The only thing I have to take issue with today is Mona's piece. Are we really, really, taking the position that 'yeah, a professor proclaiming that some of their students are subhumans, but that shouldn't cost them their job?' That's the arguement? It's not even me trying to make her look worse than she is, Mona CITES a bunch of her racist comments!
"If Wax is fired for repellent sentiments alone, the protections of tenure will be badly weakened."
Ah, yes. Sentiments alone! Sentiments like:
“Non-Western people feel a ... tremendous amount of resentment and shame.” “On average, Blacks have lower cognitive ability than whites.” “America will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.”
Those are real quotes! Those are things she has said! We're not talking about micro-agressions are something, we're talking about beliefs that you would expect to find at a klan rally. At what point does a university have to go 'yeah, your beliefs are not consistent with our values and you're no longer worthy of employment here?'
Again, these are not mild beliefs! These are not quotes pulled from two decades ago, she's said these things in the past few years!
If you said these things stocking shelves at Target, you would be fired on the spot. I do not understand this impulse that says we can't get rid of people like her just because she's a professor of law. How exactly, by the way, is she expected to do her job fairly and treat students she teaches properly, when she believes that a great many of them are less than human and physically incapable of learning from her?
You wouldn't accept these viewpoints from anyone else, and there's no 'refuting' her speech here. Her job is to teach people and treat them fairly, not espouse about how they are unworthy of being part of the country she was born into.
It's gonna be interesting if/when Ron gets the nomination, how he plans to tack to the middle. That's assuming that he even tries. He seems to stake out some positions that it'll be hard to walk away from, and I'm not seeing any serious foreign policy people who posit that Putin's moves are at all good for the US.
As far as MTG, I got to blame the media. The shift to what sells instead of what is important has been horrible for us. People who only want attention, have no real path to passing anything of consequence, and manipulate their way into TV time. We are not being led by our best.
How about that Mr. Sykes? A once a week run of profiles or attention paid to those politicians who are acting in a way that we would appreciate here where sanity rules.
The Russia Story is a hoax! screams the MAGA (and large swaths of the non-MAGA) right. But we see that the Russia story is alive and well. I seriously (not joking) want to know how much Tucker gets in his Swiss bank account from Vlad for his shilling or what compromat Vlad has on him. Or does Tuck's love of authoritarianism mean that he truly, in his heart, wishes that America was more like Russia, a country where life expectancy for men is now the same as men in Haiti?
Territorial dispute? I can’t even begin to unpack that. No one with any morals should be able to rationalize voting for either Trump or Desantis in the primaries.
Off topic, other than being about the lows to which Tucker Carlson will go for viewership and power, but the amazing revelations from the Dominion lawsuit have got me wondering--what did the Fox News talent and corporate bosses say to each other about COVID? About anti-vaxx efforts? About getting vaccinated themselves?
Is there someone who would have standing for a similar lawsuit on that topic? Personally, I would think Fauci could sue for libel, but I might be wrong, and I doubt he would do it? But Pfizer and Moderna? Could they make a future earnings argument? Wouldn't it be wonderful to see THOSE emails? I am so curious to know whether they contemplated the excess deaths they were causing among their viewers at all, and if so, what they said about it.
DeSantis is such a weak bully--the stereotype to be clear--who loves to punch down. I wonder how many of his admirers stick with him after Trump abuses him on stage.
Mona's piece on Professor Wax lends support to a theory of mine: racism makes you stupid. It takes an inordinate amount of mental energy to cook up evidence that a billion + people are inferior. The effort always makes you look like a fool. No democratic country respecting the rule-of-law is perfect, but I'd far rather live in South Korea than Hungry, relocate to Taiwan instead of Belarus, or spend my remaining life in Japan before ever stepping foot in Russia. I'd rather the U.S. take in 100,000 people from the third world--yearning for freedom and opportunity--than one pseudo-fascist white.
DeSantis is pro-Putin. DeSantis is also sadist who probably tortured people in Guantanamo Bay.
Electing DeSantis, to me, would be more or a moral failing than electing Trump would be. We would be electing our own Putin. Someone with no sense of humanity, willing to do anything to cement their own power/legacy, who's desire to "punish" the other knows no limits. We've seen it in his words and we've seen it in his actions We cannot let this man get anywhere near the presidency. Not just for our country's sake but for the world's sake.
Gotta wonder what Tucker Carlson may have to say about DeSantis in private. Whatever he may have to say, I doubt Tucker will ever again commit his thoughts to text.
Is the DeSantis position on Ukraine much of a surprise? He’s not committed to democracy in Florida, so why would he believe that democracy in Europe is a vital national interest? DeSantis, like Trump, identifies with and admired bullies.
Ron DeSantis said in Iowa "People need to be taught what it means to be an American." I can't disagree. Some of the people who need to be taught what it means to be an American are Ron DeSantis and the America Firsters. #NeverMAGA
Oh, Mona. What exactly is the free speech line that has to be crossed for a professor to be fired? I think it's really important to remember that she or any professor is not only a public intellectual with free speech rights, but also a faculty member who teaches classes - until recently, some mandatory! - and thus has a certain amount of power and influence over students. Should a Jewish student be forced to write papers and accept grades from a Nazi? Should an African American student be forced to sit in a classroom and submit to grading from a professor who espouses their inferiority? This is a crucial part of this issue which I never really see addressed.
I was raised to understand that the importance of power is not having it so much as how you choose to use it. In their quest to obtain power, the DeSantises and Trumps of the world never seemed to learn how to apply it in ways that help a majority of people to live better, as opposed to empowering a minority of like-minded individuals to impose their will. As long as their approach is punitive more than constructive, there is no hope for them to become actual leaders. That is an earned title, no less than the term "statesman" both aspires to and reflects more than being a mere politician. It is a distinction with a major difference.
Question of the day: if DeSantis believes that arming an allied nation (Ukraine) to help it defend itself against the actions of an unwarranted aggressor is out of line, can we also get him to admit, for the sake of consistency, that it is inappropriate to allow individuals here to build up an arsenal of personal weaponry, including rapid-fire assault rifles, in the name of defending themselves against unwanted and unwarranted aggressors to them? We'll set aside for now the fact that those individuals stockpiling arms, for what they call a perceived threat that maybe, possibly, perhaps somebody someday, sometime, might come for them personally aren't actually engaged in a real conflict that they neither asked for nor initiated. That would be too obvious of a contradiction.
Well, it's out in the open now.
Either Trump or DeSantis, America is joining up with the axis of evil.
The only thing I have to take issue with today is Mona's piece. Are we really, really, taking the position that 'yeah, a professor proclaiming that some of their students are subhumans, but that shouldn't cost them their job?' That's the arguement? It's not even me trying to make her look worse than she is, Mona CITES a bunch of her racist comments!
"If Wax is fired for repellent sentiments alone, the protections of tenure will be badly weakened."
Ah, yes. Sentiments alone! Sentiments like:
“Non-Western people feel a ... tremendous amount of resentment and shame.” “On average, Blacks have lower cognitive ability than whites.” “America will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.”
Those are real quotes! Those are things she has said! We're not talking about micro-agressions are something, we're talking about beliefs that you would expect to find at a klan rally. At what point does a university have to go 'yeah, your beliefs are not consistent with our values and you're no longer worthy of employment here?'
Again, these are not mild beliefs! These are not quotes pulled from two decades ago, she's said these things in the past few years!
If you said these things stocking shelves at Target, you would be fired on the spot. I do not understand this impulse that says we can't get rid of people like her just because she's a professor of law. How exactly, by the way, is she expected to do her job fairly and treat students she teaches properly, when she believes that a great many of them are less than human and physically incapable of learning from her?
You wouldn't accept these viewpoints from anyone else, and there's no 'refuting' her speech here. Her job is to teach people and treat them fairly, not espouse about how they are unworthy of being part of the country she was born into.
"protecting Ukraine was not a key U.S. interest"
Neville Chamberlain said that about Czechoslovakia in 1938.
It's gonna be interesting if/when Ron gets the nomination, how he plans to tack to the middle. That's assuming that he even tries. He seems to stake out some positions that it'll be hard to walk away from, and I'm not seeing any serious foreign policy people who posit that Putin's moves are at all good for the US.
As far as MTG, I got to blame the media. The shift to what sells instead of what is important has been horrible for us. People who only want attention, have no real path to passing anything of consequence, and manipulate their way into TV time. We are not being led by our best.
How about that Mr. Sykes? A once a week run of profiles or attention paid to those politicians who are acting in a way that we would appreciate here where sanity rules.
Ron Desantis makes me sick. We must stand with Ukraine.
The Russia Story is a hoax! screams the MAGA (and large swaths of the non-MAGA) right. But we see that the Russia story is alive and well. I seriously (not joking) want to know how much Tucker gets in his Swiss bank account from Vlad for his shilling or what compromat Vlad has on him. Or does Tuck's love of authoritarianism mean that he truly, in his heart, wishes that America was more like Russia, a country where life expectancy for men is now the same as men in Haiti?
Territorial dispute? I can’t even begin to unpack that. No one with any morals should be able to rationalize voting for either Trump or Desantis in the primaries.
Off topic, other than being about the lows to which Tucker Carlson will go for viewership and power, but the amazing revelations from the Dominion lawsuit have got me wondering--what did the Fox News talent and corporate bosses say to each other about COVID? About anti-vaxx efforts? About getting vaccinated themselves?
Is there someone who would have standing for a similar lawsuit on that topic? Personally, I would think Fauci could sue for libel, but I might be wrong, and I doubt he would do it? But Pfizer and Moderna? Could they make a future earnings argument? Wouldn't it be wonderful to see THOSE emails? I am so curious to know whether they contemplated the excess deaths they were causing among their viewers at all, and if so, what they said about it.
DeSantis is such a weak bully--the stereotype to be clear--who loves to punch down. I wonder how many of his admirers stick with him after Trump abuses him on stage.
Mona's piece on Professor Wax lends support to a theory of mine: racism makes you stupid. It takes an inordinate amount of mental energy to cook up evidence that a billion + people are inferior. The effort always makes you look like a fool. No democratic country respecting the rule-of-law is perfect, but I'd far rather live in South Korea than Hungry, relocate to Taiwan instead of Belarus, or spend my remaining life in Japan before ever stepping foot in Russia. I'd rather the U.S. take in 100,000 people from the third world--yearning for freedom and opportunity--than one pseudo-fascist white.
DeSantis is pro-Putin. DeSantis is also sadist who probably tortured people in Guantanamo Bay.
Electing DeSantis, to me, would be more or a moral failing than electing Trump would be. We would be electing our own Putin. Someone with no sense of humanity, willing to do anything to cement their own power/legacy, who's desire to "punish" the other knows no limits. We've seen it in his words and we've seen it in his actions We cannot let this man get anywhere near the presidency. Not just for our country's sake but for the world's sake.
Gotta wonder what Tucker Carlson may have to say about DeSantis in private. Whatever he may have to say, I doubt Tucker will ever again commit his thoughts to text.
Is the DeSantis position on Ukraine much of a surprise? He’s not committed to democracy in Florida, so why would he believe that democracy in Europe is a vital national interest? DeSantis, like Trump, identifies with and admired bullies.
Ron DeSantis said in Iowa "People need to be taught what it means to be an American." I can't disagree. Some of the people who need to be taught what it means to be an American are Ron DeSantis and the America Firsters. #NeverMAGA
Oh, Mona. What exactly is the free speech line that has to be crossed for a professor to be fired? I think it's really important to remember that she or any professor is not only a public intellectual with free speech rights, but also a faculty member who teaches classes - until recently, some mandatory! - and thus has a certain amount of power and influence over students. Should a Jewish student be forced to write papers and accept grades from a Nazi? Should an African American student be forced to sit in a classroom and submit to grading from a professor who espouses their inferiority? This is a crucial part of this issue which I never really see addressed.
The MAGA platform: If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever. (George Orwell)
I was raised to understand that the importance of power is not having it so much as how you choose to use it. In their quest to obtain power, the DeSantises and Trumps of the world never seemed to learn how to apply it in ways that help a majority of people to live better, as opposed to empowering a minority of like-minded individuals to impose their will. As long as their approach is punitive more than constructive, there is no hope for them to become actual leaders. That is an earned title, no less than the term "statesman" both aspires to and reflects more than being a mere politician. It is a distinction with a major difference.
Question of the day: if DeSantis believes that arming an allied nation (Ukraine) to help it defend itself against the actions of an unwarranted aggressor is out of line, can we also get him to admit, for the sake of consistency, that it is inappropriate to allow individuals here to build up an arsenal of personal weaponry, including rapid-fire assault rifles, in the name of defending themselves against unwanted and unwarranted aggressors to them? We'll set aside for now the fact that those individuals stockpiling arms, for what they call a perceived threat that maybe, possibly, perhaps somebody someday, sometime, might come for them personally aren't actually engaged in a real conflict that they neither asked for nor initiated. That would be too obvious of a contradiction.