US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians

 

[Harvey Danger]

Universal Pre-K seems like one of those ideas that started off with good intentions (getting younger kids off to a good educational start) only to became politicized to the point the only people that benefit from the program are the ones making money off of it. It's unsurprising to see how many good ideas suffer a reverse Midas Touch once the politicians get their proverbial hands on them.

Good intentions yes, but it was an organic failure even before the grift set in.

Spoiler: extremely long history of VPK issues

VPK (voluntary Pre-Kindergarten) was originally an intervention program. Poor kids, usually from broken or stressed homes, would start out kindergarten with low achievement results and grow less than their peers. This lower learning achievement was found to carry over into 1-5 grades, which ultimately left them near the bottom of their class entering middle and high school.

So the idea was, you target these kids for additional instruction when it's cheaper to deliver, get them on par with their peers, then they're on even footing for their entire K-12 schooling. The first VPK programs were extremely targeted, at the poorest, most at-risk, and least developed kids in the school systems. And it did seem to work--those VPK kids entered kindergarten and 1st grade at the same level or slightly higher than their middle class peers.

This was instantly seized on as a golden opportunity to address socio-economic learning gaps. You may have guessed by now that a lot of these targeted students tended to be minorities, along with some poor rural white kids. This was the first program in literal decades that promised to close those embarrassing achievement/grades gap that stubbornly stayed around no matter how much money or new curriculum we threw at education.

At this point, two problems developed simultaneously. The first is that the kids in those initial programs continued to grow and be tracked. Turns out all the VPK gains disappeared by 3rd or 4th grades; they performed the same as kids with their same demographic profile who did not go to VPK. The boost is strongest in K and 1st grades, drops in 2nd, drops and almost disappears in 3rd, and by 4th it's either gone or so small it's in the margin of error. This finding was very robust, turning up everywhere, no matter what demographics were participating. VPK is not the long-lasting fix educators were hoping for.

The second problem is the political grift had started up. Politicians love to campaign on throwing money at education, even more if they can promise it will help "disadvantaged" kids. But social programs have a problem, that taxpayers (naturally enough) don't want to pay for them if they themselves don't get any benefit. Combine the two effects, and VPK wound up being a universal program for all kids, instead of just the few needy students it supposedly boosted.

By the time those long-term results were becoming widely known, VPK programs were already established. Now it becomes a political problem: politicians can't campaign on cancelling a popular education program, or cancelling a jobs program. Many programs were also pitched with the minority/POC rhetoric, making them even trickier to oppose.

Spoiler: jobs jobs jobs

As I mentioned, they quickly became a glorified jobs program. School districts have a continuing problem attracting and retaining good teachers. The only way they could staff a completely new "grade" was to make the qualifications basically non-existent. To be fair, any functioning adult should be able to teach at kindergarten level, and this was even more basic than that; shapes, colors, crafts, and babysitting.

The solution was to adopt a standardized curriculum that laid out daily lessons for teachers, then let anyone who could babysit a group of kids become a VPK "teacher". Also, they didn't require VPK classes to be tied to an existing school, anyone could start a VPK-only school. New VPK-only "learning centers" sprang up in every neighborhood, all offering free boosts to parents who didn't mind a government-financed break from watching their 3-4 year old kids.

So who benefits? The VPK teachers are nearly 100% women, almost all have their own kids or are experienced with watching children. Many of them can't cut it as K-12 teachers, or they don't have the basic requirements like a high school diploma or classroom management training. VPK centers are typically just a house with a yard and some brightly colored paint or murals. The instruction and facilities required is minimal; mostly it's pseudo-educational activities, plus a safe and clean environment, and making sure the kids have a good meal.

These women aren't making a fortune. But they are either doing something they love, or doing an easier job than retail/service industries that pay a similar amount. Either way they're highly motivated to complain if the programs are ended, and since women vote more than men they're more likely to be a political force.

And in a country where childcare has been a tricky subject for 20+ years, you aren't going to find a lot of support from other working parents for removing one of the rare state-funded childcare options.

Going back to the Department of Education discussion we had earlier, VPK is exactly the kind of program federal agencies like to push. It has a nice big effect you can emphasize as a success metric, with long term effects you can ignore or dismiss. It's universal, it's popular, and it gets kids out of homes and into centralized child-monitoring facilities. Even if it's mostly organized by the states, the feds constantly push and encourage VPK "head start" learning.

It's this kind of "too big to fail" program that never gets cut even when it's clearly a waste of money. Even today, years after the studies proved its effects are temporary, the Biden/Harris Administration continues to push billions of dollars into such early learning programs through the DoE. The fact that it is so completely, objectively pointless should disprove the idea that federal bureaucrats care about the mission they are given.

 

[Jade Philosophies]

I got live long enough to sargon of applebees drive a uk political party into the ground. And I only watched him off and on.

Sargon didn't drive UKIP into the ground, it died after Nigel Farage left the party after the Brexit referendum in 2016. Sargon joined UKIP in 2018 yet in the General Election the year before UKIP only got 1.8% of the vote with just under 600,000 votes, down from 12.6% of the vote with almost 3.9 million votes the previous General Election when Farage was leader of the party.

 

[Your Girlfriend's Dad]

[General admonishments.]

In their defense, US Politics really does brush up against every facet of world politics. That being said, this thread has a tendency to derail often and I imagine it can be hard to draw a line in the sand of what is or isn't on topic.

Only God knows why you submit yourself to such torture.

 

[Jade Philosophies]

My good man, have you heard of paragraphs, and maintaining coherent trains of thought? That aside, I realize that US involvement in Ukraine is part of US political apparatus, but this post seems more like a barely disguised attempt at Russian (not American) politics.

I was replying to the post that was replying to my previous post and giving them the explanation.

 

[Useful_Mistake]

Only God knows why you submit yourself to such torture.

Exquisite pay.

I was replying to the post that was replying to my previous post and giving them the explanation.

Yes, and your post before that was also about Russia. Yes, some other people did it too. I'm not saying this to fuck you over, just to steer the topic closer to US and less close to our predictions of internal Russian politics.

 

[Jade Philosophies]

This may have been posted already, but it’s so absurd that I’m posting it now.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-sits-tiny-fake-white-house-desk

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He has an earpiece in and is just being told what to say, lol! Why won't they let him in the Oval Office?

 

[I'mma real anime gurl]

This might sound silly, but how did you guys and girls learn about politics, and when did you become conservative?

This might be a little late but honestly I believed that I started becoming right wing at high school. When I was either at the end of middle school or the beginning of high school, Gamergate had just started and I found myself sympathizing with Jim and the Anti-SJW crowd. By the time I graduated, Trump had became President while everyone else either had a temper tantrum or were laughing. To be quite honest, I thought that Trump would be a typical politician who'd talk big but nothing would change.

Then I experienced Trump's presidency and I truly got to see what a impact he'd made both good and bad. While he didn't exactly drained the swamp or finished the wall I could quite honestly say that I could at least afford shit at my first job under Trump. However Wuflu happened and I saw how they're more worried about one of his Justices or racism against chinks over a protentally fatal pandemic. Seeing most of the Left decide to impose draconian measures after suddenly caring about the pandemic really made me despise them.

Having experienced Biden's presidency, I could quite honestly say that his presidency is worse than Trump's. Perhaps I thought after the debate they wouldn't try to do anything worse or come to their senses. However they then tried to assassinate Trump and I seen how they would've celebrated if the assassin succeeded. Now not only do I consider myself right wing, I consider myself completely radicalized against anything the Left does.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

This might sound silly, but how did you guys and girls learn about politics, and when did you become conservative?

I had a weird trajectory.
Read Atlas Shrugged in middle school, and combined with an eye-opening experience with a homeless man as a kid, I was already mostly meh on charity work (right or wrong). I still volunteered, but didn't put much stock into it. I grew up with Glenn Beck and O'Reilly, so had that there.

I then became a Bernie Bro in 2016. From my very uninformed view, Bernie and Trump were saying the same thing, but I viewed government as the solution rather than private business, and viewed Trump as more of a Bloomberg-type. I was pissed when Bernie cucked, and already hated Clinton so didn't vote in 2016.

I then forgot about the election, and November 6th was taken aback when everyone was upset. Teachers asked how everyone was that day. I was the only one who responded with "fine" when everyone else said "terrible," and I was very confused why, as I was unaware that the election even happened. Next class I'm trying not to cry because the professor is talking about a terrible thing happening and how all LGBT people are welcome and safe.
That evening though I talked with my friend and we agreed that everyone is freaking out over nothing, as the President rarely affects day to day life and it's more Congress that we need to focus on.

I then forgot about politics again. Was introduced to KF. Was bored and all of my cows were not updating so I was browsing the rest of the site and stumbled onto A&H. It was right when Brett Kavanaugh was being sworn in so I was red-pilled hard.

Despite being closely adjacent to Gamergate I wasn't really pulled into politics from it for some reason. Don't know why.

I want to say that I am actually a "feels-before-reals" type. I'm self-aware enough to know that though, as I listen and feel what feels correct, then gather data to support that feeling. I know this though, so I'm very wary of what media I consume and who I hang around with. I used to be pro-gay, live-and-let-live tranny type. I still questioned tranny stuff, because I would ask things like "well then what prevents otherkin from being valid as well?". I don't think I could ever go back to that, I've been exposed to too much, and I've learned the importance of bullying. I'm big about fairness and fee fees, think Trump is a little mean sometimes (but that meanness is needed), and have to remind myself that bullying isn't inherently bad. Stories of people's lives are more convincing to me than data, which is probably why reading tranny threads here red-pilled me the hardest.

I grew up in a place of evenly-mixed black and white, so I never understood black worship. Still don't, to be quite honest.

 

[CarlKingofDucks]

I grew up in a place of evenly-mixed black and white, so I never understood black worship. Still don't, to be quite honest.

The only folx who are actual fans of blacks have never had to live around a bog standard community of them.

 

[spiritofamermaid]

The only folx who are actual fans of blacks have never had to live around a bog standard community of them.

At the very least, the ones who don't acknowledge their community's problems. Those people piss me off, especially when lily-white liberals want to preach to me about how all their problems stem from white-on-black racism when the black community has its own problems with colorism. But that's all I'm going to say on it, it's not really a subject I enjoy talking about. Makes me too upset.

 

[Jade Philosophies]

McConnell will remain in the Senate until the end of his term in 2027.

Do you really think Mitch McConnell is going to make it to 2027??

 

[spiritofamermaid]

Do you really think Mitch McConnell is going to make it to 2027??

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Well turtles are supposed to be long-lived, soooo

 

[Salt_Merchant]

I'm curious, is "safely storing firearms" a legal requirement anywhere in the US?
I think Lockpicking lawyer mentioned once that gun stores (in some places) are required to sell a safe with every handgun or something, but it doesn't seem like people talk about it a lot.
By contrast in my country you're legally required to, IIRC, store firearms unloaded in a safe, either mounted into the house or weighing at least X kg, so it can't be removed easily.

Where i am you also have to store the ammunition Seperately from the firearm.

it further reinforces the governments statement that firearms here arent for home defence, they are for sports shooting or hunting

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

Do you really think Mitch McConnell is going to make it to 2027??

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Lizards live a long time.

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

idk about a safe but every gun I've ever bought included one of these

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I assume it's a requirement in enough jurisdictions that it's easier to include the lock with every gun rather than try to make compliant skus like they do with the states that have capacity limits etc

At least a few states do have safe storage requirements, and a few more with safe storage requirements at least for households with children (by safe I mean secure, not a gunsafe, I don't know of any where a lock of some kind is insufficient)

Yeah I have a box full of them at the bottom of my safe. On rare occasions I will actually use one... I think. Pretty sure I did once but I could not tell you why.

Maybe I didn't. I don't know.

 

[HTTP Error 404]

https://x.com/BehizyTweets/status/1831863461141475747

We've all forgot about Fani Willis as she's no longer useful to the machine and thus must be memory holed, but she's had a bad few days. First her daughter fucks up, driving while on a phone with a suspended license, and then is such a dick to the cops that pulled her over about it that they arrest her. Then Fani shows up to take possession of the car while her daughter's in jail and they get her on film arriving with Nathan Wade -- you know, the Wade she claimed to the court not to be in a relationship with any longer? That's perjury, not that someone like Fani is held to the same standards of behavior as a human would be. Then a judge rules that no, Fani can't have the open records case against her dismissed and thus she'll have to stop refusing to turn over documents about her relationship she repeatedly perjured herself in court over.




Mugshot of the Shaniqua Spawn:


If you had told me she had been arrested for cocaine possession or chimping out at a store or something equally niggerish I would have absolutely believed you. Phrenology is not a pseudoscience.

 

[Jade Philosophies]

The funny thing to me about all that stuff about her grandparents, what with being brahmin, that's the highest caste, that's basically royalty as far as i know. Hundreds and hundreds of years of the top tier of the Indians, and they shipped their accomplished daughter off with a healthy chunk of their retirement savings. What did she do.. she got knocked up by some JAMAICAN MARXIST, not once, but twice. and left to raise two mongrel kids. It's almost funny if not sad.
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Meanwhile, the story of ushu (also from a brahmin caste) ended with her being married to a white man that might end up being the VP. Having three lovely kids and what appears to have a pretty steady marriage.

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Is Vivek Ramaswamy also Brahmin? Are we looking at a Brahmin conspiracy to take over the USA?

 

[Nuns with guns]

This guy is predicting Kamala will win, but I don’t agree with some of his keys, particularly economy. It’s a WSJ video so it’s DNC propaganda at the end of the day.

 

[TheOtherSideofMakeBelieve]

Yeah I have a box full of them at the bottom of my safe. On rare occasions I will actually use one... I think. Pretty sure I did once but I could not tell you why.

Maybe I didn't. I don't know.

I used one once just because I was curious how effectively it secured the gun, the answer I came up with was 'it works' but I'd rather keep it in a locked case or safe

I also had a locker that I needed a lock for and didn't feel like buying one and it was sufficient for that purpose as well

I'm currently down to one of them, from a purchase a few weeks ago. I have no idea where the others have disappeared to, I guess the gun-lock fairy grabbed them while I wasn't looking

 

[Francis York Morgan]

This guy is predicting Kamala will win, but I don’t agree with some of his keys, particularly economy. It’s a WSJ video so it’s DNC propaganda at the end of the day.

Lichtmann's "keys" are about as valid as horoscopes. He will stretch/"revise" them to fit the results when he doesn't forecast properly in order to keep his record and TV talking head appearances.