Zenobia Jeffries at Yes! magazine writes about black folks who have strongly embraced gun ownership in the wake of the "megalomaniac" who's now President. Many years ago, I embraced a very rigid view of Second Amendment rights out of a similar fear that Tha Bush Mobb would haul me away, but I've come to believe that, in a civilized society, that you don't locate the idea of "self-defense" solely in a handgun, but mainly in the values and institutions that neuter megalomaniac Presidents in the first place -- and if those values and institutions, frankly, haven't worked very well for black folks (just ask Philandro Castile!), our task is to make them work well, not abandon them.
Betsy DeVos's Department of Education informs Department workers that they'll no longer negotiate with those workers' chosen representative, the American Federation of Government Employees Council 252, but instead imposes a "collective bargaining agreement" upon them. I can't fathom the circumstances under which this could possibly be legal -- I can imagine even John Roberts saying that if management imposes its will on labor without negotiating, it can't be said to be "collective bargaining," or even "bargaining." But then, this is the Administration way: do what you want, regardless of the law, and dare anyone to stop you.
It really shouldn't surprise us by now that West Virginia's public school teachers don't fit snugly into the red-blue paradigm, nor should it surprise us that socially-conservative-but-pro-union is really a thing. I also don't think West Virginia's particular brand of pro-union populism should be a template for the rest of the country, since West Virginia's economy relies on coal more than any other state. And "bringing jobs back to coal country" might be more about reclaiming used-up coal land for agriculture and renewable energy than recasting REGULASHUNZ BAD!!! as a populist tenet.
If you want a true indicator of how sick, immoral, and decadent our society has become, you need look no further than all the cable news personalities the Administration has either hired or is contemplating hiring. The President has recently hired CNBC's ridiculous Larry Kudlow to replace the almost-as-ridiculous Gary Cohn as his top economic advisor, and one Fox and Friends host (not a famous one) has actually moved up in the State Department. TV news is the worst news, which means cable TV news is the worst of the worst. Hence another reason to demand the ability to buy our cable channels a la carte: so we don't have to financially support these morons as they schmooze their way into our government.
Finally, Republicans are apparently hoping that they can keep their Senate majority by having the President go to states he won and talk about how "Democrats are hindering his agenda." I'm not sure how big the President's "base" is, really, and it sure does seem "counterintuitive" to have him go around the country and whine about how he can't get anything done. On the other hand, since this President isn't a Democrat, the "liberal" media will be much less likely to cover all of his whining as whining. And out of all the Senators up from states the President won, the only two I'd miss are Tammy Baldwin and Sherrod Brown.
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