Remember how the Beltway press fell for the “grassroots” tea party bullshit during the last Democratic president’s first term, even though the whole thing was obviously a fraudulent, Koch-funded, anti-tax Astroturf effort from day one? Well, they’re falling for the same old bullshit in a new package.
Here’s a dopily credulous CNN piece on two plucky Florida moms who are just so gosh-darn fed up with teachers unions and bureaucrats in their school districts that they up and created a little grassroots nonpartisan movement called “Moms for Liberty.” And BOOM, suddenly their plucky li’l movement has gone nationwide, can you belieeeeeve it?
The organization grew exponentially in a matter of months, according to the founders, who say they now have 167 chapters across more than 30 states with 70,000 members. They say their goal is to have a Moms for Liberty chapter in every school district, showing up at every school board meeting in the country.
With Moms for Liberty t-shirts that carry slogans such as “We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT,” members are taking to podiums at school board meetings and rallies to protest mask and vaccine mandates, materials in books and curriculum related to race and LGBTQ rights, and critical race theory (CRT), among other concerns, including falling literacy rates.
Weird how we never hear anything about “falling literacy rates” while these goobers are tossing books into the fire. Anyhoo, this part of the article is almost precious:
Moms for Liberty has set up three political action committees and its chapters are now endorsing candidates in school board elections, although Descovich and Justice insist the group is non-partisan.
According to Descovich, the organization has “cleared $300,000” in funding through T-shirt sales, small donations and fundraising events. Moms for Liberty recently hired a part-time assistant and Descovich is now receiving a stipend as the executive director. The organization is so new, however, the chapter’s tax records are not yet available.
LOL! Just fucking Google these two women, CNN reporters! They have a digital trail and an obvious political agenda. They didn’t spring fully formed from Zeus’s head in 2021, and their activities just so happen to map precisely to whatever cultural panic Florida Republicans are fomenting at the moment — trans girls participating in sports, mask mandates, CRT, whatever.
God, it’s maddening to have the narrative set by people who apparently drop out of the womb brand new every goddamn day. It lends credence to theories I don’t wholly buy, which is that all MSM reporting strictly supports the GOP agenda.
Open thread.
Baud
I look forward to the GOP banning homeschooling when it’s liberal parents who want to use it.
Honus
They probably started their little grassroots organization after meeting for breakfast at a diner at 10:00 am one weekday morning. While most everyone else was working a real job.
Cameron
If the term ‘useful idiots’ had not already been invented….
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
I look forward to confronting these morons if and when they set up shop in my local school district
Grung_e_Gene
The Corporate Media’s job is too help elect Republicans. That conservatives get to decry the Media as liberals just ensures the job is Donned in unimpeachable armor of ‘Even the liberal media agrees with…’
senyordave
They didn’t spring fully formed from Zeus’s head in 2021,
I had a pretty shitty day yesterday (drove 100 miles roundtrip into Miami in horrible traffic only to find out my wife’s doctor appt. was canceled because they forgot to get prior approval from insurance). But reading a line like the above will always bring a smile to my face.
CNN is lazy and/or stupid. I was on twitter a while back and engaged one of these Moms for Liberty types, and it actually took me a few minutes to realize what a waste of time it was. When she claimed to support public education and public school teachers I pointed out that putting a $10,000 on teachers caught teaching CRT is a strange way of showing supprot.
hells littlest angel
Ell oh fucking ell. “We wanted to investigate their finances but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.”
p.a.
https://youtu.be/1aP7FE0ws0s
CNN: Delaware judge sides w Dominion against Fux ‘News’, allowing access to Fox internal communications & testimony w Fux employees under oath.
West of the Rockies
I wish these shitbirds would remove their brat kids from public schools and enroll them already in the religious schools they so clearly pine for (and pay for it themselves–no taxpayer dollars).
Almost Retired
@Baud: Exactly. Same with subsidizing private religious school if that Maine case before the Supremes goes the way I think it will. Let the double-standards begin.
But if that’s the case, I’m gonna get me some of that sweet, sweet, Gummint money: “Almost Retired’s Down-Home Rootin’ Tootin’ Suburban Madrasa,” now accepting students (pre-K and up) with vouchers.
UncleEbeneezer
If you haven’t already, the National Education Policy Center’s report on CRT backlash, is a must-read:
“As racial tensions in the country have mounted over the past five years, there have been in- creased calls for school curriculum to accurately represent the history of slavery and racism, and their central role in the development of the U.S. Attacks on CRT are intended to counter mounting calls for historical accuracy, and so they are often coupled with attacks on the New York Times 1619 Project’s more honest and thorough presentation.
…
The anti-CRT campaign is just the most recent of a long line of politically motivated attacks on efforts to provide accurate information about slavery and racism. It is well understood that when people lack an accurate knowledge of history, organizers find it difficult to cul- tivate multiracial coalitions to promote racial and economic justice. History has recorded similar efforts to outlaw potentially empowering information whenever marginalized people increased their political participation and demanded changes in school curriculum and prac- tices. Typical of this pattern are attacks on the 1960s-70s civil rights movement and, more recently, the Black Lives Matter movement. This historical context indicates that yet again, the central purpose of current fearmongering legislative and executive activity is to obstruct historically accurate teaching about race and racism in K-12 education.
…
We see two overall political objectives of the anti-CRT attacks: (1) Mobilizing a partisan base for upcoming elections; and (2) Thwarting efforts to promote racial justice by deflecting de- bate away from systemic racism and suppressing information about it.
…
The coordinated political attack on Critical Race Theory and the 1619 Project is a reminder of how strong and persistent the resistance to efforts is to provide students with historically accurate information about slavery and about the long shadow that racism has cast over every aspect of life in the U.S. and every U.S. institution. Stoking White fear of people of color is still a viable political strategy for retaining power. And claims that people of color are recipients of special and undeserved privileges are still given widespread credence. As a result, efforts to blunt and roll back progress toward racial justice remain politically viable.
Good faith criticisms of CRT as part of a civil conversation about slavery and its legacy, or about the ongoing impact of racism on our institutions and culture, are to be welcomed. However, the political attacks on CRT are not good faith efforts to thoughtfully consider the ways in which social structures reinforce inequitable racial, gender, and class relationships. They are part of a well-organized, political effort to defend current structural inequities by suppressing accurate information about slavery and racism, blocking access to democratic participation, and undermining public education. As such, they are politically retrograde and anti-democratic. They are best countered not primarily via academic debate, but through political organizing and mobilization: in other words, through democratic engagement.
Some ways of engaging politically are likely to be more successful than others. Strategies that may seem logical, such as denouncing “dog-whistle” politicians for being racist, or avoiding mentioning race in order to avoid accusations of engaging in “identity politics,” are not nec- essarily the most effective; moreover, they can easily backfire.76 Efforts to reframe the de- bate, engage with decision-makers, and leverage the media are more likely to be successful.77 Of particular interest and importance is research supporting messaging that acknowledges race and racism, but establishes the shared stake of Americans of all racial backgrounds in public education; that contextualizes social, economic, and educational inequities;78 that illustrates why inequities should concern Americans of all racial backgrounds; and, that pro- vides specific examples of solutions.79 Ultimately, only by understanding the political nature of the attacks against CRT can we choose effective political ways to counter them, helping to ensure that public education serves to reduce, rather than reinforce, structural racism.”
cleek
WaPo gave these clowns a front page article back in Oct.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/moms-for-liberty-parents-rights/2021/10/14/bf3d9ccc-286a-11ec-8831-a31e7b3de188_story.html
D Gardner
Betty C – I adore your writing style, and anytime I read a piece of yours without having noticed your byline, it is immediately clear who the author is. Your ability to eviscerate the moronic conservatives (but then, I repeat myself) is truly top-class!
Fair Economist
@West of the Rockies: Generally they don’t even have school-age kids. Fakes kind of astroturf.
Betty Cracker
Y’all remember rightwing activist Christopher Rufo sharing his CRT panic strategy with the New Yorker, right? It’s playing out exactly as planned. I’m tempted to give him credit for laying it all out there in advance, but he probably knew being honest wouldn’t put his scheme at risk.
Mustang Bobby
I love their apparently unintentionally ironic name “Moms for Liberty,” perhaps the same way North Korea calls itself the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
Betty Cracker
@cleek: I’ll give WaPo credit for being more honest about who these people are. They quote parents and officials who provide context about how disruptive and abusive these assholes are. They don’t indulge the fiction that they’re anything other than Republican operatives.
Jeffro
@UncleEbeneezer: thanks for sharing this!
superdestroyer
@Betty Cracker: The CRT strategy is working because progressives and the left has made it so easy to use. Teach about the Chinese Exclusion Act or Dred Scott all anyone wants. However, schools have to realize that using terms like White Privilege or reparations is a political loser
Jeffro
@cleek:
@Betty Cracker:
Interesting language and goals for such an organic grass-roots group, wouldn’t you say?
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer: Well done, National Education Policy Center!
lowtechcyclist
So you’re saying schools shouldn’t teach the truth because it’s bad politics?? Just asking.
Because even this old white guy can see that white privilege is as real as the ground under my feet. Which in many ways it is.
UncleEbeneezer
Made Taiwanese noodles with minced pork last night (delicious AND easy!) and watched this pretty-killer Chinese action/thriller Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. It was really fun. Incredible action/fight sequences, great sets and amazing costumes. You can watch it on Amazon Prime (IMDB channel add-on or free with commercials) and AppleTV (Pluto add on). Very entertaining flick!
UncleEbeneezer
@Jeffro: You’re very welcome. It really highlights how this has been a go-to move by Conservatives for a long time.
VeniceRiley
I honestly hate this astroturf shit. Maddening is exactly the right word.
Still no results from the wife’s test. She is isolating at home. Stable on feeling, but her watch reported ox over 3 days went 97,95,94 and it worries me. Hoping her triple shot of AZ AZ Pfizerboost holds up and she gets better in a few days. I may have an ulcer by then.
Litlebritdifrnt
“We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT,” Yes you do you lying cretins. There are a miriad of Government rules that must be followed before you can get our brats into school (vaccine mandates anyone?) The Goverment even dictates which school your kids can go to depending on your address. As I said the other day these people are just like the Tea Party rubes in my former US location. Demonstrations in the street with “Taxed Enough Already” held aloft by retired military/civil service (sometimes both)/law enforcement every last one of them living off their Government paid pensions and Social Security. I am not saying that they didn’t earn said pensions but said pensions/SS etc., are being paid by current taxpayers and if taxes go away so does their income. Morons.
trollhattan
I had exponential growth from birth to now. Who would have guessed?
Hilbertsubspace
There’s a story from President Obama’s first term about the media. When Obama went on the Daily Show in 2011 (Late 2010?) to talk about the Return to Sanity rally, he commented that we (America) could have used that rally two years ago. The audience all laughed, but no one in the press pool got the joke. They looked at each other and asked, “Why is that funny?”
Don’t let skill with language and education level fool you into thinking someone is intelligent, a modest correlation is no guarantee.
Short version: News people are not the sharpest bowling balls in the alley.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Hasn’t bothered the substackers a bit. They credit him with his political savvy.
We’re at the phase of the CRT panic where we blame the victims. “Stop making me hit you!”
John S.
It’s not too hard giving credence to theories that have substantial evidence to support them. Corporate owned media are always going to be naturally aligned with the GQP.
If the MSM truly practiced actual journalism, the GQP would be heading the way of the Know Nothing party.
Betty Cracker
@superdestroyer: You’ll have to define “the left” in this context. I often see “the left” accused of downplaying social justice in favor of economic justice, so it can’t be the same “left” that’s doing what you’re saying it has done.
But semantics aside, I think you’re correct to note that, in a country where most voters are white, talking about white privilege and reparations is a political loser. At the same time, white privilege is real in the sense that even the poorest, most disadvantaged white people aren’t further burdened by systemic discrimination based on their skin color.
And doesn’t justice demand measures to level the economic playing field for black Americans, to address the disadvantages that have compounded over generations? I don’t think you have to call it reparations, but fairness demands something — at the very least acknowledgement that the damage is real and was maliciously inflicted rather than blaming the victims.
Brachiator
These are moms with kids in public schools?
trollhattan
@Litlebritdifrnt:
To pile on, they want desperately to get federal education money into their parochial schools and to that end they finally have the (very Catholic) Supreme Court to make that happen. A twofer: bankrupt myriad public school districts (“Gotcha critical race right here.” [grab crotch]) and churn out more little bots for far less than it costs today to send them off to private school.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
There’s a fundamental problem with the whole agenda and it’s this- the goal is to push through more private school vouchers. But they won’t be able to apply any of their elaborate speech codes to private schools. So they’re fundamentally full of shit. The thing rests on “public funding” but they exempt the publicly funded private schools they’re all pushing. It’s elaborate new mandates for public schools with tons of reporting and paperwork requirements, because they can reach public schools. But it’s inequitable because it’s limited to public schools and their ideological goal is public funding of private schools. It’s incoherent, much like the anti-cancel culture muddled mess from which it sprang. It doesn’t make any sense.
James E Powell
CNN and the rest of the press/media are not “falling for” anything. They know exactly what is going on and they know exactly what they are doing.
It may come as a shock to some that that owners & managers of the press/media do not give a rat’s ass about democracy, freedom, equality, or even basic decency. They want more money and more power and they do not give a shit what happens to the millions of people in the US and elsewhere.
We have the means to moderate their malign presence, but it requires unity and work and more work. It can be emotionally, psychologically, and at times even physically exhausting, but we have no other choice if we want to preserve these things we cherish.
trollhattan
@superdestroyer:
“progressives and the left”?
scav
Wonder of wonders, even my mother is finally beginning to spontaneously discover how biased the MSM is by default. They may be finally overplaying their (marked card) hand. Very odd wandering from that conversation directly into this.
Bex
Did they (or their obviously overpaid consultants) come up with “Moms for Liberty” because “Moms for Freedom” was taken? Or is “Freedom” so two minutes ago? Names like that are a tell, but CNN doesn’t seem to know or care. Just a thought, but since they are targeting vaccinations and masks, Omicron might have some ideas.
Baud
OT some good news for a change.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I keep noticing that the only “Liberty” these assholes ever stand for is the “Liberty” to treat people who don’t resemble them like shit.
Brachiator
@superdestroyer:
Yeah, we really need to omit history lessons such as this:
On April 16, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed an act paying the equivalent of $25 million to DC slave owners for 3,100 formerly enslaved people.
By contrast:
But who needs history if it makes white peeples feel bad?
PaulWartenberg
Just got warned by my boss that this “MAGAMoms for Bookburning” group has started attacking the school libraries here in Polk County, and had to go through the reminder that our library has a review plan in place that any protestor will have to go through to challenge a book. Good news is, it’s one form per book, so if they come in here challenging 500 books they’ll have to fill out 500 forms…
#BringIt #ProtectBannedBooks
Jim, Foolish Literalist
open thread?
I guess the jaw-dropping part is that he managed to squeeze into less than 45 seconds things he’s said, it seems to me, several times over the last five years
Hoodie
@James E Powell: The whole special status of the “fourth estate” thing rings hollow when media are dominated by monopolistic conglomerates and PE shops.
Betty Cracker
@John S.: I don’t dispute that the Beltway press is wired for Republicans in a real sense — just giving a horserace account of democracy vs. authoritarianism puts the thumb on the scale for autocracy, let alone the dumb but dogged impulse to “both sides” everything. But I’m not convinced every piece of reporting the MSM produces has the goal of advancing the GOP agenda. I’ll admit that articles like the one quoted above make me question this…
Mr. Longform
Hang on there, Betty – it almost sounds like you expect these reporter-types to do some research and have some idea of what they are talking about before they write up a story for nation-wide distribution. What’s next? Fact-checking? Intelligent interpretation? You need to back off from this crazy talk.
Brachiator
@Kay:
This is already happening to some degree, with states that allow tax deductions for school tuition payments and which have expanded the use of 529 plans, originally meant for college, for k-12 education.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I agree. It’s a mystery why or when they notice things. Especially CNN and Fox, who gave him tens of millions of dollars in free promotion starting in 2012. Maybe they didn’t listen to anything he said the hours and hours he was on their cable channel?
What was the possible justification for covering his birtherism to the extent they did? They devoted hours to promoting a nasty, racist smear and now look where we are. Good job, you clowns.
John S.
@Betty Cracker:
Oh, I agree with you. But even when they’re not explicitly trying to promote the GQP agenda, their natural instinct is to adopt a form of “neutrality” that implicitly promotes the GQP agenda.
cleek
but we demand the right to co-teach with teachers!
Felanius Kootea
Why don’t you buy those theories? I mean I’m reading your post about the history of the US media falling for astroturf right wing groups’ well-coordinated campaigns. This coupled with the fact that there’s never any self-reflection or apology for falling for the same damn thing time and again. Maybe they’re just super gullible people – yeah that must be it. Gullibility – the one trait that makes for an outstanding journalist.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: he said the thing about “Israel used to control Congress” within the last couple of months
Kay
@cleek:
They can no longer function in communities. Either public schools serve them exclusively or they’ll tank them. They don’t have any workable concept of “public”. Their child is the only child that matters. It’s just incompatible with public education. It won’t work.
narya
I am in snit today. My org is giving bonuses to directors and “people” managers. Therefore, even though my team manages a substantial amount of government money, and works with teams across the agency to do so, and have “manager” titles, they don’t qualify. I am contemplating going to senior leadership and saying, if you’re not going to give them bonuses, then please give them some of mine, because I can’t do it without them. I’ve written the email but am sitting on it until I think about it some more.
Hoodie
@Betty Cracker: They’re not mutually exclusive. While most of it probably is craven or brainless careerism, there probably are a good number fish in that particular sea who are intentionally advancing GOP goals. We already know that media infiltration is an intention of conservative groups (see, e.g., Fox was the brainchild of a GOP operative). Of course, they look at that as legitimate, just like I’m sure that many of the 1/6 coup planners thought stealing an election was justified to save America from godless socialism.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The “serious” religious Right and Trump are interesting, because they made this deal with the devil and they’re arrogant enough to think they can manage it and use it to their advantage and I don’t think they can. I’ll be delighted when they fail. Pride goeth and all that. Trumpsters are fucking chaos. This idea they have that they are somehow going to mold this sleazy old liar and his fans into some serious “New Right” led by conservative Catholics is just the height of hubris. He’ll eat them just like he ate the GOP. He smears everything he touches with shit.
schrodingers_cat
Not every single piece, and there are many reporters on the ground that do excellent work. But the bias towards privileging whiteness is built-in. It is the conventional wisdom. It is like the water you swim in. White is the default everyone else is treated like an outlier. So the party of the white demographic, the Republican party gets better press.
This bias exists in many if not most liberal spaces as well. It manifests itself as paternalism unlike the outright hostility of the RW spaces
ETA: There is a similar dynamic at play in India too but I belong to the privileged group there that is considered the default. So it took some time and distance to realize the casteist nature of the news coverage.
Citizen Alan
@trollhattan:
I would give anything to ask any I e of the SCROTUS 6: “How do you propose we give tax money to Catholic parochial schools and not to Islamic madrassa schools?”
MisterForkbeard
@narya: We make a big distinction between People Managers and Technical/Program Managers at my company. But giving bonuses to just people managers is stupid and self-destructive. Good on you for fighting it.
Mike in NC
The bogus Tea Party movement of circa 2010 had absolutely nothing to do with “Taxed Enough Already” but everything to do with white racist assholes who objected to one of Those People sitting in the White House. Then they gifted us with Donald Fucking Trump.
Spanky
@senyordave:
Don’t want to pick on senyordave here, because I see a whole lot of takes like this. But …
Don’t ascribe to stupidity what should rightly be seen as malice. The majority of the msm is complicit in these little passion plays. Do not give them any benefit of a doubt.
TXSwede
They endorsed a candidate here in Southlake and he embraced them, publishing them in a list of his supporters. When articles started to come out about what Moms for Liberty really believe about race, he stopped talking about them, but never disavowed.
Four of our seven trustees are openly anti- anti-racist, and it is only going to get worse. These people are terrible.
Ksmiami
@narya: nah. More strategic to say, “my staff will most likely start looking into other opportunities if they aren’t recognized and I’m concerned about the impact on our organization- are there any discretionary fund to ameliorate this?”
Hoodie
@Citizen Alan: Based on recent opinions, they’ll come up with some word salad to justify it and many sycophants in the legal community and press will entertain it as legitimate legal theory. It won’t change until Congress or the Executive actually do something to constrain their power, like expanding the Court, reducing its jurisdiction or simply ignoring its rulings.
Villago Delenda Est
More like Ilse Koch wannabes for outright Fascism.
Another Scott
We were talking about the Parliamentarian a few threads ago…
Short thread:
Interesting. Counterfactuals are fun.
We’ll see what happens.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: During the earlier GWB years I remember liberals constantly complaining about how useless Reid was. I think he was dealing with a shitty hand as well.
trollhattan
Awkward family moments, Kennedy edition.
Also saw that one of RFK’s granddaughters has asked the State of California to not grant Sirhan parole, in opposition to other Kennedy clan members who supported parole.
Those family touch football games will henceforth be tackle sans helmets.
Kent
They did set up shop in one of my neighboring districts (or clones of them) and won one of the school board seats over a decent veteran, basically because they got enough rabid MAGAts to vote and most other people don’t bother to vote on local off-year school board elections.
It is a more MAGA district than ours, but not MAGA enough to normally let that sort of shit happen. Until they did. And now the orcs are inside the castle for the indefinite future. And school board meetings are going to be a shitshow.
Betty Cracker
@Felanius Kootea: See #45 for clarification (bleh — gonna hate that number forever!).
Betty Cracker
@Hoodie: & @schrodingers_cat: Y’all both make great points.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
Working downtown Sac I was able to wander into their rallies. The first 4/15 one was the largest and the media aggregation was immense, primarily Fox News and Pajamas Media (remember them?).
This guy summed up the day for me.
superdestroyer
@lowtechcyclist: White Privilege is an opinion and would have zero place in an 8th or 9th grade history class.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay: Lie down with the leopard, wake up without a face.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
I feel bad for them, but it doesn’t have to be for the indefinite future. The parents there that are opposed need to organize and mobilize voters. Parents in my district more or less did that by showing up to speak out against the anti-mask kooks at school board meetings. Word spread through FB groups and I assume they encouraged people to vote against the anti-mask, anti-vaccine candidate. He ended up losing despite the county GOP trying hard to push him.
If I had to guess, I’m sure the insular nature of local politics actually helped as well, since the incumbents were all well-known, long-serving members and the challenger was a carpetbagger.
Interestingly, in addition to the local GOP support, he also tried to frame himself as supporting “liberty” and parental rights. He tried to make himself appear “moderate” and it didn’t work
superdestroyer
@Betty Cracker: To argue the poorest whites benefits from being white can be counted by mentioning the Supreme Court case of Gratz V Bollinger where the University of Michigan was found to have violated the civil rights of white applicants by requiring better grades and test scores to have the same chance of admission as a black student. However, under critical race theory, one would be called a racist for pointing that out to an instructor.
lowtechcyclist
@Citizen Alan:
Or to lefty “new age” schools? Evangelicals themselves went on at length about how it was a bona fide religion.
superdestroyer
@Brachiator: But the point is a history class, what would have been the legal process to free the slaves in DC? Look up the term takings that is still a legal concept today.
lowtechcyclist
@superdestroyer: Guess I’ve been just plain lucky to have not been dragged out of my car, or even perforated with bullets, every time a cop has pulled me over and I was still rummaging through the glove box for my registration when he knocked on my window.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Very astute comments.
One of the interesting things about Steven Spielberg’s “The Post” is how it subtly notes without comment that the Washington Post is one of the newspapers of the Establishment. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara is a personal friend of Katherine Graham. All these people know each other and party together. They never think about potential conflicts of interest, because there are none. They presume that whatever they represent and believe is best for America.
gwangung
@superdestroyer:
Credit scores.
Redlining
Bias in answering resumes.
Police focus in stop and frisk.
Those are objective measures.
But I suppose mentioning them is inappropriate.
(Long time no see.)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@superdestroyer:
Aren’t you the right-winger who used to comment all the time on Outside the Beltway?
Anyway, so what? I’m not familiar w/ that case and I’m sure others who are more knowledgeable will chime in, but that’s one instance of that supposedly happening compared to all of the well-documented bullshit discrimination POC, particular black Americans, have to face
UncleEbeneezer
@superdestroyer: White Privilege is not an opinion. It is an absolute, measurable and well-documented FACT. We can see it everywhere in statistics of infant mortality, education funding, income inequality, healthcare access, call backs for resumes, likelihood of being pulled over/questioned/arrested/killed by police, disparate punishment in schools and justice system, etc. And Black/Brown students can point to countless examples that happen in 8th/9th grade classrooms.
White people don’t have to have “The Talk” with their kids. White people don’t lose jobs for wearing their hair in natural styles. These are just a couple of the endless examples of the privilege that every White person enjoys.
lowtechcyclist
So can the Majority Leader replace the parliamentarian on his own say-so, or does he need 50 votes? Because if the latter, it runs into the same two problems that dispensing with the filibuster encounters.
hueyplong
A J6 defendant (Robert Palmer) just got 62 months
Charged with assaulting police with pole and fire extinguisher.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@hueyplong:
5 years is a pretty hefty sentence imo. That’s a big chunk of anyone’s life
hueyplong
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s the longest one yet.
People have complained about the leniency so far but the first ones up to the plate were pleading-out small fry.
hueyplong
FWIW, my go-to for J6 cases is Scott MacFarlane, who sits in the courtroom every day and reports for the local DC NBC affiliate.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@schrodingers_cat:
This. And privileging traditional masculinity and ableism.
We are all marinating in these biases, especially the whiter folks (like me) among us. The sooner we are honest about these biases, the further we can move forward together.
The media, Republicans, and frankly many white Democrats are in denial – unwilling to engage in the critical self-examination that is necessary in a doomed attempt to protect their fragile egos. Much easier to go back to sleep and cheer “USA, USA”.
Betty
Awesome title and post! Media folks just don’t want to learn when there’s a fake controversy to play with. Not all that old boring governance stuff.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@superdestroyer:
You clearly don’t understand CRT. Go read some books.
hueyplong
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: The references to accusations of racism and “pointing [] out to instructors” are sort of instructive, if you know what I mean.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist:
Wikipedia – “Serves at the pleasure of the Majority Leader”
I think she can be fired at any time, but there is some political cost – especially if a Democrat does it – so changing at the start of the term is generally the way to go.
Cheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@hueyplong:
The thing is, January 6th would have been no big deal without the sheer numbers of people involved in the assault on the Capitol.
Something like this may well happen again. The small fry from this time need to get sentences that would convince the would-be small fry for the next one to stay home rather than come along for the ride.
Felanius Kootea
@superdestroyer: Ooh I have a Christmas present for you. It’s a fascinating book called Caste by Isabel Wilkerson. Send your mailing address to a front pager and I’ll ship it tout-de-suite. Happy holidays!
Baud
@hueyplong:
It was pretty obvious that the easy cases were being handled first, but people need to be cynical.
Betty Cracker
@superdestroyer: If you’re seriously equating the pervasive, unceasing, financially draining, life-threatening systemic discrimination black Americans face from birth to death with a situation where some white kids didn’t make the cut at their university of choice, further discussion will be pointless.
I’m not saying it didn’t suck for the affected white kids (not familiar with that particular case, but I’ll stipulate the facts are as you’ve presented for the sake of the discussion). But the scale of the harms aren’t in the same universe. If you’re for “colorblind” college admissions, just say so and propose alternatives that address the problem. No need to go yell at schoolboards like a brainless ninny.
Philbert
@UncleEbeneezer: All this and put lightly, (stole this), Straight White Male is the easiest setting on your videogame.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I remind myself that even if a new parliamentarian said that a comprehensive immigration reform measure met the requirements for a reconciliation bill, that wouldn’t neccesarily mean that Joe Manchin would vote for it.
There go two miscreants
“Morons for Lunacy”
or in a somewhat sexist vein that I would normally avoid,
“Bimbos for Bigotry”
Juju
@superdestroyer: I’ve been a social studies teacher in the south, on and off for the last 25 years. I have never, nor have I ever heard another teacher use the term white privilege while teaching American history. In regards to reparations, that is usually used in describing what was given to white slave owners after their slaves were freed. Jim Crow laws, de facto segregation and de jure segregation are/ were the terms used to describe white privilege. When the 3/5ths Compromise is added, issues become pretty clear to students. The terms you used tend to be used in college level or AP classes. It’s been a while for me, I became a substitute teacher, so things may have changed, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that sort of change. The whole issue truly is made up to motivate people like the Liberty Mothers.
Juju
@Litlebritdifrnt: it’s like the people who whine about socialism being a booga booga scary thing. I wish reporters would ask these people to define socialism or communism, or whatever term scares them so much. My guess is they don’t know the definition, especially someone like MTG or Loren Bohunk. I’d also like someone to ask them if they’ve built a highway or airport by themselves. It would be interesting to see if heads explode or they just get a nose bleed ?.
Bohunk was an autocomplete for me. I don’t know what that says about me, but I left it there.
buggrit
Who could have guessed “Moms for Bigotry” was already taken?
cain
It’s been an endless shitty hand with almost always thin margins for Democrats and I guess Republicans as well.
The goal of the GOP is status quo with some bones thrown in for social issues to keep the base angry. In turn, the media uses the GOP to keep the liberals angry so that they’ll keep showing up to watch their shit shows.
If we want to change the press, there needs to be a country wide liberal boycott of CNN who is the most egregious network since people think they are neutral but they are not.
Geminid
@Juju: I’ve noticed that Republicans are starting to attack “Communist Democrats” now. I wonder if they focus grouped “Socialist Democrats” and found it wasn’t as scary as they thought.
louc
@superdestroyer: Except that guess who has the lowest grades on average and higher admittance rates? Legacy students. Why doesn’t any less privileged white student ever file a lawsuit against that?
Mike in NC
@Geminid: At his first State of the Union address, Joe Biden should whip a $50 bill from his wallet and tell the Republicans, “If any of you morons can define socialism, I’ll give this to you”. He wouldn’t get any takers.
rikyrah
@p.a.:
Tee hee hee
WaterGirl
@Juju: I think Bohunk was something we called people in school. I lived in a Polish/Bohemian neighborhood where the older women all wore babushkas.
Now that’s a word I haven’t thought of in a million years.
Is that a crass way to refer to someone of Bohemian descent?
Juju
@WaterGirl: It might be. The first time I ever heard the term was in the Movie “Sixteen Candles”. It was the scene where the father was apologizing to the 16 year old daughter about missing her birthday, but mistook her angst about the missed birthday being about her older sister marrying a bohunk. Given the character of the fiancé, I took it to be an equivalent to moron, doofus, knuckle dragger, or something similar. That’s how I’ve always used it. I never thought bohemians were deserving of criticism, but maybe they were. Who knows?
WaterGirl
@Juju: I’m pretty sure no one deserves an ethnic slur. And things are certainly different from when I was growing up, when everyone called sleeveless undershirts “dego tees”. Not intended as a slur at all, I literally thought that’s what they were called.
Some things change for the better.
VOR
There were organized groups attacking school boards in the last election. In my area, we had a unified group with a shared website for the 4 candidates. A friend’s school district had a slate of 3 candidates who were all members of the same megachurch. These groups had the same slogans and agenda: anti-masking, anti-school shutdowns, and anti-CRT. Their rhetoric was all about putting children first and putting parents in charge of education.