Delaware Liberal

The US education market has always been huge, but it has also always been highly fragmented. That fragmentation made it largely unprofitable and not worth the attention of huge multinational corporations. When you consider trying to sell to 50 idiosyncratic states, each of which contains (on average) 300 school districts, and each of those mostly autonomous districts contains (on average) 380 schools broken up by student ages between elementary, middle and high schools, further divided by the demographics of various communities, you can see that it is not a coordinated market that can make billions for someone with a "one size fits all" product line. "Education reform" has changed that. Pearson has been able to change that. "Common Core" has brought some predictability and uniformity to a chaotic marketplace. If you doubt that Common Core was wired for Pearson, this Politico investigation should disabuse you of that notion.

First Read:

“With about two weeks to go before the Department of Homeland Security runs out of funding, congressional Republicans appear to be stuck. You have House Republicans saying they’ve done their part by passing their DHS spending bill, which includes language rolling back President Obama’s immigration actions. And you have Senate Republicans throwing the ball back in the House’s court, because the House GOP measure — due to Democrats’ successful filibusters — can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. And right now, no one knows (or at least is telling us) how we get out of this mess.” “Now two weeks is a lifetime in Washington politics. But if cooler heads are going to prevail, they need to start working on a solution ASAP. Don’t forget this reality of governing in times of divided government: For legislation to become law, it needs to get 1) 218 votes in the House, 2) at least 60 votes in the Senate, and 3) the president’s signature. In other words … compromise. And that’s something that’s been missing all too often over the past four-plus years.”

The mocking sarcasm that laid bare much of the lies and hypocrisy and bias of the corporate media that was at the heart of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart will not die with the retirement of Jon Stewart. It will go on because it has to go on, it is needed, and hopefully the Daily Show is enough of an established franchise to allow that to happen. But it will not be the same. But such is life. Things change and are not the same all the time. Remember how important Keith Olbermann was at a certain time? We and he moved on, and so will we now. Colbert will be back soon as the host of the Late Show on CBS. I hope Jon Stewart likewise doesn't disappear forever. But people come and go all the time, including politicians, newscasters, satirists, comedians, entertainers, and musicians. Still, damn am I going to miss Jon Stewart when he goes.

E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes Obama’s Christian humility:

President Obama’s speech to the crowd on Thursday did not seem terribly controversial when I first listened. […] Who knew that denouncing religious extremism and calling on people of all faiths to guard against “a tendency in us, a sinful tendency that can pervert and distort our faith” would prove to be so controversial?

Attention Christians, especially you American Evangelical Christians who should really call yourselves Evangelical Old Testamentians rather than Christians since your religion does not, in any way, at all, follow the teachings of Jesus Christ,the Son of God... even today, there are those who kill and terrorize others in the name of the Christian religion and Jesus Christ and his Father. And in our history, hundreds of thousands if not millions will killed in the name of the Christian religion and Jesus Christ. It is long past time you all grew up and realized that, like Jesus said, we are all sinners, and we are all guilty.

Matt Yglesias looks at what isn’t in Obama’s budget:

There’s no entitlement reform. There’s no Obama negotiating with himself. There’s no bending over backwards to look reasonable to his adversaries or to centrist pundits. Every previous Obama budget has been about positioning himself for a legislative or electoral showdown. This one isn’t. And while It would be an overstatement to call it a liberal dream budget — left-wing Democrats could dream up plenty more — for the first time it’s really Obama’s dream budget. This is the end of the “grand bargain” era, and instead an opportunity for Obama to lay out his priorities for the long term — from transportation infrastructure to transforming child care. Rather than position himself in advance of a potential compromise, he wants to outline his vision for a future that will extend well beyond the life of his administration.