Nick Carraway is speaking:

If you read my introductory piece, you know I ply my craft as a teacher. I am what is called a case manager and support facilitator. That means I have a case load of special education students I am responsible for and I also support other students in their general education classes (primarily English).

As you might suspect, our particular campus has about 50 percent of the student body learning virtually. That might be coming to an end. If you are failing and working from home, the TEA is allowing districts to force you to return. 

This is the proverbial double edged sword. On the one hand, contacting parents and trying to get virtual students to do their work takes up a good part of my day. We have to keep a parent contact log along with every other teacher in the building. I am happy to report that I have more entries than any other teacher in our group. I don’t know if that means I have actually done more contacts. I’ve just reported more than anyone else.

So, I more than anyone else see the value of forcing these kiddos to come to school. We also had our first faculty member test positive this week. We have also had five students test positive up until now. So, any significant change by the state and local districts have to be taken in context with the national and local trends of the virus. Any gains in academic performance have to be leveraged against the probability that a return of more students would likely mean an increase in positive tests.

I think what is more maddening than the decision itself is the way it is worded. It does not tell districts that they have to bring those students back. It does not tell them to bring all students back. It says that they MAY bring those students back. In other words, they are passing the buck. Leadership has a way of filtering down. Lack of leadership does the same thing.

Donny Deutsch, a former Trump friend, was on MSNBC’s Nicolle today giving his perspective on Trump’s inexplicable claims of massive non-existent voter fraud.  His take?  Business. Business, plain and simple.  And it makes perfect sense.  Deutsch says that the “Trump Revolution Network“, a new subscription channel, is in preproduction preparing to launch as soon as Trump storms out of the White House claiming that the election was stolen from him.  He also asserted that Trump has already trademarked the term”Telerally” and is trying to set himself up as Republican kingmaker, demanding that future candidates kiss his ring to avoid his Omniscient Twitter Attacks that would sink the campaign of anyone who dares cross him.  Later on The Beat with Ari Melber, guest and confessed felon, Michael Cohen, pretty much confirmed the same theory, that this is all staging for the next step in Trump’s toxic career.  Cohen claims that Trump has no remaining revenue left, and is going to attempt to establish himself as the gatekeeper to Republican Nirvana.

This makes more sense to me that any other theory for his idiotic claims of voter fraud, even going so far as sending out Trump Humper Mike Pompeo to assert that there will be a “peaceful transition of power to a second Trump administration.”  With all the opacity of current events, one thing is clear…Trump and all of his enablers, including Pompeo, Barr, Trump Jr, Ivanka, Jared, Eric, Miller, and other Trumpists MUST be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  It’s hard to overthrow democracy from a prison cell.  It might, though, be a good setting for Trump’s new reality series, Celebrity Felon, Cell Block C Edition.

… along comes Joel Osteen and his Inspiration Cube.

Throw away your Magic 8 Ball, your ouija board, your tarot cards.  There’s no more crystal balls, there’s the official one and only new and improved Joel Osteen Inspiration Cube.

Click right here to get a free listen and check out the $39.99 sale price with free shipping and handling.

And if you go all the way to the bottom, you can see that this fine product, almost semi-guaranteed to save your mortal soul, is brought to you by the same fine people who brought you Copper-Fit, Snackeez, and NuRazor. You know it’s gotta be good if it’s advertised on teevee after you go to bed.

Due to special nano-technology, electronic engineering, space age development, and magic, you can listen to Joel while relaxing in your home, preparing meals, and yes, even at bedtime.  And free of charge, I know this is hard to believe, you can even use your earbuds with this bargain of scientific development.

I don’t know about God, but Joel wants you to spend money, money, money with absolutely no means of visible community support to show for it.

Okay, I did that in record time.  It’s ready to go.  Just click right here to get started.

Several of you have asked me about where to donate money to help in Georgia so that we can retire Mitch McConnell.

Glen and I are putting together a group of ten college students to send to Georgia on December 26 through the election to work on getting out the vote.

Glen has talked to the Georgia Democratic Party and his friends on the DNC from Georgia and they are thrilled to get the young people who are willing to work.  These are kids that either Glen or I know, who are willing to work, stay sober, and follow directions.

We will pay expenses.  With housing, meals, gas money, and N95 masks we figure it will come to about $1,000 a kid.

Glen is considering going along to be house momma and getting a large AirB&B.  Kids can sleep on couches – they do not care. We are also considering having them do a YouTube every day and putting it online for donors to see what they are getting for their money.

I will have the ACT BLUE account ready by tomorrow.  So, please hang with me.

If you have one of those Calm apps on your phone, now is the time to turn it on.

Don, Jr. and his prissy screaming girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle want to run RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniels out of town on a rail and take her place as head of the Republican National Committee.

“Don Jr. and Kimberly have an eye on the RNC, through themselves taking over or somebody close to them taking over,” a well-placed Republican Party source close to the White House said.

Don, Jr denies he wants the job but Kimberly and the RNC did not return calls.

“They don’t want the ride to end,” a Trump adviser said of Trump Jr. and Guilfoyle.

Make it end.  Please, dear God, make it end.

Thanks to Epp for the heads up.

Let’s skedaddle over to Arizona this morning where Trump is demanding a hearing before a Superior Court judge contesting that people who cast overvotes were not given an opportunity to correct their ballot.

An overvote is when a voter votes for more than one person in a race.

But, here’s the deal.  Republicans are challenging 180 votes, while Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by more than 14,000 ballots in the state.

Let’s just give them the whole 180 votes, even though – all things being equal – more than half of them would have gone to Joe Biden.

I have a theory, but I could be wrong.  My theory is that all this crap is being caused by people who caught Trump’s addiction to drama or are creating drama to hide what Barr is doing to the judicial system and the Constitution under the cover of chaos.