Lessons of History and Trying To Avoid the Same Mistakes

[Sixties Fan]

Former President Donald Trump seemed to admit what normal people have long observed: Right-wing anti-“woke” obsessives can’t actually define what it means. “I don’t like the term ‘woke’ because I hear ‘woke woke woke’—it’s just a term they use, half the people can’t even define it, they don’t know what it is,” the twice-impeached ex-president said Thursday during remarks at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale, Iowa. Trump continued on to deliver a fact-free riff on trans athletes—a common grievance for conservatives in 2023—before calling the concept “woke” and then catching himself: “I guess they define that as ‘woke,’ but that’s all woke. We have to bring common sense back to the country.” Trump’s odd dismissal of the right-wing buzzword could easily be interpreted as a subtle dig at his rival Ron DeSantis, who is notoriously obsessed with all things “woke.”

Trump Admits Right-Wingers Cannot Actually Define âWokeâ

In what seemed like a subtle DeSantis dig, Trump said he doesn’t like the word because “half the people” can’t say what it means.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

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Fox News polls

There are two Fox News brains. There is the low-information, truth-is-socialist, facts-be-damned philosophy of the prime-time propagandists. And there are the vestigial traces of a news organization. The prime-time prevaricators get the ratings and attention. While the sober-minded news side — unsurprisingly, considering how many of the few reputable journalists have left — gets little attention. It is safe to say that few people think of Fox as an unbiased news source.

However, they still run honest polls. Mainly, because since 2011, they are conducted under the joint direction of Beacon Research, a company used by Democrats, and Shaw & Company Research, a Republican organization. With that in mind, let’s look at some recent Fox polls on social issues.


(full article online)

Fox News polls tell truths Fox News hosts will not

Fox News polls There are two Fox News brains. There is the low-information, truth-is-socialist, facts-be-damned philosophy of the prime-time propagandists. And there are the vestigial traces of a ...

www.dailykos.com

 

[hadit]

[One person did it. It was a hoax]

As of this morning, we know that an email from a man claiming to have put bombs in several Target locations was false.

The man sent an email to a news station in Cleveland saying he put bombs in five Target locations, including one in Monaca, due to the retailer's decision to pull Pride Month merchandise after some employees were threatened and displays were knocked over.

Some of the stores were evacuated as the threat was investigated.

Shoppers have said they're disappointed with the entire situation.

"I stand behind Target selling whatever merchandise they like," said Justin Walencik. "I always enjoy actually seeing all the LGBTQ+ stuff that they have. I'm not really shocked, I guess, but hearing that is unfortunate."

Law enforcement determines Target bomb threat was a hoax

A news station in Ohio received an email claiming bombs had been planted in several Target locations.

www.cbsnews.com

It's a crime to make a false bomb threat. You know that.

 

[Sixties Fan]

It's a crime to make a false bomb threat. You know that.

Yes, and the culprit has been apprehended. There needs to be a way of catching any and all threats, be they via emails, phone, etc and put all of them in jail. That could stop others from the endless threats so many government officials have been having to put up with, which have ended up costing them their jobs.

 

[Sixties Fan]

By now, it’s obvious that the reactionary culture warriors who want to reshape American education are inspiring a serious liberal counter-mobilization in response. Remarkably, this backlash to the backlash is gaining momentum in some of the reddest parts of the country.

A raucous school board meeting in Hernando County, Fla., on Tuesday night captured what’s striking about this new phenomenon. The scenefeatured teachers pointedly declaring that right-wing attacks are driving them to quit, even as parents and students forcefully stood up on their behalf, demanding a halt to the hysteria.

“I have never seen such fear from my colleagues as I have seen in the last two months,” social studies teacher Victoria Hunt told the board.

The whole affair really put the culture-war-mongers to shame. Not that they’ll see it that way; as the meeting also showed, scenes like this — with maximum rage, fear, tension and suspicion surging between parents and educators — are precisely the outcome they want.

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Nearly 50 teachers are reportedly planning to resign in this school district. Lisa Masserio, president of the teachers union in Hernando County, says state laws and directives restricting educators are a key reason. She told us: “There is increased pressure and scrutiny on an already difficult job.”

At the meeting, right-wing parents and a minority of the school board amplified the usual attacks: Pornography in classrooms, indoctrination, wokeness. Watching them, it was impossible to avoid the sense that they were relishing every second of the tumult they’ve unleashed.

At the meeting, Shannon Rodriguez — a favorite of the right wing Moms for Liberty that led the attack on the Disney movie episode — kept robotically repeating phrases like “woke ideologies” and “woke agenda,” not even slightly disturbed by any sense of obligation to define their meaning. She proudly brandished her solidarity with boycotts of Bud Light and Disney as a badge of anti-woke heroism. Another conservative parent practically shouted, “You have awakened the entire alpha male blood of this country!”

But the real story of the night was the response. Again and again, parents and students forcefully defended teachers. They cast the right’s attacks, the censoring of educators and the removal of books as the real threats to education.

“War on woke?” one student said pointedly. “More like war on your children’s future.”

“It’s me and my fellow students who are feeling the effects of this,” said a second student. A third said the removal of books from classrooms is what’s really “indoctrinating students.”
Things like this are happening all over. As Sarah Jones of New York magazine reports, liberal parents in states as far-flung as New York, North Carolina and Montana are organizing local groups, pressuring school boards and running for office to challenge the right’s education takeover.

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We have also learned that nine Democratic governors representing nearly 9 million students have sent a letter to leading textbook companies decrying “the negative impact that censorship and book-banning has on this nation’s students.” The letter indicates that the governors are watching closely to see if attacks on the companies by right-wing governors — such as DeSantis — are producing books that are “inappropriately censored.”



(full article online)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/06/01/hernando-county-ron-desantis-book-bans-democratic-governors/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjExNzAzNTU3IiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY4NTU5MjAwMCwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY4Njg4Nzk5OSwiaWF0IjoxNjg1NTkyMDAwLCJqdGkiOiIzNWI2NjFlNS01ZmJkLTQ3MmEtYmVkNS0yMWQzNjIzNzY1MTIiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vb3BpbmlvbnMvMjAyMy8wNi8wMS9oZXJuYW5kby1jb3VudHktcm9uLWRlc2FudGlzLWJvb2stYmFucy1kZW1vY3JhdGljLWdvdmVybm9ycy8ifQ.SlCjvBtn94iGKPywShRQp2MmoPrEqsk7SOX5Lh5BcHg&link_id=11&can_id=6e84143cce349aec0c9a0b4e4a28c9c6&source=email-big-bipartisan-moment-hurt-the-freedom-caucuss-feelings&email_referrer=email_1940230&email_subject=why-desantis-is-losing-republicans-to-trump

 

[Sixties Fan]

Iowa’s governor, Republican Kim Reynolds, signed a new law on Thursday evening that will significantly restrict the ability of the state auditor — Iowa’s top watchdog — to perform his duties. State Auditor Rob Sand (D) responded with a blistering statement describing the legislation as “the worst pro-corruption bill in Iowa history.”

“It will allow insiders to play fast and loose with Iowans’ tax dollars because those very same people will be able to deny the Auditor’s Office access to the records necessary to expose them,” said Sand. “As Assistant Attorney General, I prosecuted criminal cases for seven years. This is akin to letting the defendant decide what evidence the judge and jury are allowed to see.”

In the weeks before Reynolds signed the bill, Sand barnstormed the state drumming up opposition to the bill. And, in an interview with TPM earlier this week, he described it as an assault on values “essential to our Constitution” that would make Iowa “an outlier by far” in terms of transparency. Sand also warned it is part of a troubling undemocratic trend that can be seen nationwide.

“This is a fundamentally American thing. Some people had this crazy idea a couple hundred years ago that we didn’t need a king or a queen telling us what to do and, in fact, that was too much power for one person,” he added. “So, we should have checks and balances and here they are removing them. That should be alarming to everybody.”


Critics have cast the measure as an attempt to muzzle Sand, who is the only Democratic statewide elected official and widely discussed as a potential future gubernatorial candidate. Sand has also conducted aggressive investigations of Reynolds’ office. However, rather than a partisan or personal matter, Sand sees the legislation as coming in conjunction with a broader assault on transparency and good governance as Iowa has shifted to the right in the Trump era.

The legislation, Senate File 478, would prevent the auditor from accessing any information that could be deemed private. It also would strip the auditor’s power to issue subpoenas to government entities that are being investigated. Instead of going through the courts, those claims would go through a board of arbitration composed of two members named by the offices where records were being sought and one member appointed by the governor.

“The idea that, once an audit is underway, that the auditor is going to be denied access to records is fundamentally opposed to the very purpose of an audit,” Sand said.


The legislation was approved by both chambers of the legislature in April. Sand said he suspects the governor was involved in “negotiating the final version.” Reynolds’ office did not respond to a request for comment about any role her team may have had in crafting the legislation or Sand’s criticism of it. For his part, Sand believes there is a simple reason the current administration wants to limit his power to investigate them.

“The genesis of this is, in my first term we uncovered more waste, fraud, and abuse than any other state auditor ever had, a record amount,” said Sand. “There are people who did not like that. And then, the other piece of it that makes it easy to get other members of the legislature to go along is, I happen to be a Democrat.”


(full article online)

Iowa State Auditor Accuses Republicans Of ‘Corrupt’ Attempt To Block His Investigations

Inside the fight over “the worst pro-corruption bill in Iowa history.”

talkingpointsmemo.com

 

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He/She/They

www.pinkmantaray.com

 

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“Every parent should watch this.” This is what Elon Musk—one of the world’s most powerful elites—said about The Daily Wire’s transphobic documentary What Is a Woman? hosted by the vicious and intellectually dull Matt Walsh.
Musk’s personal promotion of the video follows his total capitulation to the far-right media company’s personal complaints of being suppressed. On Thursday, Daily Wire co-founder and co-CEO Jeremy Boreing posted a Twitter thread explaining that Twitter reneged on a commitment to buy a package to host the showing of the entire 90-some-minute movie on a “dedicated event page and to promote the event to every Twitter user over the first 10 hours” (something that has never been done in such a way for any kind of content).

According to Boreing, after Twitter reviewed the film, they said they would not purchase the package and would limit the reach of the film, calling it “hateful conduct” due to misgendering. Twitter had removed “misgendering” from its safety policies, but the company told The Daily Wire they still consider it to be abuse and harassment.

(full article online)

Elon Musk Personally Elevates Transphobic Video Originally Flagged as Hate Speech

“Every parent should watch this,” said the man disowned by his trans daughter.

newrepublic.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

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[ Which Trump appointee Judge is going to find the banning of books unconstitutional ?]

 

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