Tag: conservative

Elon Musk Sells Tucker Carlson His Conservative Vision of Progress

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Even more than just a newsy exercise in political economy, however, the conversation with Musk is a reminder of how “progress,” an ideal usually associated with the American left, is in reality a value-neutral concept that can be advanced by anyone — although it obviously helps if you’re the richest man in the world.
The mantle of “progressive conservatism” is usually associated with the European right, which developed a technocratic pro-safety-net politics in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. Here in America, its historical tribune is still Teddy Roosevelt, whose populist views on trade and domestic policy paired with an almost religious belief in American expansion and dominance. Musk — who described to a stonily silent Carlson how he voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 and expressed his desire for “a normal person with common sense” as president, “whose values are smack in the middle of the country” — fits, if imperfectly, into that same lineage, combining a socially conservative politics, an eagerness to regulate industries he believes are dangerous and an unwavering belief in expansion at all costs.
Where Roosevelt’s private-sector bugbears were the industrial-age charnel houses of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Musk’s are much more ethereal: Namely, the alleged risk to civilization posed by the development of artificial intelligence.
Musk is not anti-AI — he just announced the founding of his own new company, X.AI, to produce competing products to OpenAI and Microsoft, which he views as too “woke” and developmentally reckless. He has, rather, a very specific existential fear. During the interview Musk described to Tucker the evolution of his now-defunct friendship with Larry Page, the Google co-founder, AI innovator and ardent transhumanist, saying that having “talked to him late to the night about AI safety” he’s concluded that Page was “not taking AI safety seriously enough,” and that he “seemed to … want some kind of digital superintelligence, basically a digital God.”
A brief pause to explain. Within the AI community, there is a fervent and ongoing debate about the hypothetical existence of an “artificial general intelligence,” or an AI agent so sophisticated that it surpasses human cognition. Many researchers think this is impossible. Many think that it’s possible, and desirable. Many think that it’s possible and will kill us all. What we do know for certain is that nothing like it currently exists, nor does any evidence that points to its possibility.
Musk is worried about it anyway. With a slew of his similarly-concerned fellow tech and business potentates, he signed an open letter last month calling for a six-month pause on advanced AI projects, and opened his interview with Carlson by calling for an entirely new regulatory agency to tackle AI risk. His view of AI as an existential threat, as speculative as it might be, leads him to the same conclusion of his fiercest critics on the left: That government should intervene to guide technological progress in a manner conducive to human values.
Where they differ, of course, is when it comes to what those values are. By now you are likely familiar with the broad outlines of the free-speech crusade that led Musk to purchase Twitter: Giving a black eye to the corporate censoriousness, doublespeak and policing of “misinformation” that once (allegedly) marked the platform. In Musk’s conservative vision of progress, unfettered AI development threatens humanity’s evolution and therefore must be regulated. But the lax approach to moderation on “nu-Twitter,” which some have said has given it a distinctly hostile character, is a necessary risk in creating the open-air marketplace of ideas necessary for humanity to thrive.
What does he mean by that? Well, there are the usual arguments about how unfettered free speech creates resilience, or makes society more democratic, or allows for the best ideas to naturally win out absent moderator interference. But those all have to do with … humans. And there’s another, way more out-there idea that Musk has about why censoring AI is a folly: That uncensored speech will make a hypothetical AGI safer, by virtue of “training” it on a data set that provides a more complete picture of humanity.

“This might be the best path to [AI] safety, in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe,” Musk explained. That’s why Musk advocates for a competitor to ChatGPT that would lack its speech restrictions and safety controls — the hypothetical “based AI” he proposed last month.
Like all questions about artificial general intelligence, or unicorns, or little green men, it’s impossible to answer whether an AI’s data set including every bit of racist invective @Groyper69420 has ever hurled at unsuspecting Twitter users will endear or depreciate humanity in its digital mind. But Musk’s belief that uncensored AI speech platforms will ultimately benefit humanity more than their currently-existing counterparts — aside from being consistent with his vision for the company he just purchased for $43 billion, and in which AI has its own role to play in the future — is aligned with his overall view of progress as a sort of survival of the fittest.
And on that biological-evolutionary note, at the very end of Musk’s conversation with Carlson the two discussed another pillar of his quest for humanity to reach the stars: How to reverse the world’s declining birth rates. “I’m sort of worried that civilization, you know, if we don’t make enough people to at least sustain our numbers or perhaps increase them a little bit, civilization is going to crumble,” Musk mused. “There’s the old question of, ‘Will civilization end with a bang or a whimper?’ Well, it’s currently coming to an end with a whimper in adult diapers, which is depressing as hell.”
Concern over falling birth rates has been one of the biggest policy issues for the nascent “pro-family” right — it’s a major project for American Compass, former Mitt Romney advisor Oren Cass’ heterodox conservative think tank, for example. Musk doesn’t have a policy prescription for this, aside from having as many babies of his own as possible. (One source told Insider that Musk explicitly expressed his preoccupation with “populating the world with his offspring,” one he shares with many, many centuries of ambitious oligarchs.)
But it’s maybe the most personal aspect of what adds up, over the course of the hour-long conversation, to a remarkably cohesive worldview. Humanity’s destiny is to transcend the surly bonds of Earth and colonize the stars, with the assistance of technology that works for us — and against censors, scolds and partisans like Mark Zuckerberg or the BBC, or hubristic rival technologists like Larry Page or OpenAI’s Sam Altman.
Musk is no reactionary, and progress is not the exclusive domain of the left. The man has a very distinct set of social and cultural beliefs that he seeks to propagate through his various technological and business endeavors. When the beliefs in question were, for example, the importance of clean energy, Musk was a hero to progressives. Now that it’s the social-media equivalent of a Hobbesian state of nature, or a pro-natalist attitude that many on the left view as retrograde or eugenicist, he’s a villain. But he continues to move in the same direction: Forward, toward a future that bearing his imprint will look like nothing what came before it.
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#Elon #Musk #Sells #Tucker #Carlson #Conservative #Vision #Progress
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 20, 2023
Biden DOJ wins transfer of lawsuit challenging student loan rule away from conservative Texas court

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Critics have accused conservative opponents of Biden policies of filing their lawsuits in particular divisions in the district, seeking to guarantee they’re heard by a sympathetic judge. The Biden administration, for example, has accused Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of “judge shopping” in recent cases he’s filed in the district challenging various administration policies.
The lawsuit that Pittman agreed to transfer on Monday was brought by a for-profit college trade association that wants to block a new Biden administration policy that makes it easier for student loan borrowers to have their debts forgiven when they are misled or defrauded by their college.
Career Colleges & Schools of Texas, which filed the case in February, is trying to block the Education Department’s rewrite of federal standards — known as “borrower defense to repayment” — that govern when the agency discharges a student loan based on a college’s misconduct. The group argues that the policy, which is set to take effect July 1, is an illegal and unfair effort by the Biden administration to provide more loan forgiveness to borrowers while sticking colleges with the bill.
In a six-page decision, Pittman rejected arguments by the Austin-based association that it should be able to pursue the case in the Fort Worth division of the Northern District of Texas on behalf of member schools in that area that would be affected by the new policy even though the group itself doesn’t have any office or employees there.
Pittman ruled that connection to the district was too far removed. Career Colleges & Schools of Texas “may have an interest in assisting various burdened parties in the division, but it does not have any presence,” Pittman wrote, concluding that “venue is improper” in his district.
The Biden administration had asked that the case be moved either to Austin where the college group is based or federal district court in Washington, D.C. Pittman ruled that Austin would be the “more appropriate” venue because it still “affords some ‘respect’ to Plaintiff’s original choice of forum — even though it was an incorrect one.”
The Justice Department declined to comment. An attorney representing Career Colleges & Schools of Texas said that the organization would not comment on pending litigation.
The Northern District of Texas is widely seen a one of the nation’s most conservative with GOP appointed judges who have demonstrated a willingness to strike down major Democratic policies.

Pittman, for example, was the judge who first blocked Biden’s sweeping student debt relief program last fall. His colleague Judge Reed O’Connor is a George W. Bush appointee who notably struck down the Affordable Care Act in 2018.
More recently, another judge in the district, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, authored the controversial ruling earlier this month that overturned the Food and Drug Administration’s decades-old approval of a common abortion pill. That decision is on pause while the Supreme Court hears an emergency appeal.
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
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#Biden #DOJ #wins #transfer #lawsuit #challenging #student #loan #rule #conservative #Texas #court
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 18, 2023
Conservative Texas judge weighs challenge to abortion pills

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Mifepristone, when combined with a second pill, has become the most common method of abortion in the U.S. and has been increasingly prescribed since Roe was overturned.
Acknowledging the significance of the case, Kacsmaryk, who was appointed by then-President Donald Trump, asked Baptist if he could cite a prior example of a court removing an FDA-approved drug after many years on the market.
Baptist acknowledged that there are no prior examples, but he blamed the drug’s longevity on the FDA’s “stonewalling” of his group’s prior requests to remove the drug. The group petitioned the FDA in 2002 and in 2019 seeking to curb access to the pill.
Lawyers for the FDA are expected to argue that pulling mifepristone would upend reproductive care for U.S. women and undermine the government’s scientific oversight of prescription drugs.
Kacsmaryk gave each side two hours to make their arguments — with time for rebuttal — in the high-stakes case. Mifepristone’s manufacturer, Danco Laboratories, will join the FDA in arguing to keep the pill available.
A ruling could come any time after arguments conclude. A decision against the drug would be swiftly appealed by U.S. Department of Justice attorneys representing the FDA, who would also likely seek an emergency stay to stop it from taking effect while the case proceeds.
One of the alliance’s chief arguments against the FDA is that it misused its authorities when it originally approved the pill.
The FDA reviewed the drug under its so-called accelerated approval program, which was created in the early 1990s to speed access to the first HIV drugs. Since then, it’s been used to expedite drugs for cancer and other “serious or life-threatening diseases.”

The alliance, which was also involved in the lawsuit that led the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, argues that pregnancy is not a disease and therefore mifepristone should not have been considered for accelerated approval.
“The contrast between these illnesses and the FDA jamming pregnancy into … the FDA regulations could not be more stark,” Baptist told Kacsmaryk.
But the FDA says the group’s argument is flawed on multiple counts. First, FDA regulations make clear that pregnancy is considered a “medical condition” that can be serious and life-threatening in some cases.
Second, while the FDA reviewed the drug under its accelerated approval regime, it didn’t expedite the drug’s review. In fact, approval only came after four years of deliberation. Instead, the FDA used regulatory powers under the accelerated program to add extra safety restrictions to mifepristone, including requiring physicians to be certified before prescribing it.
The hearing is the first in the case and is being closely watched by groups on both sides of the abortion issue in light of the reversal of Roe. Removing mifepristone from the market would curtail access to abortion even in states where it’s legal.
If Kacsmaryk rules against the FDA, it’s unclear how quickly access to mifepristone could be curtailed or how the process would work. The FDA has its own procedures for revoking drug approvals that involve public hearings and scientific deliberations, which can take months or years.
If mifepristone is sidelined, clinics and doctors that prescribe the combination say they would switch to using only misoprostol, the other drug used in the two-drug combination. That single-drug approach has a slightly lower rate of effectiveness in ending pregnancies but is widely used in countries where mifepristone is illegal or unavailable.
In addition to challenging mifepristone’s approval process, the lawsuit takes aim at several later FDA decisions that loosened restrictions on the pill, including eliminating a requirement that women pick it up in person.
Lawyers for the FDA have pointed out that serious side effects with mifepristone are rare, and the agency has repeatedly affirmed the drug’s safety by reviewing subsequent studies and data. Pulling the drug more than 20 years after approval would be “extraordinary and unprecedented,” the government stated in its legal response.
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#Conservative #Texas #judge #weighs #challenge #abortion #pills
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 16, 2023
Mike Pompeo says America needs serious conservative candidates

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Host Shannon Bream pressed Pompeo, saying that his description of who he didn’t want in the White House sounded a lot like Trump, his former boss.
“It’s not about former President Trump. It’s not about President Biden. It’s about the American people and getting this right,” Pompeo answered, before telling Bream he was not “dodging” her question.
He also said he would decide whether to run or not in “the next couple months.”
Pompeo is one of a number of prominent Republicans seen as potential challengers to the former president for the 2024 GOP nomination.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have entered the race, and others, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, are considered possible entrants. Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday he would not be entering the race.
Pompeo, who also spoke about current international crises and the origins of Covid-19, did say he thought he could do better as president than recent holders of the nation’s highest office when it comes to fiscal policy and government debt.
“I think,” he said, “a President Pompeo or any conservative president will do better than not only we did during the four years of the Trump administration, but Barack Obama, George Bush. The list is long, Shannon, of folks who come to Washington on one theory and aren’t prepared to stand up and explain to the American people how we’re actually going to get that right.”
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#Mike #Pompeo #America #conservative #candidates
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 5, 2023
Battle for control of Wisconsin Supreme Court sees liberal and conservative advance to final round

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“I can’t tell you how I’ll rule in any case, but throughout this race, I’ve been clear about what my values are,” Protasiewicz said during her victory speech, pointing to her support for abortion access, voting rights and public safety.
The eventual winner will help decide major cases that are likely to come before the court. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and state Attorney General Josh Kaul sued to overturn a more than century-old state law banning most abortions, which could make its way to the state Supreme Court later this year. The court may also be poised to have a say on election laws, as it has in the past.
The race — a down-ballot contest in an off-year — brought in millions of dollars. From the beginning of the year through the primary election, ad spending reached over $9 million on television, digital and radio, per AdImpact. The top spender was Fair Courts America, a super PAC linked to GOP megadonor Richard Uihlein, which has put in around $2.8 million in support of Kelly. Last year, the group said it intended to spend “millions of dollars” on Kelly’s candidacy.
Not far behind Fair Courts America was Protasiewicz, who aired a robust ad blitz backed by a $2.3 million spend. She raised more than $725,000 from the beginning of the year through Feb. 6 — more than all of her opponents’ combined fundraising in that period. Her campaign said it raised more than $2 million since she entered the race in May, a record-breaking sum for a spring primary candidate in Wisconsin.
A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund — the same group that spent close to $4 million on the governor’s race in support of Evers last election — spent $2.2 million on advertisements hitting Dorow. Dorow spent over $600,000, and outside groups made up the rest of the spending.
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#Battle #control #Wisconsin #Supreme #Court #sees #liberal #conservative #advance #final
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 22, 2023
Joe Biden: EU conservative hero

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Joe Biden’s European friends may be miffed about his climate law.
But the U.S. president’s America-first, subsidy-heavy approach has actually gained some grudging — and for a Democrat unlikely — admirers on the Continent: Europe’s conservatives.
Within the center-right European People’s Party, the largest alliance of parties in the European Parliament, officials are smarting over why their own politicians aren’t taking a page from the Biden playbook.

Their frustration is homing in on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — a putative conservative the EPP itself helped install. Officials fear they have let von der Leyen lead the party away from its pro-industry, regulation-slashing ideals, according to interviews with leading party figures.
Biden’s law has now brought their grumbling to the surface.
On Thursday, a wing of EPP lawmakers defected during a Parliament vote over whether to back von der Leyen’s planned response to Biden’s marquee green spending bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Their concern: it doesn’t go far enough in championing European industries.
Essentially, they want it to feel more like Biden’s plan.
The IRA was an “embarrassment” for Europe, said Thanasis Bakolas, the EPP’s power broker and secretary general. The EU “had all these well-funded policies available. And then comes Biden with his IRA. And he introduces policies that are more efficient, more effective, more accessible to businesses and consumers.”
A bitter inspiration
European leaders were blindsided last summer when Biden signed the IRA into law.
Since then, they have complained loudly that the U.S. subsidies for homegrown clean tech are a threat to their own industries. But for the EPP, ostensibly on the opposite side to Biden’s Democrats, the law is also serving as bitter inspiration.
“It’s a little bit like in the fairy tale, that someone in the crowd — and this time it wasn’t the boy, it was the Americans — pretty much pointing the finger to the [European] Commission, and saying, ‘Oh, the king is naked?’” said Christian Ehler, a German European Parliament member from the EPP.
Viewed from bureaucratic, free-trading Brussels, Biden’s climate policy looks more sleek, geopolitically muscular — and, notably for the EPP, more appealing to voters on the right than anything actually coming out of the EPP-led Commission | Oliver Contreras/Getty Images
Under the EU’s centerpiece climate policy, the European Green Deal, the European Commission, the EU’s policy-making executive arm, has doggedly introduced law after law aimed at squeezing polluters from every angle using tighter regulations or carbon pricing. The goal is to zero out the bloc’s net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Biden’s IRA approaches the same goal by different means. It is laden with voter- and industry-friendly tax breaks and made-in-America requirements. Viewed from bureaucratic, free-trading Brussels, Biden’s climate policy looks more sleek, geopolitically muscular — and, notably for the EPP, more appealing to voters on the right than anything actually coming out of the EPP-led Commission.
For some, the sense of betrayal isn’t directed at Washington, but inward.
“We learned that we lost track for the last two years on the deal part of the Green Deal,” said Ehler, who is using his seat on Parliament’s powerful Committee on Industry, Research and Energy to push for fewer climate burdens on industry. “We are in the midst of the super regulation.”
The irony is that Biden and the Democrats probably wouldn’t have chosen this path were it not for Republicans’ decades-long refusal to move any form of climate regulation through Congress.
The IRA was a product of political necessity, shaped to suit independent-minded Democratic senators such as Joe Manchin of coal-heavy West Virginia. If Biden and his party had their druthers, Biden’s climate policy might have looked far more like the Brussels model.
Let’s get political
As party boss, Bakolas is preparing the platform on which the EPP — a pan-European umbrella group of 81 center-right parties — will campaign for the 2024 EU elections.
He is also flirting with an alliance with the far right, meaning the center-right and center-left consensus that has dominated climate policy in Brussels could break up. Bakolas advocates “a more political approach.”
“We need to do the same [as the U.S.], with the same tenacity and determination,” he said.
One big problem: It’s hard for the European Union, which doesn’t control tax policy, to match the political eye-candy of offering cashback for electric Hummers (something Americans can now claim on their taxes).
“Can Europe, this institutional arrangement in Brussels … act as effortlessly and seamlessly as the American administration? No, because it’s a difficult exercise for Europe to reach a decision … but it’s an exercise we need to do,” said Bakolas.
Within the center-right European People’s Party, the largest alliance of parties in the European Parliament, officials are smarting over why their own politicians aren’t taking a page from the Biden playbook | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
In other words, the EPP is looking to emulate Biden’s law — at least in spirit, if not in legalese.
The conservative thinking is beginning to coalesce into a few main themes: slowing down green regulation they feel burden industry; using sector-specific programs to help companies reinvest their profits into cleaning up their businesses; and slashing red tape they say slows already clean industries from getting on with the job.
EPP lawmaker Peter Liese said he had been “desperately calling” for these red-tape-slashing measures. He was glad to see some in von der Leyen’s contested IRA response plan. But Liese and the EPP want more.
“We can have an answer of the two crises, the two challenges, that we have: the climate crisis and challenge for our economy, including the IRA,” said Liese.
Green groups and left-wing lawmakers argue the EPP is simply using the IRA and Europe’s broader economic woes as a smokescreen to cover a broad retreat from the Green Deal. In recent months the party has blocked, or threatened to block, a host of green regulations proposed by the Commission.
“This is like trying to put on the ballroom shoes of your grandfather and trying to do a 100-meter sprint,” Green MEP Anna Cavazzini told Parliament on Wednesday.
Bakolas rejected that.
He said the party had finally woken up to the need to set a climate agenda that better reflected its own, center-right, free-market ideals.
“What the IRA did,” he said, “is to ring an alarm bell.”

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#Joe #Biden #conservative #hero
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )

February 16, 2023
‘Sorry, Ron, you’re No. 2’: Sununu says he’s the top dog among conservative governors

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“I’m ranked the most fiscally conservative governor in the country,” Sununu, who is considering a 2024 presidential bid, told POLITICO’s Lisa Kashinsky. “I’m No. 1 in personal freedoms. Sorry, Ron, you’re No. 2,” he added, a jab at the Florida governor, considered a frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“I would challenge anyone on Second Amendment rights. We’re far and away the best, you know, because we believe in those individual freedoms. Regulatory reform, I’ll challenge any state on it,” Sununu added.
Sununu acknowledged that he may be “more moderate” on social issues. But on those issues, New Hampshire has “better results than almost anywhere else,” he said.
“I would challenge anyone on conservative credentials.”
Sununu, a New England moderate in the party of MAGA, has positioned himself as a Trump alternative who still carries the conservative mantle. And while he holds an advantage with New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status for the presidential primary calendar, it’s unclear what his path would be beyond that.
To that point, Sununu took shots at Democratic Party plans to strip New Hampshire of it’s calendar pole position, calling the move “a complete fool’s errand,” and saying the plan to bestow that status on South Carolina would open President Joe Biden up to primary attacks.
“He’s really opened … himself up for challengers,” Sununu said. “And I firmly believe there will be challengers.”
“They’re gonna have to let it play out. But there’s no doubt someone will step in and be a real challenger to Biden, because he tried to move the primary away from [New Hampshire],” Sununu said.

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#Ron #youre #Sununu #hes #top #dog #among #conservative #governors
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 9, 2023
DeSantis builds conservative resume with new $114B-plus budget
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“If we were here four years ago and people said we would be able to propose what we are proposing today, most people probably would have said that would not have been possible,” DeSantis said Wednesday during a press conference at the state capitol.
“But if you told them everything that happened in the last four years, they definitely would have said it would not have been possible,” he said.
The Florida Legislature has the ultimate authority to write the state budget, but DeSantis’ growing clout within the national Republican Party has given him great power over the GOP-dominated Legislature, which in recent years has generally handed him everything he wanted. Any budget wins will give DeSantis more talking points if he jumps into the 2024 presidential race, further fueling the impression that he can use public funds to enact a conservative agenda.
Before the Wednesday press conference began, an administration staffer told state workers at the event to applaud and be “high energy.” Moments later, they cheered and clapped loudly when DeSantis entered the Florida Cabinet room, where he announced the budget plan. The workers broke out into applause three times during DeSantis’ presentation.
DeSantis framed much of his remarks around not just a single-year budget proposal but rather a recap of his entire first term. He compared the state of Florida’s overall economy with four years ago when he first took office. During that time, Florida’s main state reserve fund increased by $12 billion, the unemployment rate has dropped to 2.5 percent, and Florida has become the fastest-growing state in the country — changes that occurred while the state was grappling with a global pandemic that helped make DeSantis a national star with the conservative base.
Some of the governor’s more controversial programs would get significant increases if ultimately approved. DeSantis wants $31 million and 27 positions for the Office of Election Crimes and Security, which he created last year to investigate election fraud. DeSantis lauded the office and, in August, held a high-profile press conference highlighting 20 arrests made by his agents. Several of those defendants, however, had the charges against them dropped, and the office has yet to secure a conviction.
The governor is also seeking another $12 million for his controversial program that uses state funds to transport asylum-seeking migrants from the southern border to other parts of the country,
The program drew swift backlash when, in September, DeSantis transported 50 mostly Venezuelan asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, a move he said was done to highlight the Biden Administration’s border policies. Democrats, including President Joe Biden, widely condemned the flights.

“We have had a deterrent effect, and people are sick of having an open border with no rule of law in this country,” DeSantis said Wednesday when asked about the funding.
The migrant flight program is facing several lawsuits, including from state Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Miami), who argued that the DeSantis administration violated state law because the original funding was earmarked to remove “unauthorized aliens from this state” while the September flights originated in Texas. This year’s proposed budget broadens the scope of the language to say the funds would be used to remove “unauthorized aliens within the United States.”
House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell approved of some budget proposals, like making diaper purchases tax-free, but said that, overall, it represents a political stunt.
“Governor DeSantis’s budget proposal is a financial wish list of recommendations to influence decisions made in the Capitol,” she said in a statement. “While I am encouraged to see recommended allocations that will benefit Floridians … I am also concerned to see troubling recommendations like the ‘Unauthorized Alien Transport Program,’ which I worry could lead to further political stunts like when the Governor previously used taxpayer dollars to lure unsuspecting individuals seeking political asylum from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.”
Senate Democratic Leader Lauren Book (D-Plantation) took a slightly different tone, saying the “devil is in the details,” but praised tax breaks in the plan and said she sees “much common ground at first glance.”
DeSantis’ proposal also relies on more than $400 million in Biden administration Covid-19 aid money. The biggest single chunk from that funding is $220 million to pay for $1,000 bonuses for first responders. Over the past two years, state budgets have included nearly $10 billion from the federal pandemic assistance, money that has been used to pay for some of DeSantis’ most politically divisive proposals heavily criticized by Biden and other Democrats, including the migrant flights.
Florida GOP Sen. Rick Scott last month sent a letter asking state leaders to return their pandemic relief money in order to help pay down the federal debt. DeSantis said, however, that returning the money would not have a huge impact on the nation’s debt.
“If you look at how much money that is … it’s like $100 million, $200 million, a few hundred million,” DeSantis said Wednesday. “How much dent would that make in the debt?”
DeSantis also wants $2 billion in tax cuts, including permanently removing state sales taxes on baby and toddler necessities like cribs and strollers — as well as for gas stoves. Gas stoves have become the newest wedge issue after some liberal cities have sought to ban them in new construction to reduce carbon footprints and for health reasons. The Biden administration does not support banning gas stoves.
“They want your gas stove, and we are not going to let that happen,” DeSantis said.
Other provisions in DeSantis’ proposal:
- $65 million for a state worker pay increase, including a 5 percent across-the-board increase and 10 percent increases for positions deemed “hard to hire” for.
- The budget unveiled Wednesday by DeSantis would put a record $25.9 billion in the Florida Education Finance Program, the state’s central pot of education funding, which represents an increase of $1.4 billion, or 5.8 percent, compared with current-year spending.
- On the environment, the governor said his proposed budget provides $1.1 billion for Everglades restoration and water quality programs, including $200 million for replacing septic tanks with sewer system hookups. And he said the proposal includes $406 million for coastal resiliency projects and planning. And it includes $75 million for land acquisition at the Department of Environmental Protection in addition to $25 million for local park grant programs through DEP. The budget proposal does not include money through the agriculture department for conservation easements.
- The proposal also calls for a health care budget of $47.3 billion, which is a decrease from the $48.9 billion budget that took effect in July.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
February 2, 2023
Conservative trustees oust president at Florida’s New College amid leadership overhaul

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The newly-installed conservative board of trustees at New College of Florida ousted its current president in favor of former state education commissioner Richard Corcoran Tuesday, launching the initial move in reshaping the campus under the vision of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
The decision came at the first board meeting since DeSantis appointed six new trustees with the idea of overhauling the liberal arts college in Sarasota into a more conservative-leaning institution. That track was accelerated Tuesday when the board paved the way for new leadership as students and parents protested the major changes that appear bound for New College.
“Some have said these recent appointments amount to a partisan takeover of the college. This is not correct,” said trustee Matthew Spalding, a constitutional government professor and vice president at Hillsdale College’s D.C. campus who was appointed by DeSantis. “It’s not a takeover — it’s a renewal.”
A leadership switch from President Patricia Okker to Corcoran as interim leader is one of several moves made Tuesday by the board, which also signaled its intent to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campus — all policies pushed by DeSantis. The changes are major developments at the school spurred by the new appointees, including Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who has advised DeSantis on critical race theory, and Eddie Speir, the co-founder of Inspiration Academy, a Christian charter school in Bradenton, Fla.
Tuesday’s meeting was met with apprehension from dozens of students and parents who protested what they called a “hostile takeover” at New College. They urged Okker to stay on as president and push back against the new mandates from the DeSantis administration to model the school as a “Hillsdale of the South” in reference to the private conservative religious “classical“ college in Michigan.
Okker in an emotional address told the board — and the campus — that she couldn’t continue to serve as president amid accusations that the students are being inundated with liberal indoctrination.
“The reality is, and it’s a hard reality and it’s a sad reality, but the vision that we created together is not the vision I have been given as a mandate here,” Okker said.
In remaking the board at New College, the DeSantis administration said the school was “completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning” and in need of change following downward enrollment trends. To move on from Okker, trustees agreed to a “generous” exit package that includes at least 12 months of paid professional development leave and benefits. Corcoran is unable to begin serving until March, leaving Okker’s chief of staff Bradley Thiessen in charge until then.

“New leadership is the expectation and I think it makes sense,” Rufo said at the meeting. “I don’t think it’s a condemnation of Dr. Okker, scholarship or skills or character.”
DeSantis’ changes at New College follow other efforts to reshape higher education in Florida. Earlier Tuesday, the GOP governor proposed several changes to Florida’s university system, including pressing the GOP-led Legislature to cut all funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and to allow university leaders to launch tenure review of professors. Last year, DeSantis and state Republicans placed GOP allies in top university posts and pushed legislation that could limit how professors teach race.
New College is also now set to review its Office of Outreach & Inclusive Excellence at the request of Rufo as part of the state’s stance against diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools. Rufo originally pushed to abolish the office outright, including four positions, and take other actions tied to diversity and equity, but decided to request further details on the program for a discussion in February.
Tuesday’s meeting was tense at times, with audience members frequently shouting over and at the new trustees as they spoke. Several parents and students addressed the board before they huddled, often criticizing their plans to retool the university and asking them to leave the college alone.
Some faculty said students felt “hopeless” about what could happen at the school, which is a unique college of under 700 undergraduates where students craft personalized education plans and don’t receive letter grades.
“Many students came here to feel safe and access the education that is their right as Floridians,” Diego Villada, Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies, told the board. “And the impulse to make this a place where race, intersectionality and DEI are banned indicates to them that you want everyone to be the same – to be like you.”
Trustees, though, made it clear that the New College overhaul is fully underway, a message that came the same day DeSantis pledged to invest millions of dollars into recruiting faculty to the school.
“The campus needs a deep culture change. You sat up here, you called us racists, sexists, bigots, outsiders,” said trustee Mark Bauerlein, professor emeritus of English at Emory University who was appointed by DeSantis. “We are now in a position of authority in the college. And the accusations are telling us that something is wrong here.”
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#Conservative #trustees #oust #president #Floridas #College #leadership #overhaul
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 1, 2023
Conservative trustees oust president at Florida’s New College amid leadership overhaul

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A leadership switch from President Patricia Okker to Corcoran as interim leader is one of several moves made Tuesday by the board, which also signaled its intent to abolish diversity, equity and inclusion programs on campus — all policies pushed by DeSantis. The changes are major developments at the school spurred by the new appointees, including Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist who has advised DeSantis on critical race theory, and Eddie Speir, the co-founder of Inspiration Academy, a Christian charter school in Bradenton, Fla.
Tuesday’s meeting was met with apprehension from dozens of students and parents who protested what they called a “hostile takeover” at New College. They urged Okker to stay on as president and push back against the new mandates from the DeSantis administration to model the school as a “Hillsdale of the South” in reference to the private conservative religious “classical“ college in Michigan.
Okker in an emotional address told the board — and the campus — that she couldn’t continue to serve as president amid accusations that the students are being inundated with liberal indoctrination.
“The reality is, and it’s a hard reality and it’s a sad reality, but the vision that we created together is not the vision I have been given as a mandate here,” Okker said.
In remaking the board at New College, the DeSantis administration said the school was “completely captured by a political ideology that puts trendy, truth-relative concepts above learning” and in need of change following downward enrollment trends. To move on from Okker, trustees agreed to a “generous” exit package that includes at least 12 months of paid professional development leave and benefits. Corcoran is unable to begin serving until March, leaving Okker’s chief of staff Bradley Thiessen in charge until then.
“New leadership is the expectation and I think it makes sense,” Rufo said at the meeting. “I don’t think it’s a condemnation of Dr. Okker, scholarship or skills or character.”
DeSantis’ changes at New College follow other efforts to reshape higher education in Florida. Earlier Tuesday, the GOP governor proposed several changes to Florida’s university system, including pressing the GOP-led Legislature to cut all funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs and to allow university leaders to launch tenure review of professors. Last year, DeSantis and state Republicans placed GOP allies in top university posts and pushed legislation that could limit how professors teach race.
New College is also now set to review its Office of Outreach & Inclusive Excellence at the request of Rufo as part of the state’s stance against diversity, equity and inclusion programs in schools. Rufo originally pushed to abolish the office outright, including four positions, and take other actions tied to diversity and equity, but decided to request further details on the program for a discussion in February.

Tuesday’s meeting was tense at times, with audience members frequently shouting over and at the new trustees as they spoke. Several parents and students addressed the board before they huddled, often criticizing their plans to retool the university and asking them to leave the college alone.
Some faculty said students felt “hopeless” about what could happen at the school, which is a unique college of under 700 undergraduates where students craft personalized education plans and don’t receive letter grades.
“Many students came here to feel safe and access the education that is their right as Floridians,” Diego Villada, Assistant Professor of Theater and Performance Studies, told the board. “And the impulse to make this a place where race, intersectionality and DEI are banned indicates to them that you want everyone to be the same – to be like you.”
Trustees, though, made it clear that the New College overhaul is fully underway, a message that came the same day DeSantis pledged to invest millions of dollars into recruiting faculty to the school.
“The campus needs a deep culture change. You sat up here, you called us racists, sexists, bigots, outsiders,” said trustee Mark Bauerlein, professor emeritus of English at Emory University who was appointed by DeSantis. “We are now in a position of authority in the college. And the accusations are telling us that something is wrong here.”
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#Conservative #trustees #oust #president #Floridas #College #leadership #overhaul
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

February 1, 2023