sinecure

1119 spark by clint woods

i originally thot to make it academic, but general term would be profitable and/or prestigious gig that requires no work (talent, skill)

merri ok

see plum tag for funder--> ambassador

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an 1 24

bro of mike

he exodus of House Republicans is continuing unabated, adding to Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-Louisiana) woes as he struggles to keep the gavel after the 2024 election.

On Tuesday, Rep. Greg Pence (R-Indiana) — the brother of former Vice President Mike Pence — announced that he was not seeking reelection after serving for six years in the House of Representatives.

"After three terms, I've made the decision to not file for reelection," Pence said in a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter). "To the voters in Indiana's 6th District — it is a privilege and honor to represent you in our Nation's capital."

According to Ballotpedia's tally, Pence's retirement makes him the 21st incumbent member of the House retiring from public office, and the 11th Republican. On Friday, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado) announced his decision to not seek another term, meaning all Republican-held districts in the Centennial State are now officially open. Additionally, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) issued his retirement announcement early last week after agreeing to become the next president of Youngstown State University. His exit will be on January 21, which comes before a critical February government funding deadline....

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'I don’t care': Kyrsten Sinema plans to cash in on Senate infamy if she loses reelection in 2024 - Alternet.org

Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona), who has been a thorn in the side of both President Biden and the Senate Democratic Caucus, is already eyeing a potentially lucrative private sector career if her bid to stay in the US Senate is unsuccessful.

In Atlantic staff writer's new biography of outgoing Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Sinema — an independent who caucuses with Democrats (she left the Democratic Party in 2022) — apparently confided to the 2012 Republican presidential nominee that she's apathetic about staying in Washington for another six-year term. Arizona's senior US senator added that she feels she unilaterally "saved" the upper chamber of Congress by bucking' Democrats' efforts to eliminate the filibuster.

"I don’t care. I can go on any board I want to. I can be a college president. I can do anything,” she told Romney. “I saved the Senate filibuster by myself. I saved the Senate by myself. That’s good enough for me."

As the New Republic noted, the filibuster isn't actually a tradition in the Senate, nor is it even mentioned in the US Constitution. Former President Barack Obama once called it a "Jim Crow relic." Sinema's colleague, Senator Angus King (I-Maine), has called for it to be reformed by requiring those who use it to actually hold the Senate floor in what's known as a "talking filibuster."

"[I]nstead of having to have 60 votes to pass something, you'd have to have 41 votes to stop it. That way, the minority would at least have to show up," Sen. King said of the filibuster in 2021, when it was used to stop voting rights legislation. "So we've got to do something about this, at least when it comes to something as crucial as democracy itself, as voting rights."

The New Republic's Jason Linkins wrote last weekend that Sinema's obstinance in getting rid of the filibuster has led to Democrats being unable to pass significant legislative reforms — not only in the arena of voting rights, but in an assortment of other social programs included in President Biden's Build Back Better Act that Sens. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) and Sinema ultimately watered down and killed. Sinema was also a key opposition vote in Democrats' unsuccessful attempt to keep the expanded child tax credit.

"Her steadfast opposition to taxing corporations and the wealthy cut off the one funding mechanism that Manchin was willing to countenance to keep it running," Linkins wrote.

Sinema is currently running as an independent in the 2024 US Senate race against both presumptive Republican nominee Kari Lake and presumptive Democratic nominee Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona). An early October poll showed Lake in front, with 37% of respondents saying they would vote for her next November. Gallego was second, with 33%, while Sinema came in third with just 19% support.

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rww 10 22

On the eve of Thursday’s hearing at which a congressional committee revealed even more damning evidence of former President Donald Trump’s central role in the Capitol insurrection and the broader plot to keep him in power after losing the 2020 election, former Rep. Michele Bachmann told religious-right activists that the insurrection was planned by Trump opponents to make him look bad.

Bachmann, who was at the U.S. Capitol that day, told a Family Research Council town hall on Christian nationalism that the Jan. 6 crowd was “happy” before the violence started. She declared that the attack was a “rebranding exercise” to portray Trump and the MAGA movement as terrorists.

Bachmann is an influential figure on the religious right. She is dean of the School of Government at Pat Robertson’s Regent University and board chair of the Family Research Council, which was the organizer of Wednesday’s event.

Bachman is an ardent election denialist who, like Trump, has refused to accept his defeat. On Election Day 2020, she had assured viewers of Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Network that “the Lord, our God, has sealed this election in the heavenlies and we are going to be rejoicing very soon.”

Weeks after the election, she screamedthat her vote had been “stolen” on election night, “when Satan was snatching away from America rule by the consent of the governed.” In April 2021, she responded to President Biden’s first State of the Union Speech by saying, “We had a fake election. We’ve had a fake presidency. This is a fake State of the Union address.” A month before, she used her post at Regent to host an “election integrity” conferencethat gave a platform to Gateway Pundit’s Jim and Joe Hoff and other conspiracy theorists.

Bachmann has also been a fervent promoter of bogus conspiracy theories about the insurrection since hours after the attack. The day after the insurrection, she falsely declared that the Capitol was invaded by left-wing “rabble-rousers paid to put together a coup.” Months later, she told right-wing radio listeners that the insurrection “was a theatrical event that the progressive left put on” to “rebrand Donald Trump as being an insurrectionist and a leader of a terrorist movement.”

She has her story, and she’s sticking to it, evidence be damned. [vid]

Tags: Michele Bachmann Capitol Insurrection Christian Nationalism Jan. 6 Family Research Council

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/their-failure-to-consider-the-bible-relevant-debunking-christian-nationalists-favorite-claim-about-the-founding-era/

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Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) is reportedly going to resign. Sasse has become a frequent target of the Trump-wing of the Republican Party claiming that he's nothing more than a "RINO" (Republican in Name Only) and that he isn't loyal enough to former President Donald Trump.

Sasse was seen as a young Republican rising star until Trump took over the party and made him a target.

According to KFAB radio host Ian Swanson, Sasse is being offered a job at theUniversity of Florida [kochademia?]. Sasse previously served as the 15th President of Midland University until he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He didn't attend the University of Florida and has no otherwise obvious ties to the state.

Politico also reported Thursday that Sasse plans to resign his Senate seat, citing "two people familiar with the Nebraska Republican’s plans."

The Nebraska governor would then appoint a replacement until the seat comes up for reelection.

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sinecure?

11 21 no lnx

'Thought criminals': Aggrieved conservative elites announce new university dedicated to 'truth' — but who’s funding Ii?

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement November 08, 2021

Bari Weiss. Andrew Sullivan. Jonathan Rauch. Larry Summers.

Those are some of the more recognizable names a new university launched Monday lists on the front page of its website.

Its founder says some of them have been "treated like thought criminals."

The University of Austin (which sounds remarkably like The University of Texas at Austin, founded in 1883,) in an announcement says it is "dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth." It is not currently accredited and offers no degrees.

But some of the people it is attracting have highly-controversial backgrounds. Indeed, some, like Weiss and Sullivan, seem to thrive on creating controversy.

It's clear, from its founder's message, that this is an enterprise dedicated to protect those who use their huge platforms to decry being "canceled."

"Nearly a quarter of American academics in the social sciences or humanities endorse ousting a colleague for having a wrong opinion about hot-button issues such as immigration or gender differences,"Pano Kanelos, the former president of St. John's University and apparently the founder of The University of Austin, writes Monday at Bari Weiss' Substack. "Over a third of conservative academics and PhD students say they had been threatened with disciplinary action for their views. Four out of five American PhD students are willing to discriminate against right-leaning scholars, according to a report by the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology."

Kanelos discusses some of the University's founding faculty – a prerequisite appears to be having been subjected to criticism.

"On our quads, faculty are being treated like thought criminals. Dorian Abbot, a University of Chicago scientist who has objected to aspects of affirmative action, was recently disinvited from delivering a prominent public lecture on planetary climate at MIT. Peter Boghossian, a philosophy professor at Portland State University, finally quit in September after years of harassment by faculty and administrators. Kathleen Stock, a professor at University of Sussex, just resigned after mobs threatened her over her research on sex and gender."

Its FAQ answers the question "Why Austin?" by jokingly replying: "If it's good enough for Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, it's good enough for us."

The big question of course is who is funding this endeavor? The "University" says it will have a physical campus.

That's expensive, as is paying top names.

"We have secured the seed money necessary to launch the university. But we are in the process of securing $250 million, which will enable us to grow into a comprehensive university," it says.

"UATX has requested and is awaiting a tax-exempt determination from the IRS. At present, UATX is fiscally sponsored by Cicero Research, a tax-exempt entity organized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code."

An online search for "Cicero Research" nets almost nothing, except a one page listing on Cause IQ, a company to help nonprofits grow.

According to that filing for the year ending December 2020, Cicero Research has no full-time employees, no assets, but under "characteristics" is tagged "political advocacy."

Who's actually funding this is currently unknown.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

The Christian right is behind the GOP's new attack on public education ›

Far-right social conservatives are attacking sex education material ... ›

The critical race theory panic is a new weapon in the right-wing war ... ›

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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ref wapo

no lnx

Higher Education

Universities face pressure to vet ex-Trump officials before hiring them

Richard Grenell, a former Trump administration official, speaks to reporters at the White House in September. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

Marisa Iati and

Lauren Lumpkin

Jan. 23, 2021

There is a long tradition of political appointees moving into academia — former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice returned to Stanford University as a professor, ex-CIA director Robert Gates was a dean and then president at Texas A&M University, and former secretary of health and human services Sylvia Mathews Burwell is president of American University.

But in recent months, some students and faculty have argued colleges should apply more scrutiny to former Trump officials looking to make similar transitions.

The backlash was swift at Carnegie Mellon University in June when the school announced former Trump official Richard Grenell was hired for a one-year fellowship. In an open letter to university administrators, critics said Grenell, who served as acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, “has a well-documented record of sexism and support for racist political movements.” Criticism grew in November when Grenell falsely claimed that voter fraud had cost Donald Trump a second term.

Carnegie Mellon officials defended the hire but formed committees to study both Grenell’s appointment and the university’s hiring procedures. In one letter to the community, campus leaders acknowledged tension between the institution’s embrace of free expression and “diversity as a core value.”

Similar disputes are playing out at other universities. A petition circulating at Harvard University demands that the school vet Trump administration officials “for their role in undermining” democracy before they are invited to teach or speak on campus. In the District, an open letter from Georgetown University faculty asked the administration to develop standards for Trump appointees before extending invitations to campus. A George Washington University student argued in a column that the school should reject job applications from Trump officials.

Critics point to Trump’s appointees’ support of controversial policies — from the former president’s “zero tolerance” immigration strategy that separated thousands of families to the administration’s restrictions on transgender troops. High-ranking officials have been criticized as complicit in a presidential term marked by allegations of racism or have drawn ire after making incendiary remarks of their own.

The backlash became even louder after Trump incited thousands of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in an attempt to overturn his election loss.

But others say efforts to keep Trump officials from campuses undermine universities and their responsibility to foster diverse perspectives, including viewpoints that make some students uncomfortable.

The debate will prompt a public clash between these institutions’ mission to promote the exchange of ideas and a renewed focus on inclusion sparked by the racial justice movement that swept the country last summer.

“They’re going to have to do the hard job of figuring out, even if we disagree with this person’s politics, are our issues about politics, or are they about behavior?” said Jonathan Aldrich, a CMU professor and member of the committee examining hiring who is skeptical of Grenell’s appointment. “And maybe if there’s serious doubt, we should give the benefit of the doubt to the person.”

False claims of voter fraud amplify tension

Robert Shibley, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a nonprofit that seeks to protect free speech on college campuses, called attempts to keep some Trump officials from campuses “a well with no bottom.”

“I think it’s likely to lead for a tit-for-tat campaign that’s going to lead campuses basically scrambling to find somebody, anybody, who can talk interestingly about an issue without being subject to a de-platform campaign,” he said.

Hire of departing Trump official by U-Va. draws ire of professors and students

At Carnegie Mellon, one of the committees created to review Grenell’s hiring scrutinized the platform he was given. In a report released weeks after he received a fellowship at the university’s Institute for Politics and Strategy, committee members wrote that they had examined several of his Twitter posts that provoked outrage, including one in which he called the coronavirus “the Chinese flu” and another where he suggested that MSNBC host Rachel Maddow “take a breath and put on a necklace.”

While those tweets are “(at most) minor infractions,” the committee determined, many of Grenell’s statements were “dismissive and disrespectful of the opinions of others.” The report concludes that although the university acted appropriately in hiring Grenell, officials should have invited input from other community members before making the decision.

Then Trump lost the election, and Grenell began falsely alleging widespread voter fraud. Nearly three dozen CMU student organizations petitioned administrators to denounce Grenell’s statements and take “corrective action.” University President Farnam Jahanian responded with a detailed defense of Grenell’s freedom of expression and the importance of diverse viewpoints.

Darya Kharabi, who graduated from CMU in December, said they appreciate hearing from people with different ideologies — including conservative ones — but feel that Grenell fails to uphold the university’s value of inclusion. They’re also concerned about his promotion of election misinformation and what they see as his complicity in the Capitol attack.

“When you start to censor one side, what are you going to do when you start censoring the other?” Kharabi said, of the value of free expression. “And really, I think the line is drawn at hate speech, at racism and at blatant rudeness.”

A university spokesperson declined to make Jahanian available for comment and responded to an email sent to Grenell and his supervisor to say that they would not grant interviews.

But in an announcement of the committee to study hiring policy and academic freedom, Jahanian acknowledged an increasing tension between that freedom and the university’s commitment to promoting an inclusive environment.

“These are very nuanced issues and making sure we all understand the tenuous boundaries that exist within these spheres is not only valuable but critical to ensuring that short-term decisions do not compromise deep-rooted, foundational values,” Jahanian wrote.

A history of battles over speech on campus

When American University’s Sine Institute of Policy and Politics named retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster a fellow in November, some faculty members pushed back. McMaster and Trump chafed against each other, sometimes publicly, during his year of service as the president’s national security adviser.

Since leaving the Trump administration, McMaster has taught graduate business classes at Stanford University, and he holds fellowship positions in the university’s Hoover Institute and Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

“It’s troubling that AU would give him that honor,” said Sharon Weiner, an international service professor at AU. “The Trump administration has promoted ideas and policies that are racist, sexist, xenophobic and problematic. To my knowledge, [McMaster] has not spoken out against the Trump administration’s authoritarian policies.”

But others in the community welcomed McMaster. Katy Selinger, president of AU’s College Republicans chapter, said students expect faculty to “respect the range of political persuasions that exists within American University’s student body.”

Amy Dacey, the Sine Institute’s executive director, defended McMaster’s appointment and said the institute recruits experts from diverse backgrounds and industries “with the hope of building effective, bi-partisan policy solutions.”

“As a military and national security expert and the author of numerous books, including most recently a book on the most pressing national security threats facing the United States, McMaster will discuss strategic competence and elements of elective leadership,” Dacey said in a statement. “We believe Lt. General McMaster and our other five fellows are uniquely situated to offer valuable and varied insight on crucial policy issues.”

Through an AU spokesperson, McMaster declined a request for comment.

Thousands of law school alumni and students push for disbarment of Sens. Hawley and Cruz

As similar conversations unfold on campuses throughout the country, Paul Musgrave, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has argued that each person who leaves the Trump administration should be assessed differently.

“You may disagree with his policy proposals, but they are within the normal range of disagreement,” Musgrave said of McMaster.

But, he added, “If someone used their position to promote policies that did harm to people and our democracy, those people should not be granted positions at universities.”

These issues are not unique to the Trump administration: Former attorney general Alberto Gonzales was protested at Texas Tech University after being hired to teach political science in 2009. Students and faculty criticized his role in some of the Bush administration’s most controversial decisions, including the treatment of terrorism suspects and the use of interrogation techniques that human rights groups consider to be torture.

Gonzales, who is now a professor and law school dean at Belmont University in Nashville, said he understands why he was not immediately embraced by everyone at Texas Tech. But he thinks campuses looking to hire ex-government officials should try to understand the circumstances around controversial decisions.

“You don’t get it right all the time. I think most people don’t appreciate how hard these decisions are that are made at the White House,” he said. “I can live with the decisions that I made because of the fact that I know I acted in good faith based on what I understood to be lawful.”

Gonzales also said it can be counterproductive to ban certain perspectives from campus and, in many cases, students are “willing to listen and give you an opportunity to prove yourself.”

Janet Napolitano, former president of the University of California system, speaks during a legislative committee meeting in May 2017. (Rich Pedroncelli/AP)]

Janet Napolitano, the former secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama who became president of the University of California system, also defended the importance of universities hiring ideologically diverse faculty members. But she said administrators have to consider whether a job candidate will contribute to the campus discourse.

“You have to evaluate, what’s the basis for what they’re saying?” Napolitano said. “Is it grounded in anything other than, say, racial bias?”

:{:{}:

Napolitano recalled that some UC students were upset when she was hired because she presided over a record number of deportations of undocumented immigrants while serving as DHS secretary. She said she met with those students to talk about why she made certain decisions.

:{:{}:

“I’m not sure I persuaded all of them, … but at least we had that discussion,” said Napolitano, who stepped down as UC system president last year. “I think they learned something.”

Pushing for ‘accountability’

Far from a wholesale ban on Trump appointees working or speaking on campus, Harvard graduate student Diego Garcia Blum said he and others who signed that school’s petition want the university to publicly release the criteria it will use to evaluate who can come.

Harvard petition demands ‘accountability’ before Trump officials are invited to campus

When conservative students protested a visiting fellowship awarded in 2017 to Chelsea Manning, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst who leaked classified intelligence materials to anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, Harvard administrators withdrew the honorary title but allowed her to speak. And after Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) objected to Congress’s certification of the presidential election results this month, Harvard administrators removed her from the senior advisory committee of the university’s Institute of Politics.

Administrators have not responded to the petition about Trump officials, Blum said. A Harvard spokesperson declined to make university officials available for comment, and the Harvard Republican Club did not respond to an interview request.

Hans-Joerg Tiede, director of research at the nonprofit American Association of University Professors, recommended that universities find ways to include students and faculty in decisions about potentially controversial hires. A person’s political affiliation is “almost never professionally relevant,” he said, while allegations of misconduct in previous work would be.

Blum said Harvard students want transparency, not to silence anyone.

“We’re not trying to ‘cancel’ anybody,” he said. ”If you’re going to bring them, bring them to campus. But they should be challenged fully and completely for what is happening and not let anything be swept under the rug.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-allies/

Trump is rewarding more than two dozen current and former administration officials and others with prestigious government appointments on his way out of office – including his current Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, his former campaign manager and Senior Counselor, Kellyanne Conway, and campaign surrogate, lobbyist Matt Schlapp.

Also on the list, a billionaire hotelier reportedly linked to "a possible pay-for-play scheme" with the RNC.

The nominations, announced Tuesday, appear to mirror reports that say the president is preparing a flood of pardons, even to people who have never asked for them, merely because he can.

Trump nominated Kellyanne Conway to the Board of Visitors to the United States Air Force Academy. The Board acts as a board of governors, and "inquires into the morale, discipline, curriculum, instruction, physical equipment, fiscal affairs, academic methods and other matters relating to the Academy which the Board decides to consider."

Conway, according to the Office of Special Counsel, has broken federal law so frequently she was recommended for "removal" from her White House position by the federal watchdog agency. Trump ignored the recommendation.

Trump nominated Secretary Elaine Chao to be a Member of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The appointment carries a six-year term.

Also nominated to the Kennedy Center is Lynn Friess, wife of major Republican donor Foster Friess.

Lobbyist Matt Schlapp, the head of the American Conservative Union, which operates the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), was nominated by Trump to be a Member of the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board. According to Bloomberg the LoC Trust Fund Board "operates as a federal board governing funds donated to the Library of Congress. The Board deposits the incoming money with the Secretary of the Treasury and the librarian of the Library of Congress may distribute the money. LoC Trust Fund Board holds the power to invest, reinvest, and retain investments as well."

Schlapp's wife, Mercedes Schlapp, was a White House communications official who left to work for the Trump campaign. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Also on today's list, billionaire hotelier, real estate developer, GOP donor, and failed ambassador nominee Douglas "Papa Doug" Manchester. Manchester was nominated to the Kennedy Center Board as well. A scathing January 2020 article detailed his lavish lifestyle and divorces, including from a Russian immigrant. That article suggested she had "a profile on a website for seekers of Russian brides."

Last year CBS News "uncovered a possible pay-for-play scheme involving the Republican National Committee and President Trump's nominee for ambassador to the Bahamas. Emails obtained by CBS News show the nominee, San Diego billionaire Doug Manchester, was asked by the RNC to donate half a million dollars as his confirmation in the Senate hung in the balance."

There are 26 nominations in total, just today.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/heres-why-cory-gardner-and-other-gop-senators-are-still-all-in-for-trump-even-if-it-costs-them-the-election/

alex h

recent polls have not been looking good for Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, who is trailing his Democratic opponent, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, by 9%, according to Morning Consult as well as Public Policy Polling. Trumpism is not serving Gardner well, begging the question: why is the Colorado Republican doubling down on his support of President Donald Trump even though it appears likely to cost him the election? Never Trump conservative journalist Jonathan V. Last answers that question in an article published in The Bulwark over Labor Day Weekend. And Last’s explanation applies not only to Gardner, but also, to Sen. Martha McSally of Arizona, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa and other incumbent GOP senators in swing states who refuse to say a word against the president.

“Gardner is running behind Trump in a state that Trump is going to lose,” Last observes. “And yet, Gardner remains almost wholly beholden to Trump. Why is that?”

Last, citing polling data from Morning Consult, stresses that Gardner’s “political career is over” in Colorado — where “Democrats loathe him, independents are repelled by him, and Republicans see him as a cuck for not supporting Trump from the start.”

“He almost certainly realizes that there is no path forward for him in Colorado politics,” Last argues. “The state is changing, demographically and politically, and he’s on the wrong side of everything: he’s not where the main body of voters are, and he’s not where the party base are, either. He’s both too Trump and not QAnon enough…. So why is Gardner still all-in for Trump?'

the answer, according to Last: Gardner is putting “party over country.” Gardner, Last emphasizes, is the type of Republican who sees “the Republican Party as a higher priority than the country itself” — and when he loses to Hickenlooper, he “is going to have to make due with raking in the Benjamins in the private-sector sinecures reserved for washed-up politicos.”

Last doesn’t discuss McSally in his Bulwark article on Gardner. But taking the conservative journalist’s arguments a step further, one could say that Gardner is thinking long-term: even if he is “washed up” in Colorado, he could still have a place in Republican politics in general — perhaps as a pundit at Fox News, perhaps writing books, perhaps hosting a radio program. The same applies to McSally. Although poll after poll shows her losing to Democrat Mark Kelly in Arizona’s 2020 U.S. Senate race, she isn’t about to criticize Trump because she knows there could be money-making opportunities for her down the road in the right-wing media.

After being voted out of office in 2006, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was never elected to public office again yet remained a prominent figure in right-wing politics. CNN, in the Trump era, has often featured Santorum as a pro-Trump pundit. And former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the late Sen. John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential election, made millions of dollars as a pundit even though she never became vice president and never ran for political office again after 2008. Palin is an embarrassment, but in the right-wing media, she is taken seriously.

The “private-sector sinecures reserved for washed-up politicos,” as Last describes them, can be incredibly lucrative. Palin is the butt of jokes outside of the GOP/Fox News/AM talk radio bubble, but that hasn’t stopped her from making millions of dollars.

If recent polls are accurate, Trumpism will cause Gardner and McSally to be voted out of office in November — even if Trump himself manages to pull off a narrow victory in the Electoral College. But the right-wing media often find ways for wingnuts to prosper after they lose elections, from Fox News appearances and AM talk radio shows to book deals. And cable news viewers will probably be seeing a lot of Gardner and McSally in 2021 no matter how badly they lose in November.

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http://thetartan.org/2020/8/30/news/rick-grenell

stirs controv

Utkarsh | Aug 30, 2020

On June 9, the Institute for Politics and Strategy (IPS) at Carnegie Mellon announced the hiring of Richard Grenell as a Senior Fellow. Grenell had formerly served as the United States Ambassador to Germany and the acting Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration. The appointment sparked nearly instant backlash among students and faculty. Many felt Grenell’s divisive rhetoric, particularly on his Twitter account, had no place at Carnegie Mellon.

Much of Grenell’s controversial punditry takes place on Twitter. He frequently tweets in defense of President Donald Trump, calling the president’s June photo op at St. John's Church amid the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests “a triumphant moment of hope over fear.” He has called the coronavirus “the Chinese flu”, and he has supported anti-mask rhetoric in statements made after he officially began his position on July 1, which is at odds with official university policies

Some feel that even without his divisive rhetoric, Grenell’s record is questionable. He has been criticized for saying he wanted to “empower” Germany’s conservative movement while serving as the US ambassador to Germany, and he has strained relations with German diplomats. Grenell has been accused of failing to disclose payments he received from Vladimir Plahotniuc, a Moldovan oligarch accused of corruption by the United States. Grenell was also paid for consulting work at the Magyar Foundation, a U.S. nonprofit funded mostly by theHungarian government, without having registered the work under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Another point of contention for those against his appointment was that Grenell was hired after Carnegie Mellon implemented a hiring freeze.

In the weeks that followed, multiple petitions to rescind Grenell’s appointment made the rounds, including a faculty-led open letter with 325 faculty signatories and a student-led petition with 1505 signatures. In response to the calls to rescind Grenell’s hiring Director of IPS Kiron Skinner released a statement defending the department’s decision.

In the statement, Skinner said that the “Institute for Politics and Strategy is fully committed to intellectual diversity, which is the hallmark of the Academy” and that “as the nation’s first openly gay member of a president’s cabinet, a political conservative, a Christian, and a ten-year veteran of the State Department, Ambassador Grenell brings a unique perspective to the practice of US diplomacy and politics.”

Following Skinner’s statement, Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian released a statement backing the department’s decision, stating that “as an academic community that values the free exchange of ideas, we respect the variety of viewpoints expressed by members of the community on this matter.”

President Jahanian also announced the formation of a special committee to review whether the appointment was consistent with university practice. The committee’s report was made available in a campus-wide email from Jahanian on Aug. 20.

In an interview with The Tartan, Skinner elaborated on the department’s decision to hire Grenell. She clarified that Grenell would not be in a teaching position. Rather, he would engage the campus community on “intellectual and policy projects” focusing on the emergence of a “New Europe” and the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide through campus forums and seminars.

Skinner told The Tartan that it is standard to bring former government officials into academia, citing the Kennedy School’s appointment of Sean Spicer and Corey Lewandowski as fellows. “We’ve always had political figures and former officials on campus. This will be no different,” she said.

Skinner says she “hired [Grenell] not for his viewpoint but for his background.” She said that “his viewpoints would contribute to the diversity of thought” at Carnegie Mellon,opining that intellectual diversity is “where American academia is overall weakest.”She also emphasized that Grenell will be required to abandon his political views when he comes to campus.

In response to the controversy that surrounded Grenell’s appointment at IPS, Skinner stated “people who are writing petitions and letters and signing them are not coming to me to have a conversation to get a download on the facts about how and why I hired [Grenell].”

“There needs to be exhaustive research on the individual and what is being claimed about them and then we can return to our first amendment conversation,” she said.

Skinner added that it would be irresponsible for her to be the go-between for students and Grenell, saying she is “encouraging students to talk with Grenell themselves.” The Tartan requested comment from Grenell through IPS, but Grenell declined to comment.

In the faculty open letter opposing the hiring, the signatories disagreed with the administration’s use of the term academic freedom, stating “academic freedom does not in fact comprise an individual right to make appointments in a university, and it certainly does not remove the obligation to properly vet candidates for faculty positions (including visiting faculty) to ensure that they meet our university standards.”

Paul Eiss, an associate professor of history and one of the signatories of the letter, said the mischaracterization and misapplication of academic freedom “threw fuel on the fire” and was part of the reason many faculty signed the open letter.

“When you fundamentally mischaracterize that freedom, you weaken that freedom,” Eiss said.

He stated that academic freedom has three main applications: teaching, having the freedom to publish and research without reprisal, and inviting speakers. He emphasized that appointments do not fall under any of these categories.

“It is a profound misuse of the term to use it, in effect, to say ‘you can’t question this, you can’t look at it.’ Not only are you misusing academic freedom for the purpose of preventing transparency, which is exactly what it’s not supposed to be used for, but in the process, you introduce a great deal of confusion into the campus community about what academic freedom is,” said Eiss.

Later, a separate open letter was published with 11 signatories, of whom only two are tenured faculty, titled “Defending Academic Freedom and Intellectual Diversity at CMU”, which lauded the administration’s decision to allow Grenell to stay.

The letter reads, “Those demanding the appointment be rescinded are trying to redefine the meaning of ‘academic freedom’ to curtail this right, an action which would be extremely detrimental to the university. Furthermore, rescinding this appointment would create a chilling environment with respect to differences of opinion.”

Professor David Touretzky, a research professor of computer science and one of the co-authors of the letter supporting the administration’s decision, elaborated that the appointments should be the responsibility of the person in charge of hiring, rather than it being a group decision.

Touretzky told The Tartan, “if it’s a group decision, then you’re forced to the lowest common denominator, the least controversial people that everybody can agree on. What you really want is for someone to be interesting enough that at least one person whose judgement you respect thinks they’re worth having on campus.”

In response to the criticism that Grenell’s opponents have raised of his record, Touretzky found it to be “irrelevant” in the discussion about what Grenell could contribute to the campus discourse since they involve “political and professional decisions” made by Grenell.

He further adds that “the real dishonesty” is coming from Grenell’s opponents. He cites a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article that included a tweet from Jeff Bigham, an associate professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute. The tweet states that “people who propped up Trump, helped to execute his agenda, should not be welcome to CMU.”

“That’s what this is about,” he said. “Anyone who remains a Trump supporter should not be welcome on the CMU campus. That is what is really motivating them.”

Touretzky added, “it’s the job of the adults to run the institution. Students don’t get to throw people off campus because they lose a popularity vote.”

However, in wake of the controversy, Skinner reaffirmed her “serious commitment to the students in IPS,” which included starting a student advisory committee so the department can “include their perspectives and ideas.”

The IPS department also held a virtual town hall on July 10 to directly communicate her decision with students. In the town hall, Skinner gave a timeline for Grenell’s hiring process. She discussed how Grenell had called her sometime after Carnegie Mellon’s hiring freeze to discuss a new book he was working on, as well as a project on the decriminalization of homosexuality. There was no search for a senior fellow position at the time.

Skinner told students that she hired Grenell with a pot of money she received from donors to the department that was not affiliated with the university’s funds. She used this same money to invite past speakers such as Laura Chinchilla, the former president of Costa Rica, as well as Howard Dean.

Mark Dempsey, a Class of 2020 alumni who attended the virtual IPS town hall, still felt skeptical about the hiring. Dempsey told The Tartan that “a charitable reading of Grenell’s hiring was that it is hubris and an uncharitable reading of it would be that it’s corrupt.”

Later statements from President Jahanian, as well as the committee review report on Grenell’s hiring, confirmed Skinner’s statements about the funding sources and showed that Skinner had followed the proper protocol to get approval for the hiring process. In addition, she had received approval from Deans Schienes, Hebert, and Sanders, as well as Provost Garrett.

In the midst of the debate over Grenell’s hiring, student activists have felt that their concerns about Grenell’s record have been misrepresented, and that the conversation had become too centered around the debate of academic freedom and partisan politics.

Liam O’Connell, a junior in IPS, said that “people’s concerns are about Grenell’s record and reputation, not his ideology. I don’t think there has been much of a conversation about the issues that have been brought up.”

O’Connell hoped that the conversation over the hiring could shift away from “liberals versus conservatives.” He stated that debate and “diversity of opinion” are good, but if the debate is “lies and misinformation, then I don’t see how it’s useful.”

“I don’t see how any academic institution, let alone one that talks about our prestige, would benefit.”

He also added that Grenell is a “US government alum whose focus is national security”, which is “not a new perspective that is being brought into IPS.”

Catherine Taipe, a junior in IPS and one of the co-authors of the student-led petition, told The Tartan that “this is not an issue of whether or not he’s affiliated with the Trump administration or even being in far-right groups. It’s that he got so many complaints about his performance and wasn’t found to be competent at his job.”

She added that “his Twitter account promotes harmful rhetoric, which is far different than having an opposing view.”

Taipe also expressed her disappointment with the university’s mischaracterization of diversity, stating that “I don’t care about his identity or his background, but rather that he is a corrupt person.”

“The co-opting of the term ‘diversity’ to mean the embracing of racist and dangerous rhetoric in institutions of higher education is the most shameless, disgusting phenomenon that has come out of 21st-century performative and corporate wokeness. The goal of diversity, equity and inclusion is to uplift and empower the most marginalized voices –– and the way our university has twisted this goal in its favor is telling of its true values,” Taipe told The Tartan.

Taipe’s disappointment ventured beyond the university’s response to Mr Grenell’s hiring.

“Carnegie Mellon University so badly wants to exist in this moral gray area for the sake of ‘diversity of thought’ that it ignores the active harm it is doing to its community members. This appointment is a slap in the face as a woman of color, as an IPS student, as a person who genuinely cares about the wellbeing of my classmates who are equally as disappointed,” Taipe said.

As the semester begins, Grenell has continued to cause controversy among the student body. His tweet supporting anti-mask rhetoric was made on Aug. 20, the same day the committee report overseeing his hiring was made available by President Jahanian.

That committee report states that Grenell will be expected to follow university policies and that it will “be incumbent on Prof. Skinner to make sure he understands this requirement and holds him accountable.”

However, Taipe sees the university’s promise of accountability differently. “CMU has a lot of platitudes about creating a diverse, enriching, and equitable environment, but the actions they take don’t show it.... I just don’t really trust CMU’s promise on keeping Grenell accountable.”

impeach trump so toxic fail?

EPA appointee faces blowback in move to academia

Sean Reilly, E&E News reporter

Published: Friday, November 22, 2019

Last month, former deputy EPA air chief Clint Woods took a newly minted job at Ohio State University to forge "strategic partnerships" with outside organizations.

PEOPLE

EPA appointee faces blowback in move to academia

Greenwire: Friday, November 22, 2019

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