Impeach Obama!

[Pheidippides]

Every so often here in H-town, we get protesters of one sort or another in the tunnels during lunchtime.

Today's group was priceless. Group of what looked to be student-types, one dressed in a big Uncle Sam Costume, handing out flyers and crying for the impeachment of Obama.

Their premise: Obama is proposing to cut funding to NASA (apparently) and therefore should be impeached.

I would loved to have had a discussion with them on those grounds for impeachment from a legal perspective. But I had already planned to spend lunch today mulling over the book I am writing, so I walked on past, hopeful the crazy wouldn't rub off.

[beelzebabette]

mulling over the book I am writing

Forget the rest of this post. Have you mentioned this before?

[thesaint258]

Forget the rest of this post. Have you mentioned this before?

That's what I was wondering. I'd like to hear about this book.

[Pheidippides]

Forget the rest of this post. Have you mentioned this before?

Only in passing. It's a book about crazy political shennanigans. This event is going to make it's place into chapter 1.

(which is to say, no I'm not - a bad attempt at showing how little time I wanted to spend discussing stuff)

[beelzebabette]

(which is to say, no)

Good thing it was long ago established on this site that I'm kind of special so I don't have to confess it again.

[venkman]

Every so often here in H-town, we get protesters of one sort or another in the tunnels during lunchtime.

Today's group was priceless. Group of what looked to be student-types, one dressed in a big Uncle Sam Costume, handing out flyers and crying for the impeachment of Obama.

Their premise: Obama is proposing to cut funding to NASA (apparently) and therefore should be impeached.

I would loved to have had a discussion with them on those grounds for impeachment from a legal perspective. But I had already planned to spend lunch today mulling over the book I am writing, so I walked on past, hopeful the crazy wouldn't rub off.

I think it's pretty sad and pathetic that NASA is essentially out of the space business, but I'm pretty sure that that doesn't rise to the level of impeachment.

[il Padrino Ute]

No, if Obama is to be impeached, it should be for continuing Bush policies.

[cowboy]

Every so often here in H-town, we get protesters of one sort or another in the tunnels during lunchtime.

Today's group was priceless. Group of what looked to be student-types, one dressed in a big Uncle Sam Costume, handing out flyers and crying for the impeachment of Obama.

Their premise: Obama is proposing to cut funding to NASA (apparently) and therefore should be impeached.

I would loved to have had a discussion with them on those grounds for impeachment from a legal perspective. But I had already planned to spend lunch today mulling over the book I am writing, so I walked on past, hopeful the crazy wouldn't rub off.

It must be a national demonstration. We had one here, too. I'm in Nashville at the moment and saw a demonstration on my way to meetings. I was in a hurry to meet with the record producer who wants to record one of my songs, though, so I didn't have time to stop.

[byu71]

I am willing to be taught on the subject, but from where I sit right now there are real pressing problems dealing with people and their everyday lives. There truly isn't enough money to do everything people would like to do.

So why the heck right now would we want to figure out if there is water on one of Saturns moons that will support amoebic (I know I butchered it) life.

Let the Chinese figure it out, they have the money.

[Moliere]

I need to visit your end of the tunnels more often. I usually just get some Indian guy handing out menus for his family restaurant with a snicker bar (fun size) attached.

[Uncle Ted]

Why do educational text books cost so much?... Ask the Obamas:

Embedded Tweet

Well played, Barry. Well played.

(Pearson Publishing owns Penguin Random House)

[beefytee]

That is quite a feat considering the federal government doesn't buy any textbook and while a bunch of money came from the federal government through the "Race to the Top" initiative ($350 million is a small chunk compared to $4.35 billion for race to the top), it was states that got the funding and decided what to do with it.

Here is where the Common core funding initially came from:

Development of the Common Core Standards was funded by the governors and state schools chiefs, with additional support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pearson Publishing Company, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and others.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common...rds_Initiative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Top

[Uncle Ted]

That is quite a feat considering the federal government doesn't buy any textbook and while a bunch of money came from the federal government through the "Race to the Top" initiative ($350 million is a small chunk compared to $4.35 billion for race to the top), it was states that got the funding and decided what to do with it.

Here is where the Common core funding initially came from:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common...rds_Initiative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_to_the_Top

The federal government funded two multistate consortia, PARCC and Smarter Balanced, to the tune of $350 million, to create new Common Core-aligned tests for math and English language arts. These were "field-tested" by around 4 million students in the spring of 2014 in preparation for release in the spring of 2015. Field-testing means testing the tests, not testing the kids.


In addition, Pearson Education, the largest education publisher, produced Common Core-aligned tests that were given for the first time in 2012 to students in Kentucky, and in 2013 to kids in New York state.

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014...ommon-core-faq

[Uncle Ted]

It seems that Pearson's involvement with Common Core was very lucrative for them... Throwing $65m to the Obamas was well worth it.

Common Core: ‘the gift that Pearson counts on to keep giving’
[...]
In June 2014, Fox News reported the estimated value of the PARCC contract to be $240 million per year. As the Education Week report continues:

In court documents, AIR officials say they would have submitted an official proposal to do the testing work, if they thought the bidding process was fair. But they ultimately did not believe they had a legitimate chance to win, and so they decided not to turn in a proposal.


In the end, Pearson ended up being the only bidder, a PARCC state official told EdWeek. . .

[...]
An issue leading to Pearson’s losing its lucrative Texas testing contract (the most recent of which was a five-year contract worth $468 million) involved the sentiment that through that contract, Pearson had become too influential over Texas public education.
[...]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...o-keep-giving/

[beefytee]

I'm well aware of Pearson benefiting very much from Common Core and Race to the Top as did McGraw-Hill and other publisher in Education related companies.

The Obama book deal is likely to be very beneficial to Penguin/Random House as well.