A set of requirements that makes public education impossible

Hunter of Daily Kos discussed the end of the trucker protests in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked Emergency Powers act to clear the continuing protests in Ottawa. All the closed borders have been reopened. Another aspect Hunter discussed was the glee in which the American right has been reporting this story – with the usual false claims.

To many of the Republican supporters of the Canadian "siege," the supposed trucker protests are transparently viewed as an offshoot of the anti-democracy riots and coup attempt of January 6. It's not about whether truckers have to quarantine or be vaccinated when driving international routes during a deadly worldwide pandemic. It's about the possibility of far-right rebellion toppling legitimate democratic institutions, in this country and others, after their ideologies have gone too sour for the general public to support.

The right has been trying to get trucker protests going in the US. So far about all they’re getting is neighborhood irritants. Mark Sumner of Kos reported Mazars USA is the company that has been doing the accounting for the nasty guy’s companies. They have been looking at the reports coming from the New York attorney general and conducting their own investigations and have concluded that the financial records they produced for the last ten years should no longer be relied upon. It also said the nasty guy is no longer a client. Documents stating the value of nasty guy properties to secure loans cannot be relied upon. Documents stating income from these properties for tax purposes cannot be relied upon. Documents created for justifying business deals cannot be relied upon. The nasty guy claimed the statement from Mazars vindicates ... something. He issued a statement saying Mazars worked within accounting standards and statements do not contain any material discrepancies. All good. Sumner wrote:

Which is the opposite of what the letter actually said. Yes, Mazars produced reports that followed accounting guidelines, but they did so based on unreliable information. Trump’s team seems to be saying, “They have accurately reported the lies we fed them,” so all is well.

Sumner laid out what the Republican platform for 2022 is, based on what various candidates have been saying – loudly – lately. No, there isn’t an official platform. They didn’t bother with that for the 2020 election and won’t this year. The Republican platform for 2022 is: Arrest the members of the January 6 Committee for daring to investigate the insurrection. Make them the target of prosecution when they return to power. Conduct more investigations into Hillary Clinton. She hasn’t been charged with anything. There has been no new information in years. Yet a report saying there is no new info prompted renewed calls to lock her up and execute her. Ditch democracy. Candidates are running on the lie that the nasty guy won in 2020. They see nothing wrong of schemes to create slates of false electors. They are working hard to control elections. Bonus: Destroy public education. Wrote Sumner:

They’ve not only managed to pass hundreds of bills protecting their little Jane and Johnny from every hearing that the world exists only because white Christians made it, they’ve also convinced roughly 100 screaming anti-vaxx, anti-book, anti-diversity Republicans to run for every school board set in America, and they’ve put together a set of rules and requirements that makes public education absolutely impossible. This is a win, win, win all around. Because what good is it to destroy democracy if you don’t also get to rewrite history and warm yourself around stacks of burning books? Republicans have an agenda. It doesn’t have anything that looks like a normal agenda with plans for the economy, or a single idea for making lives better. Don’t worry: They’ll get around to the small stuff after they get rid of all the big stuff.

As for that last one ... Laura Clawson of Kos reported on the number of threats targeting school board members across the country. A report from Reuters

documented the intimidation through contacts and interviews with 33 board members across 15 states and a review of threatening and harassing messages obtained from the officials or through public records requests. The news organization found more than 220 such messages in this sampling of districts. School officials or parents in 15 different counties received or witnessed threats they considered serious enough to report to police.

And the Republican response: criticize anyone, such as the Department of Justice, attempting to do anything about these acts of domestic terrorism. And lift up the terrorists as heroic parents. Biden has been setting a record pace getting judges confirmed. Even so he has many judicial seats and various other government positions to fill. Confirming judges isn’t subject to the filibuster, though I think confirming other positions is. Either way Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Republicans have been using another strategy to grind government to a halt: They haven’t been showing up for committee meeting votes, denying a quorum. Not getting a committee vote means the nomination doesn’t go to the full senate. And the filibuster doesn’t matter. So, Democrats, don’t go looking for bipartisanship. Georgia Logothetis, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted Dana Milbank of the Washington Post:

Covering the hypocrisy of the Trump right is a full-time beat these days. “Law and order” Republicans now embrace insurrectionists. Those who decried “cancel culture” now ban books and history lessons. Conservatives who supported “tort reform” now enshrine the rights of private citizens to sue one another. A party that welcomed libertarians now has officials incentivizing people to report on their neighbors. Onetime Cold Warriors now sympathize with Putin.

April Siese of Kos discussed the large number of electric vehicle ads that aired during the Super Bowl. She considered the likelihood the large number of ads appeared this year because of the $7.5 billion in the infrastructure act to build charging stations. Perhaps. But perhaps not – these ads need a lot of lead time and the infrastructure act was passed only a short time ago. I’ve noticed that for several weeks now there has been an article in every Sunday Detroit Free Press about electric vehicles. I don’t remember all that was reported in this series, other than considering the question of how an automaker goes about naming its EVs. However, it is good to keep the idea of EVs before readers, to make us more used to the idea. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, included quotes from people born in February. Here’s one from President Lincoln:

The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves, in their separate, and individual capacities.

And another legitimate object of government is to protect the little guy from the big guy.