scharrison's blog

Weekend Wound-Up

Submitted by scharrison on

Madison Cawthorn goes full-on Nazi after losing his Primary:

“It’s time for the rise of the new right, it’s time for Dark MAGA to truly take command,” Cawthorn, 26, wrote on Instagram. “We have an enemy to defeat, but we will never be able to defeat them until we defeat the cowardly and weak members of our own party. Their days are numbered. We are coming.” Twitter users describe “Dark MAGA” — a take on Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan — as a group that believes there’s no political solution beyond vengeance, Newsweek reported, and that the former president has been too kindhearted and forgiving to his political opponents. It also has ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacy, Business Insider reported.

Aside from the fact we have yet to see a "light" MAGA, this is a typical reaction from an immature, spoiled rotten man-child. But we can't (or shouldn't) let this temper tantrum distract us from important business, like the NCGA's upcoming Budget adjustments:

Is there a culture of racism at Duke University?

Submitted by scharrison on

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Welcome back to the 1950's:

During his first meeting with his supervisor, Freetage says he was asked “whether he had a problem supervising ‘blacks’”and added that he needed to “start writing up ‘those people’ in order to ‘keep them in line.’” That same month, Freetage said he “overheard a conversation regarding management’s instructions to ‘clean house’ in his department, specifically discussing their intent to fire ‘colored’ workers who they said were ‘lazy,’” the lawsuit states.

When Freetage asked whether their diversity training could be applicable in this situation, the lawsuit states an administrative assistant laughed at his question and responded “Yeah that’s all bull****. We don’t actually do that around here. It’s all for show.”

The house needs to be cleaned, alright. Starting with this particular manager. For you Duke fans and alum who may be tempted to write this off as "exaggeration" or possibly "missing context," just don't. I encountered an almost identical set of behaviors when I was a manager, and had to serve as a buffer to protect African-American employees on countless occasions. And I can also tell you this, with all confidence: racial discrimination of this intensity can only survive if multiple "tiers" of management are of a like mind. Not saying it goes all the way to the top, but it's not just this one man. Which leads me to a discussion on institutional racism:

Chief Justice Roberts is angry...about the leak

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When he should be angry about the assault on reproductive freedom:

In a press release, the court stressed that the draft opinion, in which a majority of the court appears poised to overrule the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, is not a final decision by the court. And Chief Justice John Roberts indicated that he has directed the court’s marshal to launch an investigation into the source of the leak.

In a brief – but itself highly unusual – statement issued in response to the leak of the draft opinion, Roberts vowed that the leak would not “undermine the integrity” of the court’s operations. Roberts emphasized that the people who work at the court “have an exemplary and important tradition of respecting the confidentiality of the judicial process and upholding the trust of the Court.” The leak, Roberts concluded, was a “singular and egregious breach of that trust.”

The opinion was written 2 1/2 months ago, I'm surprised it took this long for the jackboot to drop. But if you want to talk about trust, ask Susan Collins:

Biden administration to tighten rules on grants to charter schools

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Choice goes both ways, especially where taxpayer dollars are concerned:

New grant rules proposed by the Biden Administration would require applicants to show that the number of charter schools “does not exceed the number of public schools needed to accommodate the demand in the community.” Other proposed changes to the federal Charter Schools Program (CSP) include no longer giving grants to charters run by for-profit companies.

Charter schools are taxpayer-funded schools that are exempt from some of the rules that traditional public schools must follow, such as having 100% licensed teachers and participating in the National School Lunch program. There are more than 200 charter schools in North Carolina. More than 60 charter schools have received a share of the $36.6 million in CSP grant funds given to the state.

Since the cap on charter schools was removed when Republicans took over the NC General Assembly, the number of these schools in the state has doubled. There are also currently 783 private schools in NC, 2/3 of them religious in nature. Combined that's approaching the 1,000 mark. If that were 10 per county, wouldn't be such a big deal. But it isn't. Wake County has 24 charter schools and 87 private schools, pulling students and resources from the 171 traditional public schools. 8 of the 41 new private schools NC added in 2021 are in Wake County. Suffice it to say the "school choice" movement is out of control in North Carolina. Back to the Biden rule change, and the GOP's predictable reaction:

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