Rosen developed a program that costs about $7,400 per student per year. That’s about what states with good pre-K programs spend.

Florida ranks 41st in per pupil spending.

If Rosen were his own state, he’d rank 10th.

Florida’s pre-K program pays for three hours of care and learning a day. Rosen kids can learn all day — and not just their ABC’s and 123’s, but all the basic building blocks of life: How to follow instructions, relate with other kids, use manners and think for themselves. They learn how to learn.

Rosen’s approach is better. Take it from Charles Dziuban, the director of UCF’s Research Initiative for Teaching Effectiveness, who bubbles with enthusiasm when he talks about studies that show Rosen’s Tangelo grads from years ago make more money and do better in life than other kids.

The next morning, Brooks slipped into body armor underneath a yellow and black jacket, and then delivered an incendiary speech to a sea of Trump backers near the White House.

“Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks said. “Now, our ancestors sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives … Are you willing to do the same? My answer is yes. Louder! Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America?”

Brooks has faced intense scrutiny over his fiery rhetoric that morning to a crowd that soon stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent attack.

But less public attention has been paid to Brooks’s key role in the lead-up to Jan. 6. A review of his speeches, tweets and media appearances as well as affidavits and other court filings reveals his central part in mobilizing the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by repeatedly claiming that the election was stolen and then becoming the first member of Congress to declare he would challenge the electoral college results.

The Jan. 6 select committee seemed close to concluding that compelling Republican lawmakers to testify wasn’t worth the inevitable ugly fight. Then Rep. Mo Brooks dropped a bomb.

The Alabama Republican revealed in a public statement last week that former President Donald Trump had repeatedly, and recently, raised the idea of attempting to rescind the 2020 election results and reinstall him as president. It was a stunning allegation that would show Trump not only attempted to subvert the 2020 election while in office, but that he is extracting promises from allies to try again if they take power in 2023.

Brooks’ admission, which came hours after Trump unendorsed his flagging Senate candidacy, put renewed pressure on House investigators to obtain testimony from recalcitrant Republican colleagues. And then Brooks all but dared the committee to call him, hinting he might comply, when reporters asked him Tuesday if he would testify.

Darth Putin
@DarthPutinKGB
I have given Wagner security guarantees. They can ask Ukraine what those are worth from me.
3:31 PM · Jun 24, 2023

Having been defeated repeatedly by Ukraine, Russian forces have found an easier opponent, one with corrupt leadership, incompetent commanders, and low morale.

Few if any are rooting for war criminal Prigozhin to replace war criminal Putin. But chaos is opportunity for change while the status quo is war and terror. It means fewer resources directed against Ukraine. Whatever the result in Russia, the regime will be weaker.

You cannot expect a liberal democracy to suddenly bloom in a dictatorship desert. It’s all rats, snakes, and scorpions. All you can hope for is opportunity for change where currently there is none. Leverage shifts, light gets in through cracks.

Russians have been fighting for nothing but the imperial delusions of a dictator and the monumental avarice of his mafia. Ukraine's bravery has exposed it all and it's literally and figuratively coming home. An interview:

Garry Kasparov -The Fall of Putin is Inevitable
The initial reaction to the military revolt in Russia from a leading Russian democratic figure.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/18662

Dictatorships are hard but brittle; one crack can shatter. Putin brutally repressed even our smallest opposition because he understood that any perception of weakness was fatal. His ability to hide the consequences of war from his elites is now over.

Putin's instincts are always to kill, including Russians. But will soldiers who fought in Ukraine and the amateur home guards obey and fire on Prigozhin's seasoned forces? The words of the generals who benefit from the mafia do not decide this.

My thread from when this first began last night. Now it has become clear the new reality is here, that quiet accommodation and restructuring to satisfy all factions is impossible.

There's no chain of command in Russia, no responsibility, and the media is waiting for orders that don't come. An armed convoy is en route to the capital and there's nothing but drivel because Putin knows violence will spread panic among a population he tells everything is fine.

As I just told Corriere de la Serra, the 1917 parallels are correct, but also a replica of Mussolini's march on Rome in 1922. It's not just a lost war, it's a long war going badly. Now soldiers from poor regions see the elites not fighting, living in luxury, on their mobile.

Garry Kasparov
@Kasparov63
It's a mafia, not a state, and they will walk back or swallow anything that is profitable. Infighting rarely is. This also exposes the stupidity of saying Putin needs off-ramps or to save face in Ukraine. He's a dictator, and can make up anything he wants.

Bill Browder @Billbrowder · 1h
New reports claim that Wagner boss turns troops back from Moscow. This doesn’t make any sense to me. Putin ordered Prighozin killed earlier today. How does he walk that back? How does Prighozin survive after this? Putin never forgives nor forgets https://apple.news/AksyHCoJOStucCt05JtD9KA

2:41 PM · Jun 24, 2023

Garry Kasparov
@Kasparov63
Prigozhin and Putin don't care about bloodshed. Not about Russians, not about Ukrainians or anyone else. They care about money and the power to keep it. If they made a deal, it will last only as long as the money does.
2:44 PM · Jun 24, 2023

My main thought, as Prigozhin sends his men back to base, is that this isn’t over yet.

I’m not suggesting that Prigozhin will try again. But my strong sense is that Putin’s challenges are only beginning.

/1
From the first hours, Prigozhin’s uprising made Putin look weak, unable to control his own hinterland and the forces fighting his war. As Wagner troops got closer to Moscow, that only deepened.

/2
To regain his mojo, Putin needed more than a speech: he needed to dispatch Prigozhin quickly and decisively. He did not do that.

The fact that this was moderated by Lukashenka strikes me as embarrassing in the extreme. Putin needs someone else to solve his problems?

/3
By turning around “to avoid bloodshed”, Prigozhin somehow managed to make himself look like the cooler head — and, in fact, the only decisive person on the stage, given Putin’s conspicuous absence.

/4
The question is, what does Putin do next? Unless Prigozhin is arrested and tried, what people will remember is that he could have stormed the capital but thought better of it; the futility of the whole thing will likely be forgotten.

But if he is arrested, he’ll be a martyr.

/5
Assuming Putin somehow manages to square that circle, this whole episode may have punctured the air of inevitability that has kept him aloft for the past 23 years. Elites will wonder whether he can hold things together, and they may look more urgently for an alternative.

/6
This will also be the conversation topic around tens of millions of kitchen tables, and people will debate whether Putin was right or wrong. Previously unimaginable things, like a change of leadership, may become more plausible.

/7
Indeed, it’s hard to see how anyone wakes up in Moscow tomorrow and pretends that this didn’t just happen. Something will have to give.

/TO BE CONTINUED

A simmering political feud in Russia has exploded into a crisis. The head of a Russian mercenary army fighting in Ukraine alongside Moscow’s official military forces has declared war against the Russian ministry of defense, claiming that Russia’s war in Ukraine was all the result of a giant plot by defense bureaucrats to mislead Russian President Vladimir Putin into a pointless conflict.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner private military company, also claims that Russian government forces struck his men and inflicted numerous casualties. The Russian defense ministry denies any involvement with the strike, but Prigozhin has gone, literally, on the warpath, claiming that he will march into the southern Russian city of Rostov and onward if necessary to topple the corrupt officials leading the Russian defense ministry and military high command. He is asking Russian police and military forces to stand aside while he gets “justice” for his troops, and then “justice for Russia.”

The Russian government, which has long welcomed Prigozhin’s assistance in conflicts in Syria and Ukraine, has apparently had enough of all this, especially now that Prigozhin is dismantling the Kremlin’s rationalizations for the war—and by extension, making Putin look like a fool or a liar or both. The Russian security services have opened a criminal case against Prigozhin for instigating a coup and issued a warrant for his arrest, something they could only do with Putin’s approval.[snip]

Prigozhin and Shoigu, both personally close to Putin, have good reason to hate each other. Shoigu’s forces have been humiliated in Ukraine, shown up both by the Ukrainians and Prigozhin’s mercenaries (a point Prigozhin hammers home every chance he gets). Prigozhin claims that Shoigu has withheld ammunition and supplies from Wagner, which is probably true; a defense minister is going to take care of his own forces first. The two men have a lot of bad blood between them, and Prigozhin might have been hoping to displace Shoigu or move up somehow in the Moscow power structure. But Shoigu is no rookie, and a Russian Defense Ministry edict was about to go into force requiring all mercenaries to sign up with the Russian military, which would place them under Shoigu’s control.

Dmitri Alperovitch
@DAlperovitch
And there is precedent in modern Russia for such deals. Kadyrov (and his dad) were originally on the side of the rebels in the Second Chechen War (and had killed a lot of Russian soldiers) but then were convinced to switch sides and all was forgiven

Dmitri Alperovitch
@DAlperovitch
·
51m
We might very well see Moscow make a deal with Prigozhin - perhaps give him more power and say in how the war is being conducted.

They clearly don’t want to fight him and he has now made his point and also lowering the aggressiveness of his tone

1:11 AM · Jun 24, 2023

[more]

Haolebones
@TheHaoleBones
·
30m
The damage to Putin has already been done, by contradicting the official casualty reports and the whole reason for the SMO. Not sure if there is anyway for Putin to save face with a deal here.