US Politics, February 2023: No classified documents found in Justice Department search of ILX

12 1/2 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Great title, A+

irl lol, well done.

Bringing this over here from the January thread

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) just formally testified to the Republican-led House Rules Committee that the real threat to democracy is House Republicans.

😂

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) February 1, 2023

an inconvenient truth

oh man she's on fire

Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.) tries to defend the GOP's resolution warning of the ills of socialism.

Reschenthaler: You can't condemn socialism? You know what Putin, Kim Jong Un and Xi have in common, right?

Waters: "Donald Trump."

😂😂

— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) February 1, 2023

Reschenthaler: "Why don't you explain your support of Stalin."

Waters: "No why don't you explain it."

IT HAS BEGUN:

Former President Trump accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of being a “RINO GLOBALIST” on Wednesday, continuing his attacks on the potential 2024 contender widely viewed as his biggest competition for the Republican nomination.

“The real Ron is a RINO GLOBALIST, who closed quickly down Florida and even its beaches,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Loved the Vaccines and wasted big money on ‘Testing.’ How quickly people forget!”

who closed quickly down Florida and even its beaches

Someone tried to teach him about split infinitives and it didn't end well.

It just blows my mind the extent to which he now slates the vaccine that he was trying to take credit for only a couple of years ago. What an utter piece of shit. I hope his dies soon, but painfully.

does Reschenthaler think Putin is a socialist?

Ron-o the Rino

I'm anticipating "Nikki FAILy" any day now

It's unlikely that DeSantis will take the bait, which will infuriate Trump and he'll resort to more & more petty schoolyard insults

could the NYT come up with a more DeSantis-friendly headline and framing? pic.twitter.com/6xdlL7TJX2

— Aaron Bady (@zunguzungu) February 1, 2023

could have referred to him as 'overall good guy desantis', for one

or 'firebrand juggernaut'

"Remember the Superman we were waiting for? Well, he's here..."

Journalism rule five: The Story Needs to Change.

Trump a laughingstock with no chance. Trump commands the party. Trump Fading. Surprising surge of DeSantis.

To be replaced by:

DeSantis a laughingstock with no chance. DeSantis commands the party. DeSantis Fading. Santos Rising*.

To be replaced by:

Santos a laughingstock with no chance. Santos commands the party. Santos Fading. Surprising rise of, hell, I dunno, Kanye.

* = Santos Rising, the worst James Clavell novel

Yeah, we've never had courses in Western civilization before, that'll be novel. eyeroll.gif

I've been infuriated with the NYT framing of many stories in the last week. I lost my shit over this paragraph:

“The programs emphasize the study of Western civilization and economics, as well as the thinking of Western philosophers, frequently focusing on the Greeks and Romans.”

And no riposte! DeSantis as savior of Greco-Roman civilization.

the Times is a center-right rag

I only subscribe because it’s the one I’ve been reading the longest and I know its biased and shortcomings pretty well

*biases

Same, and it's worsened since the 2016 elections.

True or false: best case scenario for the Dems in the lead-up to 2024 elxn is Desantis and Trump slugging the shit out of each other and pushing each other further and further to the right in the primaries, even better if Trump ends up losing the GOP nomination and going third party spoiler...

but even with that level of self-immolation, the Dems may find a way to fuck it up...

Well, our president's older than Yoda.

Yo yo yo ya yoda

Joeda

Marjorie Taylor Greene commemorates Black History Month https://t.co/RoYSoKojFm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 1, 2023

An elementary school received 5.1 BILLION for equity & diversity training??

Where does she get this shit?

Those kids are gonna be soooo woke

the saddest part is that they took that funding away from the billionaire christian orphan club. now what are they going to do

Good read: https://popula.com/2023/01/29/the-worst-thing-we-read-this-week-why-is-the-new-york-times-so-obsessed-with-trans-kids/

frequently focusing on the Greeks and Romans.

Guarantee there is some pandering to the Greek community in Florida going on here

I just read that Scocca piece on the NYT's transphobia crusade too (Alfred's link). Having somewhat followed the UK media's earlier turn, I'd call it crucial and alarming

I know exactly what she’s talking about and, according to her stupid definition of CRT, she’s kinda right.

A thread. https://t.co/nFXXdZU7ZC

— Michael Harriot (@michaelharriot) February 2, 2023

I wrote a blistering and revealing screed against that most recent Times article. The hatred for the intelligence and autonomy of young people in this country continues to astound me.

https://mailchi.mp/974f06672a59/sorianos-comment-no-181

Awesome to see that MTG clip the same day Omar is ousted from her committee role

what is wrong with these people man https://t.co/gtvzFs8MXr

— 💭 (@samthielman) February 2, 2023

fucking assholes

virtue vice signalling

Yeah, countersignalling is a thing that these assholes either don’t know or don’t care about

ghouls gonna ghoul

GOP just voted Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee, going to be a lot of this I assume. Fucking depressing.

On the plus side, now all of America's problems have been solved and Congress can get to *work.*

Omarrividerci

JEFFRIES on GOP effort to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs:

"Rep. Omar certainly has made mistakes. She has used anti-Semitic tropes that were clearly and unequivocally condemned by House Democrats when it took place four years ago...

— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) February 2, 2023

Goddamn, this guy sucks so hard

I thought Jeffries was a Biggie fan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHok7RqmDvI

xp - I'm sure they'd still be happy to call themselves that, or the party of freedom, or of justice for all, with support for our troops, mom and apple pie thrown in for good measure

Can DeSantis’s recent actions be struck down by the courts on first amendment grounds?

Sure.

The most idiotic part of this is that conservatives have been decrying universities for *decades* on the grounds that they are censorious, illiberal spaces that don’t allow conservative ideas to be debated. This goes all the way back to allan bloom, the “closing of the american mind,” for him, was the fault of leftist ideologues. But it seems the right wing solution to this issue — which maybe is an issue, I can give the devil his due and say that some liberal professors are more committed to promoting their ideology tha. the open ended exploration of ideas — but their solution is literal censorship of the left. They do not care *at all* about ideas. They are the enemies of the “western tradition” they always crow about, which is, post-enlightenment, fundamentally a tradition of skepticism and the (necessarily messy) pursuit of freedom, equality, and justice.

I am not in florida, and i teach high school not higher ed, but this makes me furious. We need the humanities. A culture that isn’t being vigorously debated and hence renewed is a culture that is dead. Banning women’s studies is so atrocious, like taliban-esque.

the bill will almost certainly see court challenge, but how well that will go for opponents remains to be seen. everybody seems hyperfocused on Florida's state Supreme Court, but I feel like this one would get to the Federal court level (perhaps not to SCOTUS, but idk, I could see Clarence and Alito jumping all over hearing this one). even there though - who knows if the bill gets gutted, barely touched, or not touched at all.

it doesn't matter. damage is already done even by proposing it.

it doesn't feel great. it doesn't feel good. this state fucking sucks. i had to stop reading the twitter thread so I could even sleep last night

also being that you're IN this education system, Alfred, my sympathies to you as well :(

The trick is, if it gets challenged it will certainly go to SCOTUS where, as Neanderthal said, DeSantis knows he has Thomas and Gorsuch's votes at least.

DeSantis, like Trump, often doesn't care what sticks, because he knows he's still damaged the institution.

his social media bill basically got obliterated by the court and never got to become law. he's still seen as the guy who stood up to Big Tech by his fellators supporters

oops meant strikethru

it still works fine that way

Hard to fight against DeSantis when he's equally happy with either outcome: control the public universities or destroy them. Abbott's gonna do the same thing here in Texas.

this whole 'I broke the woke!' thing is not gonna fly in a general election, though maybe it will in a GOP primary

^^^nationwide general

yeah but I don't even care about national at this point, I have to live in this state.

Yeah at the national level I guess I’m still naive enough to think that being painted as Book-Burner General is not an appealing thing. I just kind of fundamentally think that Americans don’t like that shit. But maybe I’ve just seen too many self-righteous Hollywood dramas about it.

as far as reaction, it doesn't feel like the general populace has the stomach for widespread demonstration anymore. they're worn out. recent events that would have normally generated such response has been rather muted. it was easier in 2020 when nobody was going anywhere anyway due to the pandemic than when people returned to work and public life.

but really...it has to happen

wait, I thought there was a big Florida universities protest/walkout yesterday?

Wouldn't the "derivative of Critical Race Theory" thing also affect Black Studies type curricula? How will that play down there?

wait, I thought there was a big Florida universities protest/walkout yesterday?

― Andy the Grasshopper,

There was, I was there, and it was wonderful.

As I'm tangentially involved in the excruciating, months-long deliberation that informs the hiring of new faculty in our department (at a private university, FWIW), I can confirm that the hiring requirements in that bill are legitimately insane and have no connection to reality whatsoever.

So sorry you have to deal with this bullshit, Alfred. Such pointless spite and evil.

Wouldn't the "derivative of Critical Race Theory" thing also affect Black Studies type curricula?

Clearly and obviously, yes. Which besides 1st Amendment violations also seems like an obvious violation of the Civil Rights Act. But … tell it to the judge I guess.

I'm really ready for Trump to up the attacks against DeSantis

I think I prefer trump to desantis at this point

Hate to say it out loud, but me too. Trump was at least easily distracted and would only push through about half the shit DeSantis is pulling.

Trump wanted to be widely liked, DeSantis has no such aspirations

He'll have to be to win swing voters. The difference is that DeSantis isn't attracting the swing voters whom Trump lost in 2018, 2020, and 2022 by being worse than Trump.

I'll start with sympathy for Alfred and Neanderthal and the poster formerly known as Karl and my friends in Florida and Texas for having to live with this shit. We have plenty of bullshit here in Virginia (do NOT get me started) and my native Missouri.

That said,

that's kind of what I imagine lies ahead whenever it comes to talk of "splitting up the country" or whatever nonsense is new. The more likely path forward is two competing sets of damn near everything, one to coddle the Christian nationalists and prop up their hate, the other for everyone else.

There is a bitter taste of hypocrisy in folks who decry CRT / 1619 Project / basically any reckoning with the past as "divisive." And yet it is the same folks who whirl round to call for national divorce and Texit etc.

I am sure there is some weirdly compelling circular logic out there about how "we needed to divide the nation to protect it from divisive liberal politics" a la Vietnam-era "we needed to destroy the village to save it from communism."

Personally I no longer have the stomach to hate-read stuff about good divisiveness vs. bad divisiveness. I type on land bloodied by numerous actual civil wars.

Even if it were safe to discount DeSantis as a national figure — which it's not, clearly, although I have doubts about how well he travels — Florida and Texas are absolutely leading the way in the establishment of a solid Red State-ocracy, which is going to be extremely aggressive about targeting women, racial and sexual minorities, religious minorities, immigrants and just plain ol' liberals, pushing every year at whatever constitutional protections they still enjoy.

Nothing is forever and it's hard for me to see this current culture war intensity sustaining itself, but it's also hard to see anything getting better in the near term.

I get a literal sinking sick-to-my-stomach feeling every time the Tennessee Legislature comes back into session. It's always just, how bad will it be this year, and what will be the lasting damage when the storm subsides?

Obviously today and the next years will be dangerous and fucked, but I do think it can be worthwhile stepping back and seeing that this is part of a resurgence of these culture war issues that comes every decade or two. For me, there’s at least some comfort in knowing that while I fight this fascist bullshit any chance I get.

you're right about that for sure

it's all so fucking performative as well.. they vote no on the infrastructure bill, but happily claim credit when some federal money flows their way... and then waste their time on shit like Drag Story Hour or whatever

I do think it can be worthwhile stepping back and seeing that this is part of a resurgence of these culture war issues that comes every decade or two. For me, there’s at least some comfort in knowing that while I fight this fascist bullshit any chance I get.

Agreed. I keep saying to myself, Well, it's just our turn to fight this stuff again. As people before us did and people after us probably will as well.

Yes indeed.

jeb! has directed all 15 of his political supporters to vote for desantis

Jeb Bush endorses Ron Desantis for president. pic.twitter.com/qBF0YGHcG4

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) February 26, 2023

please clap die

All five of them?

Jeb is also donating his exclamation point. (Like new, barely used.)

They took our jebbb!!!s

He just needs an endorsement from Colon Powell and he'll be on track to dominating the keyboard

D!Santis

Entertaining, this.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/27/business/media/fox-news-dominion-rupert-murdoch.html

Other details here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/02/27/rupert-murdoch-testimony-fox-dominion/

Some serious guy in hot dog costume just asking questions vibes to Rupe.

Surprised it took this long

A Republican in Florida just introduced a bill that would ban the Democratic Party from existing in the state. Registered Democrats in Florida would be notified that their party has been “canceled” and they’re now no-party voters. https://t.co/N3hvUEjaRr

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) February 28, 2023

Good morning!

blaise ingoglia is prob the most pynchon-esque name in a universe full of them

It’s sort of precious that the net outcome of the bill is, “You have to call your party something else, you have to identify as something else.”

US Politics, March 2023: "We want our own safe space, and we deserve it"