Loudoun Reporting, Emerging Democratic Education Problem, Overworked…More…

The dumbest education fundraiser ever?

Matt Taibbi is going deep on Loudoun County ($). As we’ve discussed around here much of “narrative” about Loudoun County was at odds with the facts on the ground (this is one reason why the Republican effort to translate their Virginia success to national campaigns is not straightforward). This is important reporting that gets underneath the “narrative” both “sides” had an interest in pushing.

The Loudoun mess had a lot to do with race, but it was no simple sequel to old civil rights battles. This was a brand-new tale about multidimensional racial tensions, beginning perhaps with the impatience of affluent intellectuals toward a quiet immigrant community whose chief crime, as ham-handed as this sounds, was believing the American dream. For that offense, they were sentenced to the rudest of awakenings. Loudoun doubled as the ultimate media malpractice story, in which the public across years of salacious controversies was told everything but the most important bits.

Related, Ruy Teixeira on the Dems and Hispanic voters:

In the hotly-contested 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, according to the AP-NORC VoteCast survey (more reliable than the highly flawed exit polls), Democrat Terry McAuliffe actually lost the Latino vote and also lost ground among black and “other race’ (chiefly Asian) voters. This deterioration of nonwhite support also can be seen in analysis of precinct-level results.

It boggles the mind the number of people who had to sign-off thinking this stunt was a good idea,

At a junior hockey game in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Saturday night, $5,000 in one-dollar bills was dumped onto a carpet in the middle of the ice as 10 local teachers readied themselves to shovel up as much of it as they could.

So, first we had the D.C. assistant principal taking advantage of virtual education to hold a principal role in Rhode Island at the same time. Now apparently a key Tony Thurmond hire in California has two jobs as well. After the past 20 months I’m sensitive to the burnout issue but…

Happy Holidays. (And stay for this).