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Tag: Republican

  • Republican debate: Why you may hear big numbers like 19% inflation, and how to make sense of it all

    Republican debate: Why you may hear big numbers like 19% inflation, and how to make sense of it all

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    Economists don’t much like presidential-campaign seasons. For them, it’s a bit like seeing their manicured gardens getting trampled by schoolchildren having a water-balloon fight.

    Robert Brusca, the president of consulting firm FAO Economics, predicted that the political discussion of the U.S. economy in the 2024 campaign would be “a farce.”

    Talk of inflation is likely to dominate the Aug. 23 Republican debate, for example.

    Republicans, eager to lay the blame for higher prices at the feet of President Joe Biden, are going to make the strongest case they can for that. For them, it is a happy coincidence that inflation started to pick up right when Biden was sworn into office.

    Larry Kudlow, a former top economic adviser to President Donald Trump, put it succinctly. “I have numbers. The consumer-price index is up 16% since February 2021. Groceries are up 19%. Meat and poultry up 19%. New cars up 20%. Used cars up 34%,” Kudlow said in an interview on the Fox Business Network.

    From last month: Mike Pence says inflation is 16%, but CPI is 3%. This is his logic.

    Unlike Kudlow, the Federal Reserve doesn’t usually measure inflation over 29 months. Instead, the central bank favors using inflation data that looks at the past 12 months.

    By that year-over-year measure, CPI is up 3.2%. Groceries are up 3.6%. Meat and poultry prices are up 0.5%. New-vehicle prices are up 3.5%, but prices of used cars and trucks are actually down 5.6%.

    Economists, meanwhile, tend to like even shorter measures, such as the three-month annualized rate. They think the 12-month rate says more about the rate a year ago than it does about what is happening today.

    “Looking at year-over-year [data], the only new piece of information is the current month. You are looking at 11 months that you already know,” said Omair Sharif, president and founder of research company Inflation Insights.

    Using the shorter metric, headline CPI for the three months ending in July is up 1.9%, while food at home rose 1.1% and meat and poultry is down 4.5%, he said.

    Trends have been favorable in recent months, but that might not last. “It’s been a good summer,” Sharif said. “But unfortunately, the winter data won’t be as pleasant.”

    What caused the spike in inflation?

    Economists tend not to blame one political party or the other for spikes in inflation.

    In the 1970s, for example, the culprit was increases in oil prices by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

    This time, there was no one single factor. While the debate is not yet over, economists tend to focus on the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the move to end reliance on fossil fuels in order to combat climate change.

    Brian Bethune, an economics professor at Boston College, said prices started to rise when the healthcare industry had to adjust to a new, unforeseen risk. There were steep costs to dealing with the deadly coronavirus and developing vaccines.

    People working in frontline industries were able to command higher wages. And demand outstripped supply for many things, as shelves were emptied by consumers and supply chains were strained.

    Bethune also stressed recent moves toward renewable energy. The best way to explain inflation to your grandmother, he said, is to look at a chart of electricity prices.


    Uncredited

    The steady increase stems from efforts to move closer to a carbon-free economy, Bethune said. And those prices get passed along “right through the whole cost pressure of the economy,” including the price of refrigerated foods.

    Inflation boomed and is now coming off its peak, said Brusca of FAO Economics. Prices are still rising, but not at the same rapid clip. And they won’t roll back to prepandemic levels.

    “Consumers are caught in a trap,” he said. “If prices are going to come down, you have got to have deflation.”

    Deflation comes with its own unique set of woes. It can make the cost of borrowed money, like mortgages, much more expensive. And it can lead to serious economic weakness.

    “All of this is why the Fed targets price stability,” Brusca said.

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  • The 5 Worst Presidential Debate Fails, Ranked

    The 5 Worst Presidential Debate Fails, Ranked

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    Mark your calendars. On August 23, Republicans who qualify to participate will take the stage for the first presidential debate. It’s always a big night for any candidate who can steal the TV sound bites and headlines: A strong performance can mean a path to the nomination and perhaps the presidency.

    But for those who fail the test and melt under the spotlight, it can also mean the end of the line.

    There are arguably three prime opportunities for an aspiring presidential nominee to truly move the dial of public awareness: the announcement that he or she is running; the nomination of his or her vice presidential choice at the convention (along with both candidates’ convention speeches); and his or her debate appearances.

    It’s the debates, however, that can be the ultimate X factor, good or bad, in determining the fortunes of a candidate. Because they’re the one platform where candidates have an opportunity to show their skills relative to the strengths and weaknesses of their opponents. Voters want to see candidates in that arena. Without teleprompters. Without scripts. Without aides whispering into their ears. It is arguable that it was the 2016 debates, forums, and town halls—more than 40 of them!—that, for better or for worse, gave us GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. (Okay, I’ll amend that: for worse.)

    And if there is one cold, hard truth I can impart, it is this: If you blow it on the debate stage, there’s no net to catch you when you fall. You have competitors and moderators who are ready to strafe you the moment you falter. A sizable audience will be tuned in (or will be sure to watch the highlight—or the lowlight—reel online). And the cameras will record every hair-raising moment—from the smallest verbal stumble to the last droplet of flop sweat.

    There’s a long list of aspirants who failed the test and paid the price. Here are my top five.

    5. Richard Nixon. The first guy to blow a televised candidate debate was the first guy to appear in one. And because then vice president Richard Nixon, in 1960, did not fully understand the power of television, he lost the debate that evening to then Massachusetts senator John F. Kennedy—and, arguably, the presidency. Nixon, because he was relatively unfamiliar with the medium (his infamous 1952 “Checkers” speech aside), prepared for the event as if it were taking place on radio. Which meant he didn’t apply basic television makeup and looked like he hadn’t shaved. So he came off looking sweaty and swarthy. And because Nixon didn’t know where to look—at the camera, at the audience, at Kennedy, or at the moderator, CBS’s Howard K. Smith—his eyes darted around. Which made him look even shiftier. A bronzed, youthful, commanding Kennedy, looking at ease, easily won the night—and, eventually, the White House.

    Chris Christie and Marco Rubio, 2016.

    Scott Olson/Getty Images.

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    Mark McKinnon

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  • Democrats Have Just About Had It With Kevin McCarthy Caving to the Right: “They’re on a Fast Track to a Shutdown”

    Democrats Have Just About Had It With Kevin McCarthy Caving to the Right: “They’re on a Fast Track to a Shutdown”

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    But he added, “Everybody picks their own hill to die on.”

    Speaking with VF, another Republican lawmaker dismissed the fight over the riders as little more than political theater. “None of this matters,” this person said, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “We will see the rider process play out and at the end of it, we all know we’re getting a [continuing resolution]. And no one is happy about it.”

    Pocan said the House is “ceding much of the authority to the Senate to have some adults at the table.” The controversial riders will certainly be dead on arrival in the Democrat-controlled upper chamber. But their mere existence does put Republicans—particularly in districts Joe Biden won, and even some Democrats, in a tough position. “You really don’t want to have to take votes on these questions. They’re not helpful. And for what?… These things are not going to be included in the final bill,” former Republican congressman Charlie Dent, who resigned from Congress over frustrations with the increased partisanship, told VF.

    Reflecting on the current House dynamics, Dent said, “The hard-liners have leverage. They know it and they’re always willing to use it. The more pragmatic members are much more reluctant to exercise that kind of power, even though they have it. I mean, I’d be setting myself on fire right now if I were still in the House.” Republicans are having “private conversations” about their concerns, Pocan acknowledged. But Democrat DelBene isn’t holding her breath for her Republican colleagues to show some profiles in courage. “I think we’ve all heard some Republicans—and you’ve even seen it in the press—say, ‘Oh, this is terrible.’ But the reality is there aren’t any moderate Republicans,” DelBene, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said in an interview. “There’s lots of talk, but I think when it comes down to action, they all vote extreme.” 

    While the antiabortion and other culture-war riders have garnered a great deal of attention, Rosa DeLauro told me that it is even more concerning that Republicans are negotiating in what she sees as bad faith and not adhering to the spending levels set forth in the budget deal Biden struck with House leadership earlier this summer. “There was this negotiation, which everyone thought was in good faith, that we would come to a top line, and then proceed from there with regard to that framework with appropriations bills. But the ink wasn’t dry on the on the bill before the Republicans walked away from it,” DeLauro, who is the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said. The cuts, she said, go well beyond the 2022 spending levels agreed upon. “It is a savage cut across the board.” And the hubbub over the riders, she fears, is distracting from these cuts.

    When it comes to McCarthy, no one is under the illusion that the House Freedom Caucus and other members of his party’s fringe won’t continue to cause headaches for the Speaker. “Leadership is going to have to disappoint these folks again—just like they did on the debt ceiling,” Dent said. McCarthy is also feeling the squeeze from outside the Beltway. Specifically, Mar-a-Lago. Trump and McCarthy reportedly discussed the Speaker holding a vote to expunge the former president’s impeachments. There is certainly, and unsurprisingly, support within Trumpworld for expungement. In a text message to VF, Michael Caputo, a Trump ally who also worked in his administration, said it would be “vindicating” and characterized it as “both the easiest and the right thing” for McCarthy to do.

    An expungement vote is little more than a novel idea. In an interview with CNN former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said McCarthy is “playing politics” and added, “it’s not even clear if he constitutionally can expunge those things.” And much like the votes on some of these antiabortion and culture-war riders getting tacked onto funding bills, Pelosi noted that by bringing an expungement vote, McCarthy would put members in difficult districts—including the two remaining House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump—“on the spot” and “that is a decision he has to make.” Sources told CNN that the votes aren’t there. (McCarthy has disputed reporting that he promised the former president an expungement vote and told reporters any expungement would have to “go through committee like anything else.”)

    Perhaps as an effort to placate the more ornery members in the right-flank of his caucus, McCarthy did prop up the possibility of impeachment hearings against Biden this week. “How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy said Tuesday, in reference to allegations that Biden, when vice president, engaged in a bribery scheme alongside his son Hunter Biden. (President Biden has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.)

    As for what the Republican House drama means for Biden, his cheerleaders say it only helps the president. “Republican overreach in 2010 certainly helped [Barack] Obama in 2012. Republican overreach in 1994 helped [Bill] Clinton in 1996. To the extent that the president has and can continue to kind of run on this position of not only being the elder statesman with competent, steady leadership, but also a backstop against extremism—that’s a good place to be,” Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who is CEO of the Biden-supporting PAC Unite the Country, told VF. “Biden says it himself like, ‘Don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.’ Right now when you look at the US House—the alternative looks pretty good.” 

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    Abigail Tracy

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  • Lionel Messi and Gift Cards: GOP Presidential Candidates Are Desperate to Make the Debate Stage

    Lionel Messi and Gift Cards: GOP Presidential Candidates Are Desperate to Make the Debate Stage

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    Doug Burgum needed donors more than the actual donations. So for the last couple weeks, the North Dakota governor’s presidential campaign started offering $20 gift cards—or as Burgum calls them, “Biden economic relief cards”—to the first 50,000 people who donated $1 to his fledgling campaign. Fully paid out, the gambit would cost the campaign a million dollars, but it also achieved its goal: On Wednesday, the North Dakota governor announced that his campaign surpassed the donor threshold to make it on the debate stage in the GOP presidential primary. ​​“We passed the 40,000 mark today. We’ve got more gift cards to give out. We’re going to keep on going,” Burgum said in an interview with CNN, adding that his campaign has received donations from individuals in all 50 states.

    As for criticism that he is paying to play, Burgum turned to some campaign spin: “I think that’s funny actually,” he said. “This is about a smart strategy, it’s about an entrepreneur with a business attitude.”

    Burgum is not the only Republican presidential candidate desperate for individual donors. As Donald Trump dominates poll after poll of likely Republican voters in the presidential primary, little-known contenders are scrambling to get on the Fox News–hosted debate stage next month to make their mark. In order to make the cut, the candidates are put through the Republican National Committee’s campaigning tests: They need to hit specific polling numbers (candidates need to hit at least 1% support in three national polls, or 1% in two national polls and 1% in an early-state poll from two separate states: either Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, or South Carolina), and bring in 40,000 unique donors total, as well as 200 unique donors each in at least 20 states.

    For just a $1 donation to his campaign, Miami mayor Francis Suarez offered supporters the chance to enter a raffle to attend Lionel Messi’s first soccer game with Inter Miami. Similarly, Perry Johnson—a Republican businessman and failed Michigan gubernatorial candidate—offered a T-shirt emblazoned with a slogan supportive of Tucker Carlson in exchange for a $1 donation to his campaign, per Politico. Vivek Ramaswamy, whose campaign has said it hit the donor threshold, launched the “Vivek’s Kitchen Cabinet,” in which the biotech entrepreneur offered supporters who help raise campaign funds 10% of the money they bring in—a trick critics have said resembles a multi-level marketing scheme. “I found out that most professional political fundraisers get a cut of the money they raise,” Ramaswamy told Politico in explanation of his strategy. “Why should they monopolize political fundraising? They shouldn’t.”

    Forcing candidates to meet a donor threshold is not a novel idea; the Democratic Party imposed a similar standard in 2020, which initially locked out billionaire Michael Bloomberg, among other candidates, from early debates before the qualifying standard was ultimately dropped. But Republican presidential hopefuls certainly seem to be pushing the boundaries of legal tactics.

    Brendan Fischer, the executive director of political watchdog group Documented, explains that these ploys to get grassroots donors could set a “bad precedent, because campaign funds are not supposed to be used as a piggy bank to hand out financial benefits to friends and supporters.” Federal campaign laws prohibit straw donors—in other words, it’s illegal to reimburse someone for making campaign donations. Some legal experts question whether this is what these Republicans are essentially doing: “Giving a donor a $20 gift card for donating seems a bit like that,” Michael S. Kang, a professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, told NPR. If not illegal, it seems at the very least a bit unethical. Fischer echoed the sentiment. Burgum’s gift card scheme “raises a number of potential legal issues,” he says. “Burgum’s campaign should likely have asked the FTC for an advisory opinion before proceeding—questions about whether it might violate the straw donor ban or whether it might violate the personal use ban.” (Vanity Fair has reached out to Burgum’s campaign for comment.)

    So far, Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, and Ramaswamy are on track to qualify for the debates, based upon their standing in recent polls and donations, as reported by Politico. But other pretty notable names have not. Reportedly among them is former vice president Mike Pence. In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday morning, Pence addressed that his campaign was still short on donors—and also seemed to take a shot at his opponents adopting, shall we say, interesting tactics to entice donors. “From a polling standpoint, we’ll easily qualify. But getting 40,000 donors in just a matter of a few short weeks is a bit of a challenge,” he said. “We’re not offering gift cards, we’re not offering kickbacks, we’re not offering tickets to soccer games, we’re just traveling.”

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    Abigail Tracy

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  • GOP Governor Promises Gift Cards In Exchange For $1 Donations In Presidential Bid

    GOP Governor Promises Gift Cards In Exchange For $1 Donations In Presidential Bid

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    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) announced Monday that he will send donors a $20 gift card if they donate $1 to his presidential campaign.

    “People are hurting because of Bidenflation, and giving Biden Economic Relief cards is a way to help 50,000 people until we get in office and fix this crazy economy for everyone!” Burgum tweeted Monday. “Get yours here,” the tweet continued with a link to his campaign donation site.

    The linked WinRed site once again blames President Joe Biden, along with the Democratic Party, for hurting American families, while asking donors to fill out their personal information and provide credit card details.

    In a separate tweet, Burgum doubled down on the gift card offer: “When it comes to providing economic relief to the American people, I’m not messing around!”

    The unusual move has given rise to some legal concerns, Politico reported.

    The wealthy Republican governor, a former CEO at a software company, launched his presidential campaign last month but has little name recognition compared to many of his GOP opponents — who include former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

    Burgum, along with the other GOP presidential candidates, must receive at least 40,000 donations, including at least 200 dispersed among 20 different states, to qualify for the GOP debate on Aug. 23.

    The North Dakota governor has held his seat since 2016. In April, he signed a ban on abortions at six weeks without exceptions for instances of rape or incest.

    In May, he approved a bill banning pronoun policies in schools and requiring teachers to tell a student’s parent or guardian if the student identifies as transgender. He’s signed seven other anti-trans bills since January but maintains that he will not sign a federal abortion ban if elected.

    Burgum also claimed on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Saturday that he wants to stay away from “every culture war topic” such as abortions, book bans and transgender legislation throughout his campaign and if elected.

    “I’m comfortable with those battles happening at the state level because if people don’t like them they’ve got an opportunity to get engaged and try to change that. At the federal level it’s not anything I’m going to be pushing because I believe in freedom and liberty,” Burgum told NBC journalist Chuck Todd on Saturday.

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  • Ex-GOP Governor Unseals A Vicious Review Of DeSantis: He’s ‘Really Underperformed’

    Ex-GOP Governor Unseals A Vicious Review Of DeSantis: He’s ‘Really Underperformed’

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    Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) unleashed a sea of criticism aimed at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for having “one of the worst” presidential campaigns he’s seen.

    Hogan, who turned down a potential 2024 presidential bid in March, told CBS News’ Major Garrett on Wednesday that he thinks DeSantis has “really underperformed” as polls show the Florida governor trailing former President Donald Trump by double-digits for the GOP nomination in three recent national polls, Politico noted.

    “He was the one getting all the attention… wall-to-wall coverage on Fox News, he was the only one other than Trump that was really getting a lot of attention, he raised a ton of money, he was a fairly successful governor in a big state who got re-elected and then started making all kinds of mistakes,” Hogan said.

    “I think the campaign is one of the worst I’ve seen so far and he’s dropped like a rock.”

    Hogan, who said it’s “getting close to being over” for DeSantis’ campaign, said he thinks the Florida governor is headed in the wrong direction and went on to reveal what he thinks is the “central mistake” of his 2024 bid.

    “The culture wars, the dumb comments about Ukraine… he’s got some strengths but he’s also got some weaknesses,” Hogan said.

    “I mean, he just doesn’t connect with people, he’s not a good campaigner, he’s not a good debater. He’s a smart guy, went to Yale and Harvard.”

    “Doesn’t lead with that,” Garrett chimed in.

    “Doesn’t lead with that. He says he went to school in the northeast somewhere but yeah, I think, you know, everyone was thinking he was the guy to beat and now, I don’t think too many people think that,” Hogan said.

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  • Pence Berates DOJ For Indicting Trump Over Handling Of Top-Secret Documents

    Pence Berates DOJ For Indicting Trump Over Handling Of Top-Secret Documents

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    GREENSBORO, N.C. — Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday criticized the Department of Justice, rather than Donald Trump, for a devastating 37-count indictment accusing his former boss of conspiring to hide top-secret documents from authorities seeking their return.

    “The American people have a right to know the basis of this decision,” Pence told North Carolina Republicans gathered for their state convention, where Trump was scheduled to speak just hours later. “Attorney General Merrick Garland, stop hiding behind the special counsel and stand before the American people and explain why this indictment went forward.”

    Pence, as he was leaving following his 40 minutes on the stage, ignored repeated questions from reporters asking if he had read the indictment and if he believed it would’ve come had Trump turned over improperly retained classified documents when the FBI requested them.

    Pence’s choice to blame prosecutors for charging Trump with a crime — rather than Trump for refusing to turn over hundreds of the documents, even in the face of a subpoena — aligns him with most other candidates running for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination against Trump.

    Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy went so far as to promise to pardon Trump on his first day in office, should he win.

    Only former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have said Trump is to blame for his own troubles and that his behavior made him unfit for the presidency.

    After the FBI searched Trump’s Florida country club following his failure to turn over all the classified documents in his possession last summer, and after aides to Joe Biden also discovered files at the Democratic president’s home, Pence looked through his own residence and similarly found classified material. He called in the FBI, resulting in further searches. The DOJ announced recently that its investigation into Pence had been closed with no charges.

    “I took full responsibility, and I was pleased the Department of Justice concluded it was an innocent mistake,” he said at a campaign stop Friday in New Hampshire. “But it was a mistake. We must secure our nation’s secrets.”

    Pence was nearly killed during Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt in Washington. A mob, brought to a boiling rage as Trump criticized Pence for lacking the “courage” to help overturn his 2020 election loss, came within yards of encountering Pence at the Capitol. Many of Trump’s followers chanted, “Hang Mike Pence,” as they roamed the halls looking for him.

    Despite this, Pence has remained measured in his criticisms of Trump. Only in his campaign announcement last week did Pence say, for the first time, that Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election through the Jan. 6 insurrection disqualified him from being president again.

    He has echoed that belief in subsequent appearances, and did so again Saturday in North Carolina.

    “Anyone who puts themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said in his remarks. Republicans at the Sheraton ballroom in Greensboro offered polite applause as Pence explained his actions on Jan. 6, when he refused Trump’s demands.

    Melissa Crespo, a delegate from the Lincoln County party committee, said she absolutely could not support Pence.

    “I feel like he should not run against Trump. I just feel like that’s disloyal,” she said. “He’s betraying the people who supported him as vice president.”

    Pence’s “First in Freedom” luncheon brought in 600 convention-goers, who paid $75 each to attend the fundraiser. His was one of three ticketed meals the party is holding. A dinner featuring fellow GOP hopeful Ron DeSantis attracted about 900 attendees who paid $150 a ticket, while a Saturday night dinner with Trump sold nearly 1,000 tickets at $150 each.

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  • The debt ceiling deal: This clause is bad for Social Security

    The debt ceiling deal: This clause is bad for Social Security

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    If there were no tax cheats in America, there would be no Social Security crisis. Benefits could be paid, and payroll taxes kept the same, for the next 75 years.

    That’s not me talking. That’s math. It comes from the number crunchers at the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.

    And it explains why those of us who support Social Security should be pounding the table in outrage over one clause of the Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deal: The part where the president has to retreat from his crackdown on tax cheats just so McCarthy and the House Republicans would agree to prevent America defaulting on its debts.

    It’s just two years since the administration got into law an extra $80 billion for the IRS to beef up enforcement. That was supposed to include hiring an estimated 87,000 IRS agents. 

    OK, so nobody likes paying taxes and nobody likes the IRS. Cue the inevitable critiques of an IRS tax “army,” and so on. But this isn’t about whether taxes should be higher or lower. It’s about whether everyone should pay the taxes that they owe.

    After all, if we’re going to cut taxes, shouldn’t they apply to those of us who obey the laws as well as those who don’t? Or do we just support the “Tax Cuts for Criminals” Act?

    Why would any voter rally around a platform of “I stand with tax cheats?”

    The Congressional Budget Office calculated that the extra funding for the IRS would have reduced the deficit, because it would more than pay for itself. But it’s now been cut by an estimated $21 billion out of $80 billion.

    If this seems abstract, consider the context and how it affects you and your retirement — and the retirements of everyone you know.

    Social Security is now running at an $80 billion annual deficit. That’s the amount benefits are expected to exceed payroll taxes this year. (So say the Social Security Administration’s trustees.)

    Next year, that deficit is expected to top $150 billion. By 2026, we’re looking at $200 billion and rising. The trust fund will run out of cash by 2034, and without extra payroll taxes will have to slash benefits by a fifth or more.

    Over the next 75 years, says the Congressional Budget Office, the entire funding gap for the program will average about 1.7% of gross domestic product per year.

    Meanwhile, how much are tax cheats stealing from the rest of us? A multiple of that.

    According to the most recent estimates from the IRS, tax cheats steal about $470 billion a year. And that figure is four years out of date, relating to 2019. That’s the figure after enforcement measures.

    Oh, and the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says that’s a lowball number.

    But it still worked out at around 12% of all the taxes people were supposed to pay (including payroll taxes). And around 2.3% of GDP.

    Over the next 10 years, based on similar ratios to GDP, that would come to another $3.3 billion. 

    Sure, Social Security’s trust fund is theoretically separate from the rest of Uncle Sam’s finances. But that’s an accounting issue: A distinction without a difference.

    Social Security is America’s retirement plan. Few could retire in dignity without it. Yet it is facing a fiscal crisis. By 2034, without changes, the program will be forced to cut benefits — drastically.

    Some people want to cut benefits. Others want to raise the retirement age, which also means cutting benefits. Others want to raise taxes on benefits — which also means cutting benefits. Others want to hike payroll taxes, either on all of us or (initially) only on very high earners.

    At last — just 40 or so years out of date — some are starting to talk about investing some of the trust fund like nearly every other pension plan in the world, in high-returning stocks instead of just low-returning Treasury bonds. 

    (It is hard for me to believe that it’s now almost 16 years since I first wrote about this ridiculously obvious fix And, yes, I’ve been boring readers on the subject ever since, including here and most recently here, and, no, I have no plans to stop.)

    But if investing some of the trust fund in stocks is a no-brainer, so, too, is insisting everyone obey the law and pay the taxes they actually owe each year. I mean, shouldn’t we do that before we think about raising taxes even further on those who abide by the law?

    How could anyone object? Any party that believes in law and order would support enforcing, er, law and order on tax evasion. And any party of fiscal conservatism would support measures, like tax enforcement, to narrow the deficit.

    And, actually, any party that truly supported lower taxes for all would be tough on tax evasion: It is precisely this $500 billion in evasion by a small, scofflaw minority that forces the rest of us to pay more. We have, quite literally, a tax on obeying the law.

    One of the many arguments in favor of taxing assets or wealth, instead of just income, is that enforcement would be easier and evasion much harder. 

    Washington, D.C., seems to be a place where people come up with complex proposals just so they can avoid the simple, fair ones.

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  • 2024 Republican Hopefuls Rush To Defend Man Who Killed Jordan Neely

    2024 Republican Hopefuls Rush To Defend Man Who Killed Jordan Neely

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis urged the nation to show Daniel Penny that “America’s got his back.” Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley called for New York’s governor to pardon Penny, and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy donated $10,000 to his legal defense fund.

    Republican presidential hopefuls have lined up to support Penny, a 24-year-old U.S. Marine veteran who was caught on video pinning an agitated fellow subway passenger in New York City to the floor in a chokehold. The passenger, 30-year-old Jordan Neely, later died from compression of the neck, according to the medical examiner.

    Penny has been charged with manslaughter. His attorneys say he acted in self-defense.

    He’s already become a hero to many Republicans, who have trumpeted Penny as a Good Samaritan moving to protect others in a Democrat-led city that has seen crime rates rise. The support has been unwavering, despite the fact that Neely, who was Black, never got physical with anyone on the train before he was placed in the chokehold for several minutes by Penny, who is white.

    The rush to back Penny recalls how then-President Donald Trump and other top Republicans fiercely supported Kyle Rittenhouse during the 2020 presidential election. Rittenhouse, a white teenager who killed two men and wounded a third during a tumultuous night of protests in Wisconsin over a Black man’s death, was acquitted.

    More recently, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott vowed to pardon Daniel Perry, a white Army sergeant who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fatally shooting an armed man during a 2020 Black Lives Matter protest in the state’s capital of Austin.

    Top Republicans have tried to make rising crime rates a political liability for Democrats. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee traveled to New York City last month — before Neely was killed — for a hearing examining “victims of violent crime in Manhattan.”

    Democrats and racial justice advocates counter that GOP messaging around restoring “law and order” plays on deep-seated racism.

    “They have a playbook of winning elections that is based on really tapping into the worst parts of human nature and really driving it home with division and fear,” said Jumaane Williams, a Democrat who is New York City’s public advocate. “And, if there’s race and class played into it, then it’s like Christmastime for them.”

    Neely, known by some commuters as a Michael Jackson impersonator, had a history of mental illness and had frequently been arrested in the past. Bystanders said he had been shouting at passengers, begging for money and acting aggressively, but didn’t touch anyone aboard the train.

    Christopher Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, said GOP presidential candidates see Penny’s cause as a way to excite their party’s base.

    “There’s very little downside within the Republican electorate, given that it overlays so nicely with the issues that are incredibly salient among Republican voters in terms of law and order and fitting this narrative about the degeneration of urban life,” Borick said. “That’s the message — Trump’s and his bloc of Republicans’ message — that the ‘crazies’ are a threat, and we have to do what we can to protect ‘Americans’ any way we can.”

    But the GOP defense of white people after Black people are killed is often very different from incidents in which white people are killed. A key example is Ashli Babbitt, the white former Air Force veteran who was shot to death by a Black police officer while trying to climb through a broken window at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

    Trump called Babbitt an “innocent, wonderful, incredible woman” and labeled the Black officer who shot her a “thug.” Other Republicans have mourned her as a martyr.

    Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of Black PAC, said the issue goes beyond the presidential race, noting that some Republican-controlled legislatures passed measures after the wave of protests in 2020 against institutional racism and police brutality, seeking to more severely punish demonstrators.

    Shropshire, whose group works to increase African American political engagement and voter turnout, said the issue reinforces the GOP’s long-standing commitment to “protecting whiteness, which is what this is fundamentally about.”

    As for Democrats, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York tweeted before charges were filed that Neely’s “murderer” was being “protected” while “many in power demonize the poor.” New York Mayor Eric Adams called Neely’s death a “tragedy that never should have happened” but warned against irresponsible statements before all the facts are known.

    Rafael Mangual, head of research for policing and public safety at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative New York think tank, said the case features deep legal ambiguity that many people from both parties are overlooking.

    “I’ve been very put off to the degree by which politicians on the left have decried Daniel Penny a murderer and politicians on the right have come out and said, ‘This is what we need to do,’ Mangual said. “I don’t want to live in a world in which maintaining public order falls to everyday straphangers.”

    There was no such hesitation from Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called Penny a “hero,” or Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who dubbed Penny a “Subway Superman” and once offered an internship to Rittenhouse.

    Trump, now running for president for a third time, said this week that he hadn’t seen the video but told The Messenger that he thought Penny “was in great danger and the other people in the car were in great danger.”

    Helping fuel Republican anger is the fact that Penny’s case is being handled by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is leading the prosecution of Trump on charges he paid hush money to cover up an affair during his 2016 presidential campaign.

    “We must defeat the Soros-Funded DAs, stop the Left’s pro-criminal agenda, and take back the streets for law abiding citizens,” tweeted DeSantis, who is preparing to announce his 2024 presidential bid, repeating false claims that billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros orchestrated Trump’s indictment.

    “We stand with Good Samaritans like Daniel Penny,” DeSantis wrote, including a link to a fundraising page for Penny. “Let’s show this Marine… America’s got his back.”

    Rev. Al Sharpton, right, and Rev. Dr. Johnnie Green, left, is seated listening as Mildred Mahazu, center, grand aunt of Jordan Neely—the victim of a deathly chokehold on a subway, speak during Neely’s funeral service at Harlem’s Mount Neboh Baptist Church, Friday May 19, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

    Former ambassador Haley told Fox News Channel that New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, should pardon Penny. Ramaswamy donated to the defense fund for Penny via GiveSendGo, a site that also raised funds to support the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on the day Babbitt was killed. It has collected around $2 million in donations for Penny.

    During Neely’s funeral Friday, the Rev. Al Sharpton offered an indirect response to Penny’s supporters, saying that “a Good Samaritan helps those in trouble, they don’t choke them out.”

    Williams, an ombudsman who can investigate citizen complaints about agencies and services, said prominent Republicans have been capitalizing politically on violence with racial overtones since 1988 political ads featuring Willie Horton, a Black murderer who raped a white woman while on a weekend furlough from prison. He also noted that many of the people now contributing to Penny’s defense fund also are likely to have supported cutting social programs that might have benefited people like Neely.

    “These folks are not saying, ‘Let’s let it play out, see what happens,’” Williams said. “They’re immediately making someone a hero who killed someone on a train who was screaming and yelling about being hungry.”

    Associated Press writer Luke Sheridan contributed to this report from New York.

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  • ‘Just 2 Ounces Is Equivalent To 3 Joints’ – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

    ‘Just 2 Ounces Is Equivalent To 3 Joints’ – Medical Marijuana Program Connection

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    On Friday, Minnesota State Senator Warren Limmer (R) made a claim that seemed a little out of joint to many on social media. Limmer was arguing against a bill that would permit adults 21 and older in Minnesota to purchase up to two ounces of cannabis flower, eight grams of concentrate or 800 milligrams of edible products. The bill under consideration in the Minnesota State Senate would also allow adults to grow “up to eight cannabis plants at home.” Limmer claim came right after he had said, “Now I’ve seen some of the videos of DEA raids, some of these plants are 8 and 10 feet tall, you can have eight of ’em, you can have a privacy fence made of these products in your backyard.” Presumably by DEA, Limmer meant the Drug Enforcement Administration and not the Dope Elite Assassins. Regardless, it’s what Limmer said right afterwards that got the joint kind of a rocking: “Two ounces, just two ounces is equivalent to three joints.”

    Yep, that’s what Limmer said on the Minnesota State Senate floor as you can see in the following video tweeted by journalist Aaron Rupar:

    What you can hear with Limmer’s statement is some laughter on the State Senate floor when Limmer…

    Original Author Link click here to read complete story..

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  • Indiana Bill Aims To Make It Easier To Ban Books In Schools

    Indiana Bill Aims To Make It Easier To Ban Books In Schools

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    INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana lawmakers on Thursday gave their final approval to a bill that could make it easier to ban books from public school libraries.

    The bill would require school libraries to publicly post a list of books they offer and provide a complaints process for community members. Schools and librarians could also no longer argue, as a legal defense, that the texts in their libraries have “educational” value. The law would still allow them to argue the text has literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

    “That’s how I would describe educational, by the way,” GOP Rep. Martin Carbaugh said before the House voted 70-27 in favor of it.

    The language was derived from a Senate proposal that passed in February and had come up in various other bills this session. It was added Thursday to a House bill related to student assessments and received quick approval from the House and Senate. The bill now heads to to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb.

    Those who supported the legislation expressed concern that sexually inappropriate or “pornographic” materials are available to children. Critics, however, said the legislation could open the door to banning books simply because some people don’t like the topics, as well as criminal prosecutions of educators for providing such books.

    “Do we really want some parents choosing books for what other kids are reading or not reading?” Democratic Sen. J.D. Ford, the state’s only openly gay legislator, said Thursday. “I still think it’s a slippery slope.”

    Republican state Rep. Becky Cash insisted the bill “protects the schools.”

    “I hope that as this plays out, people will realize that,” she told The Associated Press.

    Democratic Rep. Renee Pack spoke to lawmakers about her daughter, Leah Johnson, whose book “You Should See Me In A Crown” was declared “obscene” by the Oklahoma attorney general’s office.

    “Why, Leah, do you write these books?” Pack said she asked her daughter, whose book is about a Black girl who falls for her competition for prom queen.

    Pack said her daughter’s response was that “it was horrible and confusing, growing up and not seeing me and who I was represented in literature. So this is my way of letting young people know you are not alone, no matter what anybody tells you.”

    The bill was subsequently approved by the Senate 39-10.

    Republican Sen. Jim Tomes, the author of the Senate bill that passed the chamber in February, told lawmakers earlier this session that parents had brought him several inappropriate books in their libraries, among them “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, a coming-of-age story about gender and sexuality, which was the most “challenged” book of 2022 for the second year in a row, according to the American Library Association.

    Attempted book bans and restrictions on libraries have surged, setting a record in 2022, according to a recent report by the ALA. The vast majority of complaints have come from conservatives, directed at works with LGBTQIA+ or racial themes, according to Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who directs the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

    “We all know, in this room, there is no pornography in our schools,” Indiana Democratic Rep. Matt Pierce said Thursday. “What it is, is young adult fiction that talks about lesbians and gays and people that are different than some of us, and it’s giving us a realistic portrayal of the challenges and the burdens and the struggles that those minorities face.”

    Arleigh Rodgers is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/arleighrodgers.

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  • Alabama Education Director Ousted Over Book That Talks About Battling Racism

    Alabama Education Director Ousted Over Book That Talks About Battling Racism

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    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday announced she replaced her director of early childhood education over the use of a teacher training book, written by a nationally recognized education group, that the Republican governor denounced as teaching “woke concepts” because of language about inclusion and structural racism.

    Barbara Cooper was forced out as as head of the Alabama Department of Early Childhood Education after Ivey expressed concern over the distribution of the book to state-run pre-kindergartens. Ivey spokesperson Gina Maiola identified the book as the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Developmentally Appropriate Practice Book, 4th edition. Maiola said she understands that the books have been removed from the state classrooms.

    “The education of Alabama’s children is my top priority as governor, and there is absolutely no room to distract or take away from this mission. Let me be crystal clear: Woke concepts that have zero to do with a proper education and that are divisive at the core have no place in Alabama classrooms at any age level, let alone with our youngest learners,” Ivey said in a statement.

    Ivey’s statement comes as conservative politicians have made a rallying cry out of decrying so-called “woke” teachings, with schools sometimes emerging as a flashpoint over diversity training and parents’ rights.

    The governor’s office said Ivey first asked Cooper to “send a memo to disavow this book and to immediately discontinue its use.” Ivey’s office did not say how Cooper responded but that the governor made the decision to replace Cooper and accepted her resignation. Cooper could not immediately be reached for comment.

    The book is a guide for early childhood educators. It is not a curriculum taught to children.

    The governor’s office, in a press release, cited two examples from the book — one discussing white privilege and that “the United States is built on systemic and structural racism” and another that Ivey’s office claimed teaches LGBTQ+ inclusion to 4-year-olds. Those sections, according to a copy of the 881-page book obtained by The Associated Press, discuss combating bias and making sure that all children feel welcome.

    “Early childhood programs also serve and welcome families that represent many compositions. Children from all families (e.g., single parent, grandparent-led, foster, LGBTQIA+) need to hear and see messages that promote equality, dignity, and worth,” the book states.

    The section on structural racism states that “systemic and structural racism … has permeated every institution and system through policies and practices that position people of color in oppressive, repressive, and menial positions. The early education system is not immune to these forces.” It says preschool is one place where children “begin to see how they are represented in society” and that the classroom should be a place of “affirmation and healing.”

    NAEYC is a national accrediting board that works to provide high-quality education materials and resources for young children. In an emailed response to The Associated Press, the group did not address Ivey’s statements but said the book is a research-based resource for educators.

    “For nearly four decades, and in partnership with hundreds of thousands of families and educators, Developmentally Appropriate Practice has served as the foundation for high-quality early childhood education across all states and communities. While not a curriculum, it is a responsive, educator-developed, educator-informed, and research-based resource that has been honed over multiple generations to support teachers in helping all children thrive and reach their full potential,” the statement read.

    Cooper is a member of the NAEYC board. In a previously published statement on the organization’s website about the latest edition of the book, Cooper said that book teaches, “applicable skills for teaching through developmentally appropriate practices that build brains during the critical first five years of life.”

    Alabama’s First Class voluntary pre-kindergarten programs operates more than 1,400 classrooms across the state. The program has won high ratings from the National Institute for Early Education Research.

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  • A Trump-Appointed Judge Has Halted the FDA Approval Of a Leading Abortion Pill

    A Trump-Appointed Judge Has Halted the FDA Approval Of a Leading Abortion Pill

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    A federal judge in Texas has stayed the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a leading abortion drug, which could suspend how roughly half of abortions are done nationwide. The ruling, issued by Donald Trump–nominated US District Court judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, serves as yet another major blow to abortion access in the United States, in what could soon be one of the most far-reaching limits on the procedure since the fall of Roe v. Wade. The judge did provide the federal government seven days to seek emergency relief, meaning the drug won’t be pulled off the shelves immediately.

    More than two decades after the drug, mifepristone, was first deemed safe by the federal agency, Kacsmaryk wrote in his decision that the “FDA’s approval of mifepristone is hereby STAYED. The Court STAYS the applicability of this opinion and order for seven (7) days to allow the federal government time to seek emergency relief from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.” Mifepristone is one of two drugs used in a medication abortion. The other drug used in medication abortions, misoprostol, has gone unchallenged in this suit and is legal. 

    The mifepristone case has been closely watched by both sides of the abortion debate since the lawsuit against the FDA was filed back in November. The suit was brought by conservative legal group Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of four doctors who have said they’ve prescribed mifepristone, as well as four antiabortion medical organizations. Medication abortion has been a top target of antiabortion activists and lawmakers since the Supreme Court removed federal protections for abortion last summer. The “FDA failed America’s women and girls when it chose politics over science and approved chemical abortion drugs for use in the United States,” the lawsuit said, arguing that the government agency shouldn’t have expedited the approval process for the medication. 

    In a hearing last month, lawyers for the FDA argued that blocking access to the drug “would cause worse health outcomes for patients who rely on the availability of mifepristone to safely and effectively terminate their pregnancies,” and if banned, it could cause “real and significant harms” to patients seeking abortion care. But the argument failed to convince Kacsmaryk, though it perhaps contributed to his decision to allow the government one week to respond. 

    While significant, the ruling was expected. Appointed by Trump in 2019, Kacsmaryk, a product of a conservative legal pipeline, has had a say in a number of right-wing suits targeting Biden administration policies. Abortion rights advocates argued that it was no coincidence the mifepristone case landed in his docket. Kacsmaryk, despite assertions of his impartiality, has delivered a series of legal victories for Republicans, including on immigration, where he twice blocked the Biden administration from ending the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy and on LGBTQ+ issues, where he struck down protections for transgender individuals.

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    Abigail Tracy

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  • Indiana Lawmakers Back Defunding Kinsey Sex Institute

    Indiana Lawmakers Back Defunding Kinsey Sex Institute

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    INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana Republican lawmakers voted Wednesday to prohibit Indiana University from using any state money to support its sexual research institution after a far-right legislator unleashed disputed allegations of child exploitation by its founder and famed mid-20th century researcher Alfred Kinsey.

    The Indiana House voted 53-34 to block state funding toward the Kinsey Institute that has long faced criticism from conservatives for its ongoing research and the legacy of Kinsey’s work that they blame for contributing to liberalized sexual morals, including more acceptance of homosexuality and pornography.

    Alfred Kinsey, who died in 1956, produced groundbreaking sex-behavior studies in 1948 and 1953 and was portrayed by Liam Neeson in the 2004 film “Kinsey.”

    Republican Rep. Lorissa Sweet claimed that some of Kinsey’s research was child exploitation as she argued for an amendment to the state budget bill against funding for the institute.

    “By limiting the funding to Kinsey Institute through Indiana University’s tax dollars, we can be assured that we are not funding ongoing research committed by crimes.” Sweet said.

    Democratic Rep. Matt Pierce, whose Bloomington district includes the university campus, responded that Sweet’s claims were “based on old unproven allegations of conspiracies that did not exist,” calling them “warmed-over internet memes that keep coming back.”

    Pierce said the university maintained a department that ensured all research involving humans met federal laws and that the Kinsey Institute aimed to better understand human sexuality, including how to treat and prevent sexual predators and pedophiles.

    An Indiana University spokesman and the institute’s director didn’t immediately comment on the vote.

    Seven Republican House members joined all Democrats present in voting against Sweet’s proposal, which specifically prohibits the use of state money for expenses including the institute’s on-campus facilities, research work, utilities, office supplies and maintenance of research photographs or films.

    Pierce said the institute’s funding was being exploited as a “culture war” issue and that it would simply create bookkeeping problems for the university to use sources such as outside grant funding or student tuition to support it.

    The fate of the Kinsey funding prohibition might not be decided until a final version of the state budget is voted upon by lawmakers in late April.

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  • Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier: The American West

    Inside the New Right’s Next Frontier: The American West

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    Food plays an outsize role in the political imagining of the right these days. Last October, Carlson released a documentary titled The End of Men, which features, among other self-proclaimed right-wing bodybuilders, an anonymous farmer who tweets under the name William Wheelwright, one of the better-known figures in the sphere where preppers, techies, hippies, farmers, naturalists, health bros, and hard-core dissident-right types—many of whom are unapologetically racist—mingle, argue, and plan with each other. The documentary advanced a view that our technologies and agricultural system are physically poisoning us, destroying our connection to our corporeality, leading to a generation of men with declining sperm counts and low testosterone. The globalist “regime,” as Mike Cernovich described it in the documentary, has weakened America on a cellular level. The film called for men to take up weight lifting and a meat-based diet. “Well-ordered, disciplined groups of men bound by friendship are dangerous, precisely because of what they can do,” the masculinist health guru known as “Raw Egg Nationalist” said, over images of the American and Haitian revolutions. “A few hundred men can conquer an entire empire,” Raw Egg Nationalist continued. “That’s why they want you to be sick, depressed, and isolated.”

    “Things are going to get worse before they get better,” he said. “How much worse isn’t exactly clear.”

    I drove north toward Montana, where I visited with a man named Paul McNiel, whom I’d first met back during the fervid summer of 2020, at a Fourth of July picnic and anti-government rally headlined “Rage Against the State.” “I think that Livingston has the highest per-capita concentration of contributors to The New Yorker of any city in America,” he’d said when I introduced myself as a writer. McNiel is extraordinarily well read, and friendly with a number of literary types. He is a bit of a prepper, and while he is deeply Christian, he doesn’t consider himself right wing. “I don’t think the division is right-left anymore. It’s us against the machine,” he said, borrowing a phrase from the English writer Paul Kingsnorth—whose writings critiquing the power of tech and money in modern life have become popular among dissident types. He was dismissive of the local armed groups being flooded with new members. “At the end of the day,” he said, “if you’re not willing to shoot federal agents, then you’re not serious about it. They aren’t serious.”

    McNiel had served in Afghanistan after college, and when he left the military, he’d taken out an almost unbelievable amount of debt, largely on credit cards, so that he could get himself in the position of buying his crown jewel, a trailer park in the small town of Belgrade, Montana, just outside of Bozeman. He now owned trailer parks as far away as Alaska. He had ridden the wave. “I always tell myself: No more deals. I want to stop, and I know I have to. But I can’t.”

    He’d just bought a run-down country resort and tavern in the tiny town of Story, Wyoming. It was in a beautiful and secluded creekside cove of Ponderosas, a shady island amid the surrounding sagebrush desert. “Pretty good hideout, right?” he asked me, as we had a glass of wine and talked guns, European fiction, and the possibility of civil war. The place was a furious hive of activity. He was paying a couple dozen young members of Christian families to get it ready to open for the public. He was openly conflicted about his role in the churn shaping the West. “My guess,” he said, “in 10 years, there won’t be any blue-collar people left in Story.” A lanky and bearded minister from Iowa had come out with his family to help him work on the place, and there were a dozen or so kids in denim and homemade dresses rushing around, cooking, and doing some light demolition. The scene was a prime example of “crunchy conservatives,” an ecosystem described by the writer Rod Dreher—who champions localism and has long advocated that conservative Christians withdraw as a way of preserving their culture. It’s a process that eventually led Dreher himself to move to Hungary, where he has become a vocal supporter of the country’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán. “I love localism, but there is definitely a point where it can turn into blood and soil,” McNiel said. “I feel like my role is to argue for a localism that doesn’t go off the rails into exclusion.”

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    James Pogue

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  • “The Florida of Today Is the America of Tomorrow”: Ron DeSantis’s New College Takeover Is Just the Beginning of the Right’s Higher Ed Crusade

    “The Florida of Today Is the America of Tomorrow”: Ron DeSantis’s New College Takeover Is Just the Beginning of the Right’s Higher Ed Crusade

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    But that sort of lament has largely left the new trustees unmoved. When a current LGBTQ+ student told reporters about her grief, Rufo quoted her comments on Twitter, adding a laughing-crying emoji. 

    The invocation of Hillsdale College, a 1,500-student private Christian school in rural Michigan, might seem a surprising model for overhauling a public Florida institution, but it shouldn’t. The college, sometimes called “the citadel of conservatism,” has long had an outsized political influence in movement conservatism. Right-wing politicians and advocates vie for slots in its speaking program, the speeches of which are then distributed to a claimed audience of 6 million through a monthly Hillsdale publication. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist who sought to overturn the 2020 election, and who is married to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, facilitated the launch of Hillsdale’s Capitol Hill campus in Washington. This magazine called Hillsdale a “feeder school” for the Trump administration. 

    Hillsdale has also spent the last 12 years proselytizing its Western civilization-focused model of “classical education” through a nationwide charter school-planting network, a bundle of freely-licensed right-wing K–12 curricula (including its ahistorical post-Trump “1776 Curriculum”), and its extensive connections with conservative state leaders. It’s largely thanks to Hillsdale that the idea of “classical education”—despite its varied forms and perspectives—has become right-wing shorthand for anti-“woke” American exceptionalism and an antidote to critical race theory. Last year, Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee announced plans to open 50 Hillsdale charters across the state; the year before, Hillsdale president Larry Arnn, who is also the former president of the Claremont Institute, claimed that South Dakota governor Kristi Noem offered to build him an entire campus. (Noem’s office did not respond to a request for comment.) 

    But in Florida, Hillsdale’s footprint is uniquely large. The state boasts the highest number of Hillsdale-affiliated K–12 publicly-funded charter schools, several launched or directed by spouses of prominent state Republicans, including Corcoran and Republican congressman Byron Donalds. Hillsdale was instrumental in helping DeSantis overhaul the state’s K–12 civics standards along more “patriotic” lines. Last year the state hired a Hillsdale duo—one staffer, one undergraduate—to assess whether math textbooks Florida teachers submitted for approval contained prohibited concepts like critical race theory. And a number of prominent Florida officials, including Corcoran and DeSantis himself, have addressed gatherings hosted by the college, where Arnn praised both men as among the most important people in America today. 

    Rufo has addressed Hillsdale audiences too: once in early 2021, where he laid out what quickly became Republican talking points about critical race theory, and again last spring, in a speech entitled “Laying Siege to the Institutions,” which he recently described as his “theory of action.” In the latter address, delivered while Rufo was teaching a journalism course for the college, he called on state legislators to use their budgetary power to reshape public institutions, including higher education. 

    “We have to get out of this idea that somehow a public university system is a totally independent entity that practices academic freedom—a total fraud, that’s just a false statement, fundamentally false—and that you can’t touch it or else you’re impinging on the rights of the gender studies department to follow their dreams,” he said. Instead, conservatives must have the guts to say, “‘What the public giveth, the public can taketh away.’ And so we get in there, we defund things we don’t like, we fund things we do like.” 

    In terms of the former, he elaborated, states should defund diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and find creative ways to undermine university departments perceived as too liberal, like changing state teacher accreditation laws as a means of rendering teachers colleges irrelevant. Both suggestions have become common conservative talking points over the last year. As The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week, South Carolina legislators have requested information from its state’s 33 public colleges and universities regarding training around race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, following similar moves in Florida and Oklahoma.

    In terms of what the right does like, Rufo advised state legislators to fund the creation of new, independently-governed “conservative centers” within flagship public universities to attract conservative professors, create new academic tracks, and serve as a “separate patronage system” for the right. 

    “Some people don’t like thinking about it that way,” Rufo said. “But guess what? The public universities, the DEI departments, the public school bureaucracies are, at the end of the day, patronage systems for left-wing activists. And as long as there’s going to be a patronage system, wouldn’t it be good to have some people who are representing the public within them?” 

    In many ways, that’s an old idea. Big-money donors on the right like the Olin and Koch foundations have been establishing “beachhead” academic centers in universities across the country since the 1970s, as a means of shoring up academic arguments for right-wing policies, creating a pipeline of conservative talent, and endowing professorships for right-wing scholars—some of whom, more moderate academics suggest, are unemployable on their own merits. (Of possible note here: Corcoran’s appointment to New College follows his failed bid to become Florida State University’s president in 2021, when he was passed over, apparently, in part for lack of qualifications.) 

    But these days, the model has been adapted, so that funds for such programs and institutes are increasingly coming from state legislatures directly, as numerous red states have passed bills establishing new “classical” and “civics” institutes with barely-disguised agendas. In Arizona, the legislature effectively replaced private donations from the Koch foundations with taxpayer funds in order to create a new School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State, to address a claimed lack of ideological diversity. In Texas, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick has sought to establish a free-market think tank at University of Texas Austin, partly as a response to critical race theory. In Tennessee, Governor Lee paired his proposal to create dozens of Hillsdale charters with a call to build a $6 million, Hillsdale-inspired civics institute at University of Tennessee Knoxville to combat “anti-American thought.”

    Florida already has several, including a politics institute at Florida State; the Adam Smith Center for the Study of Economic Freedom at Florida International University; and the University of Florida’s freshly-approved Hamilton Center for Classical and Civics Education, dedicated to “the ideas, traditions, and texts that form the foundations of western and American civilization,” and tasked with helping create anti-communist content for Florida’s new K–12 civics curricula. 

    Last spring, this track record prompted another Florida school, St. Augustine’s private Flagler College, to worry that it was being, well, groomed to become “the Hillsdale of the South.” The legislature was considering a multimillion dollar grant for the school to establish its own “Institute for Classical Education”—money that was certainly needed and might also be used to shore up existing programs, but which faculty feared would come with intolerable strings. Professors there brought a resolution to the faculty council, declaring that, if the funding came through, faculty would retain control over how it was used for hiring and curriculum creation. In Flagler’s case, the administration readily agreed. 

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    Kathryn Joyce

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  • Tennessee House Speaker Mulls Rejecting US Education Money

    Tennessee House Speaker Mulls Rejecting US Education Money

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    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — One of Tennessee’s most influential Republican lawmakers says the state should stop accepting the nearly $1.8 billion of federal K-12 education dollars that help provide support for low-income students, English learners and students with disabilities.

    House Speaker Cameron Sexton told The Associated Press that he has introduced a bill to explore the idea during this year’s legislative session and has begun discussions with Gov. Bill Lee and other key GOP lawmakers.

    “Basically, we’ll be able to educate the kids how Tennessee sees fit,” Sexton said, pointing that rejecting the money would mean that Tennessee would no longer have “federal government interference.”

    To date, no state has successfully rejected federal education funds even as state and local officials have long grumbled about some of the requirements and testing that at times come attached to the money. The idea has also come up elsewhere in recent months among GOP officials, including in Oklahoma and South Carolina.

    Many Republican politicians and candidates at the federal level have also made a habit of calling for the outright elimination of the U.S. Department of Education.

    According to Sexton, Tennessee is currently in the financial position to use state tax dollars to replace federal education funds. He pointed to the $3.2 billion in new spending outlined in Gov. Lee’s recent budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year as proof that the state could easily cover the federal government’s portion.

    Federal dollars make up a small slice of Tennessee’s K-12 education funding, which had an almost $8.3 billion budget as of fiscal year 2023. Yet the federal money is seen as a key tool to supporting schools in low-income areas and special education.

    Sexton says he has been mulling the proposal for a while, but this week, he publicly touted the idea in front of a packed room full of lawmakers, lobbyists and other leaders at the Tennessee Farm Bureau luncheon on Tuesday.

    “We as a state can lead the nation once again in telling the federal government that they can keep their money and we’ll just do things the Tennessee way,” Sexton said at the event. “And that should start, first and foremost, with the Department of Education.”

    Spokespersons for both Gov. Lee and Sen. Randy McNally appeared open to entertaining Sexton’s proposal.

    “Although we haven’t seen the details of the legislation yet, the governor is always interested in working with the speaker to ensure Tennessee students have the best access to a high-quality education,” said Lee’s spokesperson, Jade Byers.

    McNally said he was open to the proposal, saying that “federal mandates in the area of education can be overly burdensome.”

    “McNally thinks a discussion about forgoing this money, a relatively small part of overall education funding, in order to maintain more control over how we educate our Tennessee students is a constructive conversation to have,” spokesperson Adam Kleinheider said.

    Democratic Rep. Bo Mitchell said he had several concerns about forgoing federal education funding, particularly knowing that the money currently goes to support students with disabilities and low-income students.

    “I’m concerned about their rights and Tennessee being able to provide those services and uphold their rights,” Mitchell said.

    In Republican-dominant Tennessee, GOP lawmakers have increasingly become more skeptical and combative over what is taught inside public classrooms — particularly over race and gender issues — and the policies surrounding what services schools offer to students.

    To push back against these attacks, advocates have generally leveraged various federal funds the state receives as grounds to block or challenge various school-related bans. This has resulted in state and federal education officials often being at odds with each other.

    For example, last September, the U.S. Department of Education reprimanded Tennessee for how it was carrying out statewide testing, saying its problems “impact the state’s ability to provide clear and transparent information to the public about school performance, but also result in the state using information that is not comparable across schools.”

    Meanwhile, Tennessee was among the states to sue President Joe Biden ’s administration over a U.S. Department of Agriculture school meal program that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

    The lawsuit came after the USDA announced in May that it would include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as a violation of Title IX, the sweeping 1972 law that guarantees equity between the sexes in “any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

    And in 2021, the federal department opened investigations into Tennessee and four other Republican-led states that have banned or limited mask requirements in schools, saying the policies could amount to discrimination against students with disabilities or health conditions.

    Yet it’s unclear whether Tennessee would have fewer conflicts with the federal government if the state chose to forgo the education funding. While the U.S. Constitution says public education is a state responsibility, states are still required to follow federal laws.

    Separately, in January, Tennessee sparked national attention when state’s Department of Health announced it was walking away from nearly $9 million in federal funding designed to prevent and treat HIV.

    In a letter sent to providers, the state announced that it believes “it is in the best interest of Tennesseans for the state to assume direct financial and managerial responsibility for these services.”

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  • U.S. Presidential Candidate Corey Stapleton to Visit Ukraine

    U.S. Presidential Candidate Corey Stapleton to Visit Ukraine

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    Montana Republican offers stark contrast to opponent Donald Trump’s praise for Russia’s ‘genius’ invasion.

    Press Release
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    Jan 20, 2023 06:15 MST


    BILLINGS, Mont., January 20, 2023 (Newswire.com)
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    Republican presidential candidate Corey Stapleton announced Friday that he will be visiting war-torn Ukraine as the Russian-Ukraine war nears the one-year anniversary of Russia’s massive invasion on Feb. 24 last year.

    Stapleton stressed the importance of continued U.S. support and encouraged Congress to stand firm with Ukraine, citing the lessons of history.  

    Although early in the 2024 presidential primary season, Stapleton’s visit draws a contrast with the other announced candidate in the Republican primary, former President Donald Trump. Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives on Dec. 18, 2019, for “abuse of power” and “obstruction of Congress” relating to congressionally authorized funds for Ukraine. Later, former-President Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attacks on Ukraine as “genius” and “savvy.”

    Stapleton said it’s time for the Republican party to follow a new vision.

    “The diplomatic solution to the Russian-Ukrainian war can be found, but it must involve strength and unity from the West. Similar to the Cold War, sustained peace is gained not by force, but strength and resolve between America and our European allies,” Stapleton said.

    Stapleton, 55, is a former naval officer and Montana Secretary of State, certifying the 2020 Presidential election.

    Source: Corey Stapleton for President

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  • “There’ll Be Political Complications”: GOP Congresswoman Warns Her Party Against a Staunch Antiabortion Agenda

    “There’ll Be Political Complications”: GOP Congresswoman Warns Her Party Against a Staunch Antiabortion Agenda

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    “I think many, many in our ranks right now are ignoring the results of the midterms,” Republican congressperson Nancy Mace said in an interview Thursday afternoon with Vanity Fair. The House had just finished passing two antiabortion measures—one of Republicans’ first acts since assuming the majority this year. Mace, a two-term South Carolina congresswoman, characterized the effort as “misguided,” and told reporters the bills were a sign Republicans “learned nothing” from their poor showing in November. Still, Mace voted in favor of both measures. They were “two relatively easy pro-life bills that everybody can get behind,” she explains. Plus, they weren’t going to go anywhere. “What we did this week is just pay lip service to life because the bills we worked on aren’t gonna go anywhere in the Senate. They are not ever going to go to the president’s desk to be signed,” she says. “[They] don’t make a difference in women’s lives every single day.” 

    Mace, who represents Charleston, appears to be a case of a swing-district Republican stuck in the middle. She says she’s heard from a number of members who represent districts like hers. “They’re either swing districts or they’re Biden districts, or maybe they’re in Republican plus one or two or three districts, where they share the same frustrations,” she says. There’s been little reckoning among Republicans despite a lackluster midterms performance largely defined by the end of Roe v. Wade. House Republicans’ two controversial antiabortion measures were a resolution to formally condemn attacks on pro-life facilities (which passed with the support of three Democrats, Vicente Gonzalez, Chrissy Houlahan, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez), and the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, intended to impose new criminal penalties on doctors who don’t resuscitate babies “born alive” after attempted abortions, which passed on party lines.

    Abortion-access advocates were quick to condemn the move. “It is yet another attempt by anti-abortion politicians to spread misinformation as a means to their warped political end: to ban safe and legal abortion,” Jacqueline Ayers, the senior vice president of policy, organizing, and campaigns at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement regarding the Born Alive bill. “Let’s be clear: Doctors are already required to provide appropriate medical care by law. This is not how medical care works. It’s wrong, irresponsible, and dangerous to suggest otherwise.” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Republicans introduced the bills as part of their “march to criminalize abortion care. To impose a nationwide ban. To set into motion government-mandated pregnancies,” in a speech on the House floor.

    Mace is hardly pro-choice, but she thinks abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest go too far. Back in 2019, she shared her story of being raped as a teenager to push for the South Carolina Senate–at the time, she was a member of the state’s House–to include exceptions for rape and incest in its six-week “heartbeat” abortion ban. They were ultimately included; the legislation passed. (This past week the South Carolina State Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional on privacy grounds.) “What I have seen when we have these debates and these conversations oftentimes, particularly in conservative states, is women’s voices are missing,” she says. “I just had sort of gotten fed up with it and a bill written by a man who didn’t have that perspective.”

    Now she’s arguing there’s some kind of middle ground on abortion access. Specifically, she thinks that there is room to work with Democrats on expanding medical services for women, particularly in rural areas, and making birth control more accessible. “If you want to get serious about life, one of the things you could do that I believe would have a chance in both chambers would be ensuring that every woman has access to birth control,” she says. “That should not be controversial.” 

    And if Republicans continue down the extreme path on abortion, she says, “there’ll be political  complications two years from now, whether that’s the White House or us retaining the majority in the US House.” 

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    Abigail Tracy

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  • Corey Stapleton Announces Support for Increased Ukraine Aid

    Corey Stapleton Announces Support for Increased Ukraine Aid

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    Republican Presidential candidate criticizes Biden’s removal of U.S. Naval assets from Black Sea prior to Russian invasion.

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Nov 30, 2022 11:30 MST


    DES MOINES, Iowa, November 30, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Former Montana Secretary of State and current Republican presidential candidate Corey Stapleton says the United States needs to be significantly more involved in both the defense and rebuilding of Ukraine following its February invasion from neighboring Russia.

    While crediting President Joe Biden for publicly sharing numerous intelligence reports showing the buildup of Russian troops prior to the invasion, Stapleton was critical of Biden’s decision to vacate U.S. naval forces from the adjoining Black Sea prior to the telegraphed conflict.

    Turkey has since closed off passage into the strategic Black Sea for ships not homeported there.

    Stapleton, a former U.S. naval officer, cited the Marshall Plan as a model for both rebuilding the infrastructure in Ukraine and providing comprehensive assistance to the devastated nations facing energy and food shortages heading into winter.  The original Marshall Plan was passed in 1948 by the U.S. Congress following World War II, to help finance the rebuilding of Western Europe.

    “The Western front may be further East now,” said Stapleton, “but genocide and war are just as real as then.”

    Stapleton called on President Biden and the U.S. Congress to pass Marshall Plan II, providing an infrastructure and financial roadmap for war-torn Ukraine, coordinating with European and NATO allies and ending the Russo-Ukrainian War.

    Source: Corey Stapleton for President

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