Last Call For The Circus Of The Damned, Con't

Kentucky Republican Rep. James Comer's debut as Chief Clown of the "Weaponization of Government" subcommittee's first televised hearing did not go as the House GOP planned.

WHEN THE WHITE House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue to report: Famous model Chrissy Teigen had just called President Donald Trump “a pussy ass bitch” on Twitter — and the White House wanted the tweet to come down.

That exchange — revealed during Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter by Rep. Gerry Connolly — and others like it are nowhere to be found in Elon Musk’s “Twitter Files” releases, which have focused almost exclusively on requests from Democrats and the feds to the social media company. The newly empowered Republican majority in the House of Representatives is now devoting significant resources and time to investigating this supposed “collusion” between liberal politicians and Twitter. Some Republicans even believe the release of the “Twitter Files” is the “tip of the spear” of their crusade against the alleged liberal bias of Big Tech.

But former Trump administration officials and Twitter employees tell Rolling Stone that the White House’s Teigen tweet demand was hardly an isolated incident: The Trump administration and its allied Republicans in Congress routinely asked Twitter to take down posts they objected to — the exact behavior that they’re claiming makes President Biden, the Democrats, and Twitter complicit in an anti-free speech conspiracy to muzzle conservatives online.

“It was strange to me when all of these investigations were announced because it was all about the exact same stuff that we had done [when Donald Trump was in office],” one former top aide to a senior Trump administration official tells Rolling Stone. “It was normal.”

In interviews with former Twitter personnel, onetime Trump administration officials, and other people familiar with the matter, each source recalled what could be described as a “hotline,” “tipline,” or large Twitter “database” of moderation and removal requests that was frequently pinged by the offices of powerful Democrats and Republicans alike.

The voluminous requests often came from high-ranking political appointees working in different departments, offices, and agencies in the Trump administration. But during both the Trump and Biden presidencies, these types of moderation requests or demands were routinely sent to Twitter by the staff of influential GOP lawmakers — ones with names like Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik.

Oftentimes, requests would demand Twitter stop “shadowbanning” certain conservative accounts, or that the company reinstate banned or suspended right-wing personas. Other times, offices of senior Trump administration officials would send emails seeking to remove tweets that they believed to be “hate speech” or death threats aimed at their principals. And over the years, the knowledgeable sources say, staffers for Republican officials would regularly flag to Twitter content that they believed violated the app’s terms of service or other policies, including on spreading “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

That sentiment was shared by those who’ve worked for Twitter. “Everybody worked the refs,” one source familiar with congressional requests to the social media company said. “Usually with the Republicans, most of the time rather than saying, ‘Why are you taking things down?’ it was, ‘You need to put things back up.’ It was, ‘Put me back, put me back.’ ”

In Teigen’s case, the White House’s attempt to get Twitter to remove criticism of the president was sparked by a late night exchange initiated by Trump. The then-president blasted musician “@johnlegend, and his filthy mouthed wife” for being insufficiently grateful to him for signing the criminal justice reform First Step Act. The White House’s removal request landed on the desk of Anika Collier Navaroli, who testified that her supervisors had informed her the White House wanted Twitter to evaluate the post. ”They wanted it to come down because it was a derogatory statement,” told the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.

It was obvious that the Trump regime worked the Twitter refs time and time again from 2016 to 2020, both before and after Trump got himself banned from social media after using it to foment the January 6th insurrection in 2021. Anybody who looked at this would have known that Twitter would have gotten requests from Republican lawmakers for years, and yet Comer's Clown Crew walked right into this jet intake anyway, on live television.

Worse, the Trump regime demands were not because of dangerous disinformation or potential terrorism issues, it was because it hurt Trump's tender feelings by making him look like the orange buffoon he is.

So yeah, Comer found out the hard way that the Trump regime and his own House GOP colleagues are just as "guilty" of "using government pressure to manipulate free speech".

Oops.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

The next step after Republicans end affirmative action programs in colleges and universities with an expected Supreme Court ruling this summer is to end diversity in hiring and gutting the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, as Texas is not only ending diversity hiring in state government agencies, it's declaring diversity programs to be illegal, almost certainly giving SCOTUS the future case they'll need to destroy the EEOC for good. 

 

Gov. Greg Abbott’s office is warning state agency and public university leaders this week that the use of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — policies that support groups who have been historically underrepresented or discriminated against — is illegal in hiring.

In a memo written Monday and obtained by The Texas Tribune, Abbott’s chief of staff Gardner Pate told agency leaders that using DEI policies violates federal and state employment laws, and hiring cannot be based on factors “other than merit.”

Pate said DEI initiatives illegally discriminate against certain demographic groups — though he did not specify which ones he was talking about.

“The innocuous sounding notion of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has been manipulated to push policies that expressly favor some demographic groups to the detriment of others,” Pate wrote.

Diversity, equity and inclusion is a moniker used for policies developed to provide guidance in workplaces, government offices and college campuses intended to increase representation and foster an environment that emphasizes fair treatment to groups that have historically faced discrimination. DEI policies can include resources for underrepresented groups, which can include people with disabilities, LGBTQ people and veterans. In hiring, it can include setting diversity goals or setting thresholds to ensure that a certain number of diverse candidates are interviewed. At universities, DEI offices are often focused on helping students of color or nontraditional students stay in school and graduate.

The governor’s directive represents the latest effort by Republican leaders fighting back against policies and academic disciplines that Republicans nationwide have deemed “woke.” DEI, along with critical race theory, has become a target of conservatives who argue that white people are being unfairly treated or characterized in schools and workplaces.

“Rebranding this employment discrimination as ‘DEI’ doesn’t make the practice any less illegal,” Pate wrote. “Further, when a state agency spends taxpayer dollars to fund offices, departments, or employee positions dedicated to promoting forbidden DEI initiatives, such actions are also inconsistent with the law.”

 

Texas is certainly going to get the pants sued off them over this, and that's exactly what they want. I expect other red states to do the same in the months ahead, ending diversity and inclusion efforts for private employers as well.

They're going to gut the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, just like they have the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. And once again, doing this during Black History Month sends a clear message to everyone.

We Don't Need No Education, Con't

Kentucky Republicans are jumping on the assault on public education pain train in a big way as the General Assembly returns this week, with new legislation that would allow individual parents of schoolkids to sue school districts if they object to any part of their child's curriculum and the district doesn't change it.

 

HB 173 states parents should have the right to make decisions for their child “without obstruction or interference from a public school.” As long as the student meets the compulsory attendance rules under state law, that student should be educated how the parent sees fit, the measure asserts.

Guardians should have the “high duty and right to nurture and direct their children's destiny, including their upbringing and education; mental, emotional, and physical health care; and moral and religious development,” the bill continues.

HB 173 outlines a system for local school boards to receive complaints about violations of parents’ rights. If districts don’t respond according to the process, the parent can sue.

Parents would also be able to review any student well-being surveys, curriculum, books or course syllabi. They would also have the right to consent on their child’s behalf to participate in a number of things, including surveys and regular classroom interactions where a journalist may be present.

Almost every non-emergency health procedure, including mental health sessions with school counselors, would need a parent’s blessing.

Under HB 173, school staff would be required to inform parents if their child starts dressing in a way that doesn’t correspond with their gender or asks to use different pronouns or a name other than their assigned name ― a move that goes against state education guidance on how to best work with transgender students.

Districts would be required to prohibit trainings where teachers would be encouraged to use a student’s chosen name or pronouns, or touch on “critical race theory” topics such as white supremacy.

Schools would also no longer be allowed to require masks or any type of vaccination.

HB 173 also includes language to a previously filed “bathroom ban,” barring trans students from using the restrooms aligned with their gender identity.

Under the measure, which is 27-pages-long, parents would also have the right to have their child spend their day learning the assigned curriculum with “no time spent being indoctrinated into any partisan political position.”

It bars any discussion of gender expression inconsistent with biological sex, sexual orientation or sexual expression, including in classes and from teachers’ and speakers’ personal experiences. Teachers also could not display LGBTQ pride flags.

The bill clarifies teachers can talk about their legal spouse but should not discuss their sex lives with students.

 

I remind you that this bill was introduced, along with a state Constitutional referendum allowing charter schools to get state education money at the direct expense of public schools, at a meeting of the Kentucky House Education Committee which was discussing the state's existing critical teacher shortage. 

The bill doesn't exist to "put the power in the hands of parents, it's there to end public education by making it so litigious to operate a public school district that they can't actually educate kids, instead all your education tax dollars going to constant legal battles and defending parental lawsuits.

Florida's gutting of public education is only the beginning. Kentucky Republicans may actually dismantle the system entirely and surpass even Ron DeSantis.