There is ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE HERE! The moment JDV was placed into the Vice Presidency by awful Tech Bro Peter Thiel I said there was going to be a battle between the Tech Bro Billionaires, and the Heritage Foundations Christian Nationalists for Running the Government. So, here we go!
Also, as someone reading Project 2025 in a Democrats Abroad Book Club Group I said, this is a formula for turning the US into a third world country. We should all be reading 1984 again to get the jist of what is going on.
Biden is still President, but Elon Musk has taken over. My architect in Germany is selling his Tesla, because the shaming I have done of him for owning the car is getting to him. He is going to replace it with a Chinese Ecar. When I first saw he had a Tesla, I sent him the recall notices and pointed out that he was funding Musk. I feel that way about X, and am glad that the EU Journalists decided to leave Twitter. Kudos to St. Pauli Football team as well for standing up against Musk. Now, let Germany drive him out the way they drove out the Walmarts. We shall see. Germany may be on the brink of changing governments, but Musk is making a royal ass of himself as he tries to rule the USA and cozies up to despots around the planet.
Musk's Aspergery qualities may make him socially tone deaf, which is why he does not get that angering people in the country that is packing more heat than most war zones in private households is not a formula for longevity. Ramaswamy is the same. What they are rightly pointing out that someone from a European country can get an engineering degree with no debt because their universities are tuition free. Americans need to earn a certain amount to pay off their student loans. I have an engineering PhD student in my household who is studying Sustainable Aviation Engineering. I will not be recommending that he work for a racist, misogynist, slave driver like Musk. Better to go abroad. Less pay, better work-life balance may be what American engineers need.
I'm betting on the money. The Evangelist Magats served their purpose: they voted for the orange menace. He can't run again, but he can make LOTS of money.
Congrats on your offspring getting a PhD in sustainable aviation engineering. Sounds like they will be wildly successful not going with Musk. And yes, PhDs are expensive.
My nephew. He lives with us because we are closer to his university than his dad's house. I am so pleased that he is doing sustainable aviation engineering because it is the future. Musk would not like him anyway. He spends time doing creative writing and drawing and painting. Musk and Ramaswamy would not consider these appropriate uses of time.
I worked for a software development company and it was an open secret they preferred H1B employees because they could pay them LESS than Americans. They could also demand and get blind devotion by holding the threat of "sending them back" over their heads.
I worked as a software enginner at BigCos for years. Big contract firms in India send tons of folks over, creating not a small amount of resentment among software engineers, especially when another round of layoffs hits. The only thing stopping it from getting really ugly internally within companies is that the folks coming in from India are typically very nice people and are so easy to work with.
Me too. I think it's partly why H1B visas are so difficult to procure--the old government made it unattractive for corporations to displace American workers that way, because it was so time-consuming and expensive (hiring and maintaining law firms to do the work, etc.)
Oh, absolutely! Those and J-1 student visa interns - for the same reason. I was one of those. Plus, they are well-behaved and don't make a fuss over workplace violations, including sexual harassment, because they would rather tolerate that than be sent back.
It saves money to import cheap labor instead of relocating the whole damn factory...just bring the cheap labor to us. Now manufacturers can get subsidies at home for "job creation" without making any sacrifices.
Weird; It's almost like they (almost) understood that a good education is actually important, or that American middleclass workers are underpaid. Now if they could just dump the racism, xenophobia, and misogyny...🤔🍿
The majority of Americans who support Trump are either willfully ignorant, uneducated, insecure, racist, or selfish. And if/when Trump tanks this country, they'll be the last to accept accountability, just like their president.
All those farmers that lined up to vote for this felon: bye bye subsidies.
All those old folks that voted for that fraud: bye bye to Social Security.
You get what you voted for.
Most of the reasons people cited for voting for Trump are inaccurate, based on lies and overall ignorance of voters, too often willful ignorance, and, of course, the sexism and racism that runs through the veins of this country.
That's why I enjoy wearing this reminder in front of Trumpers 👇
Actually, look at all of the Red states. Do you think it's an accident that their always ranked at the bottom based upon education? No, they like them uneducated, easier to mold and lead them, no critical thinking. I'm originally from NY, but have spent the last 15 years in FL, NC and now TN. They are all the same on the state level....
Idaho's education system was (WAS) a great system...then the Republicans got their overwhelming majority and are slowly starving public education. As thing get worse they claim the only fix is school choice vouchers. Break it and then send the "fix" to private...gotta make a profit.
All those parents of special needs children who get monthly money from the Dept. of Education, which the felon will speedily eliminate, who voted for the felon.
Dirty little secret: there are more American women graduating from college, with better grades, even with STEM degrees, than men. They've focused on the area of Biomedical primarily, but even Computer Science (CS) started surging again briefly as young women looked for something that would return on their ridiculously high investments in higher education.
Tech companies could encourage and tap that female talent easily and start filling in a lot of gaps. Instead they degrade and denigrate and underpay them, compared to the men, especially in those areas of CS. Once men decided that discipline was going to be profitable, suddenly it had to be all men all the time everywhere (gee, thanks, Peter Thiel). They keep pushing the idea women just can't do the work--but they can.
You reap what you sow, boys.
Reality is, exploiting the H1B visa workers is reaching its limits. It is expensive, proved unreliable with explosion of COVID, and the people who are the hardest workers end up resenting the companies that did this to them, and walk away to build their own companies in competition--sitting remotely in countries like India that has such low cost of living there is no way to compete.
If this is true, it's likely a result of decades of cuts to American public education, especially in the K-12 years when attitudes about science are formed.
If the tech billionaires need more educated workers, perhaps they should pay their fair share in taxes and support education! Students (and parents) are saddled with decades of debt to pay for college in the US. Red State Legislatures -- like Arizona's -- starve public schools, tell kids they don't need a college education, subsidize private religious education for wealthy families and give away millions in corporate tax breaks.
And to home schooling and to badly-overseen charter schools. In my state, Arizona, people are proud of always being tied for 4th-to-last-place nationally in K-12 education. "We don't need no stinkin' eddycation!" and "What! pay more taxes to pay teachers? No way!" Vivek is right: it's a cultural affect.
And don't forget the evangelical home-school movement. All those cult families were allowed to indoctrinate their children without any oversight regarding what they were taught. Science was not high among the priorities, I'm afraid. And how many boxed curricula come with a science lab?
I grew up in the 60’s, and have lamented the decline in public education over the last 60 years. It’s not because children in this country have less potential, it’s because we don’t invest in education, and because even great teachers are paid a pittance. And then they’re expected to provide supplies, too, because there’s insufficient funding for the materials they need in order to teach! Low priority=mediocre results. We need to invest in OUR KIDS, not bring in well-educated slaves from other countries.
The hatred of public school teachers is part of the campaign against unions; that's a common attitude here in Canada as well. There's a drive here too, to introduce more private education. How do parents cope when their kid's school closes because they didn't earn enough profit? I'll never understand it. Public education should be a right, a way to give all citizens the same opportunity to thrive through a basic, common pool or knowledge.
And books that stimulate curiosity are being removed from schools and libraries and education stunted by MAGA-affiliated groups like Moms for Liberty. The Dept of Education may be eliminated. It’s clear and has been, MAGAts don’t connect issues and topics and have in-depth conversations.
On the moral front, I think it's important to remember Moms for Liberty was headed by that woman whose husband was chair of the Florida RNC chapter, and the two of them had habitual three-way sex with another woman whom the husband ended up raping during a two-person sexual encounter. This is the caliber of people in Moms for Liberty, that are militantly aggressively establishing how all our children, not just theirs, should be educated. Is this ok with us? Morals, ethics, values have got to play a role here, as well as finances.
Again, it comes down to voting. 50 years ago, Papa Koch realized if public education was starved, the Fascistas would win. So he and his sons started to choose and finance the dumbest bunnies (sorry rabbits) that they could find to run for seats on boards of education. It worked. Why? Because people ignore school board elections, added to that, is the drum beat to starve teachers. Et voilá, you have the present mess. Vote in school board elections, convince the brightest people you know to run for a seat and then work like hell to put them there.
Carol-Ann, what a wonderful positive tactic. It goes to the importance of the down ballot, as all the progressive blogs have been saying. We ignore school board elections and we starve teachers at our peril. As we are now discovering to our dismay. Let's hoist Koch on his own petard, by working diligently in the interregnum for local and state values that will bubble up to the federal level, if we keep working. Bob Reich just had a wonderful blog urging us--"Do not move to the center." What if we had a campaign: "Increase Pay for Public School Teachers!" So what if MAGA nuts criticize it. It's the right thing to do. And it's liberal.
Here in NC the MAGA General Assembly changed our non partisan school board elections to partisan this year. We had 4 excellent Democratic candidates running. Not one made it. 😞
Carol, another factor in public school education, besides the purely financial, is that so many of these MAGA people don't want teachers to teach kids facts, history, appreciation of other cultures, etc. They don't WANT their kids to have open minds or to value thinking--much less critical thinking.
Let's not forget the people who decided teachers were untrustworthy, so they invented standardized testing, which began as a plan to test teachers, not students. When they finally decided they could measure a teacher's worth by testing what students know, they began to focus on testing rather than teaching. Teaching became all about how to take the test and succeed, which eats up teaching time. So students missed out on the education we got, which was traded for the need of the state to control what teachers could say in the classroom.
This, so much this--and especially in rural areas. Jess Piper was pointing out that in Missouri the state only pays about 30% of the operating costs of schools, forcing local city and county taxes to be levied. That hurts the rural areas that have less population and less wealth so much more than the cities. It is the same in most of these red states.
The refusal to fund the schools, or properly train our teachers is telling. America needs to pivot and make teaching the pinnacle of achievement, raise up worthy teachers above the Sports or Entertainment heroes. Give them respect; make it cool to be smart.
I’m of the same generation, but I do think there’s a nugget of truth in their “American culture” screed (not a lot, but some). It’s not that we necessarily undervalue education, but we’ve readily accepted ignorance. How many times have we heard adults say “I’m just not good at math”? It’s not uncommon to even hear that from teachers. Ask almost anyone “What’s the last book you’ve read?” and you’ll get a blank look or “I don’t like to read much”. How about TLDR? In our society and culture these responses are perfectly acceptable and this isn’t recent.
If talented and trained workers are lacking in high tech and AI, then why in the world would MAGA want to defund the Department of Education? Seems that what they should do is ramp up science and technology funding just like they did in the 60’s after Sputnik.
Of course that is the opposite of Project 2025 which wants to promote climate denialism and vaccine/public health skepticism.
You are asking for there to be logic behind Project 2025 and its recommendations, and there isn’t. There is only greed and a desire for a Christian nationalist regime that controls everything.
If these people came into contact with anything Jesus said, they'd deny it was true. If they came into contact with Jesus himself, they'd lynch him. They are not Christians. Or maybe they're CHINOs--Christians in name only.
Money. If they defund education they save money. If they can hire H1-B immigrants they save money. AND they can keep blaming “too many Mexicans” to get votes. Total win for the oligarchy
Yes, this is the tweet that Musk sent out recently that said just that:
“Investing in Americans is actually hard. Really hard. It costs money and time and effort to make a person productive. It’s a short term net loss. It’s much easier to bring in skilled workers who might not do quite a good a job, but will work for a fraction of the cost and be happy just to be here.”
So Musk does not want to spend "money" and put the "time and effort" to make a person productive. But he wants workers who work 'hard' for 'a fraction of the cost'.
This is the Milton Friedman theory of economics: "the main responsibility of a business is to maximize their revenue and increase returns to shareholders."
Sounds as if he wants to run the US government like a business. It is NOT a business.
Which totally fits in with Musk not paying taxes to support things like schools and Universities. Or roads or the Post Office, or anything. He will use AI robots eventually and conscript humans by inserting brain Chips which will contain a control mechanism for sure. Both Vivek and Musk are actually anti Human.
That recent 2-3 mo. Spending bill ... now we know what the REAL "crisis" was over: President Musk wanted a deal so his AI bots/projects can be made in China. He got it approved.
Agree! They're going to make us hybrid carbon and silicone organisms that do what the machines tell us. Remember 2001, A Space Odyssey when the human astronaut was dominated by the computer HAL? It, like Orwell's 1984, is coming to fruition in 2024.
Just think of all the money spent on public education. They have their eyes on that money...and the only way they get it is to privatize, lower costs, produce an inferior product so people don't know what they've lose. Lose for us, win for the wealth hoarders.
Debbie! You're too attached to facts! MAGA wants to defund the Department of Education AND have uneducated American workers take all the high-paying jobs requiring education in high tech and AI. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world they live in, there's no contradiction. They want both and they feel they can have both. We are bad, evil liberals if we call that belief into question citing facts.
Who didn’t see this coming? Oh yeah. MAGA didn’t. Trump hates his voters, but he loves their votes. The intelligence of Musk and Ramaswamy really need to be investigated, as they’ve watched MAGA turn on supporters for years and thought it would not happen to them. 😂
So let me get this straight: The right wing has spent decades gutting education and now they're complaining about Americans being too dumb? They're the ones who are too dumb! The rest of us saw this coming and tried to warn them. I feel zero sympathy.
ROFLMAO 🤣 Thank you for this! The real problem faced by the tech bros is that US Citizens don’t have to stick around in a job that doesn’t compensate them at actual market value. My family are all engineers.
I’m a retired CPA and I have had many different clients with workers with the H1B visas and it’s not just the tech bros. I had one client, a large landscaping company, who had regular long time employees from Mexico come up, cut lawns, plant flowers, etc. during the grass growing season. Then the workers went back to Mexico for the winter and the homes/businesses they had there, and did it all over the next year. This is just one small example, but we need workers at all levels!
I really wouldn't call seasonal workers immigrants. They used to issue work Visas. That's what we had with agricultural workers in California. They are good hard working people.
Immigrants just painted my house interior, mainly a gal about 4 foot 8 inches. She couldn't speak English except for thank you. I was really wanting to say i didnt vote for Trump
One correction: those were almost certainly not H-1Bs, but probably H-2As or H-2Bs. Totally different visa. They are only grouped in the H family of visas because both are temporary foreign workers. H-1B requires a college degree (with an exception for modeling jobs). H-2A is for agricultural workers. H-2B is for seasonal workers (ski instructors, or sports team members, use it sometimes).
We're a nation of immigrants. If one thing is clearer than another, it's that we need immigrants. Just not clear to MAGA nuts. Emma Lazarus, American poet, wrote:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
From The Bard: "Ambition, insatient cormorant, consuming means, soon preys upon itself."
Very little could make me happier than to see the likes of Musk and MAGA having at each other with vengeance.
I figured out quite a while ago that there was only room for one peacock on the stage, and Musk vs MAGA would soon be here. I am SO happy that it came a lot sooner than I thought it would.
MAY YOU TWO FIGHT TO A PYRRHIC VICTORY LEAVING TWO CORPSES ON THE FIELD.
Congress tried to pass a bi-partisan bill to deal with immigration and H1b visas. It failed. The existing laws are a mess, and are not enforced. Allowing more tech visa holders into the US is just a way to depress wages of engineers and programmers. Many well known universities abuse the visa programs. Of course, no number of smart engineers will fix his ugly truck.
It’s almost like they’re calling uneducated Americans a basket of deplorables.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE HERE! The moment JDV was placed into the Vice Presidency by awful Tech Bro Peter Thiel I said there was going to be a battle between the Tech Bro Billionaires, and the Heritage Foundations Christian Nationalists for Running the Government. So, here we go!
Also, as someone reading Project 2025 in a Democrats Abroad Book Club Group I said, this is a formula for turning the US into a third world country. We should all be reading 1984 again to get the jist of what is going on.
Biden is still President, but Elon Musk has taken over. My architect in Germany is selling his Tesla, because the shaming I have done of him for owning the car is getting to him. He is going to replace it with a Chinese Ecar. When I first saw he had a Tesla, I sent him the recall notices and pointed out that he was funding Musk. I feel that way about X, and am glad that the EU Journalists decided to leave Twitter. Kudos to St. Pauli Football team as well for standing up against Musk. Now, let Germany drive him out the way they drove out the Walmarts. We shall see. Germany may be on the brink of changing governments, but Musk is making a royal ass of himself as he tries to rule the USA and cozies up to despots around the planet.
Musk's Aspergery qualities may make him socially tone deaf, which is why he does not get that angering people in the country that is packing more heat than most war zones in private households is not a formula for longevity. Ramaswamy is the same. What they are rightly pointing out that someone from a European country can get an engineering degree with no debt because their universities are tuition free. Americans need to earn a certain amount to pay off their student loans. I have an engineering PhD student in my household who is studying Sustainable Aviation Engineering. I will not be recommending that he work for a racist, misogynist, slave driver like Musk. Better to go abroad. Less pay, better work-life balance may be what American engineers need.
I'm betting on the money. The Evangelist Magats served their purpose: they voted for the orange menace. He can't run again, but he can make LOTS of money.
Congrats on your offspring getting a PhD in sustainable aviation engineering. Sounds like they will be wildly successful not going with Musk. And yes, PhDs are expensive.
My nephew. He lives with us because we are closer to his university than his dad's house. I am so pleased that he is doing sustainable aviation engineering because it is the future. Musk would not like him anyway. He spends time doing creative writing and drawing and painting. Musk and Ramaswamy would not consider these appropriate uses of time.
Omg. You win today’s comments!!!
LOL!!!
But but but, Trump LOVES the uneducated!
🏆
they are, have, will. Or is it; have, are, will?
I worked for a software development company and it was an open secret they preferred H1B employees because they could pay them LESS than Americans. They could also demand and get blind devotion by holding the threat of "sending them back" over their heads.
I worked as a software enginner at BigCos for years. Big contract firms in India send tons of folks over, creating not a small amount of resentment among software engineers, especially when another round of layoffs hits. The only thing stopping it from getting really ugly internally within companies is that the folks coming in from India are typically very nice people and are so easy to work with.
Matches my experience exactly
BINGO! Musk obviously yearns for the Apartide Policies that his parent's enjoyed! That Slave Owner mentality is part of Musk's DNA!
Right, and let's not forget Musk is an African Immigrant, possibly illegal (all that lying about drug use and status)
Deport the muskrat!
On a Boeing.
Or a trebuchet.
I worked in Big Pharma IT. Same story. They outsourced everything to TATA.
Me too. I think it's partly why H1B visas are so difficult to procure--the old government made it unattractive for corporations to displace American workers that way, because it was so time-consuming and expensive (hiring and maintaining law firms to do the work, etc.)
Oh, absolutely! Those and J-1 student visa interns - for the same reason. I was one of those. Plus, they are well-behaved and don't make a fuss over workplace violations, including sexual harassment, because they would rather tolerate that than be sent back.
It saves money to import cheap labor instead of relocating the whole damn factory...just bring the cheap labor to us. Now manufacturers can get subsidies at home for "job creation" without making any sacrifices.
!!!! That's terrible.
Ruthless, eh?
Please read my comment when you have a moment!!!!
Weird; It's almost like they (almost) understood that a good education is actually important, or that American middleclass workers are underpaid. Now if they could just dump the racism, xenophobia, and misogyny...🤔🍿
The majority of Americans who support Trump are either willfully ignorant, uneducated, insecure, racist, or selfish. And if/when Trump tanks this country, they'll be the last to accept accountability, just like their president.
All those farmers that lined up to vote for this felon: bye bye subsidies.
All those old folks that voted for that fraud: bye bye to Social Security.
You get what you voted for.
Most of the reasons people cited for voting for Trump are inaccurate, based on lies and overall ignorance of voters, too often willful ignorance, and, of course, the sexism and racism that runs through the veins of this country.
That's why I enjoy wearing this reminder in front of Trumpers 👇
https://libtees-2.creator-spring.com/listing/wtpmelb
"I love the poorly educated!" - D. tRump, ca. 2016.
I remember being SHOCKED when he said that. And then -- even worse --HORRIFIED when he got a standing ovation from the poorly educated crowed.
Proving his point perfectly.
…because they’re much easier to rule.
Actually, look at all of the Red states. Do you think it's an accident that their always ranked at the bottom based upon education? No, they like them uneducated, easier to mold and lead them, no critical thinking. I'm originally from NY, but have spent the last 15 years in FL, NC and now TN. They are all the same on the state level....
Idaho's education system was (WAS) a great system...then the Republicans got their overwhelming majority and are slowly starving public education. As thing get worse they claim the only fix is school choice vouchers. Break it and then send the "fix" to private...gotta make a profit.
The Repugs in NC General Assembly are freaking killing us.
We had moments of hope during the Hunt years.
Stop. You're on here to sell your t-shirts again. Jay, you need to look into this.
I vote for all of the above: willfully ignorant, uneducated, insecure, racist, selfish
No, that's what THEY voted for
Please do not promote merch here. Thank you.
Don’t forget the teamsters and firefighters.
Nice Shirt and Slogan, but you're giving Trumpanzies Too Much Credit! I doubt the majority would understand!
All those parents of special needs children who get monthly money from the Dept. of Education, which the felon will speedily eliminate, who voted for the felon.
And as Colleen above says, all the teamsters who voted for the felon--bye, bye unions
All the firefighters and cops who voted for the felon--bye, bye salaries for government employees
All the military who voted for the felon--hello, to being offically docmented losers and suckers
trump will play footsie with the mob/teamsters union because he is afraid of them. One probable reason he has survived this long. tbh
Dirty little secret: there are more American women graduating from college, with better grades, even with STEM degrees, than men. They've focused on the area of Biomedical primarily, but even Computer Science (CS) started surging again briefly as young women looked for something that would return on their ridiculously high investments in higher education.
Tech companies could encourage and tap that female talent easily and start filling in a lot of gaps. Instead they degrade and denigrate and underpay them, compared to the men, especially in those areas of CS. Once men decided that discipline was going to be profitable, suddenly it had to be all men all the time everywhere (gee, thanks, Peter Thiel). They keep pushing the idea women just can't do the work--but they can.
You reap what you sow, boys.
Reality is, exploiting the H1B visa workers is reaching its limits. It is expensive, proved unreliable with explosion of COVID, and the people who are the hardest workers end up resenting the companies that did this to them, and walk away to build their own companies in competition--sitting remotely in countries like India that has such low cost of living there is no way to compete.
You mean the "Guns, Bible, and Jesus" crowd isn't going to provide enough engineers and scientists for the tech industry? Oh dear.
Shocked, I tell you, shocked. 😑
Well, you know, science is a hoax.
But magic, on the other hand, is not. ;)
😂😂😂😂
If this is true, it's likely a result of decades of cuts to American public education, especially in the K-12 years when attitudes about science are formed.
If the tech billionaires need more educated workers, perhaps they should pay their fair share in taxes and support education! Students (and parents) are saddled with decades of debt to pay for college in the US. Red State Legislatures -- like Arizona's -- starve public schools, tell kids they don't need a college education, subsidize private religious education for wealthy families and give away millions in corporate tax breaks.
But how to get that tax money to support education when the Department of Education is on the chopping block?
Opps. More unintended consequences.
Oh now don’t go making sense.
We can’t have that.
They get their educated workers from abroad, which suits them: “highly-motivated” (ie, cheaper, more docile) labor.
The same here in NC😞
And to home schooling and to badly-overseen charter schools. In my state, Arizona, people are proud of always being tied for 4th-to-last-place nationally in K-12 education. "We don't need no stinkin' eddycation!" and "What! pay more taxes to pay teachers? No way!" Vivek is right: it's a cultural affect.
And don't forget the evangelical home-school movement. All those cult families were allowed to indoctrinate their children without any oversight regarding what they were taught. Science was not high among the priorities, I'm afraid. And how many boxed curricula come with a science lab?
And the homeschooling.
I grew up in the 60’s, and have lamented the decline in public education over the last 60 years. It’s not because children in this country have less potential, it’s because we don’t invest in education, and because even great teachers are paid a pittance. And then they’re expected to provide supplies, too, because there’s insufficient funding for the materials they need in order to teach! Low priority=mediocre results. We need to invest in OUR KIDS, not bring in well-educated slaves from other countries.
The hatred of public school teachers is part of the campaign against unions; that's a common attitude here in Canada as well. There's a drive here too, to introduce more private education. How do parents cope when their kid's school closes because they didn't earn enough profit? I'll never understand it. Public education should be a right, a way to give all citizens the same opportunity to thrive through a basic, common pool or knowledge.
...pool *of* knowledge.
One can edit a comment through the three dots at the upper right. FYI.
Thank you!
And books that stimulate curiosity are being removed from schools and libraries and education stunted by MAGA-affiliated groups like Moms for Liberty. The Dept of Education may be eliminated. It’s clear and has been, MAGAts don’t connect issues and topics and have in-depth conversations.
On the moral front, I think it's important to remember Moms for Liberty was headed by that woman whose husband was chair of the Florida RNC chapter, and the two of them had habitual three-way sex with another woman whom the husband ended up raping during a two-person sexual encounter. This is the caliber of people in Moms for Liberty, that are militantly aggressively establishing how all our children, not just theirs, should be educated. Is this ok with us? Morals, ethics, values have got to play a role here, as well as finances.
She's still on the school board here, too she refused to step down.
Again, it comes down to voting. 50 years ago, Papa Koch realized if public education was starved, the Fascistas would win. So he and his sons started to choose and finance the dumbest bunnies (sorry rabbits) that they could find to run for seats on boards of education. It worked. Why? Because people ignore school board elections, added to that, is the drum beat to starve teachers. Et voilá, you have the present mess. Vote in school board elections, convince the brightest people you know to run for a seat and then work like hell to put them there.
Carol-Ann, what a wonderful positive tactic. It goes to the importance of the down ballot, as all the progressive blogs have been saying. We ignore school board elections and we starve teachers at our peril. As we are now discovering to our dismay. Let's hoist Koch on his own petard, by working diligently in the interregnum for local and state values that will bubble up to the federal level, if we keep working. Bob Reich just had a wonderful blog urging us--"Do not move to the center." What if we had a campaign: "Increase Pay for Public School Teachers!" So what if MAGA nuts criticize it. It's the right thing to do. And it's liberal.
Here in NC the MAGA General Assembly changed our non partisan school board elections to partisan this year. We had 4 excellent Democratic candidates running. Not one made it. 😞
Quick question, Ann, in the end, what percentage of those eligible to vote, did? That's the problem, people don't vote.
Carol, another factor in public school education, besides the purely financial, is that so many of these MAGA people don't want teachers to teach kids facts, history, appreciation of other cultures, etc. They don't WANT their kids to have open minds or to value thinking--much less critical thinking.
That's why they fight against "woke." They prefer we all sleep-walk through life.
Yes, I agree!
Let's not forget the people who decided teachers were untrustworthy, so they invented standardized testing, which began as a plan to test teachers, not students. When they finally decided they could measure a teacher's worth by testing what students know, they began to focus on testing rather than teaching. Teaching became all about how to take the test and succeed, which eats up teaching time. So students missed out on the education we got, which was traded for the need of the state to control what teachers could say in the classroom.
This, so much this--and especially in rural areas. Jess Piper was pointing out that in Missouri the state only pays about 30% of the operating costs of schools, forcing local city and county taxes to be levied. That hurts the rural areas that have less population and less wealth so much more than the cities. It is the same in most of these red states.
The refusal to fund the schools, or properly train our teachers is telling. America needs to pivot and make teaching the pinnacle of achievement, raise up worthy teachers above the Sports or Entertainment heroes. Give them respect; make it cool to be smart.
I’m of the same generation, but I do think there’s a nugget of truth in their “American culture” screed (not a lot, but some). It’s not that we necessarily undervalue education, but we’ve readily accepted ignorance. How many times have we heard adults say “I’m just not good at math”? It’s not uncommon to even hear that from teachers. Ask almost anyone “What’s the last book you’ve read?” and you’ll get a blank look or “I don’t like to read much”. How about TLDR? In our society and culture these responses are perfectly acceptable and this isn’t recent.
If talented and trained workers are lacking in high tech and AI, then why in the world would MAGA want to defund the Department of Education? Seems that what they should do is ramp up science and technology funding just like they did in the 60’s after Sputnik.
Of course that is the opposite of Project 2025 which wants to promote climate denialism and vaccine/public health skepticism.
You are asking for there to be logic behind Project 2025 and its recommendations, and there isn’t. There is only greed and a desire for a Christian nationalist regime that controls everything.
Let's be real, they're not Christians. These people have started calling JESUS woke.
Well, Jesus WAS woke! :) In my opinion, a good thing.
The wokest of the woke. And it was beautiful.
If these people came into contact with anything Jesus said, they'd deny it was true. If they came into contact with Jesus himself, they'd lynch him. They are not Christians. Or maybe they're CHINOs--Christians in name only.
The evangelicals don't talk about Jesus in their sermons - it's all about God. Harold Bloom noticed this and wrote about it in THE AMERICAN RELIGION.
Here's something that not many people know about re American "Christianity."
https://www.neh.gov/article/cane-ridge
Money. If they defund education they save money. If they can hire H1-B immigrants they save money. AND they can keep blaming “too many Mexicans” to get votes. Total win for the oligarchy
Yes, this is the tweet that Musk sent out recently that said just that:
“Investing in Americans is actually hard. Really hard. It costs money and time and effort to make a person productive. It’s a short term net loss. It’s much easier to bring in skilled workers who might not do quite a good a job, but will work for a fraction of the cost and be happy just to be here.”
In other words, who gives a SH** about Americans?
So Musk does not want to spend "money" and put the "time and effort" to make a person productive. But he wants workers who work 'hard' for 'a fraction of the cost'.
This is the Milton Friedman theory of economics: "the main responsibility of a business is to maximize their revenue and increase returns to shareholders."
Sounds as if he wants to run the US government like a business. It is NOT a business.
The clueless always want that. But it requires a completely different set of skills.
Which totally fits in with Musk not paying taxes to support things like schools and Universities. Or roads or the Post Office, or anything. He will use AI robots eventually and conscript humans by inserting brain Chips which will contain a control mechanism for sure. Both Vivek and Musk are actually anti Human.
That recent 2-3 mo. Spending bill ... now we know what the REAL "crisis" was over: President Musk wanted a deal so his AI bots/projects can be made in China. He got it approved.
Agree! They're going to make us hybrid carbon and silicone organisms that do what the machines tell us. Remember 2001, A Space Odyssey when the human astronaut was dominated by the computer HAL? It, like Orwell's 1984, is coming to fruition in 2024.
!!!!!
You seem to have nailed their horrible thinking. Why are brown-skinned Indians ok to these people but brown-skinned Mexicans not?
And bring religion into schools. "We don't have enough STEM grads because they don't pray enough!"
Just think of all the money spent on public education. They have their eyes on that money...and the only way they get it is to privatize, lower costs, produce an inferior product so people don't know what they've lose. Lose for us, win for the wealth hoarders.
That defeats their desire for a theocracy. They want compliant workers who will do as they say.
Debbie! You're too attached to facts! MAGA wants to defund the Department of Education AND have uneducated American workers take all the high-paying jobs requiring education in high tech and AI. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world they live in, there's no contradiction. They want both and they feel they can have both. We are bad, evil liberals if we call that belief into question citing facts.
Who didn’t see this coming? Oh yeah. MAGA didn’t. Trump hates his voters, but he loves their votes. The intelligence of Musk and Ramaswamy really need to be investigated, as they’ve watched MAGA turn on supporters for years and thought it would not happen to them. 😂
So let me get this straight: The right wing has spent decades gutting education and now they're complaining about Americans being too dumb? They're the ones who are too dumb! The rest of us saw this coming and tried to warn them. I feel zero sympathy.
If that post from Vivek was written by a Democrat, it would be declared "tone deaf", anti American and "the reason why Trump won".
The fact that Loomer and Musk have Trump's ear means that we need a lot more popcorn.
Maybe it’s his wounded ear they have. Heh heh heh
Good one
ROFLMAO 🤣 Thank you for this! The real problem faced by the tech bros is that US Citizens don’t have to stick around in a job that doesn’t compensate them at actual market value. My family are all engineers.
I’m a retired CPA and I have had many different clients with workers with the H1B visas and it’s not just the tech bros. I had one client, a large landscaping company, who had regular long time employees from Mexico come up, cut lawns, plant flowers, etc. during the grass growing season. Then the workers went back to Mexico for the winter and the homes/businesses they had there, and did it all over the next year. This is just one small example, but we need workers at all levels!
Yeah, I thought Trump himself used a lot of these people at his properties and for seasonal work.
I doubt that they're legal immigrants.
I really wouldn't call seasonal workers immigrants. They used to issue work Visas. That's what we had with agricultural workers in California. They are good hard working people.
Immigrants just painted my house interior, mainly a gal about 4 foot 8 inches. She couldn't speak English except for thank you. I was really wanting to say i didnt vote for Trump
He does, but only white ones from eastern Europe.
One correction: those were almost certainly not H-1Bs, but probably H-2As or H-2Bs. Totally different visa. They are only grouped in the H family of visas because both are temporary foreign workers. H-1B requires a college degree (with an exception for modeling jobs). H-2A is for agricultural workers. H-2B is for seasonal workers (ski instructors, or sports team members, use it sometimes).
Fishing industries too!
We're a nation of immigrants. If one thing is clearer than another, it's that we need immigrants. Just not clear to MAGA nuts. Emma Lazarus, American poet, wrote:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
From The Bard: "Ambition, insatient cormorant, consuming means, soon preys upon itself."
Very little could make me happier than to see the likes of Musk and MAGA having at each other with vengeance.
I figured out quite a while ago that there was only room for one peacock on the stage, and Musk vs MAGA would soon be here. I am SO happy that it came a lot sooner than I thought it would.
MAY YOU TWO FIGHT TO A PYRRHIC VICTORY LEAVING TWO CORPSES ON THE FIELD.
I'm saving that last line in my quotefile for the next time I need to dramatically exit a drama zone.
It’s a beauty, for sure.
Beautifully stated.
May you be a prophet.
What a good time to completely dismantle the Department of Education!
There's never been a better time for us all to learn the lyrics to 'Schadenfreude' from Avenue Q.
Congress tried to pass a bi-partisan bill to deal with immigration and H1b visas. It failed. The existing laws are a mess, and are not enforced. Allowing more tech visa holders into the US is just a way to depress wages of engineers and programmers. Many well known universities abuse the visa programs. Of course, no number of smart engineers will fix his ugly truck.
The bill failed because Trump ordered it killed.
Remember when Trump said, "Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated?"
It's easy to blame and complain. Far more complex to govern effectively.