BY MARTIN KICH The Wall Street Journal, of all places, has posted a video showing how little the Department of Defense can purchase if all of the federal funding for arts programs is eliminated, as President Trump has proposed. The video is illuminating and suggests a great deal not only about our national priorities but…
BY MARTIN KICH Here is another item to put in the folder of false assertions about how Federal tax policy screws the wealthy and exists to provide giveaways to the impoverished. In reporting on an Issue Brief produced by the Pew Research Center, the Hechinger Report highlights the widening gap between the value of Federal…
Shortly after the 2016 election, the AAUP warned that we could be facing the greatest threat to academic freedom since the McCarthy period. It now appears that such a warning was not misplaced. Extremists in the administration, Congress, and several state houses have created an atmosphere in which “alternative facts” reign supreme, and which encourages the introduction of legislation that threatens the core principles of our democracy.
BY JOHN K. WILSON The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has issued a tentative set of recommendation for amendments to the Higher Education Act. While claiming to offer “freedom from overregulation,” in reality the NAS proposals would impose the most restrictive, intrusive, and repressive regulations on higher education in American history. The vast number of…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Here are some excerpts from a scathing article in Roll Call on the Senate’s silencing of Elizabeth Warren. Written by Mary C. Curtis, the article is titled “GOP Seeks a Safe Space from the Words of Coretta Scott King,” highlighting the hypocrisy in the Far right’s absolute disdain for the creation…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Last week, I criticized a proposal by the Goldwater Institute for model legislation on the “Campus Free Speech Act,” pointing out the flaws of the model and the danger in allowing legislators to dictate campus policies. On February 9, Tennessee legislators introduced bills in the House and Senate SB1165/HB0739) based upon…
BY MARTIN KICH Each week The Hill distributes a newsletter called Sunday Show Wrap-Up. Ahead of this week’s shows, I think that it is instructive to review the headlines and summaries from last week, collectively gathered under the heading “Spotlight Shines on Trump Travel Ban.” Please skim the list, which sets up some extended commentary…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH We are getting used to seeing this sort of thing in states in which, largely because of gerrymandering, the GOP control of state government is all out of proportion to their actual share of voters. But, what is significant about this story, reported in the Daily Kos Elections: Voting Rights Roundup…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Goldwater Institute, a right-wing think tank working along with National Review writer Stanley Kurtz, has issued a new report calling for model legislation to impose more free speech on campus with a model “Campus Free Speech Act” intended to be imposed on every public college by state legislatures. The biggest…