POLITICAL JUNKIES

I am neither a politician nor a businesswoman , and there are some overlaps in the required skill sets, but business deals in the private sector are very different than diplomatic deals on the world stage. For the record, I think America is great. What does great again mean

And that is exactly what he meant when he said the poorly educated. It depends of course how you spin it and you were just the perfect example of spinning it.

And my apologies for a bad paraphrasing of what he actually said

Kanye for VP! There has to be some place in the Trump administration for such a splendid human being who is better than almost everyone on earth.

"Make America Great Again" is codespeak for both jingoism ("winning" wars, regardless of who started them or whether we even should have been involved....beginning with our stellar record of backing the wrong horse, starting with Dienbienphu in the early '50s: we invariably chose to support the right-wing faction every time simply because it wasn't Communist; even our immigration policy has favored refugees from Communist countries over those fleeing murder and grinding poverty) and nostalgia for the pre-JFK era when white males held pride of place socioeconomically and in terms of civil rights--when women and minorities "knew" our "place." But I long for a return to (if it was ever there) when there was no such thing as "political correctness," but just kindness, consideration, civility, respect for other cultures and orientations. Is anyone else here disturbed by Trump's promise to have everyone saying "Merry Christmas" again instead of "Happy Holidays" by the December after he takes office?

As to his remark "I love the poorly educated," I saw it as a boast that he could always count on the ill-informed and ignorant to come through for him every time. I don't see it as snobbery; in a way, it's a reflection of his own reliance on being fact-free and having been extremely narrowly-educated himself (i.e., business and nothing but). How else to explain his pronouncement that the first cabinet department he'd abolish would be "the Department of Environmental--they're killing us with their regulations?" Yes, he doesn't even know there's no such Cabinet department, nor that the actual name of the non-Cabinet Federal agency is the Environmental Protection Agency. Talk about "poorly educated:" this guy has no idea about the structure and function of government, separation of powers, nor the difference between government, business, and diplomacy. In his narrow view, he believes only in a twisted version of the Golden Rule: he who has the most gold rules; and that it applies universally to every conceivable situation. Do we really want a leader who doesn't know you can't buy or sue your way out of an international crisis?

But I am distressed by the increasing bitterness between the Democratic candidates. Maybe it's born out of the need to distinguish themselves from each other in the voters' eyes, but it can be done by stressing their strong points and superior platforms rather than by cutting each other down, perhaps permanently in the eyes of the supporters of their opponents. Even though both Clinton & Sanders have at last (as of this morning) characterized each other as being "infinitely better" than any of the GOP candidates, the negativity of their rhetoric over the past week or so may have so deeply resonated with their supporters that party unity may be difficult this fall--with results perhaps as disastrous as when Gene McCarthy endorsed Humphrey too tepidly and too late to prevent a Nixon victory in '68. Using terms like "unqualified," despite later backtracking and semantic qualifiers, will provide ammo for whomever the GOP chooses in the general--the GOP will gleefully parrot that term uttered by Sanders--citing Benghazi & e-mail-Gate instead of Sanders' explanation that he was referring solely to Clinton's source of campaign funding (sources used by every other previous candidate for decades, not to mention Republicans) and her having voted for the Iraq war. And if Sanders gets the nom, look for dark-money ads quoting Clinton's skepticism as to his being a Democrat, and then positing the theory "you don't have a Democrat to vote for, so why not vote GOP or stay home?"

Playground name-calling has taken the race on both sides of the aisle to a new low, one that may fracture both parties irreparably and perhaps the nation for decades to come.

Like I said earlier that's the spin you have on it because you do not like or support him. I took it as he loves all levels of educated people and will help with education period Common Core has been a night mere for us. Great great teachers lost their jobs over this. They changed that this year In NYS.

My dad always said " it always depends if you're buying or selling" or seeing the glass half full or empty.

Mr Trump and Mrs Clinton both have low favor ability. I loved what Dr Carson said last night. He said I had high favorable and no votes. Point well said

Certainly not educators! I will also point out, again,that how to implement Common Core was decided by each state that adopted it, not the federal government .

Sue!! Well said

Kayb, LovesMaltese and I both live in NY. We're at opposite ends of the political spectrum (me: bleeding heart liberal, Hillary supporter. LovesMaltese: republican and doing a fine job of explaining herself so I won't!), but we've both spoken up about the dreadful Common Core implementation in New York. The reason that it's in part a federal issue is that Common Core may have been adopted by the states, but it was heavily "encouraged" by a whopping amount of federal money in the form of Race to the Top grants, one of Obama's real failures. These grants were tied to charter schools, the linkage of expensive testing to teacher evaluation, and adoption of standards that every teacher I know personally has come to feel are fundamentally flawed. And in NY, the federal cash has led to several years of misery for children in NY State, hence our extremely high (and apparently getting higher) opt-out rates on the grades 3-8 testing.

Not saying Caryn doesn't have grounds for her opinions. Just saying that there's another side to the story and it makes sense to those of us in the trenches. NY's educational climate has been heavily influenced, to no good end, by the Obama administration, and our children have paid heavily. (And by our children, I do mean mine. Who, thank heavens, has aged out of the testing and is making a pretty penny tutoring a kid down the block in Common Core math.)

I do agree, however, that education policy isn't a huge issue in this year's presidential election, which is why the candidates aren't talking about it much.

Caryn for SOE! Is there a U.S. Historian position for Ruth?

suersis I also love math. Read recently that algebra is under attack as irrelevant. I beg to differ! Here's a real-life example of its usefulness: I worked at a restaurant and my duties included running the cash register. My boss sold someone a cake for $25 tax included. What should be rung into the register, which was programmed to add 5% sales tax? I wrote 25 = 1.05x then solved for x: 25 / 1.05 = 23.81

Rang that up, ta-da cha-ching, total due $25 please. The customer was astonished. TY HS algebra!

Someone mentioned Cohoes. I'm from upstate NY myself. Perked up my ears when TC was in Scotia.