Tabby Thursday
- Via the NYT: Stocks Rally on the ‘TACO Trade’. One thing is for sure: every time Wall Street thinks the tariffs are delayed, stocks rally. That isn’t everything we need to know about the tariffs, but it is useful information. And yes, the TACO thing is hilarious.
- Via the AP: Trump rejects claim he’s ‘chickening out’ on tariffs just because he keeps changing rates. Of course, he claims that.
- Speaking of TACOs.
- An opinion piece from USAT: Is Trump in mental decline? He sounds far worse than Biden ever did. My problem with these assessments remains that given Trump’s utter disconnection from reality and totally brazen penchant for lying makes it hard for me to fully assess what is decline and what is just Trump. I will actually state that as much as Trump is Mr. Word Salad, none of it has ever sounded like Biden’s debate performance in terms of straight-up sounding like a stereotypical confused old man. (Please note: this is not a defense of any of Trump’s nonsense).
- More attacks on higher education from the Texas Tribune: Political appointees would have more control over Texas universities’ courses and hiring under bill OK’d by House. The idea that any of this is an attempt to stop indoctrination is nonsense. What does it sound like to you when state governments pass laws to control curricula at universities? It doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
Senate Bill 37 passed in an 83-53 vote Saturday. It would create a state-level committee that would recommend courses that should be required for graduation and how to condense the number of those courses. Meanwhile, each public university system’s board of regents, who oversee the school’s operations and are appointed by the governor, would be charged with creating a committee to review curricula and reject any course deemed ideologically charged or that doesn’t align with the workforce demands. Specifically, the committees would ensure curricula do not “advocate or promote that any race, sex, ethnicity or religious belief is inherently superior to any other.”
[…]
The bill would also limit faculty’s influence on campus. Faculty councils or senates, bodies that have traditionally advised university administrators on academic and hiring decisions, would become smaller. In addition, SB 37 would require half of their members to be appointed by the university president, rather than elected. Any member would be subject to removal if they use their position for political advocacy.
The bill would also require regents to approve the hiring of more administrators. Traditionally, they have only gotten involved in the hiring of top leadership positions.
- From Barbara J. Risman writing from The Conversation: Anti-trans measures don’t just target transgender men and women – a sociologist explains how ‘male’ or ‘female’ categories miss the mark for nonbinary Americans.
- Via the News Tribune: Pierce County Sheriff Swank to Prosecutor Robnett: ‘You are my peril’. Worth it for the following. (The “he” in question being the sheriff and Mello being the County Executive who was trying to apply state law to contracts that the sheriff had entered into).
He told Robnett that he had asked the artificial-intelligence service ChatGPT the same question about Mello’s authority over him, and it had a “quite different response.”
- In case anyone doesn’t think the attacks on higher ed matter.
What the politicians miss is that going to college involves applying to the colleges of a student’s choice. And that the state cannot dictate that choice. The college free market will determine the success or failures of the legislature’s interference with that market.
The results at the New College of Florida are apparently a mixed bag. A quick Google search failed to find many objective facts and just some unsubstantiated opinions. Of course, The New College is also very tiny compared to, say UT-Austin.
Regarding UT, seems like a good way to destroy a flagship university by turning it into a trade school.
Re the Texas college bill, thank you. I had seen mention elsewhere that TX was requiring some basic civics in college. I was wondering if maybe there wasn’t way more to it than basic civics. Texas gonna be Texas.
I’m glad the mainstream media is beginning to focus on Trump making no sense. It’s a bit late, but it could have some effect at limiting his longer term hold on power.
And it has to be framed as a decline, otherwise the press has been negligent for years.
@Gustopher:
Trump’s been babbling like a halfwit since 2015. That’s a full decade. In all that time, he’s never made any sense. His slobbering fans will tell you he’s playing 15 dimensional chess, because his thought processes move faster than the speed of light.
Why go see a lawyer when you can just ask ChatGPT?
Man, why didn’t I think of that?
To me, anti-trans measures area form of the idea “Everyone should do everything exactly the way I do it. Anything else is wrong.”
This idea is bad for pretty much everyone, maybe even the person who is getting their way enshrined as the “right” way.
(Hint: It’s not getting enshrined.)
The curriculum is not supposed to advocate that any religion is superior to any other? Can’t have those ten commandments displayed in classrooms!
@gVOR10:
What that may be a reference to is a very old Texas law that requires 6 hours of American and Texas government for all majors. The legend was that some legislator in the early 20th century got it passed because of friend of theirs at UT was worried the Government Department was going to be shuttered.
It worked to my benefit insofar as it made for a large market for PoliSci ABDs who could adjunct and teach those classes when I was finishing my PhD and while I was on the market after I was done, while still living in Austin.
@Slugger:
The curriculum is not supposed to advocate that any one race is superior to another. So of course we must ban “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” but not “Mein Kampf”. Are they going to ban “The Bell Curve”?
The whole TACO thing is not only generally true, but is also a perfect vehicle for irritating Trump’s notorious thin skin.
@Lasenna: Are they uncomfortably hot or dangerously hot? If they are that hot, I hope their local municipality has cooling centers. Alternately, a movie theater or shopping mall may provide some air conditioning.
It seems very early in the year for such problems, but I guess global warming is a problem.
Not sure why they’re waiting on me though. It’s not like I’m going to do anything.
The TACO Tuesday political ads for the 2026 Midterms write themselves.
@Gustopher:
Not too early here. It’s a sauna 24/7.
—
Did you have an erection that lasted longer than four hours, so you can’t take Viagra anymore?
@CSK:
I dunno…I recently heard a clip of him during a debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016, and he sounded markedly more coherent than he does now.