. It´s shocking how little really intelligent people are prepared and how freaking inept some kids actually are that somehow got great grades)

I realize it is not possible to do this in HS for various reasons. And yes, the selection process is one of them and i get that. Although i do think that it is insane that you grade in Math matters the same as your grade in History if you want to master in History.

Anyway, there is no way you will ever convince me that blindly learning for a standardized test will prepare you in any way, shape or form for a research-based College degree or for the workforce where you are equally asked to work with facts, figures and circumstances rather than just learning stuff for a specific date and then never needing it again.

How do universities judge applicants to make those calls? Is it based on the subjective assessment of teachers at the secondary schools about those students? Is Finnish high school and career success all about impressing those teachers in a non-standardized way? If you really had a uniform way of thinking about education and staffing schools across a country, I see how you could maybe compare students like that, but wouldn't that be impossible in the U.S.? Unless the U.S. government ran the schools. (And I'm sure in the U.S. those subjective assessments of students would reveal all kinds of prejudices.)

I would say that's exactly the point. You can have a bad day, or even couple of days, in the real world and in most situations it won't negatively effect you and your immediate supervisor to the point that they get fired and your future is changed for the worse.




The best indicator of knowing something, that is to commit it to long term memory, is being able to actually do it. Standardized tests cover recognition, but not application.

The age thing is massively relevant. Our system of organizing kids according to age was borrowed from the Germans and was developed as a way to force compliance and lack of will on the students.

School should prepare people for the real world. There is almost no equivalent where you'll be exclusively with others of your exact age. If kids don't mature at the same pace physically, emotionally, etc, then why do we think they will academically?

This I agree with completely. More training, expectations, and pay for teachers would be a great thing. I also think though that the other half of the equation, parents, is not necessarily a 'fixable-by-government' thing. The cultural decline of the family is a big negative for education, but it's just that: a cultural decision that we've made. I also agree with Marc's point on judging teachers: I don't think tests are meant to measure anything but what the student knows. Blame for a lack of performance could go to many places and it's not always the responsibility of the teacher.

Again though, that's an argument against sample size and against the way the testing regime has been implemented. It's not one against testing itself.

Students in Finland are putting together a portfolio of their work along the way. They also get teacher recommendations and one test that plays a minor role in assessing their fit for entering the teaching program.

Scaling that to the size of the US is difficult, but that's where the federal level should set some guiding principals and standards and then let the states work out their version of things within that framework.

The research on that last point isn't conclusive yet, but it suggests that less than half of student performance is on the teacher. Even getting kids into school can be a challenge, and that's where something like adding washing machines and dryers makes a huge difference.

Another issue, that was mentioned before, is the disparity of money going into schools. I'm fine with using property taxes to fund schools, but spread the wealth on those evenly so that all schools have a worthwhile baseline of staff and equipment and then let the parents in the richer areas find ways to pay for the extra things that they want.

,
 

Big +1. I was thinkg, this should be another thread, then I read your response- pretty well sums it up. So, let me add more words, for support.

We have really no idea what to teach the bottom 20-ish percent (post elementary). The basic question: what should non- 4 year college bound kids know in order to be productive in society is the holy grail.

I agree with you, we do fine with the rest. I think the greatest need is catching the D students and getting them the C/B range. From what I can tell, that group is largely ignored because we are so focused on spending classroom time and resources teaching the F students unusable, unknowable and unattainable things.

Your general lack of critical thinking here (deferring rather to emotional outbursts) illustrates why you do not see critical thinking and writing as the foundation of knowledge, and thus assessment. Your black and white view of things I guess also includes knowledge - it's an either you know it or you don't kind of thang.

I would say it is against testing, but not against assessing.

Even then, there's a larger percentage that need remedial help in creative thinking. I've taught a few undergraduate classes, and I ended up spending time in every class period having them do something that required both creative and critical thinking. That may be the single greatest thing that is being missed by the focus on testing.

To your last question: home/life/stress can impact brain development. Generally adults are past most social, cognitive and emotional stages. Home/stress, etc on a child easily impacts, suppresses and impaires development.

Also, think you are on to something with the work connection. I think an interview for a professional job does a fairly good job of assessment. Assumed prior knowledge, and primary interest in the persons ability to think, write and speak clearly, thoughtfully and critically.

And a child is a child. They do not have the maturity or coping skills that some/most adults have.
A kid with no support at home is less likely to succeed. Adults can cope with a lack of support. Or they know how to get the support they need.

When Mom is a heroine addict and Dad isnt anywhere and the kid is taking care of their siblings, how do you think a 14 year old will "master" a subject?

When Mom and Dad hate school, and are not involved, what is the importance of school to a child?

There are many ways to assess. Not just testing.

And do you know that about 10% of the school year is wasted on testing? Think of the extra teaching that could go on.
And, as my daughter said tonight, a lot of kids dont care about these madatory state tests. Therefore, scores are bad.

I don't see what binge-watching Supergirl has to do with any of this...

You've obviously never watched Supergirl ...

My biggest asset professionally (according to both clients & bosses, back when I had the latter) is my ability to both assess matters critically and then convey that analysis in writing at a level appropriate for comprehension.

Some people here simply haven't illustrated being worth that sort of time or effort so they get a more visceral response.

The conclusion is largely the same, the delivery of it is the variable.

Well, I for one appreciate being talked down by you - it makes it easy to not take you seriously (as you understandably do to so many here).

Like I tell my students: speaking with just emotion people can and will dismiss you- but speaking with intelligence and emotion creates passion, and when you speak passionately, you can change the world.

BTW, it seems obvious you valued and nurtured critical thinking in your sons very successful educational career. AFAIC, *shrug*

ftr, the reference to a downward slant in my previous post was in reference to another exchange, not to the one we were having. (If you're gonna be insulted, at least wait until I do it on purpose)

The kid, yeah, he has the switch-flip ability similar to mine I think. He's capable of running circles around most people he encounters in peer-level discussions, aided by a well above-average ability to read a situation & find the right approach for the given opponent. He's not that much better at making points than everyone around him, he's just unusually adept at picking his approach and that makes him more effective.

He's been known for a number of years for being "highly engaged" in the classroom and being completely comfortable going 1 vs 19 if he has to.

All bodes well for a future attorney I'd say :)

Let me just throw my two cents in about school testing, as a teacher that teaches English in a public school in Japan. The students at my school are aiming to go to the best universities in the country, and that requires them taking a massive university entrance exam, which includes English. So, what do we do? We teach to the test, of course.

The problem with that is that the English portion of the test is only reading and, to a lesser extent, writing, and that is what we focus on at school. This is a problem because we churn out students that can read, understand, and write essays on scientific journals, but if I walk up to them and ask, "How was your day?" or "What's the weather like today?" or "Why do you like ice cream instead of cookies?", most of them wouldn't be able to answer. What's the point of a student spending so much time on English - several hours a week - and not even being able to hold a basic conversation in the language? Of course the answer is: to pass the test.

On the other hand, a few years ago, I worked at a lower-level school in Japan where the students basically were told they had no hope in going to a university of any kind. Therefore I was given the freedom to design a curriculum as I saw fit. Many of the kids worked part-time at stores and shopping malls near the international airport, and a lot of visitors from countries like China frequent those stores. I took those kids from no English conversation skills to basic skills in a variety of store and sales situations, and they were thrilled. I've met a few of them years after they've graduated, and they'd gone on to improve their English on their own!

The students at my current school will go on to good universities and become successful, but I bet they can't help an English-speaking customer at a store. So don't tell me that testing is good, at least not in terms of practical skills.

A teacher friend of mine summed this DeVos appointment up perfectly:


But, as Mr. Dunning-Kruger Effect has already shown, it doesn't matter what people in education think as long as the antichrist orange muppet endorses it.

A few corrections to your friend's analogy. (I am a teacher and hardly a Trump supporter but feel like the 4 year tradition of the opposing side getting riled up over every appointment is a little much)

1. Your friend's contract and district budget and district curriculum is determined by a school board which in my time at my school has consisted of former educators about 10% of the time. So are they really this upset every time an ambitious politician-to-be get's their start at the local school board who really does have a big impact on their life?

2. The Department of Education does not control state and local policy to even a fraction of the degree that is being cried about over social media every day. In fact if the states and district choose to refuse federal money they can do what they want. The problem is that they can't refuse the cash cow and have empowered the federal government to control a lot of what they do. That is really no fault of DeVos but of the "government can handle and solve every problem" mindset of both Democrats and (even though they don't think so) Republicans. Maybe instead of crying about Sessions and DeVos etc on facebook they should start thinking about the power a big federal government really has and start opposing the very ideas that no government is too big.

3. Make no bones about it DeVos is unqualified. Vouchers are a bad idea especially if it is some federal one size fits all policy. But the only way these terrible ideas would be allowed to work is if the Congress rubber stamps it. And I have a feeling with the strength of the unions there will be plenty of resistance if actual policy comes to play by Democrats and Republicans alike. Vouchers are not a blanket program supported by all Republicans either.

Strength of the unions? How'd that work out in Wisconsin?

Right-to-work states are really hurting unions right now. They're losing power slowly but surely.

When do the "lock her up" chants for Conway start since she broke the law this morning on Fox?

I'd like to think that in a rational world, this would prompt a slap on the wrist/stern-talking-to from someone in an Ethics role, probably followed by a barely-covered public apology and a promise not to do it again.

What I fully expect to happen is that my FB feed will explode with people calling for her imprisonment and just as many other people posting memes and links to videos where some Democratic politician did something vaguely similar 25 years ago and wasn't publicly executed by firing squad on the spot like they clearly should have been.

(America 2017: Even our Cycles of Outrage are Predictable)

I was only kidding. Nothing will happen because as long as you have a "team", you're safe in politics.

I do think it needs to be addressed (to avoid a potential slippery slope or at the very least, the appearance of impropriety), but it's the sort of employee disciplinary shit that could also be handled off-camera...if that's even a thing in the modern Twitterverse.

Brawndo has what plants crave.

I don't understand the point of the executive orders today. They literally do nothing at all, like literally nothing. As far as I can tell, they're just statements on things he thinks will make his supporters shout louder to drown out the criticism.

Is there some secret cabal of people making sure people who assault police officers aren't prosecuted? I can't recall the last time a cop was even sneezed on when it wasn't prosecuted as assault.

And a task force for crime? Isn't this additional regulations and oversight he's fighting against in Washington?

electrolytes

This would be a pretty big shift on immigration.

Seung Min Kim on Twitter: "!!!!! Trump told senators he is open to Gang of 8 immigration bill, per Manchin. Lamar brought it up during meeting and need for reform"

They've figured out that Executive Order gets a lot more air time than press release. They also don't release the actual orders for hours so that cable news runs a day of stories framing the EO in the words used by Trump.

I don't know whether Trump is actually persuaded by the last person he speaks to or whether he just says what he thinks people want to hear, but it's amazing how often his preference seems to change based upon with whom he has meetings.

I think it just depends on what drugs he's on at the time of a meeting.

Manu Raju on Twitter: "WH denies Trump said he was open to reviving Gang of 8 bill at lunch, and some sources corroborate that he did not advocate a specific bill"

It's just an obvious case of him not having a basic understanding of policy issues, at any level. He talks with foreign leaders, and doesn't even read the basic briefs enough to know obvious issues with them. Someone brings up immigration, and he doesn't have enough familiarity with the issue to hold up his end of the conversation.

He is just going to do this over and over - he's prone to falling for a little snake oil and saying something in the moment that completely contradicts his own "positions" because he doesn't actually know or understand anything. He basically has no foundation to work from. People used to make these jokes/attacks about President George W Bush, but this is an entirely new dimension.

He doesn't read. He doesn't know. He doesn't care. This is just how things are.

Trump's Exchange on Asset Forfeiture is Quite Discomfiting

SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 9, 2017

All caps. You know he's serious now.

Thankfully judges actually understand the Constitution.

That court should be formally PUT ON NOTICE.

I think I may have just figured out the long game here. And if so, wow, talk about going for the deep ball.

And while I think it's kind of a long shot, I'm not sure that underestimating Trump is a bet I'd be eager to place either.

I'm purposely NOT saying what I'm thinking of here, I prefer to see if anyone else mentions it before I do.
(I'm entitled to entertain myself that way if I want to)

If it doesn't come up, I'll try to remember to come back & expand my thought in a day or so.

I'm putin you ON NOTICE until you post your theory

I'm thinking the 'long game' theory is basically a Reichstag Fire strategy.

It'd be more effective to just send me a reminder in a cpl days if I haven't elaborated ;)

Breaking down the analysis of the Denial of the stay of the Temporary Restraining Order. (edit: whew. That's a mouthful)


Instant Analysis of Washington v. Trump | Josh Blackman's Blog

Clever

Some details on the wall. Looks like it will require seeking eminent domain on a lot of land which would force conservatives to switch their stance on this.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-us...-idUSKBN15O2ZN

The Keystone Pipeline proved that Republicans will eagerly use eminent domain.

We don't live in a spy novel, bud.

Hey guess what? On a call with China's Xi Jinping, Trump told him his administration would honor the 'One China' policy.

http://www.reuters.com/article/usa-t...-idUSB9N1FG00K

I'd like to see eminent domain used on the freaking 710 freeway.

Another topic that he clearly knows virtually nothing about, but hears the one-sentence version and signs on to. (Hint: look back to news items from just a couple of weeks ago)

The transcript might fool a few people 30 years from now though ...

What a cuck.

Absolutely. It was obvious during the campaign, because he would give interviews where he would contradict stands he had already taken because he either didn't remember them or understand the full impact of... much of anything really.

It really is a matter of who he talks to last and how convincing they are... then his "team" has to kind of re-brainwash him when he takes these walks off the reservation. It's like if W had definitively had early Alzheimer's... and a team full of racist shitbags.

Not sure either of these reach the level of deep ball but two possible scenarios that I'm sure have been said in some variation by plenty of people.

1. Trump the Con Man. The sideshow is this immigration nonsense while him and his buddies cram through unsexy and unnewsworthy items on all sorts of regulations. Just wait until he does his executive order ending abortion and while the two sides go head to head about to take part in the second civil war Trump and company carry out their real agenda.

2. Using the court against Obama. Trump knows this executive order will get blocked by the Supreme Court and that he will have precedent to then undo a lot of Obama's executive orders.

That said...

Occam's Razor: Trump is just a guy not qualified to be president. Like panerd being elected president... I have laundry list of things that I would like changed or done different from behind my keyboard or with my buddies at the bar and this is exactly what it would look like when I went about doing it. "I'm going to end the war on drugs. Who is on the line? Putin? I don't have time for that!" :)

:D

Trump can already undo any EOs signed by Obama. It's fairly common when a new President takes office. At the beginning of his Presidency, Obama ended Bush's EO that banned federal money from being used to fund stem-cell research.

On top of that, a good point was brought up this morning, that Trump could rescind his order and make a new one with clearer, more specific language, with input from various departments. His new order wouldn't be tied up in the courts, and if time was of the essence it's clearly the better course of action. Sure it would be challenged, but rewritten to narrow the focus would make it much stronger. However, in order for him to do this, he'd have to admit that he was wrong with the first one and his ego just might get in the way of that.

Not an unbiased source, but a few interesting takeaways.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/p...onal_21017.pdf

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: ‘the Bowling Green massacre shows why we need Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration?’

So, in the aggregate, that comes out 57 disagree / 23 agree. But a slight majority of Trump voters agreed with the statement.

Just a "gotcha" question? Or does that actually tell us something about the nature of modern political messaging?

You'd have that 20-25% show up on either side regardless of the message or topic. There's reckless loyalist in both parties. Doesn't say much other than there's a lot of blindly stupid people.

I think it's very much about messaging. I saw a poll a couple of days ago that had 90% of Republicans saying the Trump admin was truthful.

Or not

Easy M, just take Easy D seriously, not literally.

I intentionally truncated your quote 'cause up to that part it works for what I'm thinking.

You just have to finish the sentence differently.

Hint: it is not something that's never come up before, i.e. no unique notion like giving everyone electric hippity-hops or something.

So for the people who support invading Mexico, what is the end goal there? Make them the 51st state? No need for a wall then!

Probably just to kill all the Mexicans.

Liberal scum and their voter fraud... oh... wait.

Former precinct chairman convicted after voting twice; claims he forgot about first vote, DA says

Well, an invasion and an occupation are two different things so you don't necessarily have to have both.

That said, I thought Facebook kept me up with all the trending topics, but I didn't realize this was a thing today.

Trump tweets out article that supports appeals court decision

The troglodyte-in-chief is the typical Facebook idiot who, at most, reads the first paragraph of an article and thinks he knows what it says.

His ignorance and inability to understand anything of importance at a critical level is astonishing only in that it shows that he's the perfect representative of the people that voted for him.

I'd love to see how he managed to do that. My poll workers would have given me the side-eye if I came in more than once.

Is that recent? Figured Republican support would be much higher for Putin these days.

I don't know about that county, but in mine, early voting and election day voting take place at entirely different locations. I've lived here 2 1/2 years and voted in all Primaries and Generals (missed a special election or two, but you get the point), but have yet to vote at my official precinct location because of early voting. (And I've early-voted at three different places.)

And recall, as I said earlier, anyone who knew my address in SC could have walked in, claimed to be me, and voted.

I don't think Trump has some grand plan or a "gotcha" up his sleeve. He's learning that the US Presidency has finite power and doesn't run as he likely expected.

Even in the example above in regards to the Executive order on abortion, it's yet another thing he doesn't have the power to do. The president can't overturn, even partially, a Supreme Court ruling.

Do you remember what poll it was? I would like to see that.

Like it or not, she's now the Secretary of Education. The Secretary of Education, who--it is said--needs to have a better understanding of Public Schools, especially heavily-minority ones, gets blocked from getting into a public school that's 95% black??? (Yes, I looked it up. It's 95% black, 3% Latino, 1 % White, 1% Asian.) Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politi...ool/index.html

Seems to me that the smart move is to educate her as much as possible about what's really going on inside those doors that they blocked her from entering.

Wouldn't that be considered a fire hazard to only have one door in or out?

Well she did end up getting in, so I assume she entered through a secondary entrance.

http://media.wix.com/ugd/3bebb2_1a13...65f001f026.pdf

Were the doors chained?

Ha! I immediately thought of this as well.

Heading to Joint Base Andrews on #MarineOne with Prime Minister Shinzō earlier today. pic.twitter.com/4JFhyYdeHO

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2017

He doesn't understand how Asian names work.

Thank you for posting.

Something seemed off on the figures you quoted versus the statement you made because it is my impression that outside of the most blinded, ardent supporters of Trump, most would acknowledge he and his administration have told lies or extremely exaggerated points on many if not even most of his stances/actions/etc.

I found the issue looking at the link. The poll question asked if the pollee felt the Trump administration was "generally truthful." That generally gives the pollee a LOT of room to justify their belief the Trump admin is truthful without running into their logic senses.

So from that perspective, I am not sure how much I trust that those numbers properly encapsulate how much (or little) Republicans actually find Trump truthful (and same the other way, since this was also posed to Dems).

I agree that in polling, there's certainly a point at which a certain question (or an entire poll) becomes, in the mind of the person answering, just a proxy for "do you support the red/blue team?" And once someone on team blue hears/interprets that the question is "do you support team red" they will reject the question... with the appropriate parallels and converses as appropriate.

I think that's what leads to many seemingly strange findings... like the "Bowling Green Massacre" question that locked in half of Trump voters to agreeing that it happened. Because the question went on to ask whether the BGM supported the need for the immigration ban, that made it smell like a fairly simple "do you support Trump" question and th rest sort of withers away.

That's what I meant when I said that it was about political messaging. I think a lot of people answered the question of "Do you trust Trump more than..." whether that be the media, the Democrats, whoever. That's what the White House wants, and it seems to be working.

i feel like everyone on the board collectively decided that this morning was just too dumb to even merit posting.

Or just not paying attention anymore :) I saw him on a golf course with the Japanese leader, and attempts to block the press from seeing it. What else did I miss?

It's loads of fun when a former NSA analyst points out that the intelligence community doesn't think the Mickey Mouse Oval Office can be trusted with the most important information.

The Spy Revolt Against Donald Trump Begins

--In light of this, and out of worries about the White House’s ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway? A senior National Security Agency official explained that NSA was systematically holding back some of the “good stuff” from the White House, in an unprecedented move. For decades, NSA has prepared special reports for the president’s eyes only, containing enormously sensitive intelligence. In the last three weeks, however, NSA has ceased doing this, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep their best SIGINT secrets.

The Mark Cuban dust up?

Stephen Miller is one scary dude.

I thought Ted Cruz had the most punchable face I'd ever seen. Then I saw this dude.

I dunno. McConnell's face looks like a ready-made punching bag

Have you paid attention to Paul Ryan's permanent smug face.

Okay, I'll play the little game.

2. Using the court against Obama. Trump knows this executive order will get blocked by the Supreme Court and that he will have ...
*an opportunity to say that what Obama did was also illegal and press for him to get thrown in jail or something
*the ability to just ban all immigration. Because if the EO gets thrown out because it is deemed a "Muslim ban", then why not just ban everybody then? That way, it doesn't discriminate.