Yesterday was a full day at the Open SUNY Summit in Syracuse. The morning sessions featured presentations by:
Tod Laursen discussing SUNY’s online learning initiative;
Eric Fredericksen presenting data from a national survey of online learning leaders; and
Karen Swan sharing her views and data on social presence.
In the afternoon, Peter Shea led our panel (Evangeline J. Tsibris Cummings, David Wiley and yours truly) on the future of online education. There were lots of questions and comments from the audience.
The day closed with a presentation by Michael Feldstein on online program management companies (OPMs).
Earlier this week, The New Yorker published an exposé on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News’ close relationship with President Donald Trump. Yesterday, in a scathing column, The Washington Post’s media reporter Margaret Sullivan called Fox News an “American plague” and a “shameless propaganda outfit.”
In the piece, titled “It’s time — high time — to take Fox News’s destructive role in America seriously,” Sullivan wrote that the cable news network “specializes in fearmongering and unrelenting alarmism.” She added that it was reasonable for the Democratic National Committee to announce it would not ask Fox News to host any Democratic primary debates following the release of the New Yorker piece.
“It was not censorship as some bizarrely claimed, merely a decision not to enter into a business relationship,” she wrote.
Trump’s intimate relationship with Fox News has been unlike any other between a U.S. president and news outlet, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer reported. She described how the network has gone from airing partisan coverage to peddling conspiracy theories, promoting pro-Trump stories and killing at least one story damaging to the candidate during the 2016 campaign. Among other revelations, Mayer reported that Trump rates Fox News hosts on a scale of 1 to 10 based on their loyalty to him.
Sullivan also pummeled the network for failing to uphold basic journalism practices and for seeming to operate without clear guidelines on standards and ethics that should steer the network’s reporting.
I arrived yesterday to a chilly and snowy Syracuse to attend the Open SUNY Summit Conference. I arrived later than expected due to the weather. Regardless, I spent time with and had dinner with colleagues Peter Shea, Karen Swan, Meg Benke, and Alex Pickett.
I will be on a featured panel at 2:15 pm today entitled, The Future of Online Education, with Peter Shea, David Wiley, and Evangeline J. Tsibris Cummings.
Please stop by if you are at the Summit and say hello!
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats in the House of Representatives are struggling with how to deal with Ilhan Omar’s statements on Israel. Ilhan Omar is a U.S. Representative serving a district based in Minneapolis and its suburbs. The issue reached a boiling point yesterday during a Democratic caucus meeting, where members questioned how Pelosi made a decision to vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, and then later in the day when leaders signaled the resolution might not get a vote after all. As reported by Politico and The Huffington Post:
“The divisions reached a breaking point Wednesday, first during a Democratic caucus meeting, where members took issue with how Pelosi made a decision to vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism, and then later in the day when leaders signaled the resolution might not get a vote after all.
The resolution is seen by some Democrats as an indirect and unnecessary slight at Omar and by other Democrats as a common-sense response to Omar’s recent comments about members pledging allegiance to a foreign country. It was expected to get a vote on Thursday, but aides now tell HuffPost nothing is set in stone yet. A potential change of heart could anger some Democrats and create yet another cycle of backlash, while a decision to ultimately move forward with the vote could also spark another round of outrage from Democrats who think leadership is being taken for a ride ― a torturous sequence of self-abuse that Democrats can’t seem to stop feeding into.
Whichever way leaders go, they’re certain to upset someone, and they’ve guaranteed yet more coverage of a story they’d all like to just go away.
This latest controversy started when Omar said at a town hall, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” It wasn’t her first comment that was seen by some as anti-Semitic, after she tweeted that support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins,” but Omar contends both incidents have been taken at their worst meaning and not how she intended them. Omar has been targeted with Islamophobic attacks, including a death threat.
Still, some Democrats were fed up. Over the weekend, a small group of senior lawmakers, including Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey and Jerrold Nadler ― three Jewish Democrats from New York who chair prominent committees ― pushed Pelosi to hold a vote on a resolution condemning Omar’s statement. And with lawmakers out of town, Pelosi decided to hold a vote on the resolution without consulting the rank and file. That, in turn, angered a number of other Democrats.
New Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.) complained on Wednesday at the weekly closed-door caucus meeting that she had learned of the resolution from MSNBC instead of leaders. “My only comment was, I don’t want to hear about, as a member of Congress, important issues from cable news,” Hayes told HuffPost.
And when Pelosi contended that there wasn’t yet officially a resolution, Hayes went into her bag to find a draft of the legislation. That’s when another Democratic member quietly told Hayes to forget about finding the draft, and Pelosi took the side conversation as a sign of disrespect.
“Well if you’re not going to listen to me, I’m done talking,” Pelosi said, according to Politico. And then she left the meeting, which members and aides say was breaking up anyway.”
This is a sticky-wicket for the Democrats that has Republicans in Washington gloating. The Democratic leadership has to get its house in order and show the American people that it is organized and unified in its policies and goals.
I leave today for Syracuse to attend the Open SUNY Summit Conference. This is an annual event hosted by our colleagues at the State University of New York. All of the details about the program are available at the Conference website.
I will be on a featured panel tomorrow entitled, The Future of Online Education, with Peter Shea, David Wiley, and Evangeline J. Tsibris Cummings.
In its March 11, 2019, edition, The New Yorker will have a lengthy article documenting the relationship between Fox News and President Trump. Entitled “The Making of the Fox News White House: Fox News has always been partisan. But has it become propaganda?”, the article describes various connections between the White House and the company. Below is an excerpt:
“Fox has long been a bane of liberals, but in the past two years many people who watch the network closely, including some Fox alumni, say that it has evolved into something that hasn’t existed before in the United States. Nicole Hemmer, an assistant professor of Presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and the author of “Messengers of the Right,” a history of the conservative media’s impact on American politics, says of Fox, “It’s the closest we’ve come to having state TV.”
Hemmer argues that Fox—which, as the most watched cable news network, generates about $2.7 billion a year for its parent company, 21st Century Fox—acts as a force multiplier for Trump, solidifying his hold over the Republican Party and intensifying his support. “Fox is not just taking the temperature of the base—it’s raising the temperature,” she says. “It’s a radicalization model.” For both Trump and Fox, “fear is a business strategy—it keeps people watching.” As the President has been beset by scandals, congressional hearings, and even talk of impeachment, Fox has been both his shield and his sword. The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead. All day long, Trump retweets claims made on the network; his press secretary, Sarah Sanders, has largely stopped holding press conferences, but she has made some thirty appearances on such shows as “Fox & Friends” and “Hannity.” Trump, Hemmer says, has “almost become a programmer.”
Fox’s defenders view such criticism as unfounded and politically biased. Ken LaCorte, who was in senior management at Fox News for nearly twenty years, until 2016, and recently started his own news service, told me, “The people at Fox said the same thing about the press and Obama.” Fox’s public-relations department offers numerous examples of its reporters and talk-show hosts challenging the Administration. Chris Wallace, a tough-minded and ecumenical interviewer, recently grilled Stephen Miller, a senior Trump adviser, on the need for a border wall, given that virtually all drugs seized at the border are discovered at checkpoints. Trump is not the first President to have a favorite media organization; James Madison and Andrew Jackson were each boosted by partisan newspapers. But many people who have watched and worked with Fox over the years, including some leading conservatives, regard Fox’s deepening Trump orthodoxy with alarm. Bill Kristol, who was a paid contributor to Fox News until 2012 and is a prominent Never Trumper, said of the network, “It’s changed a lot. Before, it was conservative, but it wasn’t crazy. Now it’s just propaganda.” Joe Peyronnin, a professor of journalism at N.Y.U., was an early president of Fox News, in the mid-nineties. “I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he says of Fox. “It’s as if the President had his own press organization. It’s not healthy.”
The House Judiciary Committee yesterday sent document requests to 81 agencies, organizations and individuals close to President Donald Trump as part of a broad investigation into possible obstruction of justice, public corruption and other abuses of power.
The list includes Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. It also names dozens of current and former members of Trump’s administration, inaugural committee, his businesses and his campaign.
“We have sent these document requests in order to begin building the public record,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “The Special Counsel’s office and the Southern District of New York are aware that we are taking these steps. We will act quickly to gather this information, assess the evidence, and follow the facts where they lead with full transparency with the American people.”
The probe will focus on three main areas: whether Trump obstructed justice by interfering in criminal investigations of his campaign and administration, whether he violated the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution and campaign finance laws, and potential misuse of his pardon powers and other abuses of power.
By launching the investigation, Democrats are effectively ensuring Trump’s long litany of scandals will remain in the news including his firing of former FBI Director James Comey, his alleged involvement in a hush money scheme, the dealings of the Trump Foundation, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with foreign officials, to name just a few.
Some people on the list are likely to invoke executive privilege in response to requests for sensitive documents from their time in the White House. That group could possibly include former White House counsel Don McGahn and former top White House communications aide Hope Hicks. Those who received document requests from the committee have been told to respond by no later than March 18, though some are expected to fight the request and force a possible subpoena.
The request to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions asks him to produce documents pertaining to his “possible resignation or firing” as well as “any conversation in which President Trump stated, in words or substance, that he wanted the Mueller investigation shut down.”
Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime lawyer who testified before the House oversight committee last week, is asked to produce “any audio or video recordings of any conversation with or relating to the Trump Campaign, Donald Trump or his Business Interests from June 2015 to the present.”
With these requests, it appears the deliberations of the House Judiciary Committee will be watched closely for the next several years.
Below is the full list of people and groups that received document requests from the committee.
Last week, Michael Cohen’s public testimony in Congress dominated the news cycle. We heard a good deal about Cohen’s relationship to President Trump. Maureen Dowd in her column yesterday compared the two men to a sycophant and a sociopath. Here is an excerpt:
“Donald Trump specializes in spectacular breakups.
First there was Ivana. Then there was Marla. Now comes trouble in paradise with Kim.
Last fall, Trump cooed that the North Korean dictator wrote him “beautiful letters” and “we fell in love,” but then the president canceled their lunch date following their disappointing rendezvous in Hanoi.
Yet all the crazy tabloid splits and international spats seem pallid in comparison to the pathetic spectacle in Congress on Wednesday: a heartbroken ex publicly and bitterly processing his relationship with Trump.
This time, it wasn’t just lust, betrayal and secrets splayed across Page Six. This time, it was in Congress, part of an investigation that could lead to legal jeopardy for the Trumps or impeachment for the president.
In his testimony, Michael Cohen called himself a “fool” when it came to Trump. “I ignored my conscience and acted loyal to a man when I should not have,” Cohen said. A fool for love, held in thrall by Trump. How could anyone be held in thrall by such a sleazy goofball, much less offer to take a bullet for him or make 500 threats on his behalf?
“It seems unbelievable that I was so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him that I knew were absolutely wrong,” said Cohen in his “Goodfellas” accent, adding that being around the “icon” was “intoxicating.”
“Mr. Trump is an enigma,” Cohen said. “He is complicated, as am I.”
Actually, Trump is simple, grasping for money, attention and fame. The enigma about Trump is why he cut off his lap dog so brutally that Cohen fell into the embrace of Robert Mueller and New York federal prosecutors. Trump is often compared to a mob boss, but Michael Corleone would never turn on a loyal capo, only on one who had crossed him.
The portrait Cohen drew of Trump was not surprising. It has been apparent for some time that the president is a con man, racist, cheat and liar. (i.e., : Jared Kushner security clearance.)
What was most compelling about the congressional hearing was the portrait of the sadistic relationship between the sycophant and the sociopath.”
Read the entire article. And the media should stop comparing Donald Trump to Italian mob bosses. It is insulting to them.
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is an annual political conference attended by conservative activists and elected officials and hosted by the American Conservative Union. It used to attract and feature major conservative leaders and thinkers such George Will, Bill Kristol, and Jeane Kirkpatrick and government leaders such as Ronald Reagan. You did not have to accept what was said and presented but you knew you would hear clear commentary about the current state of conservatism. This year’s affair has had Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. as the featured speakers. Their speeches especially the President’s (see video above for a sample) were embarrassments.
In the longest speech of his presidency to date, President Donald Trump riled up the audience yesterday letting loose on topics ranging from the Russia investigation, political opponents, the media, the immigrant caravans, etc.
Reeling from disastrous week both at home an abroad, Trump attempted to paint comments he made during the 2016 campaign urging Russia to hack Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails as “sarcastic” and “having fun with the audience.”
“With the fake news, if you tell a joke, if you are sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience, if you are on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people, in an arena, and if you say something like ‘Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails! Please, Russia, please! Please get us the emails! Please!'” Trump said in a mocking tone.
Trump was referring to a press conference in July 2016 when he said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens, that’ll be next.”
According to an indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller, Russians made their first attempt to hack Clinton’s personal servers that same day. Although Trump’s address at the annual gathering of conservative activists came just days after he returned from a trip abroad to meet with North Korean leaders, he kept the focus largely on domestic issues and the national political fray.”
All of the sudden they’re trying to take you out with bull—-,” Trump said, in reference to Mueller’s probe. “Robert Mueller never received a vote and neither did the person who appointed him,” Trump continued, as he attempted to portray Mueller’s team as a group of the “angriest Democrats.”
Trump again disparaged his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation, a move Trump took as an act of betrayal.”
And as you know, the attorney general says, ‘I’m going to recuse myself,” Trump said, mimicking a Southern accent. “And I said, ‘Why the hell didn’t he tell me that before I put him in?’ How do you recuse yourself?”
Saturday marked the president’s third CPAC speech since he was elected president. In the past, Trump has used CPAC to energize his conservative base — and this was no exception. Trump attacked Democrats as socialists, warned once again of a caravan at the southern border full of “stone cold killers,” and referred to 2020 Democratic candidates as “maniacs” and accused their party of supporting “extreme late term abortion.
“With midterms behind him, Trump foreshadowed issues he hopes to focus on in his re-election campaign. The Green New Deal was front and center on Saturday. “Nothing is more extreme than the Democrats’ plan to completely take over American energy and completely destroy America’s economy through their new $100 trillion Green New Deal,” Trump said, describing the Democratic plan to tackle climate change as a “high school term paper written by a poor student.”
Trump also attacked 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, lamenting that he should not have referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as “Pocahontas” so early on in the election cycle.”I should’ve saved the Pocahontas thing for another year because I’ve destroyed her political career and now I won’t get a chance to run against her and I would’ve loved it,” Trump told the crowd. “I don’t want to knock out all the good stuff and end up with somebody that’s actually got talent.”
What a sad event for what was once a highly intelligent political gathering.
Tony
Need help with the Commons?
Email us at [email protected] so we can respond to your questions and requests. Please email from your CUNY email address if possible. Or visit our help site for more information:
