Little Rock Central High School students tell Arkansas Governor Sarah HIckabee Sanders to take her education plan and shove it
Storied Little Rock Central High School, cited by Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ campaign as formative in her rise to the Arkansas governor’s mansion, was the site Friday of a student walkout to protest the cornerstone of her legislative agenda — the LEARNS Act, a massive education reform bill Sanders vows will be a “blueprint” for the nation.
During the school’s third period, at 1 p.m., several hundred students left classes and flooded the lawn of the historic institution, where in 1957 nine Black students were escorted by federal troops to enforce the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, which ended the concept of “separate but equal” schools.
The walkout, organized by the school’s Student Council, Young Leftists Club, Black Student Union and Gay-Straight Alliance, among other clubs, comes after a group of students penned an open letter to Sanders voicing strong concerns with the legislation and asking she not use the school’s name to advance her agenda.
“Ambition. Personality. Opportunity. Preparation. Carved into the face of the monumental Little Rock Central High School, four statues overlook the campus grounds, each representing a different principle for which the school stands,” the letter begins. “Almost a century after these pillars were embedded into the walls of the building, Central High remains a beacon for these fundamental components of education. Today, because of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her omnibus education bill, the proposed LEARNS Act, these ideals are in danger.”
COMMENT. Sarah is a graduate of Ouachita Baptist College . . . not exactly a premier institute of higher learning. She clearly wants the rest of the country to be as dumb as she is.
Gym Jordan’s “witnesses” turn out to be disgruntled employee nutcases
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who infamously refused to honor a lawful subpoena from the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack requiring his testimony last year, on Friday issued a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray demanding 16 FBI agents testify before his committee or face subpoenas to do so.
The letter is officially from the Judiciary Committee but was tweeted out by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is also chaired by Jordan. That new subcommittee has been the subject of scrutiny and mockery over the past 24 hours after Jordan claimed he had three FBI “whistleblowers” who Democrats in a damning 300-page report say have no first-hand knowledge of any wrongdoing.
Democrats are demanding Jordan make the three agents testify in public “about the so-called ‘weaponization’ of the law enforcement agency,” Raw Story reported.
“A series of reports have shown that Jim Jordan’s new ‘weaponization subcommittee’ is based on lies,” says MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin. “Witnesses who appeared at hearings have spread conspiracies about Jan. 6, some have zero firsthand knowledge of any FBI wrongdoing, and some have been paid by Trump allies.”
The New York Times reported at least two of the so-called whistleblowers were compensated by a top Trump ally, Kash Patel.
“Nick Akerman, former assistant special Watergate prosecutor and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, told Newsweek on Friday that Jordan and the Republicans are relying on ‘three nutcases’ to provide evidence of a ‘Deep State conspiracy’ about COVID-19, January 6, 2021, Capitol riot or the 2020 presidential election being stolen,” Newsweek reports.
Chairman Jordan’s three-page Friday letter to the FBI Director appeared at the far-right wing website Breitbart as an “exclusive,” and was posted to Twitter by Jordan’s committee, which also retweeted the Breitbart story. The Judiciary Committee also quickly republished the Breitbart story to the Committee’s website.
The letter begins, “The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight of the programs and operations of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). As part of our constitutional oversight responsibilities, we require testimony from employees of the FBI about the matters we are examining. We expect your cooperation in this process.”
It does not state what the investigation is about, nor does it offer Wray any information on what the 16 agents would be testifying about. It does, however, make clear the threat of subpoenas: “Please be aware that the committee will resort to compulsory process to obtain the required testimony.”
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It appears Jordan or someone on his subcommittee may have given Breitbart information from their investigation.
“Jordan named in the letter 16 individuals, all of whom are current or recent FBI employees and had been named by the three witnesses in the closed-door interviews, according to interview transcriptions and notes reviewed by Breitbart News.”
Late last year the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack found that Rep. Jordan had violated congressional ethics when he refused to honor their lawful subpoena.
“Ohio GOP Congressman Jim Jordan was unanimously referred to the bipartisan House Ethics Committee,” WSYX reported, “for refusing to share what he knows about former President Donald Trump’s role in the U.S. Capitol insurrection nearly two years ago.”
CPAC descends into irrelevance; it now is nothing but an appendage of Trump
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is sliding into “irrelevance” as the gathering continues to build itself around former President Donald Trump, and as the fallout grows over the leadership scandal, wrote David Siders for POLITICO on Friday.
The events on display at the nation’s “MAGA carnival” in National Harbor, Maryland exemplify the decline, he wrote.
“Today, amid the Trump-related merch and art, Donald Trump Jr. caused a stir when he told attendees to look for gold-wrapped chocolate bars under their seats for the chance to win a VIP ticket to a reception with his father on Saturday,” wrote Siders. “As my colleague Meridith McGraw reported exclusively today, the plan includes investments in vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles, ‘baby bonuses’ and ‘hives of industry’ free from Chinese imports. There’s no small chance Trump’s audience tomorrow will be cheering procreation and made-to-order places to live.”
Some declared and potential presidential candidates chose to steer clear, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But others attended, like former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who was greeted by a crowd chanting for Trump instead.
“And then there’s Vivek Ramaswamy, the biotech entrepreneur who, like Trump, is running for president in 2024,” noted the report.
“My colleague Natalie Allison posted a photograph on Twitter from one of his aides of his handwritten speech (it’s really worth a look). He plans, she wrote, to call for the FBI to be shut down.”
All of this is occurring against the backdrop of CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp facing allegations of sexual assault against a male GOP Senate staffer — allegations he vehemently denies, but that have resulted in other people coming forward with claims of a hostile work environment.
“It’s about as Trump-y a show as you’ll find anywhere in the GOP, and whatever happens in the straw poll on Saturday should be taken with a bucket load of salt,” concluded Siders. “But you can’t ignore it, either. Trump is still the frontrunner to win the party’s nomination in 2024. And if anyone is going to knock him off, eventually they’re going to need to cut into his margins with the energetic grassroots activists who go to events like CPAC — a not entirely unfaithful representation of the base of the GOP.”
If “christians” have their way, this is coming to America
Annual CPAC turns into a ghost town . . . with old grey-haired white people wandering around
The annual far-right conference CPAC is a ghost town, according to some photos of the conference space.
C-SPAN has been airing some of the panel discussions while showing crowd shots of the empty chairs. Reporters at the event have taken photos of not only the empty chairs, but the people who are on hand to watch the speeches are almost entirely elderly and white.
Plenty of space for vendors. In past years, these halls were filled with various conservative groups and authors, hawking their books and other material. This year, the CPAC vendors are mostly scam artists tryin to gete you to move your IRA into gold; Mike Huckabee pushing a “sleep aid” — $39.95 for the first month, $119.00 per month after; and Jim Baker pushing “six-month survival food packs for when Biden’s inflation forces egg prices to $2.00 each” — the “food packs” contain dried food, including gag-inducing powdered eggs.
Here’s Don, Jr., in front of a photo of the White House, handing out autographs and taking a break every half-hour to do a line of coke. No word on whether there will be photos of the Fulton County Courthouse.
“Libs-of-Tik-Tok” personality Taylor Lopez speaking to an almost empty room.
It appears as though after lying to their followers for years, CPAC has now reached herd stupidity.
Deadbeat old fat man living in Florida owes millions to counties and individuals
Like many wealthy people and big corporations, former President Donald Trump has a problem paying the people who work for him. The Daily Beast reports that in 30 counties the outlet contacted, only one city’s local first responders had been paid for their time working at a Trump rally.
Trump owed more than $11,000 to Sioux City, Iowa, city and fire departments, as well as rented parking spaces from a November 2022 rally, according to The Daily Beast. It was only after immense pressure from city officials and reporting by the Sioux City Journal that the debt was eventually repaid.
We show no outstanding bills for this Event Strategies group,” City Manager Bob Padmore said. “The ambulance has been paid and now, the police security has been paid, as well.”
An anonymous source from Warren, Michigan, told The Daily Beast that its city has never seen a penny paid for the time cops worked a MAGA rally on Oct. 1, 2022. And local police from Lorain County, Ohio, said they were never reimbursed for a June 2021 rally in their city.
In Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, an unnamed official told The Daily Beast that although the city clerk’s office recorded a repayment from Trump, the official said they weren’t sure if the money actually even came from Trump or his staff.
“I don’t write the name, I only wrote the check number,” the person reportedly said.
In fact, according to reporting by CTV News, the tab for Trump MAGA rallies across the nation exceeded $2 million. This from a man who, as of September 2022, according to Forbes, is worth $3.2 billion. His real estate in New York City alone totals about $880 million, and his golf clubs and resorts are valued at $740 million.
Going back to long before he was in politics, the magnate had a record of stiffing employees.
In 2016, USA Today reported about a Philadelphia cabinet maker named Edward Friel Jr., who was left by Trump holding an $83,600 bill—a debt that eventually killed Friel’s family business.
“At least 60 lawsuits, along with hundreds of liens, judgments, and other government filings reviewed by the USA TODAY NETWORK, document people who have accused Trump and his businesses of failing to pay them for their work,” USA Today’s Steve Reilly wrote in 2016.
Trump has continued to paint himself as a man of the people. In reality, he’s a wealthy douchebag who treats the people who work for him like they should be paying him for the pleasure. Somehow, despite that, the twice-impeached architect of the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol remains beloved by millions and a strong contender for a second term in the White House.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad
Former President Donald Trump attacked right-wing organizations who were considering backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during a late-night Truth Social rampage.
In a post on his social network platform, the former president targeted the Club for Growth over its supposed determination to back DeSantis against Trump in a theoretical primary matchup next year.
“Failed former Congressman David McIntosh and his Globalist friends at Club for No Growth, who fought me all the way in 2016, and LOST, and then fought me again in 2020 Senate Races in Ohio, Alabama, North Carolina, New Hampshire, plus more, and LOST AGAIN, are now threatening to spend money against me early because their new boy, Ron DeSanctus, the man who wants to cut Social Security and MediCare, has dropped so drastically in the Polls to me,” Trump wrote. “No Growth Members know there will be RETRIBUTION!!!”
Hours later, the former president set his sights on Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch for testifying under oath that he did not believe Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election being “stollen” (sic) from him.
“If Rupert Murdoch honestly believes that the Presidential Election of 2020, despite MASSIVE amounts of proof to the contrary, was not Rigged & Stollen, then he & his group of MAGA Hating Globalist RINOS should get out of the News Business as soon as possible, because they are aiding & abetting the DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA with FAKE NEWS,” Trump raged. “Certain BRAVE & PATRIOTIC FoxNews Hosts, who he scorns and ridicules, got it right. He got it wrong. THEY SHOULD BE ADMIRED & PRAISED, NOT REBUKED & FORSAKEN!!!”
In fact, there is no evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, and members of Trump’s own Department of Justice testified under oath that they investigated several of his claims about election fraud and found them all to be false.
This is what the GOP and the Supreme Court has done
The email hit her inbox on Monday, September 26 at around 9 in the morning. “It’s so much worse than I imagined,” she wrote in her journal. “It’s trisomy 18. It’s Edwards Syndrome.” Online, she read that about 90% of fetuses with trisomy 18 die before birth, and those that do survive usually only live for a few days. “I just want to throw up. I can’t even come up with words to describe how devastating this is,” she wrote.
A few hours later, a genetic counselor called her. “It just gets worse,” she wrote after that conversation. “Basically, every day that Baby B continues to develop, he puts myself and his twin at greater risk for complications, preterm birth, etc. But she can’t say much – she was careful about what she even said.”
All that the genetic counselor told her was that, when she practiced in New York, doctors would do a “single fetal reduction,” Miller recalls, though she didn’t explain what that procedure was, only that “you can’t do that in Texas now.”
Miller felt like she knew why the genetic counselor was being so cryptic. Selective reduction is an abortion procedure for pregnancies with multiple fetuses. Doctors can selectively terminate one fetus, while another or multiple other fetuses continue to develop. Multiple pregnancies are inherently risky, and selective reduction can increase the chance of a live birth or births.
But now, almost all abortions are illegal in Texas.
In fact, there are three laws banning abortion in the state. One predated Roe v. Wade, dating back as far as 1857. Another was triggered when Roe was overturned and comes with a maximum penalty of life in prison for performing an abortion in the state. Then there’s SB-8, that allows people to bring civil charges for “aiding or abetting” a Texas abortion.
Miller says she felt the laws were preventing her doctor and the genetic counselor from telling her all her options in a straightforward way. “Nowadays, with the way we got this bounty hunter system in Texas, doctors are going to err on the side of caution,” she says.
Time for another Amy Coney Barrett monologue about how abortion bans are no big deal because you can just drop the baby off at the bus station, and since babies are just born immediately after conception with no health complications that solves everything.
Strange but true
