Trump dump

DeVos to Announce New Push for Deregulation, Innovation
(Inside Higher Ed)
     Top Education Department official describes plan to "rethink" higher-education standards through new rule-making process, to be announced today, on accreditation, the credit hour standard, the faculty role online and more.

     The Trump administration says it wants more innovation in higher education. And it believes rewriting the rules for college accrediting agencies is the best way to encourage innovation.
     In an exclusive interview with Inside Higher Ed, the administration's top higher education official described the philosophy behind the latest proposed regulatory overhaul, which the U.S. Department of Education unveiled Monday by introducing a wide-reaching rule-making session.
     The changes the department is mulling give the clearest sign so far of an affirmative higher education agenda from the Trump administration, which in its first 18 months has focused on blocking or watering down key Obama administration initiatives. The proposals could have far-reaching effects on the educational models colleges pursue, as well as for noncollege education providers.
     Diane Auer Jones, the department's principal deputy under secretary, delegated to perform the duties of under secretary and assistant secretary for postsecondary education, said the administration's goal is to reduce compliance requirements for accreditors, freeing them up to focus on educational quality while more clearly defining the college oversight roles of those agencies, state governments and federal regulators. The broad plan from Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to "rethink" higher education is a stark contrast to the Obama administration's approach, which made a signature policy of tougher scrutiny of accreditors, often citing oversight failures involving low-performing for-profit colleges.
     “Accreditation is right at the crux of almost everything you do in higher ed,” Jones said last week. “We’re looking at every aspect of accreditation and saying, ‘Does this make sense?’”
     In what will be the one of the most controversial proposals, she said the department wants to drop a standardized definition for academic course work, known as the credit hour, that the Obama administration rewrote in 2010 to curb credit inflation. The rule-making session also will feature a re-examination of requirements for online education, including faculty interaction and state authorization rules. In addition, Jones said, negotiators will be tasked with evaluating rules for competency-based education and the outsourcing of academic programs to nonaccredited providers and considering changes to the federal aid eligibility of religious institutions….

It's the day of the locust ("It's kinda strange, like a stormy sea")

It's a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as [hollow] as it can be
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

I never thought this could happen to me
I feel strange, why should it be?
I don't deserve somebody this great, oh, oh
I'd better go or it'll be too late

Ah!

Something comes and something goes
And something dies before it grows
And I'm like a sea diver
Who's lost in space

I see the sharks are in the water like slicks of ink
Hell, there's one there bigger than a submarine
As he circles, I look in his eye
I see Jonah in his belly by the campfire light

They're closing in ("Holy crap"!)

Trump knew about 2016 meeting with Russians before it happened, Cohen asserts
(NBC News)

U.S. President Donald Trump's former attorney asserts that Trump knew in advance about a 2016 meeting between his campaign staff and Russians who claimed to have compromising information on Hillary Clinton, according to NBC News.

Citing a knowledgeable source, NBC reported that the attorney, Michael Cohen, says that President Trump was told ahead of time about the meeting by his son, Donald Trump Jr.

Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, NBC said. Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin during the U.S. presidential election.... (See)

Bombshell Report: Michael Cohen Claims Trump Knew About Infamous Trump Tower Meeting
(Mother Jones)
According to CNN, Donald Trump’s former personal attorney is willing to refute the president’s denials.
BEN DREYFUSS - JUL. 26, 2018 10:25 PM

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said....

Michael Cohen just dropped a collusion bombshell in the Russia investigation
(CNN)
Analysis by Chris Cillizza

Holy crap….

CAL community colleges

Keep your eye on the guise!

California Community Colleges Reach Transfer Agreement With Private Institutions
(Inside Higher Ed)
By Ashley A. Smith
July 26, 2018

     The California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office announced Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities that guarantees community college students acceptance to 36 private, nonprofit, four-year institutions through the Associate Degree for Transfer pathway program.
     The degree program streamlines transfers between community colleges and four-year institutions. The participating four-year institutions include Mills College, Pepperdine University and Whittier College.
     The transfer program has guaranteed acceptance to four-year institutions in the California State University system since 2011. The community colleges entered a similar agreement with the University of California system in April.
     Last year about 8,100 students from the two-year system transferred to a private, four-year institution in the state, according to data from the chancellor's office….

Abidingly corrupt OC

County Won’t Name Everyone Who Broke Campaign Money Laws (Voice of OC)

     Orange County enforcement officials declined this week to make public the names of all candidates and donors caught violating the county’s campaign money laws, while similar enforcement offices elsewhere in California post such information online.
     The county’s campaign money law limits candidates to receiving $2,000 per donor each election cycle and requires disclosure of each donor’s occupation and employer. Intentional violations are a misdemeanor.
     County officials, who report to the Orange County Board of Supervisors, took on the non-criminal enforcement duties in April 2017, after voters approved an ethics enforcement measure.
     But supervisors structured the county enforcement so that when violators are caught by the county enforcement officials, they can return the illegal money and the matter can go away quietly.
. . .
     Terry Francke, an expert in California public records law, said he’s not aware of any exemptions that would allow the county to keep the campaign money complaints and findings secret.
     “It sounds kind of dubious to me,” said Francke, who serves as general counsel of the transparency group Californians Aware and is Voice of OC’s public records consultant, adding he’d be interested in seeing their full legal justification for it.
     County officials didn’t have an answer Tuesday when asked what their legal justification is for keeping the information secret....

The Democratic Alternative (Inside Higher Ed)

     The minority party offers its take on the Higher Education Act, including free community college, larger Pell Grants and tougher accountability -- including regulations targeting for-profit colleges.

     Just in time for midterm election season, Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday released details of a comprehensive higher education bill they say will ensure every student has the chance to get a postsecondary education without debt.
     The bill has no chance of passage with Republicans in control of Congress and the White House. But Democrats plan to contrast the proposals in the bill with GOP legislation to overhaul the Higher Education Act. And the bill signals where Democrats might go on higher ed policy if they regain control of the House of Representatives in the fall.
     The GOP bill, the PROSPER Act, eliminated regulations on for-profit colleges, would have dropped benefits for student borrowers like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and streamlined other student aid programs.
     The Democrats’ bill is almost a point-by-point rejection of PROSPER, making current accountability rules tougher and directing new federal funds to student aid and programs for college readiness and completion. Virginia Democrat Bobby Scott, the ranking Democrat on the House education committee, said the legislation stands in stark contrast to the PROSPER Act....

BOOM! Thanks to NYT, the Trump saga enters a new and darker phase, starting tomorrow

Why muddy a clear message of a nation in danger?

From the Start, Trump Has Muddied a Clear Message: Putin Interfered (NYT)

By DAVID E. SANGER and MATTHEW ROSENBERG
July 19

     Weeks before taking office, Donald J. Trump learned of highly sensitive intelligence about Russian election interference, but he has done all he can to suggest other explanations for the hacks.

     If the Times has this right, Trump has known that Putin ordered the interference with our election since early January, 2017.
     That means that Trump has been protecting his pal Putin all this time. He's been obstructing justice.
     BOOM!

The "resignation" episode?

Aargh! Things are gettin' Biblical!

Fox on Trump: "[he] sounds insane"

Quick! Clean up!

Press conference clip:

00:23

Reporter: “Is Russia still targeting the US, Mr. President?”

Trump: “no.”

01:10

Trump: “There’s never been a President as tough on Russia as I have been.”

Fox gang:
01:18
Fox host 1: "All right, so the President there talking about, uh, his record with Russia—'as well as anybody has ever done with Russia'...."

. . .

Fox host 2: [Trump was asked:] “‘Are they [the Russians] still meddling?’… and [Trump] said ‘no,’ … all he said was ‘no,’ which sounds insane.”

Clean up the clean-up!

Fox host 3: “It does sound insane.”

Fox host 2: “It could be that he believes we’re stopping the meddling at this point….”

Fox host 3: “We’re working really hard to make this sound reasonable….”

Fox host 2: "No no no no, I’m not working hard to make it sound reasonable, because it doesn’t sound remotely reasonable; …it sounds insane….”

* * *

     NOT LONG AFTER, Trump's press secretary held a press conference in which she stated that Trump's "no" was a "no" to further questions, not to whether Russia is still meddling.
     Nobody's buying that one either.

The English Major

The Evolving English Major (Inside Higher Ed)
     Report documents decline in numbers of majors but growth in new tracks. Of the specializations within major, writing is doing relatively well, and literature not so much.
By Colleen Flaherty
July 18, 2018

     Bachelor’s degrees conferred to English majors are down 20 percent since 2012, but responsive departments that know how to market their worth to students are finding ways to thrive, says a new analysis from the Association of Departments of English, or ADE. The group, which is part of the Modern Language Association, says its report is the most comprehensive study of English departments to date.
     “While declines in the number of undergraduate majors have affected English departments widely and at all types of institutions, most departments are exploring ways to respond,” reads “A Changing Major: The Report of the 2016-17 ADE Ad Hoc Committee on the English Major,” released today.... (continued)

Watch: Republican leadership will now sink to a new and almost unimaginable low, defending a manifestly treasonous President

Trusts murderous autocrat Putin more than his own Justice Dept.

Richard Nixon's resignation: the day before, a moment of truth
(The Christian Science Monitor, 8-7-14)
     Forty years ago, a Republican delegation led by Barry Goldwater told Richard Nixon he had lost almost all his remaining support in Congress. The next day, he resigned.

Nixon Slide From Power: Backers Gave Final Push
(NYT, 8-12-74)

     The situation, said Senator Scott, was “gloomy.”
     “It sounds damn gloomy, Mr. Nixon replied.
     “Hopeless,” said Senator Goldwater.
     As the meeting ended, Mr. Nixon hinted that he understood there was only one option and that, perhaps, he had known it all along.

     Will such a delegation materialize now?
     Of course not.
     "Hopeless"?

Treasonous Trump —The President as Russian stooge

Even for Fox: "just plain old wrong"

Gingrich: Trump committed ‘most serious mistake of his presidency’ at Putin summit
(NY Post)

LEMIRE'S POINTED QUESTION

The idiot abroad: insane, insulting, incendiary

Trump, May and Brexit: today's front pages (Guardian UK)

"He's not my hero! I'm a communist, you idiot!'

The Real F.B.I. Election Culprit 
(NYT)

     In his testimony before two House committees on Thursday, the F.B.I. agent Peter Strzok testified that he could have altered the 2016 election — but didn’t. The information about Russian election interference, he said, “had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.”
     In hours of always hostile and sometimes even rude questioning, the Republican members of the committees never proved otherwise. The hearing was the latest effort by House Republicans to find any hint that there’s a “deep state” conspiracy against President Trump….
. . .
     The F.B.I. agent corps today overwhelmingly fits the demographic profile of a Trump voter. During the 2016 campaign, in The Guardian, one agent said, “The F.B.I. is Trumpland.” In his testimony, Mr. Strzok all but laughed out loud when committee members pressed him Thursday on whether the whole F.B.I. was made up of Democrats.
     The New York field office, one of only three headed not by a special-agent-in-charge but by a full assistant director, has always been a particular challenge for bureau leaders — it’s fiercely independent, combative and notoriously leaky. The office, which works closely with the local United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, a job held by both Mr. Comey and Mr. Giuliani, is sometimes referred to inside the Justice Department as the “Sovereign District of New York” for charting its own course.
. . .
     We need to understand the truth of the 2016 election — not just for the record, but to take steps to prevent any interference in future elections. Mr. Strzok survived the worst the House Republicans could throw at him, including a threat to charge him with contempt for refusing to answer questions on the advice of the F.B.I.’s counsel about an ongoing investigation — a hallmark of the rule of law in ordinary times. Until congressional overseers make a serious attempt to get to the bottom of the New York field office’s role in the election, we’ll know they’re not serious about learning the truth.

Summer sounds

Well, I feel like an old hobo, I'm sad, lonesome and blue
I was fair as a summer's day, now the summer days are through

Even I've taken my chances
Even I've taken my chances
On you and I know

When we laugh into the microphone and sing
With our sunglasses on to our favorite songs

You surely must be trying to break this heart of mine
I thought you knew I loved you and we'd share a love so fine

I was drowned, I was washed up and left for dead
I fell down to my feet and I saw they bled , yeah yeah
I frowned at the crumbs of a crust of bread

     "I consider myself a conservative to a certain extent—you know, I moonlight as an LGBT advocate, I run an LGBT advocacy organization that works with Republicans…and we make the case that freedom is freedom for everyone, and where that really lends itself at this moment in time is to securing full civil rights protections to LGBT Americans because there are still 28 states where you can be fired for being gay—all these things that many Republicans don’t know—and those states are mostly red states, so you need Republicans to engage Republicans on that front. There are many people who are socially conservative who would not say that I’m conservative because of those views."

     [For a helpful account of Buckley's efforts to pull together a conservative movement, consider E.J. Dionne's Why Americans Hate Politics]

Caltech Drops SAT/ACT Writing Test (Inside Higher Ed)

     The California Institute of Technology has announced that it is dropping a requirement that applicants submit the SAT or ACT writing test. Caltech's move follows those of Stanford and Princeton Universities last week. Only 22 colleges appear to still require the writing test, although millions of students take the exams every year. A statement from Caltech said, "Writing and communications skills are valued highly by Caltech and will continue to be evaluated through the information collected in the SAT/ACT verbal sections as well as through required application essays. With this policy, Caltech aims to streamline the application process and eliminate additional testing fees incurred by applicants."....

Under Canvas

Canvas Catches, and Maybe Passes, Blackboard (Inside Higher Ed)
     Blackboard dominated the U.S. learning management system market for 20 years, but new data show its cloud-based competitor edging past it.

By Lindsay McKenzie
July 10, 2018

   Canvas has unseated Blackboard Learn as the leading LMS [Learning Management System] at U.S. colleges and universities, according to new data from MindWires Consulting.
     In a blog post on Monday, Michael Feldstein, partner at MindWires Consulting and co-publisher of the e-Literate blog, wrote that Canvas now has 1,218 installations at U.S. institutions, compared with Blackboard’s 1,216. Although the two-figure difference may seem insignificant -- and Blackboard and some of its allies say the data don't accurately reflect the two companies' relative reach -- most analysts agree that Canvas's ascent, largely at Blackboard's expense, is noteworthy.
     “This is a stunning development for a company that seemed to have established an unbreakable market dominance a decade ago,” wrote Feldstein.
     At its peak in 2006, Blackboard controlled approximately 70 percent of the U.S. and Canadian market, with its nearest competitors “far, far behind,” said Feldstein. But slowly Canvas, and others such as Moodle and D2L’s Brightspace, have closed the gap.
Blackboard and Canvas now each control 28 percent of the U.S. higher ed LMS market, followed by 23 percent for Moodle and 12 percent for Brightspace, according to MindWires Consulting's data partner, LISTedTECH.

     The rise of Canvas to near market dominance is one that “nobody would have predicted,” said Feldstein.
     The Canvas LMS is offered by Instructure, a company that was established in 2008 -- several years later than Moodle (2002), D2L (1999) and Blackboard (1997).
     Yet Canvas’s “cloud-based offering, updated user interface, reputation for outstanding customer service and brash, in-your-face branding” have helped it to surpass these more established systems, said Feldstein…. (continue)

Hey, baby, it's the 4th of July!

She's waiting for me
When I get home from work
Oh, but things just ain't the same
She turns out the lights
And cries in the dark
And she won't answer when I call her name

Well it's been building up inside of me

For oh I don't know how long

I don't know why

But I keep thinking

Something's bound to go wrong

But she looks in my eyes

Well it seems that everyone we've known
Their love's grown cold, hearts turn to stone
One by one they break, it's such a shame
And now you say you wanna do the same

And each girl in my little red book
Knows you're the one I'm thinking of
Won't you please come back [to me]?
Without your precious love I can't go on
Where can [love] be?

Hey, little girl, you don't have to hide nothin' no more
You didn't do nothin' that hadn't been done before

Stopped in to a church I passed along the way

Well I got down on my knees

(got down on my knees)

And I pretend to pray

The GOP: should I cool it or should I BLOW?

I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over.
—Max Boot, WashPost

Conservative, Max Boot

   “Should I stay or should I go now?” That question, posed by the eminent political philosophers known as The Clash, is one that confronts any Republican with a glimmer of conscience. You used to belong to a conservative party with a white-nationalist fringe. Now it’s a white-nationalist party with a conservative fringe. If you’re part of that fringe, what should you do?
. . .
     [Veteran Republican strategist Steve] Schmidt follows in the illustrious footsteps of Post columnist George F. Will, former senator Gordon Humphrey, former representative (and Post columnist) Joe Scarborough, Reagan and Bush (both) aide Peter Wehner, and other Republicans who have left the party. I’m with them. After a lifetime as a Republican, I re-registered as an independent on the day after Donald Trump’s election.

GOP: "Whatever Trump says."

     Explaining my decision, I noted that Trumpkins “want to transform the GOP into a European-style nationalist party that opposes cuts in entitlement programs, believes in deportation of undocumented immigrants, white identity politics, protectionism and isolationism backed by hyper-macho threats to bomb the living daylights out of anyone who messes with us.” I still hoped then that traditional conservatives might eventually prevail but, I wrote, “I can no longer support a party that doesn’t know what it stands for – and that in fact may stand for positions that I find repugnant.”

     I am more convinced than ever that I made the right decision. The transformation I feared has taken place. Just look at the reaction to President Trump’s barbarous policy of taking children away from their parents as punishment for the misdemeanor offense of illegally entering the country. While two-thirds of Americans disapproved of this state-sanctioned child abuse, forcing the president to back down, a majority of Republicans approved. If Trump announced he were going to spit-roast immigrant kids and eat them on national TV (apologies to Jonathan Swift), most Republicans probably would approve of that too. The entire Republican platform can now be reduced to three words: Whatever Trump says.
. . .

A progressive Demo Party?

     Personally, I’ve thrown up my hands in despair at the debased state of the GOP. I don’t want to be identified with the party of the child-snatchers….
     …The current GOP still has a few resemblances to the party of old — it still cuts taxes and supports conservative judges. But a vote for the GOP in November is also a vote for egregious obstruction of justice, rampant conflicts of interest, the demonization of minorities, the debasement of political discourse, the alienation of America’s allies, the end of free trade and the appeasement of dictators.
     That is why I join [George] Will and other principled conservatives, both current and former Republicans, in rooting for a Democratic takeover of both houses in November. Like postwar Germany and Japan, the Republican Party must first be destroyed before it can be rebuilt.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO 

GO NOW

STAY