U.S. Politics January 2023: Kevin McCarthy's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Life

i'm sure when sinema started out in politics she talked a lot about how the people in washington were evil and she was going to change the system from within

now she's a thought leader at davos, a group of great people with the best of intentions

Ermine furs adorn imperious.

lol.

Looks like she's ready for a meeting of the Galactic Senate.

Speaking fur to power

Cruella Davos-ille

She is Cruella as covered by the Replacements

she's Blink 182 covering the Disney song as covered by the Replacements only Blink thinks it's an actual Replacements song

and yet Brad still thinks it's the greatest thing ever

bad news for Trump -- Mike Huckabee has now put together one of his cultish indoctrination guides for Ron DeSantis pic.twitter.com/ZvWKqwcdJM

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 17, 2023

80s sweatshirt Jesus guys are now today's red-hatters

i thought it was a list of the only bands still willing to play a GOP event

oops, also wrong thread

#wrongonethread

NEW: I just spoke by phone with Eula Rochard, a Brazilian drag queen who was friends with George Santos when he lived near Rio. She said everyone knew him as Anthony (*never* George), or by his drag name, Kitara, and confirms this photo is from a 2008 drag show at Icaraí Beach. pic.twitter.com/1MeeDR1O2O

— Marisa Kabas (@MarisaKabas) January 18, 2023

Follow-up: "The important context here is that Santos ran as a far right candidate, and continues to align himself with transphobes/homophobes who target drag shows with violence. Drag is beautiful. Hypocrisy and anti-drag/anti-trans bigotry are not."

But also,

Two veterans allege that George Santos set up a GoFundMe for a service dog, then kept the $3,000 raised that she needed for a lifesaving surgery.

They say Santos closed the GoFundMe, disappeared, and the dog died. https://t.co/GZaAllo5DM

— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) January 18, 2023

This guy is the grift that won’t stop taking

His American Crime Story season(s) is gonna be straight fire.

so his past is largely fiction, but he omitted the only interesting thing he probably ever did? Brazilian drag would look good on any resume

Ron DeSantis has banned AP African-American Studies from being taught in Florida: https://t.co/D5DkXCBN2O

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 18, 2023

i feel awful for floridans, especially students and teachers. it's also ominous for the rest of the country. these are actions which will be copied and emulated by other christian conservatives who, lacking any other ideas, will need to keep pace with the cruelty in order to demonstrate leadership in their own states

do they realize they're now the only people still saying 'woke'?

It's NRO reporting it, so let's wait for a credible source.

NB: It would not surprise me.

george santos is interesting. a human metaphor.

the de santis news is sickening, obviously. these republicans give the game away with gestures like this -- they pretend they oppose the "execesses" of identity politics, like risible social media posts or whatever that they can use as ragebait, but then they turn around and use that to justify banning the academic study of african american history and culture. they are radically anti-intellectual in addition to bigoted.

i'm glad i teach in new jersey. i teach ap lit, not african american studies, but part of what i love doing is having students wrestle with high theory before they go to college. so that includes a sampling of queer theory, postcolonialism, and critical race theory in addition to the old stuff, your new critics, psychoanalysts, and marxists. i just touch on different lenses and allow students to pursue the ones that interest them most for their research project. it has nothing to do with "indoctrination" and everything to do with exposing students to what has been happening in literature departments at universities over the past half century -- you know, it is a college level course. AP African American Studies is the same thing.

i don't think republicans understand what teaching is, basically.

they are ideologues themselves so they assume everyone else is, and that teachers "agree" with every text they assign. there is a lot of projection going on here.

you sound like a good teacher, treeship

the republicans screaming about woke politics are themselves all about identity politics. DeSantis is the most toxic person in America at this point

it has nothing to do with "indoctrination" and everything to do with exposing students to what has been happening in literature departments at universities over the past half century

well you know what they would say to that

i guess. and part of me doesn't even disagree? like i really disliked professors i had who considered their subject a form of activism. and that is not what i try to do in my class. i try to teach students how to understand literary argumentation, to get a grounding in some of these debates and discussions. for the critical lenses unit i have groups teach a class on one critic and one of their key texts. i had a group last year present on allan bloom -- i thought that was great and it helped to balance it out.

but like, the conservatives don't want to put their thinkers in conversation with thinkers on the left. they just want to shut things down.

sorry for talking about my own class too much. it definitely isn't perfect and probably students are leaving with just a surface understanding of this stuff. the point is just that i hate de santis's idea that AP classes are just crudely partisan, like we're teaching robin diangelo instead of shakespeare or some shit.

it's all dog-whistly shit

even "wire fraud" Gillum would have been better than this.

the legislation is bad enough, but people also have to worry about going out in public and being accosted by his amped up, armed followers. and they exist. it's nowhere near MAGA level, but I've seen multiple DeSantis hats out in the wild recently. including a dude at a bar who performatively stood and took off his hat during the national anthem that was playing *on television*.

dude is gonna leave this state in a scary place if/when he ever leaves

along the same lines, i thought this recent tpm reader email was troublesome:

If it’s not on your radar already I wanted to point you to the recent aggressive moves against higher ed by DeSantis in Florida.

Following a detailed request to all state colleges and universities to prepare a report on any use of state funds for diversity, equity, and inclusion measures including academic offerings (example information) and his language about ‘woke’ and ‘trendy’ ideologies in his inaugural address, on Jan 6 he announced what amounted to a take over of the Board of Trustees at New College of Florida, including the provocateur Christopher Rufo (who has fanned the ‘CRT” flames among other things @realchrisrufo).

First, I think this is an opening salvo is what is likely to be an aggressive move to control higher ed in the state of Florida. New College is a tiny (700 students) and easy target compared to something like University of Florida (where there are already a lot of eyebrows raised at the appointment of Ben Sasse as President among other things). In Florida the Board of Trustee structure (for each state college/university) and Board of Governors (for the state university system) gives tremendous authority to the Governor, who gets to appoint most of the positions. In the case of New College, many of the governor’s board of trustees seats had been vacant for an extended period – he waited until he could appoint a full slate all at once. Plus one additional seat from the Desantis appointed Board of Governors also opened at the same time. This gives DeSantis’s hand picked appointees control over the school.

New College will be the ‘testing ground” to see if these idealogues can re-make an institute of higher ed in their image. Many of the things that Rufo has been outspoken about are ridiculous on their face and unlikely to happen in a state school, BUT it so dramatically shifts the Overton Window that if even a fraction of these plans move forward will, it destroy the school as it is. Desantis and Rufo get to brag about how they created a ‘conservative’ college and open doors for maybe more? Just as likely, the school just dies (students will leave, or not enroll, faculty will leave) – but DeSantis doesn’t care and can just blame students, faculty, admin, alum for a failing school. He doesn’t care, he wins either way. But his actions in either case stokes legitimate fear at all public institutions in the state and academics slowly shift even at the big schools.

I also write because I am a graduate of New College and so I know quite a lot about the school that until last week very few people had heard of. One of the things that I find so galling in the statements that have come out from the governor’s office, such as “this institution has been completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning,” is that they are fantasy and not grounded in reality at all. These along with statements from others that show that these people have no concept about this school (or perhaps more likely, they do but they don’t care because they have a bogeyman to build).

The central mission of New College has always been to foster critical and independent thinking and it focuses on true learning and mastery. There are no grades but every professor provides a written and detailed narrative evaluation for every student in each class (as a current professor I can appreciate the huge amount of time and effort that is required for this). Students are also expected to complete in-depth independent studies and complete a senior thesis (which is presented and defended publically much like a master’s thesis). I have also never been anywhere where the expectations for independent thought were so ingrained in the culture. Any statement whether in class or out was expected to be backed up with a compelling rationale and evidence – no one is given a free pass to say anything. But people will listen. And debate – boy do they debate. Which is why I find the statements about needing to ‘fix’ New College because it is too progressive and nothing but trendy ideology laughably wrong to anyone who knows this school. But again Desantis and crew don’t care. Even the media reports for the last week refer to it as a ‘progressive’ school … ?? .. the student body self-selects for that a bit, but there is nothing right or left about the curriculum, academics, or mission. But it ‘looks’ quirky, you have kids with barefeet and pink hair, and they are open to diversity so it’s an easy ‘woke college’ bogeyman for Desantis. It’s just not reality, at all.

The school is very small and has some legitimate issues to address but punches high above its weight. It produces more graduates (per capita) that go on to earn doctorates than any public college/university in the US (and ranks 11 over all and is the only public school in the top 25 of undergrad programs), as well as Fulbrights and Field Scholars. Its alumni ranks include President of the NY Fed Reserve, university presidents, and more.

I find this whole scenario breathtaking in how aggressive Desantis is attacking education both in Florida and beyond as he looks to a Presidential run. New College is a tiny school that is a blip for most people but this is a very real and very scary first step into something more. New College is just a perfect test run and no one cares if it’s a causality (except for those who know it well).

The assault by conservatives against the universities is perennial, it just becomes more or less intense depending on any number of factors, including location, the health of the conservative movement, and the economic outlook.

I say that and also say that the news about New College is frightening, and this recent Desantis move is frightening, too.

I’ve done so before but I highly recommend that everyone read Metzl’s “Dying of Whiteness.” The chapter on Kansas, and the way that low-tax ideologues destroyed one of the best states for public education in the US, is really devastating to read.

Mind detergent and soul rot.

the thing I loved about literature courses is you can do free-form metaphors, just throwing a veil on to a character as a concept in service of a point

but in the real world, is making Santos a metaphor useful? he’s the republicans? he’s America? he’s, in some terrible way, everything the republicans think a cross-dressing duplicitous gay-identifying man is? I don’t think he’s usefully boiled down as anything more than exploitative and opportunist.

I mean, it’s all fun and I like to think life has an entertaining meta-fiction to it but congress is, to some extent, real

I guess this goes back to my opinions on ilx about some literary figures that were lauded in some circles who wrote “interesting” fiction but in the end were opportunistic exploiters

that said, I am paradoxically rooting for Santos continuing doing whatever he is doing for a brief moment

I put off learning anything about George Santos for as long as possible because I can't stand to hear about any new motherfuckers but wow he may be the Republicans' strangest character yet. he's like something that would've been concocted in Arrested Development.

It’s possible that none of us have actually learned anything about George Santos yet

we should give george santos another chance

could it be he's just the human version of the "I identify as..." joke??

At some point we may just discover that Santos is inept enough that he is outed as the first contact and accidentally uncovers all of his sleeper alien colleagues alongside him.
Probably not but he does seem to have a deeply bizarre backstory that all seems to be covering up something deeper.
Or he is the son of a family of grifters who gaslit him from an early age so he isn't sure if up is down, left is right etc etc but that might just be overly sympathetic.

Or somebody traces him back far enough to discover that he doesn't exist and we all have to rid ourselves of a group hallucination folk devil.
Though maybe the right just view it as supremely owning the libs.

I guess this goes back to my opinions on ilx about some literary figures that were lauded in some circles who wrote “interesting” fiction but in the end were opportunistic exploiters

Yeah, it's too bad not enough people know who JT Leroy was to make this comparison a useful one for The Discourse.

Hellmouths open across the US. The right are beckoned within. As they go to their idea of a better place they slap themselves on their collective back for owning the libs.

i don't think republicans understand what teaching is, basically.

Well, it's something done by government employees. Often women. Often unionized.

Why would they want to understand something like that?

New College was my only choice as a senior but I wasn’t accepted. Woulda had an entirely different life with that road not taken methinks.

this happens so seldomly, it's worth noting: trump appears to be facing some sort of material consequence for his constantly lying

Here's the table of how much Trump and Alina Habba have to pay. I really think headline should be; BREAKING Trump to pay Fusion GPS $50 Grandhttps://t.co/Rei09w5Rh3 pic.twitter.com/aQJhc52ewF

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 20, 2023

a judge found that a RICO lawsuit he filed against clinton and a bunch of co-defendants frivolous, and for once, held him personally responsible

typos and grammar issues galore there, but, translated: trump lie bad man have to pay other assholes good

sorry for the dumb question but:

Is that, like, something that is literally going to happen in the actual physical world that we inhabit?

Or is it something more like a contractor's invoice that he will (unsurprisingly) ignore?

Or one of the approximately ten thousand subpoenas that he has (unsurprisingly) ignored?

Just so very tired of hearing about potential consequences for someone who has, as far as I can tell, experienced exactly no consequences for his many sins against morality, propriety, taste, the law, and humanity generally?

"pay him 5k and see if we get any follow up letters"