2024

Once again, the two most active threads were ones that I've already discussed. Coincidentally, both of those threads involve school controversies. The most active thread for the past several days has been the one about the Hayfield football team scandal. With all that is going on in the world, it is interesting that high school football is getting so much attention. The second was the thread involving the former Head of School of the National Child Research Center preschool. That one is likely to stay near the top of the most active list for some time. After those was a thread titled, "Matt Gaetz is out" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. As I am sure readers are aware, Matt Gaetz was a Congressman from Florida who has been embroiled for years in a sex scandal involving a 17-year-old that Gaetz allegedly paid for sex. Gaetz was chosen by President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump to serve as Attorney General in Trump's second term. Almost immediately after the announcement that Trump had picked him, Gaetz resigned from Congress. Now, as the original poster of this thread says, Gaetz has withdrawn his name from consideration for the Attorney General post. Gaetz always seemed like a long shot to be confirmed, with even Trump reportedly saying that Gaetz only had a 50% chance of confirmation. A number of Republican Senators announced that they vote against Gaetz's confirmation. When the news that Gaetz would no longer pursue the Attorney General position broke, posters in this thread immediately began speculating about what had caused him to drop out. One theory is that the entire thing was orchestrated, possibly by Trump, to simply get Gaetz out of Congress. I'm not much of a believer in the theory that Republicans in Congress were able to rope Trump in on a conspiracy against Gaetz. A more likely theory is that the ethics report that has been drafted regarding Gaetz's sex and drug escapades was going to be particularly damaging. It is true that Gaetz's unusual resignation from Congress came just before the Ethics Committee was due to vote on the release of the report. Release of the report was ultimately voted down on party lines. Interestingly, however, the Republicans were not actually against the release of the report, just the release in draft form. This suggests that if Gaetz remained in federal politics, the report might be finalized and then released at a later date. As a result, some posters suggested that the report probably hardened opposition to Gaetz in the Senate. But, as other posters pointed out, Gaetz has been uniquely successful at alienating members of his own party. Some of the harshest and most revealing statements opposing Gaetz were provided by other Republicans. Therefore, some posters suggested that Gaetz would probably not have been confirmed even if the report were not an issue. Finally, just after Gaetz said that he would no longer pursue the Attorney General position, CNN issued a statement saying that less than an hour earlier they had contacted him about plans to report on an allegation of a second sexual encounter with the 17-year-old. That might have also motivated Gaetz. Other discussion revolved around what Gaetz would do next. There was some speculation that he would return to Congress since he was elected to serve in the next Congress. However, his resignation statement had ruled that out. Others suggested that he might run for the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Marco Rubio, who has been picked as Trump's Secretary of State. More than likely, however, Gaetz will avoid anything that will cause his past to be investigated. Therefore, his most likely fate is an appointment in the Trump administration, perhaps in a White House role.

The two most active threads yesterday were ones that I've already discussed and will skip today. The third most active thread was titled, "Trump wants Ann Selzer punished for her Iowa poll Predicition." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster links to a New York Post article describing a demand by President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump for an investigation of J. Ann Selzer. Selzer is the pollster behind the highly regarded Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll. Despite its reputation for accuracy, Selzer's poll had a big miss in this election, predicting that Vice President Kamala Harris would win Iowa by 2 points. Instead, Trump won by 13. Right-wingers have long viewed polls with skepticism, accusing pollsters of skewing polls for the past several elections. Moreover, it is fairly routine for MAGA posters on DCUM to brag about lying to those conducting polls. They are apparently invested in ensuring that polls are inaccurate. Trump did not specify what sort of investigation of Selzer he wants to see conducted. Selzer recently announced that she would be leaving the Des Moines Register, a departure that has been long planned and is unconnected to the polling failure. The MAGAs in this thread are certain that Selzer intentionally skewed her poll in order to boost Democratic morale and give a false impression of Harris' chance of winning. Some go so far as to describe it as an illegal campaign contribution. Liberal posters don't see any advantage to Selzer posting false polling results and accuse Trump of interfering with freedom of the press. The best explanation that I've seen of why Selzer missed so badly was posted as a response in this thread. According to the poster, Selzer's method of identifying "likely voters" unintentionally overlooks many likely Trump voters and leads to Trump voters being underrepresented in her poll. According to this poster, Trump voters tend to be hostile and uncooperative, if not downright belligerent, in response to polls. Selzer discards responses from those who are not cooperative as unlikely voters. In reality, antagonistic Trump supporters are apparently very likely voters. Don't forget that some of this lack of cooperation includes outright lying. At any rate, many posters question why Trump is bothering with Selzer given that he won the election. Some suggest, correctly, that Trump voters are mostly motivated by anger, and Trump needs to provide a constant stream of reasons to be angry. I think another explanation for Trump's threat is his desire for dominance. Josh Marshall, editor of Talking Points Memo, has spent years discussing Trump and dominance. As he has pointed out, Trump does not seek compromise with his opponents, but rather complete dominance over them. His goal is to leave them cowed and unwilling to challenge him in the future. This explains his frequent ritual humiliations of those who have crossed him. There is no question that Selzer's reputation has been severely hurt by her last poll. Normally, that would provide plenty of satisfaction for her critics. But not for Trump. By piling on, Trump is sending a message to anyone else who might challenge him. Act in a way in which Trump disapproves and he will come after you. Intimidation and bullying are Trump's tools of the trade. We can expect to see this behavior frequently during his second term.

For the third day running, one of the most active threads was about a cabinet nomination by President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. This one was titled, "RFKjr Tapped to Head HHS" and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. As noted in the title, Trump announced that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was his choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services. I consider this choice a little unusual for Trump. His previous cabinet choices emphasized loyalty. Kennedy is a bit of a loose cannon whose loyalty might be in question. Putting Kennedy in charge of HHS is not just putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, it is more like putting someone who denies the moon landing at the head of NASA. The chances of Kennedy completely destroying the department are fairly high. At first glance, I can see several categories of damage that Kennedy might do. One is messaging. MAGAs especially tend to believe Trump and his top people rather than experts. The more that Kennedy deemphasizes important health measures and, instead, highlights unproven quackery, the more that public health is likely to suffer. Second is interference with important research projects that he simply doesn't understand. It is common practice to track down some esoteric research project that, at first glance, sounds ridiculous and highlight it as a waste of money. The problem is that you never really know where these projects might lead. For instance, the popular weight loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy had their origin in research into lizard venom. The flip side of this coin is that Kennedy might direct research into areas that aren't productive. A poster in this thread suggests that Kennedy might put significant funds into stem cell research which the poster believes would be a waste of time and money. I don't have the knowledge to comment on that in any way, but Kennedy has plenty of off-the-wall ideas that I could easily see him prioritizing that either lead nowhere or make things worse. Additional damage could be by simple neglect. HHS is huge, encompassing the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and much, much more. It is going to take a while for Kennedy to simply learn all this is under his purview. If he gets lost trying to reform the FDA, for instance, what will happen to the rest of the Department? One specific threat that Kennedy presents is his attitude toward vaccines. Kennedy has falsely linked vaccines to autism and has equated the use of vaccines to the Holocaust. Any steps Kennedy takes to discourage the use of vaccines could have a profound negative impact on health, especially of children. Kennedy also promotes discredited theories such as his claims about the benefits of raw milk. This is particularly concerning because the United States is currently experiencing an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in dairy cattle. The H5N1 virus can be spread through unpasteurized milk from infected cows. If the H5N1 bird flu continues to spread during the Trump administration, having at the head of HHS a man who promotes a mechanism for spreading it and who will likely interfere with vaccines meant to combat it will be, to say the least, problematic. Kennedy even supports some of the leading MAGA theories from Trump's first term, such as believing that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are effective COVID treatments. It is hard to pin down exactly which of Trump's cabinet picks presents the most threat to our well-being, but a very strong argument can be made for Kennedy.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Matt Gaetz tapped for AG" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Yesterday, I wrote about the nomination of Pete Hegseth and said that, "Trump's cabinet is quickly shaping up to be the MAGA version of the Star Wars bar, with every type of right-wing freak imaginable." But even with my expectations set accordingly, I was taken completely by surprise by this pick. So much so that I actually deleted the first thread about Matt Gaetz being chosen for Attorney General because I assumed that it was a troll. There appear to be several layers to this particular onion, and I am not sure that we have uncovered them all yet. I suspect that there are more surprises to come. With that in mind, here is what we know. Gaetz was previously investigated by federal authorities for his role in a sex trafficking ring. Gaetz, who will now oversee a significant amount of highly confidential information, left his Venmo transactions publicly viewable. His Venmo history showed payments to a woman who was linked to the sex trafficking ring. Gaetz was alleged to have paid the woman for sex at a time when she was underage. The Federal investigation of Gaetz was dropped without his being charged, but a close associate of his pled guilty and is currently serving an 11-year sentence. The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ethics has been investigating Gaetz and his involvement in sex trafficking for some time. Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy has said that Gaetz offered to drop his effort to remove McCarthy as Speaker if McCarthy quashed the Ethics investigation. McCarthy declined and subsequently lost a vote to remain as Speaker. The Ethics Committee was scheduled to release a report about Gaetz that has been described as "damaging" on Friday. He reportedly met with President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump earlier this week and convinced Trump to make the AG appointment. After Trump announced the decision yesterday, Gaetz resigned from Congress. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is not allowed to appoint a successor for Gaetz. Instead, a special election must be scheduled. It could be that Gaetz' early resignation was meant to allow time for that election and decrease the period during which an empty seat would further decrease the Republicans' slim House majority. However, it is more likely that Gaetz was trying to get out before the report was released. What will happen with that report remains to be seen. In this thread, there was immediate doubt about whether Gaetz could be confirmed. However, many Republican Senators rushed to offer support for Gaetz, and others expressed a lack of interest in having a fight with Trump over the nomination. While Maine Senator Susan Collins announced her opposition, the Republicans only need 50 votes to allow Vice President-elect J. D. Vance to break the tie. Therefore, it will take more than Collins alone to block Gaetz. Even then, Trump has expressed interest in making recess appointments, which would avoid the necessity of Senate confirmation. The upshot is that the next U.S. Attorney General is very likely to be someone who was involved in sex trafficking a minor and whose only qualification is loyalty to Trump. Just one more freak in the Star Wars bar.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "study shows how 42M recipients spend their food stamps" and posted in the "Political Discussion". The original poster quotes from a recent study conducted by The Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) regarding the use of food stamps. The report shows that junk food, especially soft drinks, are the leading purchases with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds. The original poster asks whether the program should be modified so that soft drinks and junk food are no longer covered. EPIC is a fairly new "think tank" formed less than a year ago by Paul Winfree. Winfree served in the administration of former President and current cult leader Donald Trump. As such, EPIC clearly has an agenda. Even so, their findings are consistent with other studies of the use of SNAP benefits. As posters point out in the thread, this reflects deeper societal issues. One poster puts things very succinctly, writing, "Junk food is cheap. Healthy food is expensive." Moreover, poor people who rely on food stamps often live in food deserts where healthy food is not readily available. Many posters argue that junk food is promoted by extensive marketing and the use of SNAP benefits for junk food is encouraged by corporate lobbying. Some posters go even further and claim that the government and private equity investors actually want to encourage unhealthy lifestyles in order to kill people off. One poster is especially fixated on Blackrock and "Globalists" who he insists have a "depopulation" agenda. Several posters argue, however, that junk food is actually expensive and provide examples of healthy food being cheaper. In response, another poster points out that even in cases where healthy food costs less, it takes longer and requires more effort to prepare. This can create unwanted stress in families that are already struggling. There are two distinct points of view in this thread. One, which is basically represented by the original poster, suggests that poor people are intentionally choosing to spend tax payer money on junk food, creating more problems for both themselves and society, and the solution should be to simply prohibit this. The other point of view is that poor people face significant constraints that discourage them from eating healthy, some built right into the SNAP program, and that the solution is to provide more accessible healthy alternatives. The second group doesn't necessarily oppose prohibiting junk food, but simply doesn't view prohibition as addressing the actual problem. Some posters made an effort to create grocery lists that showed how a healthy diet could be achieved on a budget. Other posters responded by pointing out what had been missed in those lists and where the lists were not practical. However, one poster who actually bothered to read the report suggested that much of this discussion missed the point completely. I'll quote that poster at length:

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "B-CC lockdown" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School, which was the scene of a person allegedly carrying a weapon on Monday, went into lockdown yesterday around 11:30. To say that communication was inadequate is to massively understate things. There was literally no communication other than the fact that the school was locked down. Montgomery County police responded as if they were storming the beaches of Iwo Jima, arriving in an armored vehicle, dressed in fatigues, body armor, kevlar helmets, and carrying assault-style rifles. Needless to say, this sent panic through the B-CC community. Communication was so bad that B-CC teachers, one hiding in a closet, were using DCUM to try to find out what was going on. In the absence of real information, rumors swirled. At some point it was announced that there had been a "threat", but what what type of thread was not specified. Multiple posters said that it had been a bomb threat. Others said that the threat had been issued by the same individual seen with a weapon on Monday and that he was in the principal's office negotiating. Later it was reported to have been a "swatting" incident in which a fake call had been made by someone claiming to be in the school with a rifle and pipe bombs. For hours there was mass confusion. Many kids had been outside the building for lunch when it was locked down. Others were stuck in school. Worried parents had no idea what they should do and many rushed to the school. Other posters tried to calm everyone down, but with little success. Posters could not understand why the school would be locked down rather than evacuated in response to a bomb threat. This was explained subsequently when it was learned that the threat also involved a gun. The two recent incidents have parents at their absolute wits' end. They are frustrated with the school's principal, they are frustrated with MCPS administration, they are frustrated with the Board of Education, they are frustrated with the County Board, they are frustrated with the County Executive, and they are frustrated that, as far as they can tell, nothing is being done to fix things. This all culminates in feelings of helplessness and most off all, the parents are frustrated about that. From what I can deduce from posts in this thread, the discussion on the school's mailing list was out of control and even caused the school's PTSA president to announce that she will not serve next year. With regard to both Monday's incident and yesterday's, the school and school system seem to be hurting themselves and increasing parent disenchantment by not being more forthcoming with information. Based on some posts in this thread, it is possible that Monday's event was much less than it has been described and that there may not have been a weapon at all. But anger over the lack of response in that incident may have contributed to the large scale response in this case, which according to the last reports was triggered by a call from hundreds of miles away and probably should have been treated more skeptically. School officials clearly need to do a better job of explaining what they are doing and why they are doing it, and do this in a timely manner.

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "The Dad Privilege Checklist" and was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a Substack article that was titled the same as thread. The author of the article posits that "Almost all fathers can slack off, confident in the knowledge that someone else will do the work for them" and then provides a list of ways that fathers are privileged relative to mothers. The original poster of the thread invites others to read the checklist and provide their reactions. One of the earliest reactions was to say, "It's an idiotic list." In contrast, just after that another poster stated that "My husband enjoys most of the privileges." My own reaction is that while the idea behind the Substack article has some validity, the actual article was not particularly well done. Frankly, some of the things listed were pure nonsense. It is true that ours is a traditionally patriarchal system that has provided significant privileges to men, especially fathers. But equally true is that for several generations, significant inroads have been made toward equality. Progress has been uneven and varies from family to family. As such, no such checklist is going to be universally applicable. Nevertheless, this was not a particularly good list. As one poster noted, "It's a crowd-sourced list of petty grievances and projections, most of which are unsupported by any real data or facts." On a list of this length — over 100 entries long — there are obviously going to be a few entries that fit specific relationships. In many cases, however, it is reasonable to ask if the items are true privileges, or rather the result of a division of labor. For instance, one poster — who is a father — wrote, "We divide and conquer. For example, I handle paperwork like school registration, health forms for camp, and paying tuition" but his wife "handles clothes, including laundry and buying clothes" and other duties. He says that they divide up tasks based on who has time and skills. The real failure of the article, I think, is that it almost guarantees that the forest will be missed for the trees. There are so many items of questionable validity that they tend to undermine the entire point of the post. I think a better approach would have simply been to point out that, more often than not, the mother is the default parent and responsible for all that entails. This results in natural privileges with regard to parenting for fathers that may or may not be offset by responsibilities in other areas. Just as the length of the list means that it includes several items for which many fathers take responsibility, it also includes "privileges" that ring true for many of the women responding. However, women who say that the list applies to their husbands come under fire not only from defensive men, but also from women who question why they made such a poor choice of a husband. This might be the ultimate privilege. A man can be lazy and incompetent, but his wife will be the one who is blamed.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Westfield HS-Student murdered" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster provided a link to a Washington Post article about a shooting in Fairfax County in which a teenager was killed. The original poster says that individual was a student at Westfield High School. The original poster also says that her daughter who attends Westfield has told her that the school is "full of police". Because the shooter has not been caught and the original poster fears he may be in the school, she is concerned for her daughter's safety and asks if others would pick up their kids from school in such circumstances. Whenever an incident of this type is discussed, there are always posters who seem to be primarily concerned with protecting the reputation of the school and distancing it from the events as much as possible. B the fifth response in this thread a poster was already complaining that the title of the thread was inaccurate because the student was not killed at the school. The poster also reported the thread to me with the same complaint. I was confused because I did not understand the title to say that the student was killed at the school. But, I later figured out that the poster was interpreting the hyphen between "HS" and "Student" to be more like a colon and signifying that the event occurred at the school. At any rate, the discussion about the title continued throughout the thread. There was a second objection that the thread didn't even belong in the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) forum but rather in the metro politics forum because it didn't involve the school. A poster went on to write, "the posters who start these threads usually want to encourage trash talk about the schools". Multiple posters claimed that I was keeping the "click bait" title in order to generate traffic and ad revenue. To be clear, I didn't change the title because I correctly understand the purpose of a hyphen. Overlooked by almost everyone was the fact that the original poster's main concern was whether she should pick up her daughter from school early due to safety concerns. There is no indication that she is interested in bashing the school that her daughter attends. It later turned out that the suspected shooter had indeed attended Westfield in the past but was not currently enrolled in any FCPS school. Therefore he was unlikely to be at the school and the original poster's daughter did not face at threat related to him. But then a discussion broke out about whether the suspect and the victim should have attended another high school instead of Westfield with many posts devoted to school boundaries. The primary message that many want you to get from this thread is that regardless of anything suggested by thread's title, this incident had nothing to do with Westfield and any attempt to argue otherwise is either a right-wing attack aimed at making the school look bad or an effort to generate ad revenue.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Violence in Kindergarten- Sligo Creek Elementary" and posted in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum. The original poster describes an unbelievable amount of violence occurring among kindergartners that has left children "knocked out cold", caused one teacher to leave, and sent a second teacher to the hospital. The original poster is frustrated because it does not appear to her that the school's principal is doing anything about it. When I say the violence is "unbelievable", I am not exaggerating as many posters don't believe it. Those who do believe it have a range of suggestions including contacting the media, switching to another school, or even contacting the police. Few think that the police can or should do anything about a 5 or 6 year old, but many see value in a police report that might motivate parents. Many posters complain about the lack of options available to the school, saying that it is nearly impossible to have a violent student removed from the classroom and the support required for the student is not easily obtained. While the original poster places blame with the principal, other posters say the problem lies further up the chain of command with the central office. The principal's hands are tied, they say, and the process for dealing with students with extreme needs takes too long and unnecessarily exposes the other students to trauma. While most posters were eager to publicize the violent incidents in hopes that might encourage a solution, many other posters seemed to be more interested in protecting the school's reputation or protecting the children responsible for the violence. Almost immediately after the thread was started it was reported to me with a request to delete the thread. I continued to receive reports throughout the day yesterday. Posts within the thread also suggest that it should be deleted and a number of posters accused the original poster of trolling and not being truthful. No students were named or even described in any detail whatsoever. Nobody who is not associated with the school would have any clue about the identity of the students involved. Anyone close enough to the situation to connect the dots likely already knows full well what is going on. So I don't have concerns about the chance of children being identified. I do have an interest, however, in posts being accurate. The original poster's claims seemed outlandish, but appear to be independently supported by multiple posters. I put quite a bit of effort into ensuring that the confirming reports were not sock puppeted and concluded that this would either have to be the best and most extensive trolling I've ever witnessed or the original post is largely accurate. Nevertheless, a number of posters throughout the thread make a tremendous efforts to deny or downplay whatever occurred.

The most active thread over the weekend was the Kate photo thread that had nearly 4 times the number of posts as the next most active thread. That thread, wouldn't you know it, was the thread about Meghan Markle's new lifestyle brand. So, apparently, DCUM has turned into a tabloid. The next most active thread, and the first one that I have not already discussed and, therefore, will discuss today, was actually a parenting topic. Titled, "DD wants the big bedroom, but I don’t want to give it to her & DH not backing me up", the thread was posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster describes a disagreement involving her nine year old daughter, herself, and her husband. The family is moving into a new house that has three children's bedrooms. Two are identical to each other while the third is larger and has built-in furniture that gives it a "girly" appearance. More importantly to the original poster, it has a door to the outside. The original poster would like her daughter to take one of the identical rooms and her 4 year old son to take the other. However, her daughter wants the larger room. The original poster is concerned about the door and she would rather remove the built-in furniture and convert the room to either a guest room or play room. The original poster's husband has agreed that their daughter should not get the larger room at this time, but has told her that she may be able to move into it in the future. This is frustrating for the original poster because this presents an obstacle to removing the built-in furniture which she also thinks is her daughter's main attraction to the room. Moreover, the original poster's husband thinks that she is being paranoid about the door. She wants to know what DCUM thinks about this situation. This seems fairly simple to resolve to me. Put the kids in the small rooms, convert the larger room, and assume that their daughter will forget all about moving soon enough. If not, deal with that in the future. But, few of those responding seemed to see things in these terms. To the contrary, quite a few of the posters would consider this abusive. One poster is convinced that having raised the daughter's hopes about the larger room, it would be mean to disappoint her now. She insists that the daughter should be allowed to have the larger room immediately. Other posters reject the notion of fairness and don't see a problem with one child having a larger room than the other. In contrast, fairness is very important to other posters. A few posters side with the original poster and criticize her husband for not supporting her. In addition, some posters are concerned about the outside door and consider that a safety issue. The notable thing about this thread, and what contributes to its length, is the strength of the feelings of various posters. To some, this is not a topic on which reasonable people can disagree, but rather one about which a few posters seem to think that their answer is the only valid one. As one poster sums things up, "Clear that the inmates are running the asylum in most of y’all’s homes."