Tag Archives: Journalism

Diane Ravitch points to the New York State legislature in her blog this week. NY is a Blue State having gone Dem in presidential elections; however, the state legislature is divided with the Dems controlling the Assembly and Repubs the Senate. What makes the New York state legislature interesting is the emergence of a Blue Dog Democrat segment of the State Assembly, which sides with the Senate Republicans on various issues. Blue Dogs (which I kind of like as...

From Kaiser Health News points to other general sources of lead than paint and water: The Environmental Defense Fund, in an analysis of 11 years of federal data, found detectable levels of lead in 20 percent of 2,164 baby food samples. The toxic metal was most commonly found in fruit juices such as grape and apple, root vegetables such as sweet potatoes and carrots, and cookies such as teething biscuits. The organization’s primary focus was on the baby foods...

Via Naked Capitalism comes Brett Robertson’s Why Is PBS Airing Right-Wing-Sponsored School Privatization Propaganda? (Media Matters).  I like Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and sometimes Car Talk while driving to places, if they happen to be on. Otherwise I tend to avoid listening to Marketplace and the news segments. This has been true for me for a decade anyway.  MA rejected increasing the cap on charter schools.   I found many unaware of the lack of oversight and...

Is Trump’s Apprenticeship Program Like His Infrastructure Program? It looks like it might be in a crucial way.  Both involve lots of rhetoric about expanding programs that many support, apprenticeships and infrastructure.  However, on looking at them closer to the extent we can see anything specific aside from the rhetoric, it looks like they involve actual cuts in funding support for existing programs related to both apprenticeships (and more broadly worker...

No, not the Control Theory version of Backstepping developed around 1990 by Petar V. Kokotovic. In the Marine Corp there was a Back Stepping cadence. The entire squad or platoon would move in 15 inch steps backwards after coming to a complete halt. It appears DOE Secretary has started to backstep on her comments on allowing states, Charter schools, and parents decide what is acceptable discrimination. The Senate Committee on Education was not too happy with...

President Trump has proposed budget cuts to programs and the departments running them. Amongst those departments impacted by Trump’s proposals is the Department of Education and it’s Office of Civil Rights. “ The DOE Department of Civil Rights function is to investigate discrimination complaints in school districts across the nation and create standards for responding to allegations of sexual assault and harassment.” Trump’s decreased budget would force cuts...

Lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts: Boring Comment on Kabaservice Have I come up with a title less attractive than “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” ? I certainly don’t expect anyone to read this post. Also I advixe against reading it — it is a waste of time. I am commenting on this NYT op-ed “The Great Performance of Our Failing President”. My first thoughts are that it is too kind to Trump and displays shocking ignorance of history (Kabaservice is a...

“One Hundred Percent” Fake News No, uh-uh, false, wrong. Trump: I’m ’100 percent’ willing to testify under oath — The Hill-2 hours ago Trump: I’m willing to testify under oath about Comey claims — CNN-3 hours ago Trump willing to testify to counter Comey under oath — Talk Media News-35 minutes ago Trump Says He’d Testify Under Oath About Comey — Featured-The Atlantic-2 hours ago Donald Trump did not say he was one hundred percent willing to testify under...

No, record job openings in JOLTS do not mean that everything is Teh Awesome! Once again most of the commentary on yesterday’s JOLTS report for April was that job openings jumped, so everything is Teh Awesome! <  Sigh  > To recap one more time… In the one and only complete business cycle that we have for this data: First, hires peaked. They started a long plateau in 2005, making a 3 month peak in late 2005, with no meaningful progress thereafter. Second,...

Of Memorial Day and Confederate statues Memorial Day is a particularly fitting time to write about the issue of Confederate monuments. That’s because Memorial Day originated as a day set aside to honor the Civil War dead, not just those who fought for the Union, but those on both sides, including those who died in service of the Confederacy.  It was part of the process of magnanimous victory which enabled the country to heal, perhaps epitomized nowhere better...