But... He wasn't considered a great national figure. He was considered to be a "rich bc he fucked people over constantly" con man who seemed to have less money than he claimed to have.

Do you wish you had attended Trump University? If you said you "graduated" (in quotes because students were not graded" from Trump University, would people take you seriously if you put that on a resume? Would you let someone who graduated from Trump University handle your own finances, knowing they had an education from said school alone?

I don't think so. And that's the crux of all of this. That fake University is the model on which his entire business is built. Say you're giving them the best the biggest and give them something that looks flashy; you'll net a bunch of fools without any good sense of what they're getting into, but pull back the curtain and is the cheapest X Y Z they could sell you at that price.

Similarly, his politics are all one guffaw after another.

Nuclear disarmament from North Korea! Holly shit! Awesome! Ftw! Oh... Wait... You don't have a detailed agreement... What do you mean the word "Denuclearization" doesn't mean the same thing in Korean as in English? Oh, it means they will give up all their nukes because they won't need them anymore because we will get rid of all of ours as well? It's is a made up term from the 90's ??? https://www.npr.org/2018/04/22/604789492/how-does-kim-jong-un-define-denuclearization

Wait, they still have all their nukes and are continuing to produce more? But we had a coin made and everything! And we signed that thing! How could they still be making nukes? We signed a half assed contact! He agreed to my terms that he should agree to keep his nukes until he feels like getting rid of them!

It's just Trump University in nuclear disarmament form. It's a whole bunch of pomp and circumstance. Celebration for celebrations/political sake without any substance. That's why I'm not surprised that they are still producing nuclear weapons and the dumbasses who voted for this assclown are.

Let me get this straight -- some guy trolled 4chan's /pol/ with the most improbable story since that one about a loving god watching over all of us, and Trump supporters sucked it down like it was so many gouts of hot Russian jizz?

I'll answer my own question: yes.

An internet troll on a 4chan -- the site dedicated to stale memes, cam-whoring and Zootopia porn (not that I'd know anything about the latter) -- triggered the stumbling, bumbling collection of idiots who attend Trump rallies like the mouth-breather's version of Triumph of the Will into believing they were the recipients of ULTRA-TOP-SECRET information. Now these people believe they're a movement, and they're going to vote (and hopefully stop there before gunfire is involved) based on this delusion.

Didn't we used to point and laugh at people for shit like this?

What they don't know (muh-ha-ha!) is that this is actually a scheme to identify potential candidates for a new reality show called 'Gullible Island', which will be a cross between Lord of the Flies and Idiocracy. Contestants will be fed a constant stream of conspiracy theories ("Democrats don't want you to know that cyanide is tasty") and then left to their own devices -- at which point the rest of us will turn off the TV and breathe a huge sigh of relief while await Trump 2020: 20 years for treason and 20 years for collusion.

They also recorded part of "Crisis, What Crisis" in LA which is also the tour I first saw them on in '77. Best concert I ever attended, what I can remember of it.

But can you blame 'all' of the problem on Bush/Obama?

I can recall many changes in the 80's from Reagan, huge cuts to school lunch programs, and many attempts to either reduce or totally eliminate the Department of Education.

In 89, Bush Sr. and the Governors of 'every' state held a summit, where they developed some of the first goals for future changes to education. These included some of the first recommended changes to standards-based education.

During both of Clinton's terms they steamed ahead at full speed on these goals, leading to massive changes forcing standards-based education. They implemented ESEA, which was succeeded by the two later programs you mentioned.

So we clearly can't pin it to just one group, as both led the charge at one point or another. This is what I meant by my statement. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives can point a finger and say, "Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?" They both grasped it and wielded it.

So, now as you mention, we have a climate which puts incredible importance on standardized testing. Because of this, and how the schools are funded, students are basically learning how to pass a test based on minimum standards as set by the government. Students aren't taught what they 'can' learn, but what the government thinks they 'should' learn.

I graduated in 1992, so I missed the true first wave of standardized tests. But if I had not been, I know I would have been *incredibly* frustrated at being forced to learn at a slower pace because all students needed to pass. I can almost guarantee I would have acted out, become more of a clown and troublemaker than I actually was in school, because I would have been bored to tears.

As you mention also, we have a highly media based group of children today. I agree cell phones should be not be allowed.

As far as the publishers, perhaps it is less than noble to prey upon the environment that we have currently. I can't blame them, however, because it would be akin to blaming cell phone makers for making products that children want for connectivity to social media. Like any company, they are in it for a profit. It just happens to be that currently the profit is more in tests than innovative learning tools/textbooks. They are simply doing what they have to do, like any corporation. I'm sure a lot of that includes lobbying to keep standards based education in place.

We can blame a lot of different groups, even parents. But that isn't solving the issue. I have my ideas of how to begin fixing it, which may differ from yours because I am not in the 'business' nor do I have children. I would say the following would be some baseline changes I would implement or suggest:

1. School Uniforms - It makes it harder to differentiate between children and helps against the forming of cliques.

2. A complete 180 from standards based education.

3. We have to invest more money into hiring more teachers. Smaller classes means less stress, more personal interaction, and more time for the teacher to be aware of 'problems' before they blow up.

4. Students should only be allowed to access devices owned by the school, ones that are for education and not instagram. What they have available before and after school is on their parents, but they shouldn't have it in class.

5. I will probably take some flack, but I do believe that vouchers should be allowed versus forced public school attendance. Forcing people who cannot afford private schooling to send their children to public education means you remove choice of the quality of learning. Once public schools start to even out in quality due to the aforementioned changes, then we can remove vouchers.

I disagree. Pinpointing the problem isn't very hard if you have some idea of where to look.

As someone who was 'coming of age' in my profession when No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and its successor the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), I can provide some insight into how these policies have been enacted and how both have been detrimental to the public education system as a whole. The former is a GWBush policy, and the latter is an Obama policy meant to mend the original law, so both liberals and conservatives are to blame to some degree, but both are based on the same philosophy of education and teacher-accountability.

There are some other mitigating factors and outside influences at work that should be noted: gun violence, the rise & ubiquity of the internet, and universal cell phone availability, all mostly concentrated in the past 10 years that play a large role. Cell phones, for example, are probably the worst thing to happen to education ever. They distract, they assist in cheating, they perpetuate arguments which can lead to physical altercations, and parents themselves advocate for their use "what if there's an emergency?!?!"

The idea of "teacher accountability" is the biggest culprit though.

Anecdotally, I've caught people cheating on papers. A girl in my honors English class basically plagiarised her entire final paper that we worked on for close to a month. The zero tanked her grade, which was already floundering, and the parent wanted to meet. I'd rather not go into detail to protect both the girl and my own anonymity, but suffice to say, all of the blame for this was aimed directly at me. How? Well I (apparently) "should have caught this sooner and intervened." Now, the final in that class is 8 pages long, I have ~125 students all working on it at the same time. but my ability to check something like that and my workload are beside the point. I'M NOT THE ONE WHO COPY PASTED A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE AND DOCTORED IT UP SO IT COULD SQUEAK BY THE PLAGIARISM DETECTOR (shows she knew what she was doing, IMHO). Yet, I'm still the one being told that I was responsible for what happened.

Teacher-accountability SOUNDS like the right thing to do, but consider the following analogies

--Students are earning poor grades, therefore teachers should be demoted; put on probationary programs; lose some of their salaries; and if they do not improve their test scores, grades, and attendance; be terminated from their positions.

as to

--Impoverished people have poor oral hygiene/health, therefore their dentists should be forced to take pay cuts from insurance companies. If the patients continue to develop cavities and the like, the dentist should be forced to go for further training, and possibly lose his practice.

I have no control over attendance.
I have no control over their home life.
I have no control over children coming to school with holes in their shoes, having not eaten breakfast.

@Mordhaus the part about money grubbing could not be further from the truth.

I'll be brief b/c I know this is already too long for this forum, but Houton Mifflin, McGraw Hill, Etc. Book Company is facing a shortfall of sales in light of the digital age. It may be difficult to blame one entity, but that's a good place to start. They don't sell as many books, but guess who produces and distributes the standardized tests and practice materials? Those same companies who used to sell textbooks by the boatload.

When a student does poorly, they have to retest in order to recieve a diploma. $$$ if they fail again, they retest again and again there is a charge for taking the test and accompanying pretest materials. Each of which has its own fees that go straight to the former textbook companies. See: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/schools/testing/companies.html

In short, there is an incentive for these companies to lobby for an environment where tests are taken and retaken as much as possible. Each time a student has to retest that's more $ in their pocket.

How can they create an enviorment that faccilitates more testing? Put all the blame on the educators rather than the students.

That sounds a little tin-foil-hat conspiracy theory-ish, but the lobbying they do is very real: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/03/30/report-big-education-firms-spend-millions-lobbying-for-pro-testing-policies/?utm_term=.
9af18f0d2064

That, combined with exceptions for charter/private schools where students have the option to opt-out of said testing is skewing the numbers in favor of all of these for-profit companies: http://sanchezcharter.org/state-testing-parent-opt-out/ << one example (you can't opt-out in a public school, at least in my state)

@bobknight33 idk if i'd call business-minded for-profit policies "liberal"

I thought parts of it were cringeworthy, but that that was entirely intentional. Sometimes that cringe is precisely what a comic is going for.

Honestly, I don't remember any of these being a "roast" to the degree that this one was. Thinking back on them in Obama's era, all I can remember is the mic-drop moment when Obama turned the tables and said Dick Cheney was the worst president in his memory, and Keegan-Michael Key being Obama's anger translator. Obama could certainly handle light/moderate jabs directed at him, but I don't remember that being done much if any at these specific events. Maybe it was and I just don't remember it.

Anyway, I think that saying that this upped the ante and went for the jugular significantly more than in the past is almost certainly correct. But that doesn't make it "bad" or "disrespectful" or whatever. I don't care that Trump didn't attend, even though presidents "traditionally" do. Hell, given the whole "fake news" shtick that he is trying to sell, he should have barred any White House staff from attending -- even/especially Press Secretary Sanders.

BUT, then after the event he should have simply said that he didn't watch it and that he doesn't give a rats ass what was said there instead of sulking about it on twitter. Acting all offended just makes him look like a little bitch (and that goes for all the other R's that have whined also).


Anyway, I guess overall I thought her bit was a good but not great set. Doing that material with that mixed audience guarantees that there's going to be some uncomfortable silences and crickets, but she clearly anticipated and managed that quite well. Roasts aren't really my thing, but given the machismo image that Trump tries to push it may well have been the perfect way to bait him into looking like a crybaby in his inevitable response. Mission accomplished?

Yes....but the correspondents dinner is historically a light roast of the administration, one they are expected to attend and laugh at. By it's own standards, this year was fairly tame, but still way too much for the baby in chief and his babysitters who simply cannot take 1/10 of the disrespect they dish out.

We can't abandon humor at the right's expense just because they're incredibly thin skinned babies.

The kids who attend that school and road in or drove a vehicle with the flags waving high do find it enjoyable. People of all ages who wave'm high with pride wear a smile while they do it.

"The closing theme, "WKRP In Cincinnati End Credits," was a hard rock number composed and performed by Jim Ellis, an Atlanta musician who recorded some of the incidental music for the show. According to people who attended the recording sessions, Ellis didn't yet have lyrics for the closing theme, so he improvised a semi-comprehensible story about a bartender to give an idea of how the finished theme would sound. Wilson decided to use the words anyway, since he felt that it would be funny to use lyrics that were deliberate gibberish, as a satire on the incomprehensibility of many rock songs.[21] Because CBS always had an announcer talking over the closing credits, Wilson knew that no one would hear the closing theme lyrics."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WKRP_in_Cincinnati#Musical_themes

MEOWWWWW

Golf trips he charges his secret service agents to attend, since they're his courses and hotels.
They have reportedly requested $60 million per year in additional funding to pay for extra expenses they're obligated to pay at his properties during his trips.
Thanks Obama.

I'm starting a social media campaign to hurt the airline financially because they didn't provide a gluten-free organic lactose-free vegan low-fat meal option for my service rhino. And then I overheard two flight attendants sounding annoyed with my demands so I published the home phone number of the airline CEO. Fucking attention-whores.

Ever read Stephen King's book "The Cell", where people's brains are damaged by cell phones? Look for it in the non-fiction section.

Since you asked so respectfully.....
Taken one point at a time....
1)You are not a special, beautiful, unique snowflake everyone treasures. You are just part of the all singing all dancing decaying compost heap that is humanity. Your parents lied to you.
2) IMO, children under 18 shouldn't have smart phones at all, and should only be allowed to access a highly filtered social media if any at all. Both are highly destructive when misused, and children misuse things, especially when unsupervised as most are. I'm 47 and still don't indulge in either. (Unless the sift counts)
3) I actually think impatience is good....If paired with the drive to make what you want happen yourself and the intelligence to grasp the work required to make it happen and recognize your own abilities. Being impatient while expecting handouts should get anyone nowhere fast.
4) You escape the trap of being unrecognized by your jobs and easily discarded by having skills and making yourself invaluable, not by having no skills (or ubiquitous so worthless skills), social or otherwise, and just expecting advancement for attendance like your childhood.

I agree those he describes were dealt a bad hand....I disagree that this is unique to any one generation. We all had generational issues to overcome. That so many have failed to even attempt to overcome them to better their own lives and instead think the world at large owes them happiness, is at fault for not delivering, and must change to suit them IS a fault of their own, imo, contrary to the narrator's repeated assertions. It may be a flaw their parents fostered, but it's their own personality flaw now, no one else can fix it for them.

from link:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/year-one-list-81-major-trump-achievements-11-obama-legacy-items-repealed/article/2644159

Below are the 12 categories and 81 wins cited by the White House.

Jobs and the economy

Passage of the tax reform bill providing $5.5 billion in cuts and repealing the Obamacare mandate.
Increase of the GDP above 3 percent.
Creation of 1.7 million new jobs, cutting unemployment to 4.1 percent.
Saw the Dow Jones reach record highs.
A rebound in economic confidence to a 17-year high.
A new executive order to boost apprenticeships.
A move to boost computer sciences in Education Department programs.
Prioritizing women-owned businesses for some $500 million in SBA loans.
Killing job-stifling regulations

Signed an Executive Order demanding that two regulations be killed for every new one creates. He beat that big and cut 16 rules and regulations for every one created, saving $8.1 billion.
Signed 15 congressional regulatory cuts.
Withdrew from the Obama-era Paris Climate Agreement, ending the threat of environmental regulations.
Signed an Executive Order cutting the time for infrastructure permit approvals.
Eliminated an Obama rule on streams that Trump felt unfairly targeted the coal industry.
Fair trade

Made good on his campaign promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Opened up the North American Free Trade Agreement for talks to better the deal for the U.S.
Worked to bring companies back to the U.S., and companies like Toyota, Mazda, Broadcom Limited, and Foxconn announced plans to open U.S. plants.
Worked to promote the sale of U.S products abroad.
Made enforcement of U.S. trade laws, especially those that involve national security, a priority.
Ended Obama’s deal with Cuba.
Boosting U.S. energy dominance

The Department of Interior, which has led the way in cutting regulations, opened plans to lease 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling.
Trump traveled the world to promote the sale and use of U.S. energy.
Expanded energy infrastructure projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline snubbed by Obama.
Ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
EPA is reconsidering Obama rules on methane emissions.
Protecting the U.S. homeland

Laid out new principles for reforming immigration and announced plan to end "chain migration," which lets one legal immigrant to bring in dozens of family members.
Made progress to build the border wall with Mexico.
Ended the Obama-era “catch and release” of illegal immigrants.
Boosted the arrests of illegals inside the U.S.
Doubled the number of counties participating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement charged with deporting illegals.
Removed 36 percent more criminal gang members than in fiscal 2016.
Started the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program.
Ditto for other amnesty programs like Deferred Action for Parents of Americans.
Cracking down on some 300 sanctuary cities that defy ICE but still get federal dollars.
Added some 100 new immigration judges.
Protecting communities

Justice announced grants of $98 million to fund 802 new cops.
Justice worked with Central American nations to arrest and charge 4,000 MS-13 members.
Homeland rounded up nearly 800 MS-13 members, an 83 percent one-year increase.
Signed three executive orders aimed at cracking down on international criminal organizations.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions created new National Public Safety Partnership, a cooperative initiative with cities to reduce violent crimes.
Accountability

Trump has nominated 73 federal judges and won his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Ordered ethical standards including a lobbying ban.
Called for a comprehensive plan to reorganize the executive branch.
Ordered an overhaul to modernize the digital government.
Called for a full audit of the Pentagon and its spending.
Combatting opioids

First, the president declared a Nationwide Public Health Emergency on opioids.
His Council of Economic Advisors played a role in determining that overdoses are underreported by as much as 24 percent.
The Department of Health and Human Services laid out a new five-point strategy to fight the crisis.
Justice announced it was scheduling fentanyl substances as a drug class under the Controlled Substances Act.
Justice started a fraud crackdown, arresting more than 400.
The administration added $500 million to fight the crisis.
On National Drug Take Back Day, the Drug Enforcement Agency collected 456 tons.

Helping veterans

Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire failing employees and establish safeguards to protect whistleblowers.
Signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act.
Signed the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, to provide support.
Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017 to authorize $2.1 billion in additional funds for the Veterans Choice Program.
Created a VA hotline.
Had the VA launch an online “Access and Quality Tool,” providing veterans with a way to access wait time and quality of care data.
With VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin, announced three initiatives to expand access to healthcare for veterans using telehealth technology.
Promoting peace through strength

Directed the rebuilding of the military and ordered a new national strategy and nuclear posture review.
Worked to increase defense spending.
Empowered military leaders to “seize the initiative and win,” reducing the need for a White House sign off on every mission.
Directed the revival of the National Space Council to develop space war strategies.
Elevated U.S. Cyber Command into a major warfighting command.
Withdrew from the U.N. Global Compact on Migration, which Trump saw as a threat to borders.
Imposed a travel ban on nations that lack border and anti-terrorism security.
Saw ISIS lose virtually all of its territory.
Pushed for strong action against global outlaw North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons.
Announced a new Afghanistan strategy that strengthens support for U.S. forces at war with terrorism.
NATO increased support for the war in Afghanistan.
Approved a new Iran strategy plan focused on neutralizing the country’s influence in the region.
Ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airbase used in a chemical weapons attack.
Prevented subsequent chemical attacks by announcing a plan to detect them better and warned of future strikes if they were used.
Ordered new sanctions on the dictatorship in Venezuela.
Restoring confidence in and respect for America

Trump won the release of Americans held abroad, often using his personal relationships with world leaders.
Made good on a campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Conducted a historic 12-day trip through Asia, winning new cooperative deals. On the trip, he attended three regional summits to promote American interests.
He traveled to the Middle East and Europe to build new relationships with leaders.
Traveled to Poland and on to Germany for the G-20 meeting where he pushed again for funding of women entrepreneurs.


see link above for more complete

Here's a Canadian example:

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/aly-hindy-salaheddin-islamic-centre

A mosque who's former founder has gone off to lead a team of Al Qaeda linked suicide bombers in Iraq. The mosque Ohmar Khadr's father brought their family to before relocating them to fight for Bin Laden in Pakistan. The mosque attended by the leaders of the largest terrorist ring Canada has broken up thus far. Other members have gone off to join terrorists in Somalia and Egypt.

The question of should we be setting up some manner of legal accountability for an organization that is clearly idealogically supporting these things isn't a clear and obvious, nope, nothing can be done. At least not any more than nope, nothing can be done is clearly the answer to the Vegas shootings.

If you provide aid to 2 separate hurricane incidents that affect white people, but drag your heels when it affects brown people, you might be a racist.

If your reaction to a disaster isn't to help people, and those people are brown, you might be a racist.

If you think that when brown people are dying due to a natural disaster and your argument is that they didn't attend meetings, instead of quickly trying to save lives, you might be a racist.

If your fucking around causes all patients in an ICU ward to die, then you are just a shitty human being.

(Apologies for the use of "brown people", but I didn't have any better way to phrase it right now.)