Althouse: "Just three weeks into his administration, voters are already evenly divided on the issue of impeaching Trump with 46% in favor and 46% opposed."

February 10, 2017

"Just three weeks into his administration, voters are already evenly divided on the issue of impeaching Trump with 46% in favor and 46% opposed."

"Support for impeaching Trump has crept up from 35% 2 weeks ago, to 40% last week, to its 46% standing this week. While Clinton voters initially only supported Trump's impeachment 65/14, after seeing him in office over the last few weeks that's gone up already to 83/6."

That's from Public Policy Polling. The approval/disapproval question produced a 43%/53% split. I think it's really weird that 87% of the people who disapprove are ready to impeach the President. How did we get so damned dramatic?

(Not that I trust the polls. The Trump presidency is a monument to the inaccuracy of polling.)

252 comments:

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Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Deep State

What is that? Something that requires wearing a tinfoil hat to see?

The presidency got bigger during WWII. We're not going back. The imperial presidency was necessary to deal with the scope of that conflict, the potential for which still exists and probably will indefinitely. Doesn't mean we should go to war on everything, but just that a population 2.5 times bigger than it was in 1932 is also going to have a bigger and more administrative government. Same with our domestic needs. If you don't like it then depopulate. But the people will not stand for a government made incompetent by cuts to the core functions necessary in a post-depression industrial democracy.; 2/10/17, 7:26 PM
buwaya said...: "What they should have learned is that the system may be nonlinear and sensitive to initial conditions. So, optimal performance will be realized with a model that adapts to perturbations caused by integrated and extrinsic factors."

It was, to be fair, hard enough to collect reasonably useful SES-model data. This is going to be true of any such system including whatever the DOE had in mind for a national system.
A simple regression model on the face of it, but only on the face of it.
Limited data makes it very hard to get more sophisticated.
I was an unofficial "tester" on the model and case analyses.; 2/10/17, 7:29 PM
Big Mike said...: And I hated, hated, hated the education courses, which were insultingly stupid, pandering to whatever the latest educational fad was ("cooperative learning" - having kids work in groups- was the big deal in my day, as was multiculturalism. Have black kids read about MLK and Rosa Parks instead of Shakespeare and Dickens and they'll be interested. ...)

Sounds about right. What I know about elementary education courses was that when I was studying ordinary and partial differential equations my younger sister was taking advanced bulletin board arrangement and fairy tales 1 and 2. Cooperative learning is supposed to lift the laggards up but what it really does is pull the best and brightest down. More of America shitting all over its best and brightest K-12 students.; 2/10/17, 7:30 PM
Anonymous said...: chuck: IQ may correlate with some of those talents, but doesn't explain them. If you have no talent for music, no amount of IQ will help you play a tune with any feeling.

That is true, but it's also true that if you have an IQ of 85, no amount of hard work and dedication is going to get you a degree in physics, or any kind of job with high cognitive demands.

That's really the point here. I've never come across anyone who said "oh yeah, when that violinist plays he brings me to tears and rapture, but his IQ is pretty average so he's not a great musician" or "damn, that girl can draw, but her SAT scores kinda suck so there's no point in art training for her". So comments about what IQ isn't tend to be straw-men and a distraction from a serious issue, one that's going to get more serious as society gets more technological, more mechanized, more complex.

All the children are not above average. Nor will many of those below average children have special talents that will enable them to prosper in "different" ways.; 2/10/17, 7:32 PM
buwaya said...: "For the kids it is actually a positive experience since it is a no stress introduction to standardized achievement tests, since their scores don't count for anything. "

The California tests had hordes of parents and teachers and school districts squealing for a decade. Not least because it tended to make the usual suspects look bad. I could have warned everyone about K-12 achievement tests.; 2/10/17, 7:32 PM
buwaya said...: "Have black kids read about MLK and Rosa Parks instead of Shakespeare and Dickens and they'll be interested. "

They have expanded on this. Shakespeare and Dickens have been banished nearly everywhere, no matter the kids color. I once mentioned "why not Dickens?" to a group of High School teachers at a conference once and it was as if I had invoked Satan.; 2/10/17, 7:33 PM
Dude1394 said...: Fakenews and the response is "screw them".; 2/10/17, 7:36 PM
buwaya said...: "What is that? Something that requires wearing a tinfoil hat to see?"

Merely dealing with regulatory compliance, and the filings, and the consultants, and the law firms that verify that, and the auditors. Add all those people up and the state is very very "deep". And thats just in, for instance, one little bay on that lake.

Lots and lots of rice bowls, so don't you dare change any rules, unless you make them more complicated of course.; 2/10/17, 7:37 PM
Jon Ericson said...: C'mon ARM, you're supposed to clog up these comment threads by posting between every post.; 2/10/17, 7:37 PM
n.n said...: buwaya:

Actually, I was thinking of the implications of an adaptive model. For example, the distribution of students by interest, skill, and performance. The most common model is based on class not merit, motivated by a presumably social orientation. This wasn't always the case (e.g. integrated classrooms). It's still not the case at higher levels.; 2/10/17, 7:39 PM
buwaya said...: " For example, the distribution of students by interest, skill, and performance. "

These are some things that the State could not obtain data for, for instance. There was no metric/data available for interest or skill (and how to measure/define?). I'm not sure what you mean by performance - that was presumably being measured by the test.

No IQ test values or initial assessment values either. Yes, the only data available was only good for a very SES (social class)-centric model.

The data was also no good for classroom-level analyses, or tracking/program analysis, etc.

There is only so much data you can get for a whole-population dataset.; 2/10/17, 7:48 PM
Bob Ellison said...: My son's Social Studies teacher accused him of plagiarism.

The teacher's evidence: Teacher thought there was no way my son could have written such a well-crafted essay.

Teach sent son home with an F and told him to re-write.

I called Teach. It was a pretty brief discussion that ended with Teach saying pretty much, Oh, well, what grade do you think your son should get?

What a load of shit. Not even trying, not listening, not observing, not enthusiastic about what students could do. And asking Papa what student should get-- that takes the cake.

So spare me your whining about how hard it is to teach with difficult parents involved. We parents have bizarrely awful teachers involved every year, and I'm in a supposedly fantastic school district.; 2/10/17, 8:02 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: CC, you would not ask what the "Deep State" is if you spent any time in Washington. The Deep State consists of the government bureaucrats and those who make their (very lucrative) livings from lobbying the government. They have a vested interest in government expansion, no matter who is in the WH at any given time. Washington DC and environs (filled with civil "servants") became among the wealthiest areas of the country during the Obama years. It always astounds me that leftists, so sensitive to capitalist abuses of power and accumulation of wealth, are so indifferent to the power wielded by bureaucrats, who are far shielded than capitalists are. CEO's get canned or jailed if they go too far. See Enron. What happened to Lois Lerner?; 2/10/17, 8:16 PM
buwaya said...: "See Enron. "

Enron itself was "deep state". Their business model was explicitly about legislation to create market-creation opportunities for them. Crony capitalists in plain sight. Perhaps one of their errors was being too open about it.

They started the whole idea of carbon credits and a trading scheme for them, now idiotically functioning in CA, exploited by more subtle cronies.; 2/10/17, 8:22 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Bob Ellison said...
My son's Social Studies teacher accused him of plagiarism.

The teacher's evidence: Teacher thought there was no way my son could have written such a well-crafted essay.

Teach sent son home with an F and told him to re-write."

That happened to me in high school. I worked hard on that essay and was expecting an A. I was shocked when it was returned to me marked F.

I confronted the teacher and she told me she did not believe a 16 year old wrote it. She "knew" somehow, that I had plagiarized it, although she had no proof that I had. I was so incensed I went to the principal and complained and asked for a meeting with my parents, the principal, and the teacher. The teacher changed my grade to a B.; 2/10/17, 8:22 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: It always astounds me that leftists, so sensitive to capitalist abuses of power and accumulation of wealth, are so indifferent to the power wielded by bureaucrats, who are far shielded than capitalists are. CEO's get canned or jailed if they go too far. See Enron. What happened to Lois Lerner?

Those Enron days are over. Long gone. Long gone is the time when people actually bothered to feel any shame about such excesses. Nowadays the reward for poor performance/example/behavior model is the norm. That's all that matters when short-term market valuation trumps all else.

The bigger problem is regulatory capture, which the new administration and its cabinet of swamp dwellers seems to exemplify in droves. The way you deal with that is with strict separations and rules on relationships between regulators and their industry - rules that the last administration had in place and that the new one may give lip service to. But their nominations seem to indicate anything but that.

What makes you think competent bureaucrats need to be incentivized any less lucratively than equivalent middle managers or SVPs in the private sector? The president's pay was sometime in the last decade raised to $400k per annum. I think the last "CEO president," Bush, realized that the pay needed to be somewhat comparable to a successful CEO's pay. Same with department/agency heads and their private-sector equivalents, I'd imagine.

Republicans keep making government functions about size when the issue is simple competency and effectiveness. If you think it's more people alone that make a government more powerful, I guess there goes that whole theory about what you can accomplish with sufficient technology.

I don't care how much wealth any person accumulates. I care about using that power, or any power, to continue rigging the game and the social fabric against the unfortunate, the dispossessed, or really anyone who doesn't have any access to that ninth circle of hell disguised by a social facade. Noblesse oblige used to mean something. I think we'd be much better off if it still did. But it goes much, much further than that.

Do you really think that Betsy DeVos cares a whit about how well kids are educated and the opportunities they're able to access?

Come on.; 2/10/17, 8:28 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Bob Ellison: the thing is your experience can be true (and I had the same experience in high school, as I wrote above) and it can also be true that other parents demand their children be given A's for substandard work.; 2/10/17, 8:29 PM
Known Unknown said...: "Do you really think that Betsy DeVos cares a whit about how well kids are educated and the opportunities they're able to access?"

I'll just quote the dummy W: Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples, while judging ourselves by our best intentions.; 2/10/17, 9:04 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: CC wrote:

"I care about using that power, or any power, to continue rigging the game and the social fabric against the unfortunate, the dispossessed, or really anyone who doesn't have any access to that ninth circle of hell disguised by a social facade."

Sure. But don't you think bureaucrats and professional malcontents do that by maintaining the status quo? If you are Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, why would you want things to change? They've prospered by maintaining the status quo. If you lessen poverty, a lot of poverty pimps in DC will lose their jobs. They need those problems. They don't want things to get better.

"Do you really think that Betsy DeVos cares a whit about how well kids are educated and the opportunities they're able to access?"

How do you know she doesn't? Because she's a rich white woman? So was Eleanor Roosevelt. DeVos has spent $20 million of her own money on charter schools. Now, I know very well that to her $20 mill is probably the equivalent of me finding $50 in an old purse, but why assume she doesn't really care?

Like I said earlier, after working in the DC public system, I don't know how you fix such a godawful friggin' mess. Fixing the inner city family structure would do wonders. So would reforming teacher education, which really is a joke. But let's give DeVos a shot. I fail to see how she can make things worse than what they are right now.

And, yeah, I think there is something to "the soft bigotry of low expectations." And I'm not just talking about inner city schools either. The Internet has public school tests from the early 1900's and they're tough. People of all races rise or fall with the expectations that are set for them. Jacques Barzun wrote a great deal about this - the prolonged adolescence of Americans. It's as true of coddled rich kids who demand safe spaces in college as of poor kids who can reach high school without knowing what nouns and verbs are.; 2/10/17, 9:06 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: For the record, I've never voted for or politically supported Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton in any way.

For Betsy DeVos, I take her political goals and integrity to boil down to this statement of hers: “I have decided, however, to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence. Now I simply concede the point. They are right. We do expect some things in return.”

They asked her questions about education law and education policy. She didn't have a clue. Couldn't answer. Told her about laws benefiting disabled kids? Would she uphold them? She said disabled kids are nice, she likes them, they're important to her. Didn't seem to understand her role as an administrator was to uphold the laws, whether she thought they were nicer than "the market" should be to disabled kids, etc., or not.

I think they even asked her about the frauds committed by Trump University. Well, you get the picture. She smiles and doesn't answer the question. Answers another question, just not what they asked. Interesting example to set in a chief administrator for education. Someone who thinks she's too good to answer the actual question asked, as simple as it is.

This isn't about charter schools, or anything else. It's about a completely unqualified shill and influence peddler being appointed by a guy successfully sued for defrauding his own way in the same industry she's appointed to oversee.

But I get it. You've got a cause. Don't we all. I just never figured on how much blatant corruption you'd look way, way past to focus on it.

I guess she just must be that good, eh? Never back down. Fill the posts with whomever the easiest, least qualified, most corrupt shill that Trump can control happens to be.

May she make a thousand Trump Universities bloom. Trump Universities to dot the landscape, from sea to shining sea. Remember, it's not about the kids, it's not about the fairness, or overseeing and preventing all those chomping at the bit to defraud them and their parents.

It's about how much money we can make off of them. Raise accountability for the kids, and lower it for the regulators.; 2/10/17, 9:22 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: CC, Thomas Sowell, a man I respect immensely (and no fan of Trump's) came out of retirement to write a piece favoring DeVos as Education Secretary:

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell020417.php3; 2/10/17, 9:32 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Cranky Knows All, Sees All.
Crystal Ball Readings $200.00; 2/10/17, 9:34 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Bob Ellison said...
So spare me your whining about how hard it is to teach with difficult parents involved. We parents have bizarrely awful teachers involved every year, and I'm in a supposedly fantastic school district.

It is difficult to generalize as you are attempting to do here. I left school with a very negative view of teachers. I have been happy in general with my own children's teachers. All public school, all unionized. Even for my own experience the grade school I went to was excellent, middle school and high school no so much. In our district, with our set of teachers, I see problems primarily with the parents. In another school district maybe there is a more even balance. I doubt that it is ever the case that the parents are not a big part of the problem, when there is a problem. I find the expectations on teachers somewhat unrealistic. Once I had decided that I didn't want to be in high school no teacher was going to make me learn anything I didn't want to learn, which was basically everything. I shouldn't have even been in school at that point but my parents insisted. More sophisticated parents would have realized that they were banging a square peg into a round hole to no good effect and looked for alternatives.; 2/10/17, 9:37 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: In terms of policy, education can't be "fixed." The kids are as obnoxious and ignorant as their parents, and get as entitled as their parents will get when called out. But then the parents come back to the school and bitch and moan about how their kids' feelings were hurt by being told that they were too obnoxious for the other kids' learning to proceed.

This can't be fixed by any "market solution." I'm fine with charters. Know people - good, motivated and enthusiastic people - who teach at them. They're as good as any school. And those that aren't, are even worse.

But the parents-as-never-satisfied-customer model IS a market "solution." It's not working. The only thing that will work is to end social promotion. We did that in 1900. Was education even universal, then? I don't think so.

But if you do that, you end up with a problem. Whither the 16-year old dropouts?

You send them to trade school. Or, you would if we believed in manufacturing. And we can, and we should, if we had as strong a set of labor protections as other industrial democracies have.

So, there's your answer - at least on the policy end. How this in-it-for-herself-and-Trump-lady accomplishes any of that however is anyone's guess. She sure doesn't seem to know or care about any of the relevant law on the matter.

I guess she'll just make up her own laws on it then. Much like Trump is doing in every other policy area.; 2/10/17, 9:38 PM
Anonymous said...: I just heard that Trump might be hiring Sarah Palin, maybe she'll take Kellyannes's job.; 2/10/17, 9:40 PM
Anonymous said...: Only three weeks in and Trump is hating the job, surprise...not. Maybe he'll resign! I'm keeping hope alive.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-challenges-governing-presidency-234879

"Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, according to aides and allies who say that he’s growing increasingly frustrated with the challenges of running the massive federal bureaucracy.

In interviews, nearly two dozen people who’ve spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration said that his mood has careened between surprise and anger as he’s faced the predictable realities of governing, from congressional delays over his cabinet nominations and legal fights holding up his aggressive initiatives to staff in-fighting and leaks."; 2/10/17, 9:40 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Ok. So Thomas Sowell's got his ideology and POV. Is there someone knowledgeable about education policy he could have seen nominated to take up that banner?

With this woman we actually have a record. She turned the schools of Michigan into shit. Sowell doesn't touch that. Doesn't address it.

He just talks about her policy aims and how they align with his.

Good intentions and all that.; 2/10/17, 9:42 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: ." Maybe he'll resign! I'm keeping hope alive."

Yeah, do that. Something has to keep you going.; 2/10/17, 9:44 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: "You send them to trade school."

This I agree with. It was Obama who pushed the "every kid has a right to go to college" bullshit. That just isn't true. I have a nephew who was pushed to go to college and he was miserable for a couple of semesters. Now he's a firefighter in Chicago - and he's happy as hell and loves doing that, although I worry about his safety all the damn time.

I've known big hulking guys who are sitting in little cubicles, pushing paper all day and they're miserable - and I look at them and think, you should be a carpenter, an electrician, a plumber. You'd be happy working with your hands, but you were raised to think that's shameful somehow.

But then I don't know how many of those jobs will exist in 10 or 15 or 20 years. Hell, maybe we'll have robotic firefighters in 20 years and my nephew will have to figure out what he's going to do with the rest of his life.

What will be done with people who aren't "college material" as snobs used to say? That's another thing I have no good answer for. Will we have to make up more bullshit college degrees? It's my belief that crap like "Women's Studies" was invented to give people who would have flunked out of more rigorous coursework a sheepskin and a sense that they were "educated."

I make no grandiose claims for DeVos. DeVos is fixated on charter schools. I think that can solve a small portion of the morass we have on our hands. If it can fix a small portion, well, that's more than what has been done recently. Hell, nothing at all has been fixed in a long time.; 2/10/17, 10:00 PM
Alex said...: I have no doubt the poll is correct. Trump frightens half the nation.; 2/10/17, 10:02 PM
Alex said...: I confronted the teacher and she told me she did not believe a 16 year old wrote it. She "knew" somehow, that I had plagiarized it, although she had no proof that I had. I was so incensed I went to the principal and complained and asked for a meeting with my parents, the principal, and the teacher. The teacher changed my grade to a B.

Outrageous. You should have fought until you got your deserved A+. Some of these teachers are just grown up bullies who can't stand it when a kid shows up who's smarter than they are.; 2/10/17, 10:03 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: Alex: Yeah, I still remember what that paper was about. I had read "Gone With the Wind" during the summer and the thing I had picked up on was how Scarlett O'Hara was way ahead of her time (total bitch, good at business, tough cookie who had to pretend to be a frail little flower) and yet Mitchell's portrayal of blacks was so reactionary (blacks were either loyal servants like Mammy or evil savages who had to be held in check by the KKK.) So I wrote this paper contrasting Mitchell's view of women with her view of blacks and was told no 16 year old could think of such a thing.

I think the teacher was pissed because she just loved GWTW and didn't want to read anything negative about it.; 2/10/17, 10:12 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Comment by AReasonableMan blocked.
2/10/17, 9:37 PM

Comment by Commander Crankshaft blocked.
2/10/17, 9:38 PM

Comment by Wilhelmina blocked.
2/10/17, 9:40 PM

Another Trifecta! Pay me Bitch!; 2/10/17, 10:18 PM
Drago said...: Wilhelmina: "Only three weeks in and Trump is hating the job, surprise...not. Maybe he'll resign! I'm keeping hope alive"

You are certainly keeping self-delusion alive.; 2/10/17, 10:24 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: I'm going to bed soon, but CC, I've enjoyed this exchange with you a great deal. You've made me think. I don't mind debating - what I dislike is that you impute the basest motives to conservatives. Believe me, I did not become a conservative because I want to line my pockets while spitting on poor people.; 2/10/17, 10:27 PM
Achilles said...: AReasonableMan said...
Humperdink said...
Betsy DeVos???????

Being anti-teacher's unions is pretty standard Red team stuff at the federal level. DeVos is an interesting case however. As I understood things, Trump was bringing in billionaires because they had the best minds. But DeVos married into the main source of money in her life and even her husband is one generation removed from the actual entrepreneur who made the money. What is her qualification besides being a gold digger?

This is pure sexism and misogyny. ARM has again demonstrated that the left is the source of sexism in this country.

It must suck to be such a piece of shit.; 2/10/17, 10:29 PM
Achilles said...: Wilhelmina said...
Only three weeks in and Trump is hating the job, surprise...not. Maybe he'll resign! I'm keeping hope alive.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/donald-trump-challenges-governing-presidency-234879

"Being president is harder than Donald Trump thought, according to aides and allies who say that he’s growing increasingly frustrated with the challenges of running the massive federal bureaucracy.

In interviews, nearly two dozen people who’ve spent time with Trump in the three weeks since his inauguration said that his mood has careened between surprise and anger as he’s faced the predictable realities of governing, from congressional delays over his cabinet nominations and legal fights holding up his aggressive initiatives to staff in-fighting and leaks."

They have some amazing sources in the white house. Seriously, if you believe this story or take any support from it you are truly stupid. This is click bait for idiots.

Please keep reading this and please tell your friends Trump is really! going down this time. Carry that all the way to 2018.; 2/10/17, 10:32 PM
Achilles said...: Commander Crankshaft said...
In terms of policy, education can't be "fixed." The kids are as obnoxious and ignorant as their parents, and get as entitled as their parents will get when called out. But then the parents come back to the school and bitch and moan about how their kids' feelings were hurt by being told that they were too obnoxious for the other kids' learning to proceed.

My father taught school in Marino Valley just outside LA for about 10 years. 45% latino 45% black 10% other. Not hardcore inner city but there were semi-constant race/gang riots. He said the parents were just as motivated there as the rich kid schools, just misdirected. He would have parent/teacher conferences discussing students and have parents ask if they needed to beat their kids when they caused trouble.

This can't be fixed by any "market solution." I'm fine with charters. Know people - good, motivated and enthusiastic people - who teach at them. They're as good as any school. And those that aren't, are even worse.

The point isn't that charter schools or private schools are better or worse than public schools. It is that I want a choice where to send my kids. If a public school is the best school I can get them in I am sending them there. Just give me that choice.

But the parents-as-never-satisfied-customer model IS a market "solution." It's not working. The only thing that will work is to end social promotion. We did that in 1900. Was education even universal, then? I don't think so.

But if you do that, you end up with a problem. Whither the 16-year old dropouts?

You send them to trade school. Or, you would if we believed in manufacturing. And we can, and we should, if we had as strong a set of labor protections as other industrial democracies have.

Too late for that. By the time that solution is implemented robots will be making the robots that make our stuff. Total wealth will explode and people all over the world are going to benefit from it. But there wont be any jobs as such except for coders. And 10 years after coding is the only real blue collar occupation AI will replace all of the coders.

The challenge of our generation will first be trying to keep AI's from accidentally stepping on us or some idiot with self replicating nanobots turning the planet ito a mass of grey goo. But if we get past direct dopamine injection mass addiction we can start trying to find a way for people to find meaning in a life that doesn't involve having to perform manual labor.

So, there's your answer - at least on the policy end. How this in-it-for-herself-and-Trump-lady accomplishes any of that however is anyone's guess. She sure doesn't seem to know or care about any of the relevant law on the matter.

I guess she'll just make up her own laws on it then. Much like Trump is doing in every other policy area.

You are just mad your party is still owned by the oligarchs.; 2/10/17, 10:46 PM
Michael McNeil said...: House Minority Leader (and former Speaker) Nancy Pelosi states that there are no grounds thus far for impeaching Trump.; 2/10/17, 11:00 PM
Chuck said...: Commander Crankshaft said...
...
With this woman we actually have a record. She turned the schools of Michigan into shit. Sowell doesn't touch that. Doesn't address it.

I am here to assure you that I follow the news and politics in Michigan very closely; and not only would I deny this, and not only would you find no factual basis for this in my state, but even left/Democrat ideologues in Michigan wouldn't make that claim as you have made it. They would know better. Betsy DeVos hasn't been the governor, or a state house or a state senate leader. She hasn't controlled state tax policy, or budgeting. She's never "controlled" much of anything in public education in Michigan; she has been active in charters mostly.

I have serious doubts about the methodology(ies) in the report from EdTrust-MI. That's a think tank that is the education arm of some liberal-tilting foundations, and they have long had a political angle on the rebuilding of the wholly disastrous Detroit Public Schools. (You've heard about the mass exodus of black families fleeing Detroit; schools might be the biggest reason.) Good charter schools have given some families a reason to stay.

49% of Detroit kids have chosen to leave that system in favor of charters. That's a choice. Their choice. Nobody forces that choice.; 2/10/17, 11:32 PM
exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 2/10/17, 11:43 PM
Anonymous said...: Probably a bit higher than they would be if it was a more milquetoast Republican like Jeb in office, but I'd bet the number would still be in the high 30s. For whatever reason Republican presidents drive the left to insanity and the amplitude of the craziness seems to be going up as time passes.

It's been 28 years since the left has been graciously able to lose an election and get over it, and they haven't exactly been gracious winners the 4 times they've won since either, hence why each time a Democrat won unified control at the start of their term since Clinton, a Republican wave followed 2 years later.

Meanwhile, the constant push for safe spaces and trigger warnings generally reveal that the left is so intolerant of others, they can no longer function being even in close proximity to people they disagree with. In that kind of environment, it's not surprising over 40% want Trump impeached. There is no safe space for the left to retreat to, no friendly sanctuary city where they can escape the Donald's triggering tweets. They just want him gone and they don't really care how.; 2/11/17, 2:41 AM
tim maguire said...: If the polling group says 46% want to impeach, that means roughly 30% want to impeach. That's a believable number these days--combine the general ignorance of American civics after 2 generations of hostie/incompetant liberal education, the hysteria of stupid liberals in the face of a president Trump, and the desire by stupid liberals to emulate the parliament system, where removing a prime minister is no big deal and governments fall all the time, and there you have it.

The electuon of Trump was the first hit to the hull, Betsy Devos hit below the water line and I will laugh at the rats abandoning ship as it sinks.; 2/11/17, 4:48 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: Going back 200 comments, those predicting impeachment, and removal, don't have a clue as to what is going on in DC right now. Trump works the stick first, then the carrot. After a rocky start with the Republican leadership in Congress, he has turned on the charm with them, and, most notably, Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan. He and his people have been working them, along with a lot of other Republicans, hard. And, it has paid off - Trump has gotten all of his cabinet picks through, without a real hitch. Even DeVoss at Education. Indeed, the Republicans in the Senate are, for the first time in my memory, doing as well staying together as the Dems inevitably do. Maybe even better.

Impeachment starts in the House. The Speaker sets the agenda, essentially determines what comes to the floor, what gets voted upon, etc. and that isn't going to be impeachment. Trump won a large number of Republican leaning districts. Even if the Speaker wanted to impeach Trump, he really couldn't as long as he was opposed by at least half his caucus - and in this case, it would more likely be 90% opposed - because their constituencies were Trump supporters. Neither the Republican base, nor their non-Republican Trump voting colleagues, are going to stand for impeachment of Trump, when they didn't impeach Obama, despite him routinely lying to both Congress and the American people, and routinely blatantly obstructing Congressional oversight. No matter how bad Trump might be, he would have to be significantly worse than Obama to get impeached by a Republican House, when Obama wasn't. And that sets a very high bar.

Even if they could get articles of impeachment voted out of the House, there wouldn't be a conviction in the Senate. Again, you have the process problem with Trump's new best buddy, Majority Leader McConnell controlling what gets to the floor, and his committee chairs controlling what gets heard there. We saw how well the Dems were able to force him to hold hearings for Supreme Court Justice Garland. Not. McConnell has been able to control his caucus to an unprecedented degree from Republicans, to the level that the Dems usually get. Indeed, he did essentially about as well so far during the confirmation hearings as his Dem counterpart, Schumer, which is unprecented. Dems would then need to peel off, out of this unified caucus, a dozen GOP Senators. Not going to happen, esp after the Dems refused to convict Clinton, despite blatant evidence that he had repeatedly lied under oath and obstructed justice, for purely political reasons. If Dem Senators had voted to impeach Clinton, they might get some Rep votes to impeach Trump, but didn't, so won't. Payback is a bitch. But it is worse - in the next two elections, a lot of Dem Senators from Trump states will be up for reelection. Without doing more research, my guess is maybe 15 or so. They get turned out of office, and the Republicans can pretty well ru the country as a one party state, like the Dems now run CA. Which is to say that while it takes 60 votes to convict, they would vibe lucky if they only had 60 "no" votes to acquit.

Long way of saying that impeachment isn't remotely plausible. Not any time soon. Not of a Republican President with a Republican House and Senate, and a super-majority of the states having recently voted for him. Anyone seriously pushing or suggesting this is in serious denial, and maybe needs medication. Or, is just a DNC or Soros funded troll.; 2/11/17, 5:21 AM
JAORE said...: They think Trump deserves impeachment in a similar way that they thought Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

Anticipation of the truly horrendous/heroic acts they envision.

Two sides of the same illogical coin.; 2/11/17, 6:21 AM
JAORE said...: " But DeVos married into the main source of money in her life and even her husband is one generation removed from the actual entrepreneur who made the money. What is her qualification besides being a gold digger?"

Hmmmm.... Kerry? (Substitute political power for wealth) H. Clinton?

You may have a point....; 2/11/17, 6:32 AM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Achilles said...
This is pure sexism and misogyny.

It is sexist to question the qualifications and achievements of a cabinet nominee? Get a grip man. She is not an entrepreneur, she inherited or married into her wealth. Her career has been one of peddling political influence through the dispersion of money to politicians, money that she didn't earn. A complete embarrassment and a clear indication that Trump struggled to fill some of his cabinet positions. Not the 'best people'.; 2/11/17, 7:26 AM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: The point isn't that charter schools or private schools are better or worse than public schools. It is that I want a choice where to send my kids.

No you don't. You want no standards, no accountability and a way to make that the norm.

You are just mad your party is still owned by the oligarchs.

Only a rotten lying, deflecting cunt could say that as anything approaching an effective rebuttal to this:

Cabinet position Name Estimated net worth
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos $5.1 billion
President Donald Trump $3.7 billion
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross $2.5 billion
*Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon $1.35 billion
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson $365 million
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin $46 million
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson $26 million
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao $16.9 million
Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price $13.6 million
Attorney General Jeff Sessions $7.5 million

But that's why you're a Republican. You believe in nothing other than in removing all accountability and standards in government.; 2/11/17, 10:12 AM
President-Mom-Jeans said...: Commander Cuntface has sand in his vagina today.

Impotent rage is amusing. Carry on, Commander.; 2/11/17, 10:42 AM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Oh that's clever.

For a shit-for-brains zombie like yourself I'm sure a laser pointer is amusing.

Go and rebut the oligarchic Trump cabinet. Or as it has become, Swampland.

Much as zombies like you love swamps.; 2/11/17, 11:09 AM
Tim said...: At least the cabinet officers won't want to loot the treasury.; 2/11/17, 3:58 PM
Gospace said...: My teacher stories are on tests, not essays. Had one science teacher give the problem about sound travels X ft/sec in water, takes Y sec to come back as an echo, how deep is the water? Well, being around a lot of seafarers, I did the calculations, and gave the answer in fathoms, which is how you measure depth. The answer was correct, but marked wrong. Because he didn't say how fast the sound travelled in fathoms. I pointed out he didn't specify the units- I could have converted the depth to metric. Only test question I "missed" all year, so...

Had another teacher, social studies, actually a pretty good teacher, and I realized at some point during the year she wasn't grading my tests. Or those of the other A or F students. I told a friend, another A student this. I said she glanced at the first page of the A students, maybe the last, and marked A. She skimmed through the F students, and marked F. She read the entirety of B and C students, and made comments for them to take heed of. He didn't believe me. The next test was a 4 pager. I answered the first and last page, wrote recipes in the middle pages. I got an A. Neither he or I ever shared this information with anyone else.

I've had good teachers and bad teachers in public schools. They all get paid the same, depending on THEIR level of education, not on what they do for the students. Which is a rather stupid way to pay people.; 2/13/17, 6:52 PM