In a recent post about Ron DeSantis and the Christo-fascist takeover of New College of Florida, I made a not-so-bold prediction about the sleazy hack whom Rage Munchkin tapped to be “interim” president of the college, the gross political operative Richard Corcoran:
I put scare quotes around “interim” because I suspect DeSantis’s edu-goons will sleaze Corcoran into the office permanently the way they corruptly placed former Republican Senator Ben Sasse at the University of Florida…
…Corcoran has been in the market for a university president gig for a couple of years now. He basically got laughed out of contention for the presidency of Florida State University last year because that university’s presidential search committee refused to put him on the short list. They had good reason: Corcoran is a political hack who has a law degree from TV preacher Pat Robertson’s diploma mill.
Also, Corcoran’s entire record as a lobbyist and statehouse legislator makes it clear he is an enemy of public education, which is why DeSantis appointed him education commissioner. I suspect DeSantis will avenge Corcoran’s humiliating rejection by FSU by giving him the New College job. There’s probably no one left to stop him now.
That was two weeks ago. Here’s an update from The Tampa Bay Times:
The newly remade board of trustees at New College of Florida voted Monday to give the Sarasota school’s interim President Richard Corcoran a pay bump of nearly $400,000 over his predecessor.
The board decided that Corcoran, a former Florida House speaker and state education commissioner, will receive a base salary of $699,000, plus an annual housing stipend of $84,000, a $12,000 automobile stipend and an annual retirement supplement of $104,850.
Former New College President Patricia Okker, who was fired last month amid a conservative transformation of the board, had a base salary of $305,000. Her housing stipend was $40,000 a year.
They haven’t officially installed the unqualified hack as permanent president yet, but DeSantis’s college board spokes-liar cites Corcoran’s supposedly unique qualifications for the gig to justify the pay bump at a college that they supposedly took over in part because it was “financially troubled,” in addition to being a woke factory, blah blah blah.
Will the fiscally responsible Republicans who control every statewide office rise up to protest this outrageous squandering of taxpayer dollars? Hahaha of course not!
*****
In other news, I find myself filled with amorphous dread about the situation beyond the corrupt, fascist catastrophe that is Florida, and I see from comments in previous threads that I’m not alone in that.
The world is always terrible, so why does now feel extra awful? Is it all the freaking UFOs? Russia’s increasingly unhinged attacks on Ukraine and plots against neighboring countries like Moldova? The stunning death toll of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey? The awful story Sister Golden Bear shared about the murder of a lovely trans teenager in the UK?
Yes.
FFS, someone squish this post with a cute animals video.
Open thread.
Baud
Despite the meaningless loss of life abroad, I don’t feel so glum, but I’m not in Florida. I hope things turn around for you soon.
Parfigliano
@Baud:
@Baud: I will never be in FL
japa21
He does have unique qualifications, just not in the field of education.. But then, they don’t care about that.
cain
The death was very tragic indeed. You can count on the UK press to not hold itself accountable about anything.
If the college is already having financial issues – I suspect many are going to be let go just to make up for the bump in pay. I mean it is a significant pay bump. More questions should be asked. Meanwhile, the dude is laughing all the way to the bank.
bbleh
Will the fiscally responsible Republicans who control every statewide office rise up to protest this outrageous squandering of taxpayer dollars?
Well, it’s NOT “outrageous squandering of taxpayer dollars” because it’s not going to the Wrong People, ifyouknowwhatImeanandIthinkyoudo.
It”s pretty obvious by now: Republicans have returned politics where they are in power to the Spoils System: you gain office with the help of friends, and once in office you use its powers to reward those friends. And their voters are perfectly fine with that, because they are of the In-Group (even if somehow the spoils never quite manage to trickle down to the voter level).
As to all the awfulness, it IS February. I suggest adopting WaterGirl’s solution from yesterday and just … disconnecting for a while.
Lapassionara
Everything about this New College takeover is just jaw-droppingly corrupt. I can’t see things getting better in Florida anytime soon. You are brave to keep tracking the atrocities, BC.
Ksmiami
@Baud: I look forward to fighting back.. I mean if they want violence, why not give it to them… the only language bullies understand
NotMax
Sandy Griftith.
//
ema
Here you go, hope they help.
Dan B
23 Attorneys General are suing to make the morning after pill illegal in every state. The suit is filed in Amarillo with a judge who is rabidly anti abortion and anti LGBTQ.
lgerard
Hard to answer that, isn’t it?
Anonymous At Work
Betty, the reason everything feels more awful now is because Trump and Putin are re-teaching the worst of us the fundamental lesson of fascism and power: if you don’t kill or imprison them, fascists can and will do what they want because only death or prison can stop them. You cannot shame the shameless.
DeSantis will destroy New College if allowed, and it’ll be up to external agencies, like accreditation agencies, to stop DeathSantis and Sasse from destroying UF. Turn a UF degree into toilet paper and that’ll be the limit. Appealing to their “better angels” will go waiting for their “better angels” to appear.
RaflW
Probably not feasible (or really how equal protection laws work, and IANAL), but it would be sweet to see Patricia Okker just aggressively sue the New College board over sex discrimination. They were clearly underpaying her and should give her a metric f*kton of retirement money to match the outrageous lucre they’re shoving at the new guy.
Even if the suit doesn’t have a great chance, just to make the boards lives a PITA (while being clear that this isn’t a frivolous lawsuit. Please, that’s some other Floridan’s provenance.)
RaflW
@cain: One suspects that the actual agenda is to just bankrupt and close the New College.
Making it into a niche play for conservative snowflakes who can’t handle the young adult world of arguing over ideas a bit naively I just don’t think is gonna sell.
Yeah, I know, that RW “Liberty” joint has 10K inperson and like 40K online students. But it can market a direct line to punitive, gayhating Jebus.
Come to think of it, that’ll probably be the next frontier for DullSantis: breaking the wall between church and state-school.
geg6
@Parfigliano:
Same. Never, ever, ever.
prostratedragon
@cain: Until the bust-out runs its course.
marklar
One of my friends published an editorial about New College from an alumna’s perspective in the Sarasota Herald Tribune a few days ago. For those of you who don’t know much about the place, it’s definitely worth a read
https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/opinion/columns/your-voice/2023/02/10/we-may-not-keep-desantis-from-wrecking-new-college-but-we-will-try/69891405007/
TS
Obscene in the extreme – marking the ever increasing gap between the haves/have nots. The person working 50 hours a week for a basic wage can’t even afford rent/food but those in political power sure look after their own.
This continual thought that “all it takes is hard work” is complete and utter garbage. What is takes is a government of the people, by the people, for the people & that is long gone.
(And this is not just the US, rest of the English speaking world followed Thatcher & Reagan down the rabbit hole of monetary policy & here we are).
Anyway
@Dan B:
This is one of those weird jurisdictions where one judge is sufficient and Rethugs go judge-shopping for this rabid RW judge when they have something so crazy that regular R judges would balk at.
I wonder if this is something Congress can change.
J R in WV
I had thought that Christo-Fascist required a capital letter for both “Christo-” AND “-Fascist” — but that may just be me, here, uppa holler.
ETA: to repair speling of facist…
prostratedragon
@RaflW: Less of a lawyer than you are and it does sound like a big stretch of the law, but could a fear of a suit be why they’re so on about this dude’s “unique”ness?
Brachiator
I don’t even pay attention to the balloon stories. Why is this an issue? Nations spy on each other all the time. At least they are not lobbing missiles at each other.
Other events are terrible, but some people and governments are trying to help.
Mike in NC
Wife experienced abdominal pain over the weekend, so we went to the ER this morning. Checked in at 11 AM. Six hours later the only person she saw was a nurse’s aide who took her vital signs, so we went home. I know every industry is concerned about staffing shortages, but that was ridiculous.
Betty Cracker
@J R in WV: I don’t see any reason for capitalizing “fascist” unless it’s in a title.
Gin & Tonic
Ukrainians are not despairing; they are determined.
Anonymous At Work
@RaflW: Nah, in response to the financial challenges, the Board of Trustees will raise the tuition sky-high to reflect the unique experience and unique faculty, drop enrollment to almost nothing, freeing the select faculty to appear nightly on Fox News and testify on teh evils of public education around the nation.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
👍🇺🇦
Cameron
I really enjoy the New College Public Archaeology Lab posts on Facebook. I’ll miss them.
VOR
Betty, the thing which gets me down is that it is just SO blindingly obvious that the other side is filled with incompetent and downright evil hacks, and yet so many of my fellow citizens are following these turkeys. Which is unfair to turkeys. Many days I feel the 27% crazification factor is understated. I mean, how did you live through the past few years and still want TFG running the country again?
ARoomWithAMoose
Ron is passing out state university system posts (and dept of education appointments) like ambassadorships to buy access to various political, money, and think-tank connected networks. Some of these guys are bomb throwers and will do real damage, others will just show up and collect their checks and make their Rolodex available as he puts his presidential campaign together.
They are all state employees/appointees, and the sunshine laws make all their communications as part of that job accessible to reporters, it’s part of the reason there is still some good local reporting on corruption. I’m not sure how local reporting ever gets out of being “local”, but Ron is pretty set on running for president either in 2024, there’s likely a growing pile of locally reported Florida State Gov’t mismanagement stories in Lexus-Nexis for someone enterprising to dig into.
Gvg
@RaflW: it was.broken years ago IMO. Charter schools and the states paying religious organizations to do things they should do like parts of the foster care system.
Manyakitty
@RaflW: yep. They’re going to strip the assets and sell what’s left for scrap. Pardon me while I wander off in a blind rage.
Manyakitty
@Gin & Tonic: because they are the toughest badasses ever. Slava Ukraini.
rikyrah
@Mike in NC: 🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿