US Politics September 2023 - education-getting, income-having, Bible-readin church-goin MOTHERF*****

We’re a few years away from Republicans going full Khmer Rouge Year Zero and murdering people who have glasses

Make America Blind Again

Looking forward to Blue Oyster Cult becoming relevant again with the "(Don't Fear) The Reader" public service announcement campaign.

The "If Books Could Kill" guys just reviewed God and Man at Yale by WF Buckley Jr. It's surprising (not really) how little the conservative gripe against higher education has changed since then. It really boils down to, "They are teaching ideas that do not conform exactly to mine."

The other thing is that the anti-intellectualism of the fascist (that’s what conservatives are to me now, sorry not sorry) campaign against universities is that it is coming at a time of crisis for universities that has little to do with any of their gripes with the university. But because the university is in crisis, they can claim that as a mantle for destroying the university.

(Fwiw, the crisis in universities is caused by the current labor market, a population collapse in college-age students, and an increasing reliance on third-party educational models within the university system).

blech, i am tired, apologies for grammar in that post

Hofstadter is rolling over in his grave

(Not at your grammar, tabes, xp et al)

(Fwiw, the crisis in universities is caused by the current labor market, a population collapse in college-age students, and an increasing reliance on third-party educational models within the university system).

And also by fairly large drops in public funding of public universities since the '80s, which fueled the tuition run-ups and concomitant rises in student loan debt etc.

Yeah, but I sort of take that as a given at this juncture— like many things , the affordability crisis in public education is one caused by conservatives, which then allows them to conveniently claim the ineffectiveness (due to cost) of public education

What I have seen in my lifetime is universities adopting a for-profit business model as the preferred way for them to prosper.

Highly, highly recommend this entire 7-minute interview with a MAGA lady who's a City Council member in Franklin, Tenn., and is currently running for mayor. She posted an IG shot of a big group of (quite attractive) women who she claimed were some kind of Executive Women's Group from Franklin who are supporting her. But lots of women in the photo say they don't know she is, they don't support her, they don't live in Tennessee and the photo was taken in Chicago in 2016 when they were all brought together for a fashion shoot. Anyway, it's ... quite something. Her campaign manager is a treat, too.

https://x.com/NC5PhilWilliams/status/1701353220725932042?s=20

The resulting news story is here: https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/appalled-women-say-maga-mayoral-candidate-ripped-off-their-images-to-claim-them-as-supporters

Oh, here's the embedded tweet:

MUST WATCH: This call from @HansonforMayor - asking about the pic she posted of "supporters" who say they don't know her - is one of the more unusual phone calls I've ever received.
Franklin, Tennessee, this is one of your candidates for mayor. (Details in story below.) https://t.co/WcG4lcPrG3 pic.twitter.com/ZMBscTk5gh

— Phil Williams (@NC5PhilWilliams) September 11, 2023

Talk about the brazen post-truth era ...

I love his glance at the camera when she says they’re running a “highbrow campaign.”

Franklin isn’t quite a podunk town either, it’s the county seat of the wealthiest county in the state, home to Marsha Blackburn, our governor, and bunches of batshit crazy millionaires.

Yeah I love that she says “highbrow” twice and both times you can tell she’s reaching for another word but can’t find it.

You know the Constitution tells us we can lie on social media

Also some great Karen-ing where she starts accusing him of stalking them

I know, in like 15 seconds they invent this entire scenario where he's going to be following her to every brunch and peeping over the buffet.

... good morning?

I am directing our House committees to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Over the past several months, House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct—a culture of corruption. https://t.co/3uoDlUB3Sy

— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) September 12, 2023

yes!

Impeached for raising a failson

Today is the day Joe Biden won re-election

https://x.com/atrupar/status/1701626938882756693?s=20

that's hot stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B6ck7O6BBU

this Senate hearing is truly beyond parody pic.twitter.com/YTG1KsImF5

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 12, 2023

amazing

Please allow me to enter into the public record these explicit passages that should not be made available in a public library for fear someone might discover them. Also, check out the unit on Hunter Biden, let's show America the guy's shameful bits while we investigate his father in hopes of finding some evidence to justify investigating him.

well there's a clip that's going to live in online infamy for the next 3 decades

strong Sen. Tankerbell energy there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m9Fv9O6AnU

What are the odds that Senator Kennedy is big time into pegging?

Cool, more wasted taxpayer money!

Wasn't there a New Yorker profile of Kennedy (for some reason) that implied/stated the hokum was all a cynical act?

i've long thought that he was a contender for the dumbest person in congress. i don't think it's an act. somehow he got a law degree, so he must have a lot of perseverance, but there is absolutely nothing going on up there

yeah he acts like a country bumpkin but I believe he's ivy league edumacated

the real cynics are the white voters in mississippi who keep voting a permanently drunk sober guy into office

Wasn't there a New Yorker profile of Kennedy (for some reason) that implied/stated the hokum was all a cynical act?

From Wikipedia:

Kennedy was born in Centreville, Mississippi, and raised in Zachary, Louisiana. He graduated from Zachary High School as co-valedictorian in 1969. He then attended Vanderbilt University, where his interdepartmental major was in political science, philosophy and economics. He graduated magna cum laude.

At Vanderbilt, Kennedy was elected president of his senior class and named to Phi Beta Kappa. He received a Juris Doctor in 1977 from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was an executive editor of the Virginia Law Review and elected to the Order of the Coif. In 1979, he earned a Bachelor of Civil Law degree with first class honours from Oxford University, where he was a member of Magdalen College and studied under Rupert Cross and John H.C. Morris.

Yeah, Kennedy went to Vanderbilt and UVA, but the point still stands. I think politics has done more to damage the reputation of an Ivy League education than just about anything else. Ted Cruz (Princeton and Harvard), Josh Hawley (Stanford and Yale), DeSantis (Harvard and Yale), etc. I believe Trump's cabinet had more Harvard grads than Obama's.

https://x.com/calltoactivism/status/1701653088002527700?s=46

Yeah, Kennedy went to Vanderbilt and UVA, but the point still stands.

He went to Oxford! That's not Oxford, Mississippi. The Foghorn Leghorn act is easily one of the phoniest things in a legislative body made up almost entirely of phonies.

And speaking of phony performative bullshit...Fetterman has exactly the right response to Kevin McCarthy.

.@SenFettermanPA reacts to Speaker McCarthy moving forward with a House impeachment inquiry into POTUS…

(Just watch) pic.twitter.com/jg3aeyDW7F

— Liz Brown-Kaiser (@lizbrownkaiser) September 12, 2023

"He graduated magna cum laude"

ban this filth!

Biden's "impeachment" making the rounds today, though as expected the media isn't putting in their headlines that it's based on basically nothing

Fetterman rules. It's like, that is who I assume Trump supporters see in their mind, They Live style.

I know this isn't news, but I do kind of enjoy how conservatives so reliably do exactly the things they (mostly falsely) accuse libs of. Like, Clarence Thomas is the single worst example of the kind of blatant tokenism that conservatives pretend affirmative action is/was about. And impeaching/prosecuting political opponents for purely political purposes is not what the scandals around either Nixon or Trump were about, but very much what the impeachment of Clinton and investigation of Biden is about.

Whether or not Kennedy is cosplaying, having a law degree from an Ivy is no guarantee you aren’t dumb as a box of rocks though. These institutions exist to launder the idiot kids of the ruling class into our new idiot ruling class.

yeah, in the UK we have got used to the idea that little rich brats who get educated in elite institutions are more often than not, thick as fucking pigshit.

In America we love our elites.