Monday, April 24, 2023

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

In the end, the College Board realized that folding to Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and abandoning the uncomfortable parts of America's Black history was authoritarian white supremacy, and is going to at least try to fix the problem.



The College Board said on Monday that it would revise its Advanced Placement African American studies course, less than three months after releasing it to a barrage of criticism from scholars, who accused the board of omitting key concepts and bending to political pressure from Gov. Ron DeSantis, who had said he would not approve the curriculum for use in Florida.

While written in couched terms, the College Board’s statement appeared to acknowledge that in its quest to offer the course to as many students as possible — including those in conservative states — it watered down key concepts.


“In embarking on this effort, access was our driving principle — both access to a discipline that has not been widely available to high school students, and access for as many of those students as possible,” the College Board wrote on its website. “Regrettably, along the way those dual access goals have come into conflict.”

The board, which did not respond immediately to an interview request, said on its website that a course development committee and experts within the Advanced Placement staff would determine the changes “over the next few months.”

The College Board, a billion-dollar nonprofit that administers the SAT and A.P. courses, ran headlong into a conflict between two sides unlikely to find any room for compromise. Black studies scholars believe that concepts the board de-emphasized — like reparations, Black Lives Matter and intersectionality — are foundational to the college-level discipline of African American studies. Conservatives — politicians, activists and some parents — believe the field is an example of liberal orthodoxy, and they are concerned that schools have focused too much on issues such as racism and systemic oppression.

Some leading scholars in Black studies have signed petitions calling on the College Board to revise the course, and are planning a nationwide day of protest on May 3 around “freedom to teach and to learn.” Civil rights groups and teachers’ union leaders are also set to participate.

The College Board, which relies on state participation to administer its courses and tests, had denied that politics had anything to do with its changes to the curriculum. But over the course of last year, the board repeatedly discussed the content of the class with Florida officials, who objected to specific ideas that were later removed or de-emphasized.

In January, Mr. DeSantis announced that Florida would not allow the course to be offered in its high schools, saying that it was not “historically accurate” and violated state law.

In its written statement, the College Board said an updated course, “shaped by the development committee and subject matter experts from A.P., will ensure that those students who do take this course will get the most holistic possible introduction to African American studies.”
 
Whether or not the College Board actually moves to make the course accurate, and whether or not they realize that no AP Black History course they release will be acceptable to Ron DeSantis remains to be seen.

Tucker, Not Everlasting

Apparently the head that FOX News decided to roll in the wake of the network's $788M defamation settlement with Dominion Voting Services is none other than Tucker Carlson's cranium.
 
Tucker Carlson, the top-rated host at Fox News, is leaving the network.

The abrupt departure of the controversial prime time figure comes a week after Fox News reached a $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over the network’s promotion of former President Donald Trump’s false 2020 election claims.

That bombshell settlement — the biggest media payout in history — prompted many to question if Rupert Murdoch would make major changes at the network.

Carlson found himself embroiled in serious controversy throughout his time at Fox News. In recent weeks, a lawsuit from a former booker at the network, Abby Grossberg, accused Carlson’s staff of making anti-Semitic jokes, liberal use of the word “cunt” in the office, and casual misogyny.

Read Fox’s statement below:

NEW YORK — April 24, 2023 — FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.
Mr. Carlson’s last program was Friday April 21st. Fox News Tonight will air live at 8 PM/ET starting this evening as an interim show helmed by rotating FOX News personalities until a new host is named.
FOX News Media operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Digital, FOX News Audio, FOX News Books, the direct-to-consumer streaming services FOX Nation and FOX News International and the free ad-supported television service FOX Weather. Currently the number one network in all of cable, FNC has also been the most watched television news channel for more than 21 consecutive years, while FBN ranks among the top business channels on cable. Owned by Fox Corporation, FOX News Media reaches nearly 200 million people each month.
 
Holy. Crap.
 
Ahh, but it wasn't the trial Fox News just lost that was the final nail in his coffin.
 

A source familiar with the situation told Axios that the firing was not part of the settlement agreement. A slew of material was uncovered during pre-trial discovery that implicated Carlson. More information could be out there that could be legally damaging for Fox as it stares down more defamation cases.
A former Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who is suing the network for allegedly trying to manipulate her testimony during pre-trial discovery for the Dominion case, said in a legal filing just before the trial that there were Fox News tapes showing Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies admitting they had no evidence to support their claims about Dominion election fraud.
In private text messages with other Fox News hosts, Carlson pressed to get a fellow Fox News reporter fired for accurately fact-checking a tweet from Donald Trump that praised Fox News' coverage about the voting machines and referenced Dominion Voting Systems.
Carlson did not immediately respond to an Axios request for comment.

 

He's gone, he didn't even get his goodbye show.

Things just got seismic.

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

President Biden is expected to announce his official reelection campaign tomorrow, naming the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, as his campaign manager.


President Biden is set to name Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior West Wing official and longtime Democratic Party activist, to manage his reelection campaign, three people familiar with the ongoing deliberations tell CBS News.

Chavez Rodriguez currently serves as a senior adviser and assistant to the president — among the highest staff positions in the West Wing — and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, which makes her responsible for outreach to mayors, county executives and governors, especially regarding implementation of the Biden administration's agenda and in response to natural or other large-scale disasters.

Those familiar with the ongoing deliberations about the reelection campaign said Sunday that several key staffing and operational decisions remain to be made and that while the campaign is expected to launch with a video message on Tuesday, the date could slide if these key appointments are not yet made.

The president has been spending the weekend at Camp David with First Lady Jill Biden and other senior aides sorting out the finishing touches of the campaign.

The White House and Democratic National Committee did not respond to requests for comment. Chavez Rodriguez did not respond to requests for comment.

If the president announces his re-election campaign on Tuesday as expected, it will surprise many DNC officials and other party activists who had begun to anticipate an announcement over the summer. These leaders and activists had been led to believe the president was in no rush because of the ongoing squabbling among GOP presidential contenders and the lack of a serious Democratic primary challenger.

Instead, there has been a mad rush to prepare for a Tuesday launch. The campaign launch video was still being edited as of late last week, according to one person familiar with the planning.

Once tapped for the role by Mr. Biden, Chavez Rodriguez is poised to run day-to-day operations from campaign headquarters, which will be either in the president's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, or nearby Philadelphia, where he based his 2020 campaign, according to the people familiar with the coordination.

But the big-picture, strategic decisions and coordination of the president's official and campaign schedules are still expected to be crafted mostly by a group of senior aides who are likely to split their time between the White House and campaign duties. That group includes others who officially serve as senior advisers and assistants to the president — Mike Donilon, Anita Dunn, Bruce Reed and Steve Ricchetti — plus Chief of Staff Jeffrey D. Zients, and deputy Chief of Staff Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, who managed the 2020 campaign.
 
Biden could be a ham sandwich, and if it keeps Trump out of the White House, well, that's second term President Ham Sammich to you. 

In all seriousness, Biden striking now while DeSantis and Trump are feuding, and the Village Idiots are giving obvious spoilers Marianne Williamson and RFK, Jr. oxygen, is a smart idea.

Waiting until summer only invites IS OLD MAN BIDEN REALLY RUNNING LOL stories for the next 2-3 months.

He's going to beat Trump's ass again, and I'm here to help him do that.
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