I get where you are coming from and working at a public school we have a pretty spineless admin ourselves but sometimes you just gotta say to the administration I'm not going to apologize for teaching medical students how to handle a person complaining they can't breathe.

If the person has tenure, maybe, although we don't know if he was threatened in any way by the admin. If the person is an adjunct, is that really a fight worth losing your job? For most people, I would bet no. Most people aren't brave and don't want a fight.

Nah. I did.

I went to U of Washington in the heart of Seattle and never saw anything like that.

The worst I remember was a civics class tried to get the school administration to allow a tent city to be set up on campus and it was shot down.

On a braveness scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being General Owen from Starship Troopers and 10 being Bruce Willis in Armageddon, I would rate myself a 2 or a 3 in real life. However I figured out a long time ago the administrators are people just like me (nowadays people a lot younger than me) and what they really want is to not do their job. Spent about 10 years being the "good guy", around 10 years in got into a attempt to make me apologize for something dumb to some kid that I refused, and now realize about 25 years in that they just find other pushover teachers to do their jobs for them by serving on the committees and unnecessarily apologizing etc. Sometimes having some integrity does more than just get you out of one situation it makes your life a whole lot easier.

(Agree with you 100% on non-tenured though)

But you are about my age right? 40's? I mean my sociology and psychology professors were always super liberal but I think college today is a whole other monster. I'm sure there certainly is a get off my lawn side to this but I think it's pretty out there.

I went later in life, graduated in 2010. To be fair the world was a lot different even back then.

Surprised it wasn't Obama or Hillary who had this hidden under wraps.

As long as the list is of unbelievable things that Trump has done or said, the "no testing means no cases" thing absolutely floors me. The idea that we would elect someone who cares so much about himself and how things reflect on him that he would willingly allow people to be infected and potentially die from a virus so he can claim we have very few cases just blows my mind. And the fact that 100% of the country isn't outraged by this is depressing.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ew/3192584001/

Trump's rallies and convention speech will absolutely, positively result in hospitalizations and deaths. Everybody knows this, but we're too exhausted to be outraged.

"I personally think testing is overrated, even though I created the greatest testing machine in history"

So.....Matt Gaetz reveals he has a secret 19-year old, adopted Cuban son? Where do you even start with this?

"Bolton describes how Trump derailed a White House meeting about Iran strategy by bringing up a right wing conspiracy that Black South Africans were killing white South African farmers and stealing their land. According to Bolton, Trump blurted out that he wanted to grant the white South Africans “asylum and citizenship.”"

John Bolton’s Unredacted Book Shows Trump Was Baldly Asking for China’s Help | Vanity Fair

edit: I'm sure Bolton only remembered this because he was trying to sell Trump on war with Iran. Also, real people getting killed in foreign countries "Keep em out. Send em back to their shithole countries". Supposed White People getting killed? "Let's give them instant asylum and citizenship".

I wonder what the difference was?

Oh yeah, it's there in Black and White.

So proud to raise a Cuban son, but not proud enough to acknowledge him. Well, actually he did, back in 2016 when he thanked him and another page for assisting him. Again addressing him as a page, not his son.

This is going to get real good, real weird or both.

It's already weird. When he says 'adopted' he best be talking about a formal procedure, rather than 'I moved this teenage immigrant into my house'.

I chuckled.

I'm sure much like the protests and riots the COVID risk will be off the charts in Tulsa but in Milwaukee the risk will be next to nothing. Just ask an unbiased epidemiologist like Greg Gonsalves!

https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/s...63577433440257

Hopefully, the combination of heat, outside, and a fair amount of mask-wearing will mitigate the spread from the protests, but they were dangerous in regards to COVID.

I laughed harder that Ann Coulter retweeted it with "Except they actually built one."

I wondered why Nestor was trending on Twitter. Just a bizarre claim by him never having mentioned him before, its not in his bio or Wiki, and no journalist (that I'm aware of) has ever reported on. There is even a picture of him with Nestor and claims he was his page when the picture was taken,

He wanted his son out of the spotlight and political crossfire. It really isn't that big of a deal. This is coming from someone who thinks he has the most punchable face in Congress. And that is saying something.

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Australia is saying that it is under a massive cyber attack from a major state actor. They are attacking all levels of government and through out the private sector. They will not say who, but speculation is China.

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So Amy McGrath, the presumptive nominee for the Dem Senate race against McConnell, has raised $41M and at one point lead Charles Booker by 50 points. Recently, AOC and Bernie endorsed Booker, today Elizabeth Warren flipped her endorsement to Booker, and a new poll shows Booker up by 8 points.

Considering how pissed China is about Australia standing up to them about COVID, I'm sure it's China.

SI

Roberts knows this. He's playing the long game - he knows there will eventually be some competent administration ready to gut everything. He'll be ready to help them when the time comes.

SI

I'm only seeing things from a distance, but it sure looks to me like she's been playing prevent defense for the last couple of months while Booker has been clearly and loudly standing up for his beliefs. She really butchered her handling of the protests.

McConnell will likely skate to a win in KY against a candidate who is endorsed by Warren/AOC/Bernie. They couldn't find a decent candidate people wanted to like against someone as unpopular as Mitch. I don't know why Matt Jones didn't take McGrath on.

When I talk to faculty and staff who are roughly our ages and older, there's largely a sense of pandering to the students in order to avoid conflict (i.e., keep the university off the front page of the newspaper). It doesn't matter if you think the issue the student has raised is stupid -- because let's be honest, kids in that 18-22 range get up to all sorts of stupid on a daily basis -- if you can minimize the potential public image damage with an apology, then you do that.

To some extent, this seems to have emerged as part of university culture when we started chasing US News and similar rankings...about the same time we started thinking of students as customers to be appeased rather than "students" who are only attending the university at the whim and will of the administration (which is the theme of pretty much every college movie made through the 1990's). I find the gap between "what we believe to be true" and "what we say is true" when it comes to students and these sorts of issues pretty interesting. It's a weird adoption of "the customer is always right" philosophy, only in a sort of "malicious compliance" way where what we're really saying is that we don't think you're intellectually capable of grappling with the nuances of the question, so we're going to ELI5 (infantilize) it for you and then just let you think you're right.

Of course, now these "kids" are growing up and joining our ranks as colleagues. Most of the ones I run into are in marketing for some reason. Today we had a zoom conference at work (i.e., for staff) to talk through our fears, feelings and uncertainties about the protests and police violence and whatnot. It was led by people who put their pronouns in their e-mail tag line. (Even the transgendered folks I work with don't put their pronouns in their tag lines. The only people I know who do that are whatever the LGBTQ equivalent of a "white ally" is.) I didn't attend the conference, as I'm not feeling particularly fearful or uncertain and couldn't see the point of talking through feelings I don't have...and we're all working from home, so if my colleagues are having those feelings, it's not like I'm going to be hanging out with them to provide comfort or a sense of security.

I'm sure someone will mention to me that I should have been there as a show of solidarity, since I'm technically a member of the administration and have people who report to me, so at some point I'll issue an official apology for my negligence and that'll make the problem go away.

Or he could have been fucking him.

Let's not go there, especially without evidence.

Just saying there are other reasons a single 33-year old would let a prepubescent boy shack up with him and keep it a secret from everyone including the government.

We can take what we know about Gaetz's character and judge for ourselves.

Here's Gaetz side of it that he gave to People:

Matt Gaetz Talks Relationship with 'Son' Nestor | PEOPLE.com

It is plausible enough....but also still weird enough to leave room for whatever speculation you may prefer. Lots of 'declining to talk' about Nestor's biological family, muddy travel details & timelines, and they talk about each other just a little too glowingly & antiseptic.

On the one hand it has all the trappings of like an inspiring after school special on paper, on the other hand even if my it was my closest friend or a family member that had an unofficially 'adopted' cuban teenager living with him years after breaking up with the boys aunt, I would still think that was pretty weird.

This feels so much like the Tea Party movement. They primary a more centrist candidate in state that an extreme candidate has no chance of winning.

We get Cincinnati stations here in south Dayton, and Booker has finally started running ads... well, one ad. I think it's pretty effective, actually. It's like this video, but slightly different and a bit shorter.

Yes, that ad is devastating. The one I've seen just stops after her stammering explanation for having family things to do.

She has had some really poor sound bites - even going back to her House race against Andy Barr - plus, she's clearly being propped up by people from outside of KY. It's hard to say she has any kind of organic, KY grassroots support. It's pretty clear that the only way McConnell loses is McConnell himself - which you'd think would be enough, but he's just running the same "Mitch and Donny, sittin' in a tree" ads and will likely win fairly comfortably.

Right. "I had some, uh, family things going on", cut to Booker in front of a protest. Good stuff. Not gonna win Kentucky, but he could win the primary. Thing that kills me is McGrath is already running attack ads on McConnell as though she's won the primary. NOT SO FAST, MY FRIEND

I've been seeing McGrath ads attacking McConnell since last year. At last that's what it feels like. Quarantine has seriously screwed up my perception of time...

Update: Oklahoma cases now surges from a whopping 140% increase from prior week (yesterday it was just 111%). Oklahoma today only topped by Montana’s new 283% increase.

Please #CancelTrumpsTulsaRally. #COVID19 https://t.co/2pnOcIsjRf pic.twitter.com/CNLMC37Uj5

— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) June 19, 2020

Good time for a rally

If you look across the country, the Dems have done a great job of keeping the left fringe shut out. Whenever there has been a contested primary, the more moderate candidate has won. For all of the media attention the AOC/Bernie crowd gets, they actually have almost no control over the party (much to their frustration).

(Side note. For all our deep analysis on what happened in 2018 and what will happen in 2020, the answer may be as simple as American is a moderate conservative country, and the GOP has moved toward the far right while the Dems have stayed near the center. Basically, the same story that always plays out in American politics despite our natural desire to want our period in history to be unique).

But McGrath is such a bad candidate that she might break that streak.

As for Matt Jones, I would have LOVED for him to run. He's a liberal that can speak to conservatives--a rare breed.

I loved his show Hey Kentucky - a mix of politics, sports and everything else done kind of in PTI fashion. When he was forced to leave (allegedly due to McGrath's campaign), it just wasn't the same show anymore.

Not sure what his politics look like specifically, but he has the charisma to win against someone like McConnell. I don't know what the calculus was in deciding not to run, but I'm guessing that McGrath being the handpicked choice of the national party played heavily into it.

I worked with him for a year, so I have a sense.

His politics are mainline liberal. He's not an extremist. But he's also not a conservative who is "liberal for Kentucky."

He's a liberal.

I haven't talked to him since he decided not to run, but when I did talk to him about it (Summer 2018), he was very interested and had the Democratic party interested too.

I think that when they decided to go with McGrath instead, he didn't want to become part of a big primary fight. He wasn't going to fight with the DNC and McConnell.

They did that empty suit DNC senate pick in 2016 for the PA senate race. Mcginty got 42% of the primary vote and then lost statewide by the same amount that Hillary did. So instead of flipping that senate seat they’ve given Pat Toomey a second term. Mega frustrating.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1273972301156016130


Yeah, that'll end well ...

It's all bluster. The military and the Tulsa police aren't going to go Chicago 1968.

I hope so.

It would be quite depressing to have to say "that time when a bunch of armed white people slaughtered innocent black people in Tulsa" and have to be more specific about which time you meant.

Yep. If something happens it will be Trump supporters, not police and military folks.

He had to get hurt.

The WSJ told Trump that the 75-year-old protester shoved by police in Buffalo, Martin Gugino, has a brain injury and can't walk. Trump called him a "professional agitator," made some additional baseless insinuations about him, and said this. https://t.co/mSijb32Dwu pic.twitter.com/NG3E1bqNjX

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 19, 2020

There's been a lot of executive time yesterday and today.

The fake CNN piece Trump tweeted has to be a new low for an American President.

I'm beginning to think that the losers of the upcoming election are going to refuse to accept the result. If Trump loses, he's almost certainly going to claim the results were "rigged", because he has a history of doing so. I also don't see the left accepting Trump's re-election. I'm very depressed because I think we're witnessing the end of the USA as a unified nation. If any of you have a less-gloomy outlook please state it. I could sure use a ray of hope right now. Sigh ...

I don't think that phrase means anything anymore.

Nah. He's done plenty of things lower than that.

On paper McGrath is the perfect candidate for KY. A very moderate D, female, military fighter pilot...etc.

I've said it before, Booker is exceptionally charismatic. He is commanding a massive build in momentum, but it's really close to the primary. If he grabs it, and he can grab the East, which is vulnerable more now than ever for Mitch, he could really spark something big. It's always been a huge ask, but this state needs a push like this. I'm a solid centrist, but he's hitting the right buttons right now.

The Navy is putting the screws to Capt. Crozier.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/navy-w...-brett-crozier

Both are going to lose to McConnell. McGrath probably gives them the best chance but it looks like she disappeared the past month or so. Booker at least seems to have some highly motivated people behind him.

Coincidentally, the Democratic Party has no control over the country.

Counterprotesting Juneteenth celebrations is not a good look.

It is on brand for certain people.

All Holidays matter !

:(

Juneteenth celebrations are now acceptable overrides of COVID precautions as well now? Just keeping track we spent Mother's Day in quarantine was told anything else was needlessly killing the elderly. There was discussion yesterday about people in Tulsa needlessly dying. The protests were the exception to the rule, a once a lifetime event. Didn't realize Juneteenth was also more important than life or death.

People probably look at Juneteenth as an extension of those issues. But yeah, as discussed in the other thread we really don't care all that much about Covid anymore.

The capt crozier debacle continues the con at every corner of this administration.

Everything is a con


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For anyone who thought McConnell was in trouble in November, here is what they will be doing.

Kentucky cutting number of polling places for Tuesday’s primary from 3700 to 200

There will be one polling place for 616,000 registered voters in Louisville’s Jefferson County, where half state’s black voters live

This is going to be a disaster https://t.co/Xn61pDqleN

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) June 19, 2020

Some people are so fucking clueless it is pathetic. We just got back from dinner and did a simple toast to Juneteenth (To reiterate I am white and my wife and the two friends we were with are black)

This dumbass next to us makes this comment "I'll be so glad when all this black power shit goes away" Thinking we didn't hear it.

I did and the scene was not pretty. Not necessarily proud of it, but I am just at the point where I am done turning the other cheek to ignorance and when combined with a buzz I was ready to fight and told him so. Thankfully for all involved that he just moved his table from the patio inside because I was ready to unleash years of pent up frustration on his ass.

Again, not at all proud of this because I am generally very chill, but that just triggered me.

Man, sorry you and your wife had to deal with that. Amazing there are so many people out there like that.

Lots of people here likely not facebook friends with you, I will say this for those who aren't, if you really wanted to tangle it would have been a bad night for that guy.

The entire state can vote absentee. Wife and I did it. Easy as pie. Took 5 seconds to request online, got it 2 days later, confirmed receipt on Wednesday. Also, starting June 8th people have been able to make appointments to vote at certain places, or can vote this entire week up to primary day at other designated places. There's literally no reason people need to wait until primary day to vote.

Thank you brother, I appreciate it. As I calm down it is just sad we have to continue to deal with this. So much to enjoy and appreciate in this world in regards to different cultures. We really need to learn to love.

I grew up in a rural community in Southern Ohio where there was a small number of Black families and a Phillipino doctor surrounded by a sea of white people. I now live in NY and go to NYC somewhat regularly, well at least before the virus. I love the different cultures, food, and languages in NYC. It doesn't scare me or make me angry like so many of my Ohio friends. It really is what makes America great.

Respect

In our state, we had the same setup - ballots mailed to everyone, "no reason to vote in person." Not executed perfectly, but nearly everyone had a shot at avoiding health concerns and voting by mail. Many did for sure, but among communities who distrust the government, there were still quite a lot who stood in long lines, put themselves and others at risk, and in many cases were simply unable to cast a ballot. There's not two ways around it - it's not an even distribution of voters who are implicitly left out by please-vote-by-mail (and the dramatically reduced in-person options)...it's disproportionately poor and minority communities, like it or not.

So, this all just fits neatly with voter pre-existing and continuing suppression efforts.

So why have an election day at all? Why only close in precincts that have certain demographics?

You seem to think this is not an issue but the people running the state seem to think it helps their cause.

A rough transcript of tonights events:

Bill Barr: The U.S. Attorney for SDNY is stepping down.

U.S. Atty. SDNY: Oh, the fuck I am!

With the gop basically saying anything goes I’m not sure how we’ll ever get back to rule of law for a president. If opposites have Congress any investigation or oversight will be deemed politically motivated and any real improprieties will be swept under the rug (like they have been) if the houses and WH align. We’re fucked.

I had a conversation with a guy fairly far on the right that I get along with great and said we’re closer to autocracy than democracy when gambling on the future imo and maybe that’s what we deserve.


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You may not be proud of it, but I sure am. Proud of you.

Think that ship already sailed. We are what we are.

The judge ordered that Bolton's book can be published but that Bolton did expose classified material. If the government wants to, they can probably succeed in taking all of the money Bolton makes from the book.

Oddly, I think that's justice for everyone.

Yup. I hope it stands.

Once this possibility is presented to him, how much time/effort/people do you think it will take to convince Trump that he doesn't get the money from this book?

I didn't say it wasn't a problem and I don't know who it helps or why they did it, other than obvious health concerns for those that have to run the polling places and a lack of volunteers (usually seniors, btw).

We have closed primaries, so restricting Democrats from voting for Democrats helps who? If it's trying to keep Charles Booker from beating McGrath, McGrath has money and the national party behind her, so that doesn't make a ton of sense. Or at least is a gamble at this point at best.

I get the argument in a general election, but in a closed primary? The SOS is a Republican but has worked very well with the Dem Governor and agreed to mailing absentee ballots ,etc., when other states have pushed back. So I don't know what the reason is or why it necessarily would help Republicans (or why, if it's that big an issue, the Dem Governor wouldn't be raising hell). If it's determined at the local level, Louisville is run by Democrats. So the end game here is hard for me to see clearly.

I think the answer is that whenever polling places are closed, it's because the GOP knows they can't win a fair election and hate all minorities and are therefore trying to cheat. This is true regardless of whether there is a reasonable reason such as staffing/virus concerns to close polling places, regardless of whether absentee ballots are widely available, and certain regardless of who is actually in charge of the relevant jurisdictions.

It is certainly true that Republicans are going to win every race they are in. Of course, the same is true of the Democrats, given that this is a closed primary.

The video from several days ago of the family camped out at the Trump rally in Tulsa singing some kind of Bob Roberts-inspired Trump song is easily one of the more disturbing non-violent videos I've watched in a long time.

It was funnier when I thought they were saying "Fuck Trump!" and were dressed that way ironically.

Then I realized they were actually saying "Go, Trump!" and decided I want to be there in five years when their family is showing that video to potential mates. The cringe will be so hard and so loud, you'll hear joints pop.

And for those that haven't had a pleasure, 3+ minutes you can never get back :D

Tulsa Trump Rally: Camille & Haley Sing "Keep America Great" - YouTube

I think it's a dry run and an attempt to set precedent. Do it again in November, say that it worked just fine in June and there weren't complaints (even if there were). Then claim that well we can't have a do-over anyway, so it has to stand (then if it goes to court, hope that it's upheld a la Bush v Gore.)

Barr quickly moving up the ranks of most corrupt Trump administration official.

And just think how tough it is to make real movement in those rankings

SI

What an utter dumpster fire.

NEW: Six of Pres. Donald Trump’s campaign advance staffers have tested positive for COVID-19 ahead of his rally Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Trump campaign confirmed to @ABC News. https://t.co/HvxrRioupD

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) June 20, 2020

On second thought, this "rally" might end up being the best thing Trump has ever done. As of 30 minutes ago, pics of the arena look like a Poison show circa 1995 and the outdoor area has a couple dozen people - Pence/Trump no long going to speak at the "outdoor experience."

Even if it fills up, this is hardly the 800,000, overflow crowds they had hoped to showcase.

I'm sure the spinning will begin shortly. Lamestream media scared off everyone with fake virus news.

Oh wait, it's the protesters' faults! The only one I saw got arrested - and she had a ticket!

But she was super scary.

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On a positive note, I guess masks aren't necessary when everyone has enough room to be 6 feet from each other.

I was wondering - has Trump ever done any walk-amongst-the-people, shake hands type rallies, as opposed to speaking at people? I don't remember many, but I could be wrong. (The thought stems from those who claim - and I agree with them - that Trump wouldn't be caught dead with the people he claims to champion.)

What happened to a million tickets sold? Good thing a lot of people stayed home and safe.

Someone's been posting since June 15th that thousands of teens across the country ordered tickets to artificially inflate the number of requested tickets. I have no clue if that's true because I just assumed that the 800K to 1M tweets were lies. It would be hilarious if they were actually fooled into believing that many tickets were legitimately requested, and then had the rug pulled.

I mean, you almost have to believe they believed it because the first rule of this kind of thing is you don't oversell and overbook if you can't deliver, right? Video of them taking down the outdoor stage is like Dukakis in a tank. I bet Lincoln Project already has a new commercial ready...

A fuller view of stadium as program begins pic.twitter.com/xGdqTpwi1L

— Steadman™ (@AsteadWesley) June 20, 2020

Someone tweeted, "I had more people at a BBQ during quarantine." Ha!

I mentioned the 1 million number to wife a bit ago and she told me there was a huge push from influencers on tiktok to get people to request tickets.

Yep, he's blaming "protestors" and the media for the lack of the arena filling. It looks faaaaar under capacity.

https://twitter.com/AsteadWesley/sta...960629760?s=19

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