https://politicalwire.com/2023/02/01/college-board-purges-african-americans-studies-course/

College Board Purges African American Studies Course
February 1, 2023 at 9:40 am EST By Taegan Goddard

When and where does this nonsense stop? And who authorized this?

https://politicalwire.com/2023/02/01/fbi-agents-are-searching-bidens-home/

FBI Agents Are Searching Biden’s Home
February 1, 2023 at 9:49 am EST By Taegan Goddard

He looks so pale, chemo AND cancer suck. I've decided I want to send Mr. Raskin a chemo cap. His address is:
US House of Representatives 2242 Rayburn House Office Bldg, Washington, DC 20515-2008 if anyone cares to do the same. They're reasonable on Amazon. I 'think' I'm going with this one...



Jamie Raskin Credits Steven Van Zandt For Bandana Look As He Endures Chemotherapy
The Maryland Democrat said treatment has been going well since he was diagnosed with diffuse large B cell lymphoma.
Arthur Delaney
Jan 31, 2023, 04:36 PM EST
Updated 31 minutes ago



WASHINGTON — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) received an ovation Tuesday at the House Oversight Committee’s first meeting since he started cancer treatment, sporting a bandana look he credited to a famous rocker.

“We’re all rooting for you,” committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) told Raskin at the start of the meeting, which was the panel’s first of the year. “We know that you’re going to win this battle. You’re in our thoughts and prayers, and it’s good to see you here today.”

Raskin said that he hoped all the well wishes he’d received would become “seeds of friendship over the year” and that he planned to beat his illness. The ranking member seemed to blush as the room burst into applause.

snip//

“I give all honor to Little Steven for creating this look for American men going through something,” Raskin told HuffPost, referring to guitarist and actor Steven Van Zandt.

more...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jamie-raskin-cancer-steven-van-zandt_n_63d96e6de4b01a436390ca3f

Florida Crock: Say ‘Resiliency.’ Don’t Say ‘Climate Change.’
by Pierre Tristam | January 30, 2023 - 6:46am

— from Flagler Live


Florida is crazy about resiliency. The word is everywhere, because hurricanes, rising seas, erosion, disappearing beaches and downtowns flooding on sunny days are everywhere. The elected need to look like they’re doing something about it. So here comes resiliency. It’s got toughness, machismo, lilt. The syllables surf off the tongue with just enough self-importance for a word coined in mid-17th century England that our right honorable Gov. DeSantis thinks it’ll power Florida through the catastrophes of the 21st. He’s plastering the word everywhere like wonder whitewash.

Except that resiliency in Florida is a crock. The state is throwing millions, soon to be billions, at the consequences of global warming. It’s not doing a damn thing about its part in causing global warming. Until then, the state is as good as complicit in its coastal communities’ destruction–maliciously so, because this isn’t mere negligence. It’s active, vindictive denialism. The language of climate change–like so much else in this administration–is censored from all DeSantis playbooks.

snip//

Ironically, the word has often been used to describe the resiliency of ecosystems, of the Amazon forest, of oceans, or the ozone layer in the face of human destruction. Give nature a chance, help it along just a bit (as we somehow managed to do with the ozone layer), go easier on greenhouse emissions, and it’ll reward you tenfold. That’s natural resiliency.

Florida hijacked the word, branding it on precisely the human factors that exploit and damage nature and exacerbate warming: concrete, overdevelopment, rebuilding fatter and meaner along the shore and in flood plains, and of course contempt for anything that might help nature along. In Florida, you not only don’t say gay. You don’t say climate change.

snip//

What are we doing in Florida? We’re policing the speech of teachers and professors. We’re banning books. We’re sanitizing history. We’re obsessing about drag queens. We have a governor more intent on turning the clock back to 1950 Florida than he is concerned about how close the ocean will be to our homes by 2050.

more...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/pierre-tristam/104888/florida-crock-say-resiliency-don-t-say-climate-change

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/30/2150135/-Don-Jr-railed-against-political-elite-who-never-worked-in-low-wage-jobs-like-he-did

Don Jr. railed against 'political elite' who never worked in low wage jobs like he did
Walter Einenkel
Daily Kos Staff
Monday January 30, 2023 · 4:53 PM EST
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Donald Trump Jr. is still a thing. He uncomfortably sells Trump steaks and stuff. He also has a podcast or something resembling a digital interview show called Triggered. The title is a reference to how he triggers people. It is also the name of his sad attempt at being noticed by his narcissistic father. In a video uploaded two days before publishing this piece, and then pulled down while in the middle of writing this piece, Junior held an interview with Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy.

From what was available to watch online, the video is a wide-ranging interview where Junior does most of the fast talking. McCarthy does a lot of vacuously agreeing with whatever points Junior has to make about how great his dad was as president. It isn’t worth watching for the most part, even if you are feeling particularly masochistic. But after long stretches of Junior telling McCarthy how dad Trump is really a “compassionate” guy who hides it so well no one in the world would ever think otherwise, Junior gives Kevin a chance to say something about Kevin.

McCarthy decides to quickly interject with information about his working- and middle-class upbringing. McCarthy brags about illegally flipping cars for profit, not having “the education” (which I guess is supposed to mean he didn’t go to an Ivy League school), winning a $5,000 lottery and buying single stock that did well when he was 20. Then Junior decides it’s time to launch into his own personal mythology that he worked hard-scrabble jobs and learned all about work ethics too.

It’s like watching the Mad Hatter Tea Party scene embodied in one man rambling for 35 seconds.



Someone’s mixing up fake working class versus capitalist class metaphors!

The rich frequently like to try and explain away their privilege by pretending that doing a job you don’t have to think about or use for money in your 20s is the same as growing up working for a living. The rich like Trump and his family like to pretend that being attacked by the media as a wildly corrupt organized crime family is the same as being a war veteran.

Junior’s intense working days seem to come from a period he spent in Aspen, Colorado, right after graduating University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. “To be fairly candid, I used to drink a lot and party pretty hard, and it wasn’t something that I was particularly good at.” He became a bartender. It seems that his hardcore bartending days came to an end after a few months, because according to accounts he ended up being arrested in New Orleans for public drunkenness during Mardi Gras and then he entered into the family business.

So, he maybe worked for tips?

https://politicalwire.com/2023/01/30/florida-seeks-to-allow-concealed-guns-without-permits/

Florida Seeks to Allow Concealed Guns Without Permits
January 30, 2023 at 3:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard

https://www.thedailybeast.com/grand-jury-proceedings-officially-underway-in-trump-stormy-daniels-hush-money-case-nyt?ref=home

Grand Jury Presentation Reportedly Underway in Trump Hush Money Case
Asta Hemenway
Politics Reporting Fellow
Published Jan. 30, 2023 2:51PM ET

https://twitter.com/ChrisMurphyCT/status/1619683818595840002

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/28/2149813/-Charles-McGonigal-s-arrest-should-make-Jared-very-nervous

Charles McGonigal's arrest should make Jared very nervous
akronboy
Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)
Saturday January 28, 2023 · 1:30 PM EST
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So far, news of the bombshell arrest of Charles McGonigal, the former FBI special agent, has focused on his central role in events leading up to the 2016 election. That connection is stunning, to be sure.

But there is another issue raised by McGonigal's arrest that hasn't drawn nearly as much attention. At least it has not yet, but it may prove even more pivotal to bringing down the Trump crime syndicate. And that's McGonigal's curious association with the desperate attempts by Jared Kushner, and his father, Charles, to rescue an upside-down investment in 666 (now 660) 5th Avenue.

A little background. Kushner Properties bought the iconic Midtown property for a record $1.8 billion in 2007, just before the 2008 crash. About $1.3 billion purchase was financed, and the property was almost instantaneously hemmoraging big money. Some estimates valued the building at well less than half of the purchase price.

Remarkably, after years of failed efforts (including overtures to a Chinese company), the Kushners finally were able to sell a 99 year lease on the building to a company called Brookfield Asset Management in August 2018, with funding supplied by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The $1.2-billion lease payment for all 99 years was paid up front, allowing the Kushners to get the finance monkeys off their backs. Phew!

Crucially, after McGonigal retired from the FBI in September 2018, he was hired as senior vice president for security by none other than Brookfield... the company that saved the Kushners' asses.

Below is a link to a fascinating timeline of the Kushner/666 5th Avenue saga. It is an absolute must read. It long predates McGonigal's arrest, as it's nearly two years old.

But what you'll find is instructive and critically important, I think. Blackmail, unauthorized diplomacy, and more.

Now, a direct connection to none other than Charles McGonigal. Coincidence? It's just too crazy to be coincidence.

Stay tuned.

https://www.justsecurity.org/69094/timeline-on-jared-kushner-qatar-666-fifth-avenue-and-white-house-policy/
Timeline on Jared Kushner, Qatar, 666 Fifth Avenue, and White House Policy

Dear Opponents of Ron DeSantis Everywhere: Get Your Shit Together
by Hamilton Nolan | January 27, 2023 - 8:02am


snip//

People in Florida of all political persuasions often talk of Ron DeSantis as if he is a formidable juggernaut that Democrats can’t hope to restrain. This is false. He is a half-smart, washed up Ivy League baseball player whose defining characteristic is not cleverness or likeability, but overweening ambition. He has a goofy squeaky voice and palpable absence of warmth that will not translate well to the national stage. He is just as immoral as his rivals, but he lacks the polished presentation of Ted Cruz and the magnetic insanity of Donald Trump. Though, as a rule, I do not make electoral predictions, it would not be surprising to see him crash and burn when faced with a presidential campaign that depends, above all, on charisma. It is easy to imagine him as the latest in a long line of media-hyped red state governors whose self-importance crashed and sunk against the rocks of a competitive primary.

Nor is he some sort of king whose hold on Florida should be taken for granted. Florida is, in essence, a 50/50 state that should be extremely competitive in every election. So why did DeSantis win reelection last year by 20 points? Because Democratic turnout in the state plummeted by 20 points compared to the 2018 election, while Republican turnout increased. In 2018, Democrats ran Andrew Gillum, a progressive, younger candidate of color for governor, and almost won; in 2022, they ran a tepid old former Republican, and got whipped. When you don’t give people anything exciting to vote for, they don’t turn out to vote.

Like partisan redistricting, gerrymandering, and showy acts of racist voter suppression, DeSantis’s new salvo against teachers unions is an effort to turn a narrow, temporary advantage into a permanent one. Disenfranchise some Democrats, demoralize the rest, and demolish the few institutions that can sustain their statewide power. This is the DeSantis plan, and he isn’t shy about it. He doesn’t need to be. His base revels in it, and his opposition is weak, scared, and seemingly without a plan.

In Florida, all of the most important macro-issues of American politics are screaming out as we speak. The proud fascism that DeSantis embodies must be met with radicalism. Clinton-esque Democratic attempts to triangulate their way out of the problem are doomed to fail, and will only serve to drive home the untrue impression that Florida is a red state. You can’t equivocate with DeSantis. He puts Black people in jail at gunpoint for voting; he bans books and outlaws Black history teaching with a bluntness that would make George Orwell blush; he demonizes trans kids, perfectly happy to drive a few young people to suicide if it helps him solidify his own position. This guy is not some sophisticated mastermind — he’s an asshole. He is the embodiment of the worst 30% of Floridians, the ones who make the state a national punchline. And those who roll over for him, like the dozens of college presidents who publicly kowtow to his backwards “vision,” are cowards who will find themselves on the wrong side of history when the uncensored textbooks eventually get written.

That is one thing Florida proves: The absolute need for the Democrats to stop being weak and afraid of their own convictions. The second thing it proves is the absolute centrality of organized labor as a path out of the political quandary that afflicts America. Inequality has killed public faith in institutions, and modern media has entrenched national partisanship to a degree that some perceive as hopeless. Unions can roll back inequality. Unions can bring people of different political persuasions together in common cause in the workplace. Unions can show people an actual functioning democracy. Unions can lead regular people to political activism based on principles they learn by fighting for fair treatment for themselves. Unions can be strong enough to serve as a wall that stops the predations of opportunistic, hateful politicians like Ron DeSantis.

more...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/hamilton-nolan/104862/dear-opponents-of-ron-desantis-everywhere-get-your-shit-together