Tabby Thursday
A little debt ceiling, a little higher ed, and other misc delights.
- Via the Business Insider: Matt Gaetz tried playing kingmaker during the House speaker vote after spending 2 years as a political pariah. Republicans say the grandstanding is unlikely to stop.
- Via FiveThirtyEight: Republicans Didn’t Get Less Popular After All That Speaker Drama — They Were Already Unpopular.
- Via Politico: Senate GOP to McCarthy: Debt fight is all yours.
- Along those lines, via NBC: Republicans demand spending cuts to lift the debt limit. They won’t say what to cut. I am shocked! (actually, no, no I’m not).
“There’s gotta be cuts in spending. That has to happen,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., an ally of McCarthy, R-Calif., and the far right.
But she declined to get specific when she was asked what should be cut.
“I haven’t really formulated an exact list,” she said.
Also:
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., another of the 20 initial McCarthy holdouts, said a debt limit bill should have an amendment to balance the budget over 10 years to win her vote.
Luna said she wants to do it without tax increases or Social Security or Medicare cuts. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said.
“If you exempted defense, veterans, Social Security and Medicare spending, you’d have to cut everything else by 85%,” said Marc Goldwein, an expert at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank that advocates for reducing red ink. “It’s possible as a mathematical proposition. But the question is: Is it possible as a policy proposition? And the answer is no.”
- Via the Daily Beast: Remember OAN? Newsmax Could Be the Next Channel in Danger.
- Via AL.com: Professor says he’s quitting University of Alabama amid ‘rise of illiberalism,’ DEI pushes on campuses.
Wielicki said his speaking out amounted to “career suicide,” but hoped that his remarks and others like him “evokes more discussion, talking about outcomes and possible unforeseen consequences.”
Granted, it is unclear as to what his plans are (save they involve moving to Colorado), but based on his own Twitter account, the main career suicide is quitting a tenure track job at an R1 university (assuming that he is, in fact, leaving of his own volition–it does seem noteworthy that he appears to be at the pivot point wherein he either has to earn tenure or leave). The speaking out on DEI part seems almost like an ancillary action, but no doubt there is more to the tale than the piece provides. It does seems somewhat relevant to note that he also appears to be a fairly outspoken skeptic in regards to climate change, so I expect that figures into the situation as well (and that seems to have been an ongoing issue). He was interviewed on Fox and Friends here. I do love how the anchor confuses one guy’s non-numeric assertions as “stats” and his opinions as “evidence.” It is unfortunate, in my mind, the way one short interview can be used to make extremely broad-brush statements about all of higher education, but such is cable news. Fundamentally I have generic interest in higher education stories for obvious reasons, but also am continually frustrated with how they are discussed in the mass media.
- Sticking with higher ed in Alabama, also via AL.com: After 20 years of decline, BSC struggles to find a way forward. For those keeping score at home: don’t spend down your endowment on ancillary campus beautification.
- Via AL.com: Hunter Biden’s foreign banking records won’t be released: GOP says ‘shady business schemes’ hidden. It does seem reasonable that the Treasury Department would be reticent to release banking records of a private citizen without a great deal of cause. As I have repeatedly stated, if there is evidence of criminality on the part of Hunter Biden (or any Biden), then let a thousand indictments rain down. But the innuendo of it is all is tiresome. If the magic laptop is full of real evidence, there should be no need to go fishing at Treasury.
Somehow, I don’t think “it is unfair to encourage minorities to get STEM educations because structural and explicit racism keeps them from being hired after graduation” is quite the flex he seems to think it is.
Earlier in the week, there was an article that I didn’t read that FiveThirtyEight was going to be cut loose by whoever is underwriting it. Didn’t read the whole article, but it seems that horse race analysis is fading in interest and that article is a good example of why. There is nothing there unless you’re a hardcore political nerd.
Regarding the debt limit and cutting the deficit, me thinks, the dog caught the car.
Just reading the AL.com piece, I also am curious about Wielicki’s plans. Colorado’s R1 schools are not going to be particularly receptive to an earth sciences guy who’s a climate change doubter.
Idiocracy was a documentary, I swear.
If it’s any comfort, we have some equally numbskull Conservative MP’s in Britain.
Well, it’s no comfort to me, but it may be to you lot.
@Michael Cain:
Is Colorado Christian University hiring? They’re notable for public anti-environment positions