The headline above is a direct quote from a mid-item paragraph from an NYT op-ed from this past January. If that link does not work correctly for you, you can follow the original link Crabgrass encountered at DWT, this item.
Crabgrass readers are strongly urged to read both linked sources, especially the NYT item. Following upon the headlined paragraph, the author wrote:
Both originated as industry agendas that were then embraced by right-wing politicians and the right-leaning public. For decades, the fossil fuel industry pumped out ads and reports and supported lobbyists and front groups misleading the public on the science and import of climate change. The current gun cult is likewise the result of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry pushing battlefield-style weapons and a new white male identity
— more paramilitary than rural hunter — along with fear, rage and
racist dog whistles. I think of it as a cult, because guns serve first
as totems of identity and belonging and because the beliefs seem
counterfactual about guns as sources of safety rather than danger, when
roughly 60 percent of gun deaths are suicides and self-defense by gun is a surpassingly rare phenomenon.
Right-wing
political fictions have a long history, from Joe McCarthy’s bluffs
about communists in the government to the United Nations’ black
helicopters of 1990s paranoia to an endless stream of stories portraying
immigrants, Jews, Muslims, gay men then and trans people now as
sinister threats. The digital age and then the Covid pandemic caused
many of us to withdraw further from contact with people unlike
ourselves, and pundits and social media offered those “others” back as
phantasms and gargoyles leering at us through the filters.
Please understand the above excerpt is not offered as the meat of the item. It is given to whet the appetite of readers to follow the link, to see the entire essay.
Read it. When an entire well written and coherent position is stated, it is better to spend time reading and reflecting, than seeing an excerpt, then saying, "Fine, now moving on . . .". The NYT item deserves more respect than that. Had it been seen back in January, it would have been highlighted then. Highlighting it now says, "Respect it. Read it. Don't be in a counterproductive hurry."
For background, Strib, online here. Local content, not a carried nationwide feed; reporting:
ROCHESTER - A conservative Minnesota think tank says it's
the victim of cancel culture after "anti-free speech bullies" protested
a planned event at the Rochester Golf & Country Club.
Nearly 50 attendees at a
luncheon on public safety sponsored by Center of the American Experiment
(CAE) last month were left standing in the parking lot when the club
shut down the event, the center said. Now the cancellation is the focus
of a lawsuit for breach of contract filed by the organization against
the country club in Olmsted County District Court.
The club "arbitrarily and
capriciously" canceled the luncheon after members circulated a petition
against it, CAE said in court documents, causing it "severe reputational
harm."
Strib continued:
CAE also is suing Erin Nystrom, a club member who created
the petition, for interference with a contract. Nystrom said it's
ironic that the same group complaining about being silenced is trying to
punish her for expressing her own views.
"The suggestion that I don't have the right to petition —
the hypocrisy is too much," she said. "The irony is, when I use my
freedom of speech to petition my country club and ask them to cancel the
event I am met with a $50,000 lawsuit for perceived damages to CAE."
Strib later added:
In a statement, the country club said it canceled the
event "because it generated controversy among Club members." By shutting
down the event, the club "was not picking sides or endorsing any
political position," it said in a court filing. "[The club] was putting
its membership before politics."
In a legal filing, the club
included a news story about protesters gathered outside a CAE program in
Duluth last summer on critical race theory. The protest, the club said,
illustrated the "divisive nature" of CAE's programs.
Furthermore, the club said,
its standard event contract gives the club the right, "at its sole
discretion, to refuse to allow the use of Club facilities for any
proposed event."
In its civil complaint, CAE
claims that the club reneged on a valid contract "based on its ulterior
motive of mollifying a radical mob.
[bolding added] A radical mob of country club members? Come on.
Litigation happy - because they can?
Clown show? Any operation having Katherine Kerstin as a "Senior Fellow" pushes hard on the Clown show button for me. The operation even has a KK page.
Banker, Scott Honour, on the Board of the operation? Running 2014 as a Republican candidate for governor. Running mate: Karin Housley.
Loser. Zero traction, even among 2014 GOP voters! But he got some name publicity for himself and his investment banking operation. More good publicity than, subsequent to Honour's one political venture, a 2018 Strib item showing:
Private-equity firm owner Scott Honour has quietly
settled a lawsuit brought earlier this year by business associates who
accused Honour and partners of failing to repay principal and interest
on $800,000 in loans made in 2016 and 2017.
In late May, Hennepin
County District Judge Ronald Abrams ordered several entities involving
Honour and his brother, Kirk Honour, to repay the money, plus interest,
penalties and attorney fees.
Honour was sued by
businessmen Brenton Hayden — who in 2015 sold majority interest in his
Renters Warehouse company to Honour’s Northern Pacific Group — and local
retailer Dick Enrico, former owner of 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment.
Hayden and Enrico obtained an $828,000 judgment in May, including interest.
“Our guys were
successful in getting the judge to award the entire amount due,” said
Hayden’s attorney, Jack Harper. “They are very happy. The case
subsequently got resolved [with the settlement in recent days].”
Hayden and Enrico were seeking something approaching $1 million, including their legal fees and related costs.
An attorney for the Honours declined to comment.
There is a reason for zero traction in a one-run-and-done shot for guv? Or not?
Back to the current event - "think tank sues country club" - The suing "think tank" - Lead perp. A long term political presence in Minnesota, from whom you'd want to expect good judgment. The "think tank" itself, arguably white heavy when they show their faces.
Monied? That's the bet here, but that answer was not found via online research. Not necessarily guessed to be super-monied and able to hang around country clubs all day while living off the portfolio -- not necessarily that monied, but -- comfortable. Many on the board with jobs. Jobs serving the will of and managing the portfolios of country club owner-retirees.
SO - A little Minnesota bastion of cliquish old-order Republicanism, not of the Tea Party - Jesus Jockey ilk, more urbane, more the self-anointed long-term intelligentsia pool aiming to guide the unwashed into due servitude to the nation's banking and investing elite. Portfolio managers rather than bar owners. A DWT image comes to mind. Or is that too cruel?
BOTTOM LINE: Back to the Strib article and the Clown Show characterization:
You tell me, how smart is it for a "think tank" wanting donations and having speaker booking pages to be suing a country club. Showing how smart they are by pushing around real monied folks, because they can?
Do you suppose the Board was polled on the question of suing a country club before the papers were filed in court? Or was that a management snit fit - brain fart, alone, with the Board not having an advanced say?
Poke a sharp stick in the eye of some folks within the class your business adventures depend on? You decide - Is that something other than a Clown show move?
_________UPDATE________
In fairness to Scott Honour, it is noted that he has not been a focus of this post but more a Board person with name recognition from having run for Governor.
Also, it is unclear how one in a business such as Honour appears to be in, background and all, would wish to remain with an operation touting Republican ties and intelligent "think tank" status, yet one which sues - using pejorative terms - a Rochester, MN, country club - one presumably involving some Mayo Clinic home operations people as members - who likely are within the investor class Honour deals with in his day-to-day business.
As to once researching Honour as a "representative" tank board member with more a business persona than political, the latest (Feb. 14, 2022) online mention found by Crabgrass' websearch, is here, where its blurb Honour bio indicates (dates not given) that he moved from LA to Minneapolis a few years prior to what appears from reporting to have been his single 2014 political effort:
Scott Honour, Managing Partner of Northern Pacific
Group, a Wayzata, Minnesota based private equity firm, where he has
served since 2012. Northern Pacific is a significant investor in
Pineapple Energy. Previously, he was a Senior Managing Director of The
Gores Group, a Los Angeles based private equity firm, and before that
was an investment banker at UBS Warburg and Donaldson, Lufkin &
Jenrette.
[italics added] Of interest, per that link, another Pineapple person (Adler) with a similar background to Honour, (Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette; Wharton education) is not listed as affiliated with the suing "think tank."
Latest Pineapple news cite found by Crabgrass. It is unclear from scant web information whether the merger of the CSI/Pineapple public and private firms was a SPAC transaction, but if so a low profile might be most advisable. The new merged entity is "Stock Trading on Nasdaq Market, Symbol PEGY" and not CSI.
It is speculative, but perhaps some business people listed as members of the "think tank" Board might decide to dissociate themselves from "spotlight" litigation against country clubs, or against a single country club. They have that option.
Finally, again as almost always, all info Crabgrass has of things in this post is via online web research. With links given to sources.
The Growing Religious Fervor in the American Right: ‘This Is a Jesus Movement’
Rituals
of Christian worship have become embedded in conservative rallies, as
praise music and prayer blend with political anger over vaccines and the
2020 election.
After first reading the entire item, thinking why it might not have been captioned as an op-ed, the thought came: word search.
Curiously, the entire thing was written with the words "white" and "Democrat" missing, while "Republican" showed up three times.
The haunting question, did these authors need to state "white" or did they see a greater impact in their aims by not doing so?
Were their aims "news?"
As a thought experiment, if one were to found "The First Church of Jesus With White People Better," how might a hate-claim litigation filing against it be resolved if it reaches this current Supreme Court? The claim being the foundational rock of the faith is that it is a matter of religious freedom to believe one race superior, others inferior. Calling such a thought "a religion" makes it so, belief being the key determinant? The State should not infringe nor impede?
Can nine in black robes tell me such a belief is wrong, were I a true believer in it being correct? Does "freedom of religion" mean something else, something less?
Something more?
Good people on both sides?
To some the anti-establishment clause means freedom from religion. Are they wrong?
Link. The item explains itself. People who know young voters are essential to avoid a Dem bloodbath this November put their name to an effort. Perhaps updating later, but for now, besides Dean and Angie, Stauber, Fischbach, and Emmer would rather be party loyalists than humane. Every student loan debtor should burn those three names into memory, forever, as against the people and for the obscenely wealthy who want to keep "uppity kids" in their place. In debt, on payments, docile and malleable.
Fuck those three. Get a bit of heat to the feet of Craig and Phillips. They deserve that, but are nowhere near the dregs of MN6, MN7, and MN8. Also, MN1 would be on the list of Congressional deplorables except for a death intervening.
Last, Tina signed, Amy took a deplorable hike. Tina gets her gold star this time. Amy gets a lump of coal (autographed by Joe Manchin). Amy and Manchin, paired!
A Politico post from earlier as a reminder this is not the first time Joe's needed a fire under his butt to get his attention. Damned slow learner!
_____________UPDATE___________
Another letter, earlier still, published on Warren's Senate website.
Not only are young voters needed in a 2022 GOTV effort, but long term, they are the nation's future, not old farts like the three in the last two presidential elections.
Beating up on the future is really stupid. Which in part explains the Fischbach, Emmer and Stauber positioning. Cutting no slack, at least Fischbach is not a hockey goon in her background. Close to Jesus, but not a goon.
Stuff: an SSRN policy paper (pdf and download link); another goad to Joe letter from a laundry list of progressive orginizations (pulling a co-author name not quite at random, ringing my bell,Campaign for America's Future) ; another policy paper; perhaps overkill, but from a site charmingly titled legalinsurrection.com; Yahoo reporting on another letter - this from many professors; and while many more tabs are open, readers can search for more, a last item, Common Dreams:
The
Too Much Talent Band and local activists hold a protest outside the
White House urging President Joe Biden to cancel student debt on March
15, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Paul Morigi/Getty Images for We The
45 Million)
1,000+ Professors Endorse Call to Cancel All Federal Student Loan Debt
"Universal
debt cancellation would be the first serious step toward the goal of
College for All that we have seen in our lifetime."
More
than 1,000 professors from colleges and universities across the
country—including prominent institutions such as Columbia, Yale, and
Berkeley—released a letter Tuesday endorsing calls for President Joe Biden to use his executive power to cancel all outstanding federal student loan debt.
"President Biden has the complete legal authority to eliminate student loan debt on his own."
"Through
executive action, President Biden has the complete legal authority to
eliminate student loan debt on his own—without Congress—and it is a step
supported by a majority of Americans," the faculty members write. "In
fact, the Debt Collective has already written an executive order President Biden could sign today to end this financial burden."
What we are seeing here is what seems an engineered groundswell of correspondence to Biden's attention; giving him the opportunity to say "groundswell" and to then say, not just Joe's idea, but the nation is calling.
Or something like that. In any event, ignore the voices, watch the Dem crash and burn be really ugly in November. Pay heed, do something, then the hope will be the young will be energized into believing they are deemed relevant. And will turn out and vote for those advancing their major agenda item.
Relevant? Long term? True or not, it will be good for this year's Dem GOTV.
...........................
FURTHER: A story in three links, last one with a quote. Source:Headlines -
CNN: Why Biden hasn't scored a political win from canceling $17 billion in student loans
BusinessInsider: Biden needs to 'make clear' to student-loan borrowers his 'intention to cancel a meaningful amount' of debt, nearly 100 Democratic lawmakers say
kfor.com:Student loan forgiveness? Here’s where the US stands - stating:
Although borrowers “will likely face a healthier economy going
forward, Direct loan holders have higher debt balances, lower credit
scores, and were making less progress on repayment than … prior to the
pandemic,” the researchers wrote. The average student loan debt balance now exceeds $37,000, with Americans owing roughly $1.6 trillion to the government.
On Thursday, 96 lawmakers – 21 Senators and 75 members of the House –
sent a letter to President Biden, calling on him to not only extend the
payment moratorium but to “cancel student debt now.”
“Canceling a meaningful amount of student debt will provide long-term
benefits to individuals and the economy, helping families buy their
first homes, open a small business, or invest in their retirement. More
broadly, canceling student debt would add tens of billions of dollars in
GDP growth,” the letter reads.
Okay. Clear story. They are young, but not dumb (unlike Trump supporters unlike Ginni Thomas). CNN's $17 billion on a$1.6 trillion amount is tokenism, and so clearly so that Ginni Thomas might even be able to see it as so. Tokenism will not motivate any big turnout. That $17 billion, come on, the Pentagon spends three times that much every week. Get real. So Biden either faces reality and acts decently, or pulls bullshit and there is that big Dem November splash.
He has the power of the executive order. Lyndon Johnson would have had the balls to use such power. Does Joe? Lyndon would have cared. Does Joe?
A token - billions in the scale of things - is better than naught, but not a sincere amount, given the scale of things. You want GOTV, you motivate it. Easy? It's government money, not Joe's nor Hunter's. JUST DO IT! Soon enough to let the Republicans howl, and then use the bully pulpit to denounce them for the evil they are. Easy. But does Joe Biden have it in him to eschew tokenism which would show his low regard for the intelligence of those he'd need to motivate.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration plans to freeze
federal student loan payments through Aug. 31, extending a moratorium
that has allowed millions of Americans to postpone payments during the
coronavirus pandemic, according to an administration official familiar
with the White House's decision-making.
Student loan payments were
scheduled to resume May 1 after being halted since early in the
pandemic. But following calls from Democrats in Congress, the White
House plans to give borrowers additional time to prepare for payments.
The action applies to more
than 43 million Americans who owe a combined $1.6 trillion in student
debt held by the federal government, according to the latest data from
the Education Department. That includes more than 7 million borrowers
who have defaulted on student loans, meaning they are at least 270 days
late on payments.
Borrowers will not be asked
to make payments until after Aug. 31, and interest rates are expected to
remain at 0% during that period.
The extension was first reported Tuesday by Bloomberg.
[...]
That smooth move makes it possible to survive elevated prices remaining higher over that intervening time frame, no tanking economy for those owing and underpaid, with one month, September, before the election.
Then hell arising from the ineffectiveness of a bandaid on a broken leg approach shows up after the votes have been counted.
EVERYBODY KNOWS DEBT FORGIVENESS IS THE ONLY REAL ANSWER. ANYTHING LESS IS POSING, WITH MORE LOVE FOR BANKERS THAN FOR PEOPLE.
Callous? Politics as usual? You decide. However, in case you read over it, 7 million of our young, our future, owing $1.6 trillion for getting educated to become better citizen-voters, now stuck on a pin like an insect in a display case.
young student loan debtors
Children of the wealthy can always have dad give millions to Harvard to gain entry and then exit with a gentleman's C transcript, into a future with dad's business (the Jared Way we can call it).
The rest of us? It's on the plate, so eat it?
Joe Biden appears to have as much disdain for the diligent less-than-wealthy young as does Trump. Same wealthy old millionaire white man mentality, same shaft.
It does not mean - Vote Republican. That would only make things worse.
It means go again with lesser evil with Biden, with eyes open and with no love for the mean old SOB.
Were the issue fair use, as part of a larger post, there is a question in that context of whether a royalty is merited, or is an impediment to a broader level of free speech.
Since it is not offered in that fair use sense, linking only is correct. Beyond that, the opinion here is the entire linked item is its own commentary about capitalism and the use of copyright as a tool; in whatever way you view it.
But as a commentary on mainstream news norms, the cartoon rules.
