The Frankish Reich

We're getting something that sounds kind of ... sensible? The Supreme Court is drawing a blurry line, but at least a line. - I own an auto repair shop: state laws banning discrimination are fine. There's no "speech" or artistic expression in fixing a car. - I am a florist. Gay couple wants me to do a special arrangement celebrating their marriage, with some kind of "expression" (those creepy bride/groom figures, but with two grooms). You can't make me create "art" celebrating something I disagree with. - I am a florist. Gay couple comes in, says they want a floral arrangement for their daughter's graduation. No artistic expression celebrating the gay relationship there; just celebrating the graduation. Make the damn arrangement.

Trickle down, baby, trickle down ...

This is so Miami/Orlando ... I do see a lot of the hispanic kids struggle (and remember, I am not in Florida, so it's a different hispanic demographic), mostly because the parents have minimal education and are just happy that the kids are in school at all. That's somewhere I think school outreach could really help. Of course, that also ties into the immigration issue. And that's changing, now that we see a lot of educated Venezuelans and Colombians coming in ...

Kind of a "how it started, how it's going" thing. Here's Trump in 2016: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2016/10/18/donald-trump-rally-colorado-springs-ethics-lobbying-limitations/92377656/ Donald Trump on Tuesday pushed a package of ethics reforms he said would "drain the swamp" of Washington, D.C., including strict limitations on lobbying and a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on Congress. Trump said the proposals, some of which would have to be approved by Congress and others by the American public, would restore faith in what he repeatedly called a rigged system that rewards the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of the common man. Speaking to a rowdy crowd estimated by police at 1,500, Trump said Hillary Clinton has benefited time and time again from system where lobbyists move between government, political campaigns and the private sector. On debate eve, Trump proposes new ethics rules, term limits for Congress “Either we win this election or we lose this country,” Trump said. “Under a Trump administration, it’s going to be America First.” Speaking for the second time in two days about his ethics plan, Trump called for: • A constitutional amendment imposing term limits on members of Congress • A ban on federal employees lobbying the government for five years • A ban on members of Congress lobbying for five years • Tighter rules about what constitutes a lobbyist, instead of letting people call themselves consultants • Campaign finance reform limiting what foreign companies can raise for American political candidates • A ban on senior government officials lobbying for foreign governments “We have to give new voices a chance … so we can have a government that works again and can function properly …” Trump said.

https://www.propublica.org/article/we-found-a-staggering-281-lobbyists-whove-worked-in-the-trump-administration We Found a “Staggering” 281 Lobbyists Who’ve Worked in the Trump Administration That’s one lobbyist for every 14 political appointees, and four times more than Obama had appointed six years into office. But, but, but ... He alone can Drain the Swamp!

Re: Reagan. https://www.whatsbestnext.com/2009/11/leadership-advice-from-ronald-reagan/ Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided on is being carried out. Compare Trump. He started out spouting the Reagan advice: "I have the best people." And then he appointed the people he thought were best - "my generals." And then he fired them. All of them. And fired them again. And got in the way of every decision possible. Got in his own way. And got in trouble by not keeping out of the way. Reagan clearly had dementia, certainly evident by his second term. Maybe Trump did too? One surrounded himself with the best people he could find (well, not all the best - there was James Watt and Oliver North), pointed them in the direction he wanted to go in, and left them alone to do it. One surrounded himself with the best people he could find, immediately began second-guessing them, fired them, and had to rely on a series of "Acting" fools and clownish advisors (Rudy Giuliani, anyone?) by the end.

Totally impressionistic/anectodal: Asian-American parents (or I'll expand it a bit, since I've seen the same thing with children of African immigrants) hold their kids responsible for their own successes and failures. You got a B? You didn't study hard enough! We'll get you a tutor who makes sure you do all the work. White parents: "My kid is very intelligent, he just doesn't test well. One of the other parents said the same thing, and they took him to a psychologist who diagnosed him with ADHD, so now he gets additional time on exams." And typically does a little better, but still trails well behind the tiger mommy kids.

Very true. And I also see a lot of parents who sink tons of money into things that are really unlikely to pay off: club sports travel teams for their good (not great) athlete kids while they give short shrift to the academic side. I know one family where that ostensibly "worked" - the kid got a full ride basketball scholarship to a college nobody's heard of. And then promptly said "I'm out" after being burned out on constant basketball from the age of 6. Meanwhile we see a lot of Asian kids whose parents pay for tutors, extra assignments, violin lessons, even spelling bee coaches. Those latter things don't often translate directly into success (there aren't many jobs for concert violinists or professional spelling bee competitors), but they build study skills that translate into success as doctors, research scientists, etc.

Do you think Reagan was a great leader?

Probably the most annoying thing about Trumpies - they buy his bs that he's the outsider who's ready to continue "draining the swamp," getting rid of that revolving door of government-to-lobbyist-to-government. Check out what his advisors are doing now; this is a great example. Or sometimes he just cuts out the middleman and keeps it all in the family, like with son-in-law Jared and his deals. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

You mean like the poster who responds to everything with "groomer?" Or the one who just says "what a mess?" We've got a lot of those one trick ponies round here!

Let's say that's true. That Biden is pretty much out of it and he's delegated White House decisionmaking to various advisors. Is this such a bad thing? I can't stand Trump. But if he'd left foreign policy decisionmaking to "my generals," tax/spend policy to Paul Ryan, and outsourced judicial nominations to the Federalist Society (something he did stick to), wouldn't his administration been more successful? Wouldn't he (gasp!) still be President? I consider Reagan's presidency to be the most successful overall since FDR. And he famously set a tone and then got the hell out of the way of most decisions. Oh, and was senile by the end to boot. The presidency by committee is a feature, not a bug.

There's some sacrifice by the parents too. I mentioned in another thread that my wife and I drive cars that are over 10 years old. I live in a big city with a big city school system that is, by any account, troubled. Yet I park next to coworkers with beautiful new $100,000 cars who send their kids to those same public schools. I could have had one or two of those if my kids had gone to public school ... (Patting myself on the back)

This has been our experience with our kids. Although not Asian-American, I think maybe my wife and I have a bit of the tiger mommy/daddy thing in us, so we really pushed commitment to schoolwork and excellence. So far, so good. Part of that was probably going the private/catholic school route. Not necessarily because the teachers are better (my impression: they aren't), but because your kid is with a similar group of kids with parents who are heavily committed to academic success. Kind of a self-selection thing. To get a little political here: this is one of the problems with our school boards/officials. We could do the same thing with public/charter schools, setting up some for the academically gifted (I hate that word; academically committed?). But that might require the dreaded "test-in" thing that the progressives hate. So we tend to settle for the lowest common denominator in the public system.

Wow. That's depressing. There's room for snark in this forum (and I'll admit I am a participant in that), but I actually check out these topics because it's kind of like a tiny reddit - there are people who actually have experience in a certain area who can provide some insight into things I don't know much about. So ... how did we get to this place? I know COVID made things worse, but the trend was already well in place. Checked out or entitled parents? Social media distractions? Bad/bloated school administrators? Burned out teachers? All of the above?

Still love my A5, 10 years into its lifespan. Now if they could figure out a way to make an EV version, I'd finally be ready to trade up.

Doral is just far enough inland that it gets zero benefit from the cooler Atlantic waters. Just steam rising from the marshes. A truly miserable place in summer.

I agree. Look, when my kids were younger, I would have appreciated a little notice, like "are you parents o.k. with some drag queens coming to your kid's school to read stories." I would've said thanks, but no thanks. To me it's a purely local control issue. Maybe in some school district in San Francisco the parents would have a different opinion. Good for them. What I am objecting to is the creation of a new political talking point: THEY ARE TRYING TO SUBJECT US TO AN ATTEMPT TO MAKE OUR KIDS GAY. Or trans, or whatever. That's what it is: a newly created talking point, the new attempt to create a wedge issue, the attempt to turn something that local schools and local parents ought to decide just like they always have.

This is hilarious. And very, very much the man-man equivalent of drag. OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE ALERT! EDIT: Ban pro wrestling! Here's openly gay rocker Bob Mould on the homoerotic appeal of pro wrestling. He actually worked on pro wrestling scrips for Ted Turner's WWE rival back in the 90s: Q. When you think about it, pro-wrestling is pretty gay, isn’t it? A. It’s homoerotic. And I think they know it, and they don’t want to acknowledge it too much. They’re tapping into something that is an outlet for a lot of men. Which isn’t to say all men are gay. Up until about five years ago, they catered to all sectors. They tried to get teenage kids, because they’re looking for superheroes, really impressionable, looking for good versus evil. But now, in the last five years, pro-wrestling exposed that it was choreographed, just a show. So now you’ve got Ultimate Fighting Champion, where the old wrestling fans from 18 to 55 went to that, because it’s the same thing, but it’s real. And maybe ban all that Marvel Comics stuff while we're at it. The old congressional committees that had hearings on the bad effects of comic books on our 1950s youth were on to something! From the infamous Central Park Birdwatcher of the Karen incident, who actually works for Marvel: Interviewer: One thing that happened when you were going through puberty is that you realized you were finding some of the superheroes very arousing. And let's face it, I mean, they're usually muscular. They're sometimes dressed in tights or (laughter) very revealing costumes. COOPER: Well, and quite honestly, for me, it didn't even wait until puberty (laughter) for that realization. GROSS: Right, OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What did that say to you? And what was your reaction to realizing that you found the male superheroes, you know, sexually attractive? COOPER: That I needed to keep it under lock and key because it was the '70s, and it was Long Island. And being gay was not a thing, at least not a thing if you wanted to live. So you know, there was no Ellen. There was no Anderson Cooper. None of that had happened yet. Stonewall had barely happened at that point. So I just had to keep it all locked up inside. And that was very difficult - very, very difficult. Why stop with drag queens! To me, a world without WWE, UFC, and Marvel is a better world anyway. Stop all those damn groomers, I say!

Not purely theoretical. Back in the Bush 43 years, Immigration raided a bunch of meat packing plants. They found thousands of illegal Mexican and Guatemalan workers. All were fired. Guess what the company did? They started recruiting in African refugee communities. All those jobs were filled by Somali (Muslim) refugees. Setting aside whether these raids were wise from a policy perspective ... you now have lines composed almost entirely of observant Muslims, all with the same religious restrictions ....

Still classic. You need to go back to it!

And which group is the leader in the clubhouse when it comes to "grooming" (if we must use that stupid word). The traditional seemingly respected authority figures like priests and ministers and coaches boy scout troop leaders? Or the drag queens and pride parade marchers? Any parent who's scared to death that his kid might be molested (or to be honest: might start understanding that he's LGBT; isn't that what this is all about?) can say "make sure you're never in a room alone with that drag queen." The authority figures? Not so easy.

I agree. In the thread about the affirmative action case, someone quoted Justice Thomas: there is no such thing as a policy that favors one race that doesn't disfavor some other race or races. The same thing applies here. The employer in the religious freedom case argued that favoring one set of workers (Christians who honor Sunday as a day of rest) necessarily means that some other workers (those that don't) have to work on what is traditionally a non-work day. A day that is also a day off for their families from work/school. The Supreme Court said "too bad, so sad." The law says you can make that religious Christian work on Sunday if giving him the day off causes a severe burden on the employer, but not on other employees. That's kind of what Justice Thomas was getting at - it's a law/policy that makes us feel good ("honor each individual's religious beliefs" - who could argue with that?) but we shouldn't pretend that it doesn't cost someone else. I will note that the religion case is based on a federal statute, not directly on the constitution, so that's different. And Congress can rewrite a statute. They won't. But they should. The pendulum has swung too far in the direction of protecting the religious and against the interests of the nonreligious.

Look, I don't disagree with how the Court handled this case under the law. But you do make a good point: the Supreme Court here decided that negative impacts on other workers don't matter. So let's say I work on an assembly line. To operate properly you need 5 employees on duty at all times. The company has 10 employees; 5 of them are Orthodox Jews (this is an interesting assembly line ...). The Orthodox Jews cannot work on Saturdays. We bid, based on seniority, on work schedules. Everyone wants Saturday off. Guess what? If I'm one of the non-Jewish employees, I guess I'm working every Saturday. So ... correct under the law, but maybe the law is a little too protective of religious rights?

Just because YOU live in a van down by the river ...