Eh, as a friend just pointed out to me the Somali community in Minneapolis seems to have largely adapted to the change in climate and hung together. The key is to get sponsoring organizations that help keep the community in tact, the way we’ve done for a bunch of refugee groups that came in waves (not so much when…

You just need to turn that into 15 power point slides, maybe a short animated video with the most boring voiceover talent you can find, a 60 page handout (which can be 50 pages of vignettes of your decision tree) and a quiz/printable certificate of completion and bingo: you’ve got yourself a new career as a speaker on…

Michigan has a lot of cheap property and could use an infusion of Democrats. Or expand the growing Hispanic population of Chicago NW into Wisconsin, maybe? Philly would also be a not terrible choice. The possibilities to shape electoral politics in this country are fascinating if you go full Machiavelli with it.

Some illustrations, in case any one is unclear about the shift in the GOP:

Not the flag per se, but the “imagined community” the flag represents to use the phrase of Benedict Anderson, all the damn time. Modern states need the symbolism to hold together in the absence of massive government coercion - because otherwise just about everyone would have the same reaction to being told to go to…

Yeah, because finding 6'4" guys who can run all day, love bashing people and have soft hands to serve as props, hookers and locks would be sooooo easy, right? Because Tony Gonzalez and Antonio Gates types are a dime a dozen. You’d basically need the NFL to implode, and the NBA and NHL to weaken significantly, for the…

I used that phrasing specifically to include the Lewinsky affair, his well known consensual philandering, Paula Jones’ accusations and the entire Bill Clinton sexual portfolio. Because while the technical basis for the impeachment was the cheating, his entire sexual history was the focus of a ton of scrutiny (contra…

Absolutely - and those dogs just wanted to play when they were biting people and dragging them to the ground. And the guy hitting John Lewis in the head with the baton was just trying to point out emphatically that it isn’t safe to walk in the public roadways.

You mean like several years of investigations, actually being impeached by the House of Representatives, being disbarred by the Supreme Court for lying in his deposition and being an anchor on Hillary’s campaign specifically because of the allegations against him? Because - unlike the current President’s sycophantic…

“Should” is very clearly not mandatory - and for good reason, because if they tried to make it mandatory they’d either be grossly inconsistent or fining every guy who a) doesn’t want to hold his helmet b) like the President can’t stand still for the anthem or c) so much as whispers to a teammate. That would be so…

When it no longer serves the Heritage Foundation and Koch Brothers network to have him covering the fact he’s basically handed them the environment/land use, judiciary, tax policy and education (among other things) in a way no sane person who actually wanted to get re-elected would. By being so checked out about the…

Well, while we are at it can we get shitty attorneys to stop giving press releases parroting their damn complaint language generally? I get the temptation but is anyone actually moved by this sort of bullshit statement?

Let’s see how this Profile in Courage stacks up:

We settled this freaking 70+ years ago - you can’t expel students for not saying the pledge or otherwise acknowledging the flag(West Virginia v. Barnette) . You can’t expel or threaten students for taking peaceful, non-disruptive of class purpose/learning protests like silent actions/arm bands (Tinker v. Des Moines).…

I’m only in the academy by the skin of my teeth, and I’m here because I love teaching and my social deficits make working at any other career a long slow nightmare. I can’t even comprehend what it would be like for being here to be conditioned on putting up with overt sexual harassment on top of all the bullshit it…

Thanks for this. I always try to explain to my students about the propaganda wars of the 18th century (including things we venerate like The Federalist Papers but also stuff like George Clinton and Hamilton slagging each other much more overtly in print) and how basically the political animus you see today is very…

That’s just pure bullshit by the teacher and the school. No teacher, public or private, has a right to become a one person enforcement squad. I’m not an expert in school law, but generally private elementary schools are still subject to general laws about things like child abuse and physical contact with students.…

Again, just to be clear, schools don’t need probable cause at all, just reasonable suspicion (I realize the school is contesting that they ever gave permission/requested the search, but the question posed was whether schools can ever do an intrusive search). If the school wanted to do a locker sweep, and use dogs for…

It was a little more nuanced than that (the searched girl gave several pills to her friend, who gave them out to others and at least one was prescription strength - but yeah, all minor pain killers). Basically it was one student ratting out “drug dealers” and specifically a girl with a bad reputation who then…

The first civil suit of this nature already went all the way to the Supreme Court. We already know that to perform an intrusive search, even in a school setting, school officials (who can authorize law enforcement to carry out the search) need a reasonable suspicion that justifies that specific search - not just a…