“Everybody else was a sycophantic coward, too,” doesn’t make you NOT one.

And it’s not even true. Plenty of people saw what was going on and spoke up. Just, by definition, nobody who mattered.

They are, but people often use “public” in this context as shorthand for “regular, non-charter” schools and Hall herself does that in the audio clip.

I think this is a bit misleading. The linked story doesn’t contain a word about charter schools. She’s a public school superintendent and the cheating took place in ordinary public schools. I have listened to the youtube recording all the way through. It’s close to inaudible in parts, but as best I can make out, she’s responding to a question at a public meeting from a pro-charter questioner by making some bland and polite noises to the effect of “we in the public schools welcome competition as a spur to help us improve, with appropriate safeguards and caveats.”

The Atlanta cheating scandal is a shabby story of dishonesty, ambition, and overemphasis on standardized test scores. But it’s not clear to me that it has very much to do with charter schools.

I take Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) at his word …

I see what you did there.

I’m actually in favor of Ms. Yellin’s suggestion. Not because I think it will produce anything useful for the country, but because there’s no one who deserves to be trapped for an extended period in a small room with Harry Reid more than John Boehner, and no one who deserves to be trapped in a small room with John Boehner and Harry Reid more than Mitch McConnell, and no one who deserves to be trapped in a small room with John Boehner, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell more than Nancy Pelosi, unless possibly it’s Barack Obama.

No, no! Not serious! The olds must wait for their handouts. Hard choices!1!!

Once the British are done with him would Mr. Osborne consider running our Treasury Department?

You really don’t know very much about George Osborne, do you? There is a reason that Atrios regularly describes him as The Stupidest Fucking Person on the Face of the Planet.

If Democrats win this one, it’ll be with somebody who makes Joe Manchin look like a Democrat.

Nothin’ to see here.

Personally, I think the party that holds the majority ought to be able to pass legislation and be judged on the results.

Quaint, I know.

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is urging they “Back down on austerity”. Perhaps he understands the Law of Holes.

That would be a man-bites-dog story indeed. But the article just says he’s being urged to back down, by others. Osborne himself has never seen a hole that doesn’t need to be deeper.

In Scientology doctrine, thetans are the alien life forms that inhabit humans and have destroyed the planet in the past.

So “Republicans” is not actually the correct term? Interesting …

Back in 2003, Jay Rockefeller was so concerned about the NSA spying on Americans that he wrote Vice President Cheney a letter about it! Just think what he could have done if he had been in a position of power.

Truly, he will be missed.

Yesterday the Swiss Bank Wegelin & Co. pled guilty to helping some US taxpayers hide $1.2 billion from the US IRS. Today Wegelin & Co. announced it is closing. Will it turn over the names of its clients to US authorities?

Why? Would US authorities do anything? #toorichtofail

This is exactly right, although I’ve never seen any evidence that Obama himself ever said anything like this, directly or in paraphrase. It was a meme batted about by credulous Obama supporters, ever eager to convince themselves that he shared their goals.

We hear a lot less of it these days, for obvious reasons.

The right-wing Presidential candidate, who preached austerity, family values, and military adventurism, was soundly defeated by the center-leftright candidate …

FTFY.

The conservatives fetishize the Founding Fathers as ultimate authority figures.

Well, they do when it’s convenient, anyway.

(TarheelDem: Wimsey, Gaudy.)

Thank you, David.

Both FDL and the world will be much the poorer without your posts.

This is a recipe for a brutal fight when the issue comes up again.

Oh, I doubt it. It takes two sides to have a brutal fight.