Last Call For Ron's Gone Wrong, Con't

Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis is sending out a message that higher education will no longer continue in the state, as he is currently engineering a complete takeover of New College of Florida to serve as a loud warning as to what's coming to a state college campus near you.

Gov. Ron DeSantis began the process Friday of transforming Sarasota's New College of Florida into a more conservative institution, appointing six new board members, including conservative activist Christopher Rufo, a dean at conservative Hillsdale College and a senior fellow at The Claremont Institute, a right-wing think tank.

"It is our hope that New College of Florida will become Florida's classical college, more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the south," Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said in a statement.

The shakeup of the 13-member board is certain to create major tensions at New College, an institution that started as a progressive private school before becoming the state's liberal arts honors college. The small school's student body and faculty have a reputation for leaning left politically.

Turning New College into a Florida version of Hillsdale would amount to flipping it upside down, a wholesale reinvention akin to a hostile takeover, and one that many current students and faculty are likely to resist.

DeSantis aides blasted the school Friday and said an overhaul is needed.

"Unfortunately, like so many colleges and universities in America, this institution has been completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning," said DeSantis Communications Director Taryn Fenske.

Rufo is known for his activism on transgender and racial issues, making him a leader in the new wave of conservative culture wars. He joined DeSantis when the governor signed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Act, which is derided by critics as the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

Rufo said in a series of Twitter posts Friday that public universities have "been corrupted by woke nihilism" and he is "ready to transform higher education from within." He said he plans to recruit new faculty to New College to "create an institution where academics can thrive, without self-censorship."

“My ambition is to help the new board majority transform New College into a classical liberal arts institution. We are recapturing higher education.” Rufo said.

Rufo recently applauded DeSantis on Twitter for requesting information on diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory at all Florida colleges and universities.

"Gov. DeSantis is going to lay siege to university 'diversity, equity, and inclusion' programs," Rufo wrote.

Among Rufo's goals for New College that he laid out in a tweet: Restructuring the administration, developing "a new core curriculum," eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion policies and restructuring academic departments.

 

Now, DeSantis isn't about to mess with a big name football school, at least not yet. But a small liberal arts honors college like New College is the perfect target to turn into Liberty University lite. The Supreme Court will make it much easier late this year when they eliminate diversity from public and private colleges and universities, and DeSantis will use New College as his testing grounds for destroying public universities nationwide should he be elected in 2024 or 2028.

 

This is all part of the plan.

Welcome To Gunmerica, Con't

Police and FBI in New Mexico are trying to determine if a series of shootings at offices and homes of five New Mexico Democrats over the last month are related. Nobody has been injured so far, but officials are worried that may not remain the case.

Federal and local authorities in New Mexico are investigating whether several shootings since early December at the offices or homes of five elected Democratic leaders were connected and possibly politically motivated, officials said.

No one was injured in the shootings in Albuquerque involving three residences, a workplace and a campaign office associated with a pair of county commissioners, two state senators and New Mexico’s newly elected attorney general. Three of the shootings took place in December and two this month, the latest of which was on Thursday, the authorities said.

The Albuquerque police chief, Harold Medina, said at a news conference on Thursday that there could be a pattern to the shootings, possibly tied to political affiliation.

“On the surface, that is one of the things that, as a law enforcement agency, we are looking at and is a concern to us,” Chief Medina said.

He said the authorities were still processing evidence and had no one in custody. The department did not announce the shootings earlier, he said, because it was not clear in December whether there might be a pattern.

Mayor Tim Keller of Albuquerque said the authorities were concerned that the shootings might have been targeted and were “possibly politically motivated.”

“This is a high priority for us,” Mr. Keller said at the news conference.

The F.B.I. in Albuquerque is assisting with the investigation, an agency official said at the news conference. The state police were also involved, officials said.

The Albuquerque Police Department provided a timeline of the shootings on Thursday. It said the police had been called that morning to the law office where State Senator Moe Maestas works after gunshots were heard in the area. Three shots were fired at 11:41 a.m., but there was no damage to the building, the police said.

On Tuesday, at least eight shots were fired at the home of State Senator Linda Lopez, the police said.

On Dec. 11, the department said, “more than a dozen gunshot impacts” were found at the house of Debbie O’Malley, a Bernalillo County commissioner who left office at the end of the month because she was limited to two terms.

On Dec. 4, eight rounds were fired at the home of Adriann Barboa, also a Bernalillo County commissioner, the police said.

The police said in a statement late Thursday that they were also examining whether shots that were fired in December at the former campaign office of Raul Torrez, who had just been elected New Mexico’s attorney general, were part of the pattern.

Mr. Torrez moved out of the office after the November election. On the morning of Dec. 10, the Police Department’s ShotSpotter gunshot detection system identified several gunshots in the area of the building that the authorities now think “may be tied to the string of shootings involving elected officials,” the police statement said.

“These shootings are serious crimes, regardless of whether anyone was injured,” Mr. Keller, the mayor, said on Twitter on Thursday, referring to the Albuquerque investigation.

While the authorities have not definitively tied the gunfire to politics or ideology, the investigation reflects national concern over threats and intimidation against lawmakers, public officials and, in some cases, their family members.

 

At some point, bullets are going to start hitting people, and even if nobody is physically hurt, everyone will be looking over their shoulder. That's how domestic terrorism works, folks.

This is a terrorist attack, as sure as the sun on New Mexico's flag rises.

It Only Took Fifteen Times

Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker f the House on the fifteenth ballot, late after midnight last night, and has surrendered so much of his power that he may not survive the month in the office.

 

The vote capped a historically dysfunctional week in which members — who were not even allowed to be sworn in before choosing a speaker — sat through vote after vote with the world watching. McCarthy was the first party leader in a century whose race even went past the first ballot.

He'd fumbled a previous bid for speaker in 2015 before it came to a vote and some of his initial backers openly questioned whether it was possible for him to succeed this week given the strength of his opposition.

But McCarthy’s victory also came at a steep price: In exchange for the rebels’ support, he agreed to various concessions (the details of which are still not fully known) that would give conservatives more power to set the agenda, block legislation they dislike, and quickly call a vote to remove McCarthy if he pushes back.

With at least four members still in the “Never Kevin” camp, and the possibility of the majority shrinking through resignations or acts of God, he'll remain a vote or two away from the brink at all times.

He will have to manage expectations and deliver results in high-stakes battles over issues like spending, reauthorizing the farm bill, and, most especially, raising the debt ceiling. One wrong move could lead to a shutdown, financial crisis, or his ouster as speaker, none of which are mutually exclusive.

But for now, the Congress can adopt rules, set up committees, hold hearings, and begin to at least outwardly resemble a normal functioning institution. That's a victory no one should take for granted anymore.

 

The good news is that McCarthy's position is so precarious that it's bound to fail. The bad news is once the Freedom Caucus nutjobs get everything they want from McCarthy as far as committees and assignments go, he's 100% disposable. 

But the real damage will be the rules he's agreed to in the House: No bill can increase spending over five or ten year timeframes, the House Ethics committee has to have a public complaint period, the return of the Holman Rule, which would allow specific punitive government salary cuts or entire program eliminations, and will almost certainly allow the House to default on the national debt, crashing the economy.

And yes, the big one is the Coronavirus Pandemic subcommittee, which is going to be months of stupid people having hearings from "medical professionals" about horse dewormer.

Get ready. These idiots broke the House, and they're going to break the country.