Politics Plus

Yesterday, I got up and started working on my email inbox while at the same time, in the back of my mind, processing the previous night’s hearing. “The Conversation” newsletter already had an article about it, the title of which caught my eye, and I started musing about how the Committee spent almost three hours – almost minute for minute – on Trump*s timeline during the insurrection riot. When basically he did nothing. That made me think of Seinfeld – which was proudly a show about nothing.  It’s easy get caught in the adage “noting comes from nothing” and not realize how much can sometimes be learned from studying nothing. Particularly when the premise – or the conclusion – is that there ought to have been something. I had to switch from the Committee’s dot gov page to its YouTube page because it started to loop. I found the place just before the loop started, and got the rest of the hearing that way.

There is some misinformation going around (not unusual, but this one appears to have started with Rachel, and that IS unusual) about a DOJ memo. The memo exists, but the interpretation of what it means was way off. The Meidas brothers got it right, and their video on it is in today’s video thread. I am always a bit behind, so Rachel may have already corrected her position by now, but these things are tough to stop once they start, so thought I’d mention it.

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Short Takes –

Teen Vogue – Community Schools: What Are They and How Do They Work? (referred by ITPI)
Quote – The concept of a community school, which has been around for more than a century, is quite simple. Any public school can become a community school if the school board, students, parents, and faculty collectively commit to being involved not only in a child’s education but also in meeting all of a student’s needs. “A community school is a decision that students, families, educators, and community members make about the role they want their neighborhood public school to play within the community and within the lives of the stakeholders that touch the school,” a representative from the National Education Association told Teen Vogue in an email. “Because learning never happens in isolation, community schools focus on what students in the community truly need to succeed — whether it’s free, healthy meals; health care; tutoring; mental health counseling; or other tailored services before, during, and after school.”
Click through for details and examples. No, I don’t read Teen Vogue. But ITPI (In The Public Interest) “wrote the book” on public versus private anything, and if they tell me there is valuable information there, I believe them (and was not disappointed.) Of course I suppose the idea of community schools make right wing heads explode.

The Conversation – The Supreme Court’s ideological rulings are roiling US politics – just as when Lincoln and his Republicans remade the court to fit their agenda
Quote – In the 1860s, President Abraham Lincoln worked with fellow Republicans to shape the Court to carry out his party’s anti-slavery and pro-Union agenda. It was an age in which the court was unabashedly a “partisan creature,” in historian Rachel Shelden’s words. Justice John Catron had advised Democrat James K. Polk’s 1844 presidential campaign, and Justice John McLean was a serial presidential contender in a black robe. And in the 1860s, Republican leaders would change the number of justices and the political balance of the Court to ensure their party’s dominance of its direction.
Click through for the history. It surely looks like a precedent to me. And we are at least as closenow as then to losing democracy forever – personally I think even closer.

Food For Thought