Dear Commons Community,

A Virginia school board voted yesterday to restore the names of Confederate military leaders to a high school and an elementary school, four years after the names were removed amid nationwide protests calling for a reckoning over racial injustice.

In a reversal experts believe was the first of its kind, Shenandoah County’s school board voted 5-1 to rename Mountain View High School as Stonewall Jackson High School and Honey Run Elementary as Ashby Lee Elementary.

Friday’s vote reversed a decision by the school board in 2020 when school systems across Virginia and the South were removing Confederate names from schools and other public locations in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.  As reported by The Associated Press.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, which maintains a database of more than 2,000 Confederate memorials nationwide, is not aware of another case of a school system restoring a Confederate name that was removed, said senior research analyst Rivka Maizlish.

Overall, the trend toward removal of Confederate names and memorials has continued, even if it has slowed somewhat since 2020, she said, noting that the Army renamed nine installations named for Confederate leaders, and removed a Confederate memorial from Arlington National Cemetery.

In Virginia, local governments had been banned from removing Confederate memorials and statues until the law was changed in 2020, though the statute did not apply to school names.

School board members who voted to restore the Confederate names said the previous board ignored popular sentiment and due process when the names were stripped.

Elections in 2023 significantly changed the school board’s makeup, with one board member writing in an op-ed for the Northern Virginia Daily that the results gave Shenandoah County “the first 100% conservative board since anyone can remember.”

That board member, Gloria Carlineo, said during the six-hour meeting that began Thursday night that opponents of the Confederate names should “stop bringing racism and prejudice into everything” because it “detracts from true cases of racism.”

The lone board member to vote against restoring the Confederate names, Kyle Gutshall, said he respected both sides of the debate but believed a majority of residents in his district wanted to leave the Mountain View and Honey Run names in place.

“I don’t judge anybody or look down on anybody for the decision they’re making,” he said. “It’s a complex issue.”

During several hours of public comment, county residents spoke up on both sides of the issue.

Beth Ogle, a longtime resident with children in the school system, said restoring the Confederate names is “a statement to the world that you do not value the dignity and respect of your minority students, faculty and staff.”

Kenny Wakeman, a lifelong county resident, said the Stonewall Jackson name “stood proudly for 60 years until 2020,” when he said the “actions of a rogue police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota,” prompted a move to change the name, a reference to the killing of Floyd that propelled nationwide protests and debate over racial injustice.

Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was a Confederate general from Virginia who gained fame at the First Battle of Bull Run near Manassas in 1861 and died in 1863 after he was shot and had his arm amputated. Jackson’s name was also removed from another high school in Virginia’s Prince William County in 2020 that is now known as Unity Reed High School.

Ashby Lee is named for both Gen. Robert E. Lee, a Virginia native who commanded Confederate forces, and for Turner Ashby, a Confederate cavalry officer who was killed in battle in 1862 near Harrisonburg, Virginia. A high school near Harrisonburg is also named for Ashby.

The resolution approved by the school board states that private donations would be used to pay for the name changes.

Shenandoah County, a largely rural jurisdiction with a population of about 45,000, roughly 100 miles west of the nation’s capital, has long been politically conservative. In 2020, Republican Donald Trump won 70% of the presidential vote in Shenandoah, even as Biden won Virginia by 10 points.

In Virginia, local governments were banned from removing Confederate memorials and statues until the 2020 law lifted those restrictions. Statues of Confederate leaders, including Lee, Jackson and Confederate President Jefferson Davis were removed from Richmond’s famed Monument Avenue in 2020 and 2021 following protests and vandalizing of the statues.

Disappointing move on the part of this school board!

Tony

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Dear Commons Community,

Last night, Elaine and I went to a Candlelight Concert at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan with my son, Michael and his girlfriend, Lisa. The performers were Moriah Trenk (Piano) and Kinga Augustyn (Violin).  They performed a dozen songs in a classical style of music originally recorded by the 1960s-70s British Rock Group, Fleetwood Mac.  The program included:  You Make Loving Fun, Everywhere, Don’t Stop, and Go Your Own Way..

In addition to the fine music, the venue of the church which was lit with thousands of candles provided an ambiance unmatched in any other concert I have ever attended.  The combination of candles and music created a special serene experience.

BRAVA!

Tony

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Dear Commons Community,

A number of votes of no confidence in college leaders, mostly prompted by their handling of pro-Palestinian encampments, has surged in higher ed in the past month.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

While faculty governance bodies and unions haven’t been shy about expressing dissatisfaction with their leaders in recent years, the recent surge, with at least eight no-confidence actions undertaken and more proposed by various campus bodies, underscores how fraught the job of college president has become. While complaints about police intervention in encampments have been the leading reason for many of the recent votes of no confidence, more-traditional issues, like concerns about shared governance, have been factors, too.

The votes of no confidence indicate that displeased faculty members are just another audience presidents must face at a moment when students, donors, and politicians are already closely scrutinizing their words and actions, particularly concerning the Israel-Hamas war. And while no-confidence votes hold no inherent power, they have in the past put presidencies on the ropes: A 2022 Chronicle analysis found that, about 51 percent of the time, a president on the receiving end of a no-confidence vote winds up leaving office within a year, though those departures are rarely publicly linked to the vote.

Tough times for higher education administrators!

Below is a list of some of the colleges taking votes of no confidence.

Tony

—————————————————————————————-

University of Kentucky

University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh

California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt

Barnard College

Indiana University at Bloomington

Two Schools at Emory University

The New School

New York University

Dear Commons Community,

In a 2012 deposition reported on by The New York Times yesterday, Kennedy explained how he sought medical care after suffering memory loss and mental fogginess in 2010. The independent presidential candidate was scheduled for a medical procedure after a brain scan revealed a dark spot showing up.

However, prior to the procedure, Kennedy said a doctor from a New York-Presbyterian Hospital called and told him that he believed the dark spot was something else — a dead parasite inside Kennedy’s head.

Kennedy said in the deposition, which was given as part of divorce proceedings, that he was told the spot on the scan “was caused by a worm that have gotten into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”

The wannabe U.S. president with one of the most famous last names in America could split the vote on the November ballot, but it’s unclear whether he would take more votes from President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees.

Kennedy, the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, has earned a reputation for controversial views on a variety of subjects. The 70-year-old environmental lawyer is one of the most influential spreaders of conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine misinformation, something that has prompted fierce criticism even from his own family.

According to The Times report, Kennedy said in a previous interview with the outlet that he has recovered from the memory loss and fogginess and did not require treatment.

In the past, Kennedy has been hospitalized for a condition known as atrial fibrillation, a heartbeat abnormality that increases the risk of stroke or heart failure that can occur in otherwise healthy adults. He said he now believes the condition has disappeared.

His campaign spokeswoman, Stefanie Spear, dismissed the idea that his health issues would have an effect on his fitness on the campaign trail.

I am glad we have such impressive candidates for our presidential election!

Tony

Dear Commons Community.

Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday easily batted down an attempt by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to oust him from his post, after Democrats joined with most Republicans to fend off a second attempt by G.O.P. hard-liners to strip the gavel from their party leader.

The vote to kill the effort was an overwhelming 359 to 43, with seven voting “present.” Democrats flocked to Mr. Johnson’s rescue, with all but 39 of them voting with Republicans to block the effort to oust him.

Members of the minority party in the House have never propped up the other party’s speaker, and when the last Republican to hold the post, Kevin McCarthy, faced a removal vote last fall, Democrats voted en masse to allow the motion to move forward and then to jettison him, helping lead to his historic ouster.

This time, the Democratic support made the critical difference, allowing Mr. Johnson, who has a minuscule majority, to avoid a removal vote altogether. While for weeks Ms. Greene had appeared to be on a political island in her drive to get rid of yet another G.O.P. speaker, 11 Republicans ultimately voted to allow her motion to move forward.

That was the same number of Republicans who voted in October to allow the bid to remove Mr. McCarthy to advance — but back then, they were joined by every Democrat.  As reported by The New York Times.

“I appreciate the show of confidence from my colleagues to defeat this misguided effort,” Mr. Johnson told reporters shortly after Wednesday’s vote. “As I’ve said from the beginning and I’ve made clear here every day, I intend to do my job. I intend to do what I believe to be the right thing, which is what I was elected to do, and I’ll let the chips fall where they may. In my view, that is leadership.”

“Hopefully,” he added, “this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress.”

Congratulations to those who voted for Johnson and for putting the country ahead of their political parties.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who says she had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump, took the witness stand in the former president’s criminal trial yesterday, providing sometimes graphic testimony about a 2006 tryst she says they had in a hotel suite and the efforts to buy her silence in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.  As reported by NBC News.

The vivid testimony added a jolt of tabloid sensationalism to proceedings that just a day earlier focused on comparatively mundane topics, such as corporate record-keeping and financial reimbursement practices. Trump set the stage in dramatic fashion before anyone even took their seats in the courtroom Tuesday: “I have just recently been told who the witness is today,” he said in a since-deleted social media post. “This is unprecedented, no time for lawyers to prepare.”

Daniels, wearing an all-black outfit and black eyeglasses, spoke in a conversational and hurried tone, occasionally looking directly at the jury box as she testified about her humble upbringing, her pornography career and her relationship with Trump. State Judge Juan Merchan repeatedly reminded her to keep her answers short and speak more slowly so the court recorder could keep up.

Trump, brows furrowed, stared straight ahead during most of Daniels’ deeply unflattering testimony and sometimes whispered with his lawyers at the defense table. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to Daniels, and he denies her claims of an affair. His lawyers sought to persuade jurors that Daniels wasn’t credible and that she was driven by greed.

Daniels described a tumultuous childhood and a “neglectful” mother before she chronicled how she entered the adult film business, first as a performer and later as a writer and director. But the dramatic highlight of her testimony concerned her first meeting with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006, when he was a reality television star as host of NBC’s “The Apprentice.”

In wide-ranging testimony about the 2006 encounter, Daniels told jurors that she was initially hesitant to accept a dinner invitation from Trump. She was 27 at the time, she said, and he was around 60 — her father’s age. But she ultimately took the advice of her publicist at the time, who she recalled saying: “It’ll make a great story. He’s a business guy. What could possibly go wrong?”

Daniels later described the moments she said Trump came on to her in a penthouse hotel suite, where he answered the door in “silk or satin” pajamas that reminded her of Playboy mogul Hugh Hefner. They spoke for two hours before she went to the restroom and returned to find him on the bed in his boxer shorts, she said. She testified that seeing him there felt “like a jump scare,” adding: “That’s when I had that moment where I felt like the room spun in slow motion.”

He didn’t force himself on her or “rush at me,” she said, but he implied he could help her. “I thought you were serious about what you wanted,” Daniels recalled Trump saying. She said she believes she “blacked out” at some point during sex, which was brief. Afterward, Trump told her “it was great,” called her “honey bunch” and suggested they get together again, Daniels testified. She said he hadn’t worn a condom. She said she tried to leave the hotel as quickly as possible.

Daniels told jurors that she felt ashamed that she didn’t stop the sexual encounter. In the months that followed, Trump and Daniels kept in touch. He suggested he could book Daniels a role as a competitor on a season of “The Apprentice,” she said, but that plan never came to fruition.

In the final days of the 2016 presidential race, Daniels accepted $130,000 from Trump’s team to sign a nondisclosure agreement about her alleged tryst with Trump. (Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer and “fixer” at the time, cut the check and later got reimbursed, a process that is at the center of the criminal charges against Trump.) The prosecution has tried to present the hush money payment as a part of a scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

Daniels testified that she understood that signing an agreement that barred her from talking about her sexual encounter with Trump required them to act like they’d never met. “We had to pretend like we didn’t know each other at all, basically,” she said.

In an exchange with prosecutor Susan Hoffinger, Daniels insisted that she didn’t care about the exact dollar figure at the heart of the nondisclosure agreement. “I didn’t care about the amount,” she said. “It was just, get it done.”

Daniels testified that her personal life descended into “chaos” after her contractual arrangement with Trump and Cohen became public in a 2018 article in The Wall Street Journal, recounting that she and her young daughter were ostracized from their social circles.

Trump harassed her, too. Hoffinger displayed a social media post from Trump and asked Daniels: “Who do you understand Mr. Trump to be referring to as ‘horseface’ and ‘sleazebag’ in this post?”

“Me,” Daniels replied.

In a frequently tense cross-examination by one of Trump’s lawyers, Daniels acknowledged that she despises Trump, said she hopes he is jailed if he’s found guilty — and insisted that she started calling him names publicly only because he mocked her first.

Her names for Trump were quite graphic and not appropriate for a family blog. They are available in the Trump trial public record!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Paul Ryan has no interest in giving Donald Trump another chance come November.

The former House speaker told Yahoo Finance yesterday that he doesn’t plan to vote for the former president, adding he would be writing in a Republican candidate instead.

“Character is too important for me,” Ryan told us at the Milken Institute Global Conference. “[The presidency] is a job that requires the kind of character [Trump] doesn’t have.”

Ryan, who left the speakership in 2019, has been vocal in his opposition of Trump since. During a Monday panel, Ryan warned about the stakes in the upcoming election, saying Trump would be “bad on NATO, bad on alliances, bad on Europe, and bad on trade.”

“Democracy is being tested in two very specific ways. One within, with our polarization eating each other alive,” said Ryan, who is now vice chairman and partner at private equity firm Solamere Capital.

“The second one is from [the outside], from authoritarian regimes who are basically saying they got the mojo, they can make the decisions faster, they can beat democracy.”

Six months before Election Day, President Joe Biden and Trump remain locked in a tight race, with the candidates tied 37%-37% in the most recent USA Today/Suffolk University Poll.

Trump has so far struggled to fully unite the GOP behind his candidacy. Just a small fraction of former Cabinet members have endorsed him, prompting him to respond during a recent interview with Time magazine.

“I had some bad people. When they think they are not in favor and they’re not coming back, they’re not inclined to endorse,” he said.

Ryan said he supports Trump’s tax policies and is in favor of extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a bill he championed during his speakership. But he warned about the spending plans proposed by both candidates, saying Biden and Trump are “demagoguing” lawmakers who are “offering solutions.”

The IMF projects the US government debt to increase from 122.1% to 133.9% of annual GDP by the end of this decade.

Ryan also came out against reported plans for Trump to impose 10% tariffs on all global exports and a 60% tariff on Chinese goods.

“I think 10% tariff across the board is a really, really bad economic policy,” Ryan said. “It’s just 10% tax on American consumers making our businesses less competitive.”

Ryan reiterated his opposition to Biden’s plan to sunset Trump’s $1.7 trillion tax cut, saying that would lead to a “massive tax increase on medium and small-sized businesses as well.”

“I think they’re both bad for the economy,” he said, adding that he would still cast a ballot in the presidential election. “I wrote in a Republican the last time. I’m gonna write in a Republican this time.”

Ryan needs to get more of his GOP colleagues commenting on Trump’s character or lack thereof!!

Tony

Stuart Varney and Kristi Noem.  Photo Courtesy of Yahoo News.

Dear Commons Community,

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) and Fox Business host Stuart Varney were speaking over one another in an interview yesterday, during which the governor attempted to defend her decision to shoot her dog despite mounting criticism, which resulted in her telling him “enough.”

Varney highlighted a major question for the governor by asking if she squashed her political chances of becoming former President Trump’s running mate by including the anecdote in her new memoir.  As reported by The Hill.

“Well, I don’t think you have the facts straight,” Noem responded. “This was a vicious, dangerous dog, that was a working dog, and I had to make a choice between the safety of my children and an animal that was killing livestock and attacking people.”

Noem doubled down on the decision to include the story in her book as Varney continued to hammer her about the dog story, saying it was a “very hard decision” and she shared it because “a lot of politicians run from the truth.”

Noem dodged his question about still being Trump’s vice president despite the criticism she’s received. She said she needs him to return to the White House so she can continue to do her job.

“I know that a lot of people are using attacks to try to take me down because they’re scared of me,” Noem said. “Listen, I’ve run 12 campaigns, and all I’ve done is won.”

Varney told the governor that Fox Business is “consumed with emails” of voters who say they don’t want to vote for someone who killed their dog. He later asked if she thinks she’s still in the running to be Trump’s VP pick.

Noem said she speaks to Trump “all the time,” and Varney continued to ask if the former president asked about her dog.

“Enough, Stuart. This interview is ridiculous, what you are doing right now,” Noem said in response after trying to change the topic. “So, you need to stop. It is. It is. Let’s talk about some real topics that Americans care about.”

Varney also questioned Noem on the dog’s age. She’s been catching criticism for shooting the nearly 14-month-old Cricket, a wirehaired pointer, after he misbehaved on a hunting trip.

She told Varney that it was not a puppy, but rather an “adult working dog.” He interrupted her, saying “the dog was 14 months old,” to which she said Cricket was “a year and a half old.”

Varney also pressed her on whether it was good politics for her to include the story in her book, which has also been found to contain inaccuracies about conversations and meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

Woof! Woof!

Tony

Police arrest a pro-Palestinian protester during the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Credit – Andres Kudacki—AP

Dear Commons Community,

I received an email from the Hunter College administration yesterday saying that all classes would be remote after it received a warning that there would be a protest outside the school starting at 3:00 pm.  Hunter was the staging area for a march to disrupt the Met Gala.  I am on sabbatical so I did not have a reason to go to Hunter yesterday. Here is reporting by Time Magazine.

Picket signs, smoke bombs and flares almost mingled with cameras and excited fans as scores of pro-Palestinian protesters tried to make their way to the Met Gala Monday evening to disrupt the lavish affair in New York City.

While celebrities made their fashionable entrances on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), hundreds of protesters convened outside of Hunter College as part of the “Citywide Day of Rage,” where schools across NYC took part in demonstrations protesting Israel’s continued onslaught on Gaza, according to footage shared by reporter Katie Smith on X (see video below). The protesters are demanding Israel pull out of its invasion of Rafah and are calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

NOW: After rallying outside of Hunter College, protesters in NYC have now taken to the streets and are marching up Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side pic.twitter.com/sD6gPE2Ex6

— katie smith (@probablyreadit) May 6, 2024

The Pro-Palestinian protesters took to “flooding the streets of New York City in defense of Rafah,” marching up Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, before removing barricades that were blocking access to 5th Avenue and to the museum. Chants of “It’s called, Divest! We will not stop. We will not rest!” could be heard as the group made its way closer to the party.

At around 7:11 p.m., protesters neared the MET and descended down Park Avenue. Some set off smoke bombs and flares. They removed additional barricades on their way.

Footage posted to X appears to show NYPD officers detaining protesters outside of the gala, with others chanting “Let them go” as they stand across the street.

And as various stars made their way up the MET’s steps, the protesters continued taking detours and making sudden turns in a bid to evade NYPD officers, according to Smith. Officers with the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG) followed but protesters reportedly took to sidewalks before heading back to the street. Smith would later report that the demonstrations were turned around and returned to Park Avenue.

Multiple people have been arrested, the NYPD confirmed with The Independent. They would not provide additional details about the arrests.

Demonstrations and encampments across college campuses in the U.S. and the world have grown steadily in recent weeks, as student and faculty protesters demanded that their institutions divest from companies that support or do business in Israel.

The protests have led to arrests and suspensions of thousands of students, while also having costly impacts on colleges. Columbia University announced on Monday that it would be canceling the university’s main commencement ceremony in favor of smaller ones after discussions with student leaders and following weeks of unrest.

Tony