Important headlines for March 8th
Bottom Line: These are stories you don't want to miss and my hot takes on them...
Largest school districts may skip armed ‘guardians’ program, even if governor signs it - Miami Herald
Excerpt: The Legislature’s new plan to arm school employees as a last line of defense to an active shooter might never get tested in Florida’s biggest school districts. Officials in 10 of the state’s largest systems, which educate nearly 60 percent of all Florida school children, said they have no intention of giving teachers or other staff guns to carry into classrooms.
The Florida Education Association, meanwhile, released a list of several instructional positions, such as librarians, guidance counselors, visiting teachers and school psychologists that it said could qualify as armed guardians under the bill’s current language.
Hot Take: Broward, Duval & Hillsborough have already taken formal action to attempt to prevent any armed faculty on campus, in addition to the other seven cited that have spoken out about this proposal. So, let's discuss a few key points and cogs in this puzzle...
As I've stated for over two weeks now... 18 states allow carrying on campus. This isn't new, and the track record has been exceptional which is why there's a good chance you didn't know that 18 states already allowed it unless you've heard me talking about it
Despite the facts we always knew there would be strong opposition by many to this type of proposal and it was placed in the bill which otherwise has very broad-based support
While the Govenor's plan had anywhere from 57% to 97% support from Floridians on the key proposals – 56% of Floridians oppose the idea of carrying on campus (though we don't have any data on non-teacher staff carrying specifically to be fair)
We still don't know if the Govenor will sign this as of this entry. He's stated he wants to hear from parents...
What If Trump's North Korea Bluster Actually Worked? Krishnadev Calamur, Atlantic
Hot Take: It's time for another walk down common-sense lane for a moment. Fueled by nothing more than emotional political angst there's long been a narrative that Donald Trump is personally an existential threat. The idea advanced by those with no substance behind their ideas or fears has been that because Donald Trump is dumb, brash, unpredictable, has a short fuse, etc. he's dangerous because he really might provoke America's enemies and might even start a nuclear war in the process (or something like that). As I've pointed out every so often for at least two years now... Everything about that line of thought is provably dumb and demonstrably false.
First to his intelligence... How many people have you known, and do you know that you'd say are fairly dumb? How many of them completed Wharton business school and created a multi-billion-dollar empire operating in over 20 countries? Second. Let's say you actually were right and somehow Trump moroned his way through Wharton and into the multi-national, multi-billion-dollar empire for a moment... If you have someone who's not bright, is unpredictable and really might do something provocative militarily and happens to be the most powerful person in the world would you:
A. Be more likely to provoke him
B. Be less likely to provoke him
The point being that the assertion is absurd in its premise but even if accepted is still wrong. But still ignorance persists. Trump has a lifetime worth of accomplishment built on taking substantive and decisive action. It stands to reason that he'd have a much better chance of success in areas of inaction compared to career politicians.