A community-created artwork from the Stability AI Discord community.Credit…Marlop, Stability AI Discord Community

Dear Commons Community,

A celebration for the start-up company, Stability AI, which developed the  controversial Stable Diffusion image generator, represents the arrival of a new A.I. boom. That became clear Monday night at the San Francisco Exploratorium, where Stability AI, gave a party that felt a lot like a return to prepandemic exuberance.

The event — which lured tech luminaries including the Google co-founder Sergey Brin, the AngelList founder Naval Ravikant and the venture capitalist Ron Conway out of their Zoom rooms — was billed as a launch party for Stability AI and a celebration of the company’s recent $101 million fund-raising round, which reportedly valued the company at $1 billion. 

But it doubled as a coming-out bash for the entire field of generative A.I. — the wonky umbrella term for A.I. that doesn’t just analyze existing data but creates new text, images, videos, code snippets and more.  As reported by The New York Times.

It’s been a banner year, in particular, for generative A.I. apps that turn text prompts into images — which, unlike NFTs or virtual reality metaverses, actually have the numbers to justify the hype they’ve received. DALL-E 2, the image generator that OpenAI released this spring, has more than 1.5 million users creating more than two million images every day, according to the company. Midjourney, another popular A.I. image generator released this year, has more than three million users in its official Discord server. (Google and Meta have built their own image generators but have not released them to the public.)

That kind of growth has set off a feeding frenzy among investors hoping to get in early on the next big thing. Jasper, a year-old A.I. copywriting app for marketers, recently raised $125 million at a $1.5 billion valuation. Start-ups have raised millions more to apply generative A.I. to areas like gaming, programming and advertising. Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm, recently said in a blog post that it thought generative A.I. could create “trillions of dollars of economic value.”

But no generative A.I. project has created as much buzz — or as much controversy — as Stable Diffusion.

Partly, that’s because, unlike the many generative A.I. projects that are carefully guarded by their makers, Stable Diffusion is open-source and free to use, meaning that anyone can view the code or download it and run a modified version on a personal computer. More than 200,000 people have downloaded the code since it was released in August, according to the company, and millions of images have been created using tools built on top of Stable Diffusion’s algorithm.

That hands-off approach extends to the images themselves. In contrast to other A.I. image generators, which have strict rules in place to prevent users from creating violent, pornographic or copyright-infringing images, Stable Diffusion comes with only a basic safety filter, which can be easily disabled by any users creating their own versions of the app.

That freedom has made Stable Diffusion a hit with underground artists and meme makers. But it has also led to widespread concern that the company’s lax rules could lead to a flood of violent imagery, nonconsensual nudity, and A.I.-generated propaganda and misinformation.

Incredible piece of software but why must we have to take the bad with the good!

Tony

David Brooks

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times columnist, David Brooks, has a sobering piece today for Democrats.  Entitled, “Why  Republicans Are Surging,”  he refers to recent polling showing that Republicans are pulling significantly ahead of Democrats in the midterm elections.  He bases much of his analysis on the Democrats squandering the strong position they held in the summer much of which was due to the reversal of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision.  He points to polls that show that independent women are abandoning the Democrats for Republican candidates.  He comments that voters have become most concerned about the economy and crime.  He also indicates that the Democrats are not winning back Hispanic voters, the January 6^th Congressional hearings did not provide much of a bump upward, and that the Republicans have clearer messaging.

His entire column is below.

Tony

————————————————-

The New York Times

“Why Republicans Are Surging”

October 22nd

By David Brooks

Opinion Columnist

Democrats had a golden summer. The Dobbs decision led to a surge of voter registrations. Voters handed Democrats a string of sweet victories in unlikely places — Alaska and Kansas, and good news in upstate New York.

The momentum didn’t survive the fall.

Over the past month or so, there’s been a rumbling across the land, and the news is not good for Team Blue. In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll 49 percent of likely voters said they planned to vote for a Republican for Congress, and 45 percent said they planned to vote for a Democrat. Democrats held a one-point lead last month.

The poll contained some eye-popping numbers. Democrats were counting on abortion rights to be a big issue, gaining them broad support among female voters. It doesn’t seem to be working. Over the past month, the gender gap, which used to favor Democrats, has evaporated. In September, women who identified as independent voters favored Democrats by 14 points. Now they favor Republicans by 18 percentage points.

Republicans lead among independents overall by 10 points.

To understand how the parties think the campaign is going, look at where they are spending their money. As Henry Olsen noted in The Washington Post last week, Democrats are pouring money into House districts that should be safe — places that Joe Biden won by double digits in 2020. Politico’s election forecast, for example, now rates the races in California’s 13th District and Oregon’s Sixth District as tossups. Two years ago, according to Politico, he won those areas by 11 and 14 points.

If Republicans are competitive in places like that, we’re probably looking at a red wave election that will enable them to easily take back the House and maybe the Senate.

So how should Democrats interpret these trends? There’s a minimalist interpretation: Midterms are usually hard for the president’s party, and this one was bound to be doubly hard because of global inflation.

I take a more medium to maximalist view. I’d say recent events have exposed some serious weaknesses in the party’s political approach:

It’s hard to win consistently if voters don’t trust you on the top issue. In a recent AP-NORC poll, voters trust Republicans to do a better job handling the economy, by 39 percent to 29 percent. Over the past two years, Democrats have tried to build a compelling economic platform by making massive federal investments in technology, infrastructure and child welfare. But those policies do not seem to be moving voters. As The Times’s Jim Tankersley has reported, Democratic candidates in competitive Senate races are barely talking about the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which included direct payments to citizens.

I thought the child tax credit expansion would be massively popular and could help create a Democratic governing majority. It turned out to be less popular than many anticipated, and there was little hue and cry when it expired. Maybe voters have a built-in uneasiness about income redistribution and federal spending.

Democrats have a crime problem. More than three-quarters of voters say that violent crime is a major problem in the United States, according to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll. Back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden worked hard to give the Democrats credibility on this issue. Many Democrats have walked away from policies the party embraced then, often for good reasons. But they need to find another set of policies that will make the streets safer.

Democrats have not won back Hispanics. In 2016, Donald Trump won 28 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2020, it was up to 38 percent. This year, as William A. Galston noted in The Wall Street Journal, recent surveys suggest that Republicans will once again win about 34 to 38 percent of the Hispanic vote. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading the Democrat Charlie Crist by 16 points among Hispanics likely to vote.

The Jan. 6 committee and the warnings about MAGA fascism didn’t change minds. That committee’s work has been morally and legally important. But Trump’s favorability rating is pretty much where it was at the committee’s first public hearing. In the Times poll, Trump is roughly tied with Biden in a theoretical 2024 rematch. According to Politico, less than 2 percent of broadcast TV spending in House races has been devoted to Jan. 6 ads.

It could be that voters are overwhelmed by immediate concerns, like food prices. It could be that voters have become so cynical and polarized that scandal and corruption just don’t move people much anymore. This year Herschel Walker set some kind of record for the most scandals in one political season. He is still in a competitive race with Senator Raphael Warnock in Georgia.

The Republicans may just have a clearer narrative. The Trumpified G.O.P. deserves to be a marginalized and disgraced force in American life. But I’ve been watching the campaign speeches by people like Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona. G.O.P. candidates are telling a very clear class/culture/status war narrative in which common-sense Americans are being assaulted by elite progressives who let the homeless take over the streets, teach sex ed to 5-year-olds, manufacture fake news, run woke corporations, open the border and refuse to do anything about fentanyl deaths and the sorts of things that affect regular people.

In other words, candidates like Lake wrap a dozen different issues into one coherent class war story. And it seems to be working. In late July she was trailing her opponent by seven points. Now she’s up by about half a point.

Liz Truss Announcing Her Resignation

Dear Commons Community,

British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned this morning— bowing to the inevitable after a tumultuous, six-week term in which her policies triggered turmoil in financial markets and a rebellion in her party.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Making a hastily scheduled statement outside her 10 Downing Street office, Truss acknowledged that “I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party.”

Hers is the third resignation by a Conservative prime minister in as many years and leaves a divided party seeking a leader who can unify its warring factions. Truss, who said she will remain in office for a few more days while that process unfolds, has been prime minister for just 45 days.

Just a day earlier she had vowed to stay in power, saying she was “a fighter and not a quitter.” But Truss couldn’t hold on any longer after a senior minister quit her government with a barrage of criticism and a vote in the House of Commons descended into chaos and acrimony just days after she was forced to abandon many of her economic policies.

A growing number of lawmakers had called for Truss to resign after weeks of turmoil sparked by her economic plan. When it was unveiled by the government last month, the plan triggered financial turmoil and a political crisis that has seen the replacement of Truss’ Treasury chief, multiple policy U-turns and a breakdown of discipline in the governing Conservative Party.

Earlier, Conservative lawmaker Simon Hoare said the government was in disarray.

“Nobody has a route plan. It’s all sort of hand-to-hand fighting on a day-to-day basis,” he told the BBC on Thursday.

Truss quit after a meeting with Graham Brady, a senior Conservative lawmaker who oversees leadership challenges. Brady was tasked with assessing whether the prime minister still has the support of Tory members of Parliament — and it seemed she did not.

“It’s time for the prime minister to go,” Conservative lawmaker Miriam Cates said earlier Thursday. Another, Steve Double, said of Truss: “She isn’t up to the job, sadly.” Legislator Ruth Edwards said “it is not responsible for the party to allow her to remain in power.”

Lawmakers’ anger grew after a Wednesday evening vote over fracking for shale gas — a practice that Truss wants to resume despite opposition from many Conservatives — produced chaotic scenes in Parliament.

With Conservatives holding a large parliamentary majority, an opposition call for a fracking ban was easily defeated. But there were displays of anger in the House of Commons, with party whips accused of using heavy-handed tactics to gain votes.

Chris Bryant, a lawmaker from the opposition Labour Party, said he “saw members being physically manhandled … and being bullied.” Conservative officials denied there was manhandling.

Rumors swirled that Conservative Chief Whip Wendy Morton, who is responsible for party discipline, and her deputy had resigned. Hours later, Truss’ office said both remained in their jobs.

Newspapers that usually support the Conservatives were vitriolic. An editorial in the Daily Mail was headlined: “The wheels have come off the Tory clown car.”

International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, sent onto the airwaves Thursday morning to defend the government, insisted the administration was providing “stability.” But she was unable to guarantee Truss would lead the party into the next election.

“At the moment, I think that’s the case,” she said.

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With opinion polls giving the Labour Party a large and growing lead, the Conservative Party decided its only hope of avoiding electoral oblivion was to replace Truss. But they remain divided over who exactly should do that.

The party is keen to avoid another divisive leadership contest like the race a few months ago that saw Truss defeat ex-Treasury chief Rishi Sunak. Among potential replacements — if only Conservative lawmakers can agree — are Sunak, House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt and newly appointed Treasury chief Jeremy Hunt.

Whoever it is will be the country’s third prime minister this year alone. A national election doesn’t have to be held until 2024.

Truss’ downfall was hastened by the resignation on Wednesday of Home Secretary Suella Braverman. She quit after breaching rules by sending an official document from her personal email account. She used her resignation letter to lambaste Truss, saying she had “concerns about the direction of this government.”

“The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes,” she said in a thinly veiled dig at Truss.

Braverman was replaced as home secretary, the minister responsible for immigration and law and order, by former Cabinet minister Grant Shapps, a high-profile supporter of her defeated rival Sunak.

The dramatic developments came days after Truss fired her Treasury chief, Kwasi Kwarteng, on Friday after the economic package the pair unveiled Sept. 23 spooked financial markets and triggered an economic and political crisis.

The plan’s 45 billion pounds ($50 billion) in unfunded tax cuts sparked turmoil on financial markets, hammering the value of the pound and increasing the cost of U.K. government borrowing. The Bank of England was forced to intervene to prevent the crisis from spreading to the wider economy and putting pension funds at risk.

On Monday Kwarteng’s replacement, Hunt, scrapped almost all of Truss’ tax cuts, along with her flagship energy policy and her promise of no public spending cuts. He said the government will need to save billions of pounds and there are “many difficult decisions” to be made before he sets out a medium-term fiscal plan on Oct. 31.

Speaking to lawmakers for the first time since the U-turn, Truss apologized Wednesday and admitted she had made mistakes during her six weeks in office, but insisted that by changing course she had “taken responsibility and made the right decisions in the interest of the country’s economic stability.”

Opposition lawmakers shouted “Resign!” as she spoke in the House of Commons. But Truss said she would not.

Labour Party leader Keir Starmer accused the Conservatives of lacking “the basic patriotic duty to keep the British people out of their own pathetic squabbles.”

He said that amid a worsening a cost-of-living crisis, “Britain cannot afford the chaos of the Conservatives anymore. We need a general election now.”

Best of luck to Ms. Truss in her future endeavors!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Former Vice President Mike Pence yesterday warned against the growing populist tide in the Republican Party as he admonished “Putin apologists” unwilling to stand up to the Russian leader over his assault on Ukraine.

Speaking at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, Pence addressed the growing gulf between traditional conservatives and a new generation of populist candidates inspired, in part, by former President Donald Trump.

“Our movement cannot forsake the foundational commitment that we have to security, to limited government, to liberty and to life. But nor can we allow our movement to be led astray by the siren song of unprincipled populism that’s unmoored from our oldest traditions and most cherished values,” he told the think tank audience. “Let me say: This movement and the party that it animates must remain the movement of a strong national defense, limited government and traditional moral values and life.”

To that end, Pence criticized those in the party who have pushed a more isolationist foreign policy, particularly when it comes to Russian aggression. Earlier Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared martial law for four illegally annexed Ukrainian regions as his forces have suffered stinging battlefield defeats and renewed attacks on Ukrainian cities and vital infrastructure.  As reported by the Associated Press.

“Now, I know there is a rising chorus in our party, including some new voices to our movement, who would have us disengaged with the wider world,” Pence said. “But appeasement has never worked, ever, in history. And now more than ever, we need a conservative movement committed to America’s role as leader of the free world and as a vanguard of American values.”

“As Russia continues its unconscionable war of aggression to Ukraine, I believe that conservatives must make it clear that Putin must stop and Putin will pay,” he added. “There can be no room in the conservative movement for apologists to Putin. There is only room in this movement for champions of freedom.”

Pence has been traveling the country, campaigning on behalf of Republican midterm candidates as he lays the groundwork for a potential 2024 presidential campaign. Some of the candidates he has endorsed have espoused the kinds of populist and isolationist views he seemed to take issue with Wednesday. Arizona’s Republican Senate candidate Blake Masters, for instance, has labeled the Russia-Ukraine conflict a “European problem” and has criticized federal spending on Ukraine.

Pence’s speech largely focused on the conservative “Freedom Agenda” that he released earlier this year. It serves as both a concrete policy plan for Republicans as well as an implicit criticism of Trump, who has spent much of his time since leaving office obsessing about the 2020 election.

Pence has been a target of Trump’s ire since he refused to go along with the former president’s unconstitutional plot to try to overturn the will of voters in January 2021.

Pence once again stressed the importance of the oath he took when he was sworn in as vice president, adding that, “The American people must know that conservatives will not simply pay lip service to keeping faith with the Constitution, but that we will always keep our oath — that we will keep our oath, as the Bible says, even when it hurts” and “stand for the Constitution … even when it would be politically expedient to do otherwise.”

Pence has spent the last year trying to walk a careful line, distancing himself from his former boss while at the same time touting the accomplishments of the Trump-Pence administration.

Speaking later Wednesday evening before students at Georgetown University, Pence was asked whether he would vote for Trump if Trump becomes the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2024.

“Well, there might be somebody else I’d prefer more,” he said, drawing applause from the crowd. He said he is currently focused solely on the midterms, but added, “I’ll keep you posted.”

A step in the right direction but Pence could have been a little more definitive about his view of Trump running for president again.

Tony

Undergraduate EnrollmentDear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting this morning that new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center indicates that enrollment in the nation’s colleges is still on the decline. Institutions lost 1.1 percent of undergraduates this fall, leading to a total two-year decline of 4.2 percent since 2020. Graduate enrollment also declined (-1.0%), perhaps signifying the end of the pandemic-related influxes of post-baccalaureate students.

While the 1.1-percent dip in undergraduate enrollment this fall was less severe than the drops during the same period in 2020 and 2021, the loss of undergraduate students still hit every sector, according to the data, released on Thursday.

“After two straight years of historically large losses in student enrollments, it’s particularly troubling that the numbers are not climbing back at this point, especially among freshmen,” said Doug Shapiro, the center’s executive director, in a call with reporters.

Freshman enrollment declined by 1.5 percent over all this fall, fueled by losses in this group at four-year institutions in every sector. At what the center calls “highly selective colleges,” where at least half of the students who apply are rejected, freshman enrollment was down 5.6 percent after a gain of 10.7 percent in the fall of 2021.

At one point it was hoped that high-school seniors who skipped going to college in 2020 or 2021 — and who thereby drove steep declines in freshman attendance — would enroll in college belatedly. But “there’s not a lot of evidence in these numbers that they’re coming back now,” Shapiro said.

One area of good news was at community colleges, where an uptick of 0.9 percent in the number of first-time students this fall suggests that freshman enrollment seems to have stabilized after pandemic-driven losses that were harshest in this sector.

Colleges where more than 90 percent of students are enrolled online were a bright spot, mainly due to a spike in the number of 18-to-20-year olds. Undergraduate attendance at online colleges was up 3.2 percent from the previous year, among the small number of them that reported data.

The center’s preliminary data, which reflect enrollment as of September 29, are based on 10.3 million students at 62 percent of the institutions that report to the center.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott yesterday donated $84.5 million to the Girl Scouts of the USA.

The gift from Scott, who was previously married to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is the largest single donation in the organization’s history, the group said.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the 500 wealthiest people in the world, estimates Scott’s net worth at $27.6 billion, making her the 41st-richest person in the world. After she split from Bezos in 2019, she pledged to give about half of her more than $35 billion fortune away to charities.

Scott’s gift will go to Girl Scouts of the USA and 29 local councils that Scott selected, the organization said in a news release.

The money will go toward creating “more equitable membership opportunities” in underserved areas; expanding programming in career readiness and mental health and exploring STEM fields; bolstering research, staff and volunteer training; and upgrading Girl Scout facilities to be more accessible and resilient to climate change, among other things, it said.

Sofia Chang, the Girl Scouts’ first Asian American CEO, said Scott’s gift is “a great accelerator for our ongoing efforts to help girls cultivate the skills and connections needed to lead in their own communities and globally.”

Founded in 1912, the Girl Scouts host troops, service projects, camps and other events to cultivate leadership and other skills — including coding, robotics, financial literacy and computer science — for about 2.5 million members, including transgender girls, according to its website.

Ms. Scott is becoming a model for philanthropists around the world. 

Bless her!

Tony

Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel

Dear Commons Community,

When police went to arrest Tony Patterson outside his Tampa home in August, he couldn’t believe the reason.

“What is wrong with this state, man?” Patterson protested as he was being escorted to a police car in handcuffs. “Voter fraud? Y’all said anybody with a felony could vote, man.”

Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County residents who found themselves in handcuffs for casting a ballot following investigations by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Office of Election Crimes and Security.

The Aug. 18 arrests — conducted hours before DeSantis called a news conference to tout his crackdown on alleged voter fraud — were carried out by state police officers accompanied by local law enforcement.

The never-before-seen footage, obtained by the Herald/Times through public records requests, offers a personal glimpse of the effects of DeSantis’ efforts to root out perceived voter fraud.

“They’re going to pay the price,” DeSantis said during the news conference announcing the arrests.

Of the 19 people arrested, 12 were registered as Democrats and at least 13 are Black, the Herald/Times found.

Romona Oliver, 55, was about to leave for work when police walked up her driveway at 6:52 a.m. and told her they had a warrant for her arrest.

“Oh my God,” she said.

An officer told her she was being arrested for fraud, a third-degree felony, for voting illegally in 2020.

“Voter fraud?” she said. “I voted, but I ain’t commit no fraud.”

Oliver and 19 others are facing up to five years in prison after being accused by DeSantis and state police of both registering, and voting, illegally.  As reported  by the Miami Herald.

They are accused of violating a state law that doesn’t allow people convicted of murder or felony sex offenses to automatically be able to vote after they complete their sentence. A 2018 state constitutional amendment that restored the right to vote to many felons excluded this group.

But, as the videos further support, the amendment and subsequent actions by state lawmakers caused mass confusion about who was eligible, and the state’s voter registration forms offer no clarity. They only require a potential voter to swear, under penalty of perjury, that they’re not a felon, or if they are, that their rights have been restored. The forms do not clarify that those with murder convictions don’t get automatic restoration of their rights.

Oliver, who served 18 years in prison on a second-degree murder charge, registered to vote at the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles on Feb. 14, 2020. Six months later, she updated her address and completed another registration form.

After brief eligibility checks by the Department of State — which reports to DeSantis and is responsible for cleaning the rolls of ineligible voters — she was given a voter ID card both times.

Oliver wasn’t removed from the rolls until March 30 this year, more than two years later.

The recordings by Tampa police and Hillsborough County sheriff’s deputies reveal officers who were patient, understanding — almost apologetic.

A handcuffed Nathan Hart, 49, found a sympathetic ear when he explained how he ended up registering and voting illegally, according to the sheriff’s office recording.

As he stood handcuffed, he told officers that he signed up to vote at the encouragement of somebody at “the driver’s license place.” Records show it was in March 2020.

“I said, ‘I’m a convicted felon, I’m pretty sure I can’t,’ ” Hart, a registered sex offender, told officers. “He goes, ‘Well, are you still on probation?’ ”

Hart’s probation had ended a month earlier, Hart recalled. The person told him to sign up anyway.

“He said, ‘Well, just fill out this form, and if they let you vote, then you can,’ ” Hart said. “ ‘If they don’t, then you can’t.’ ”

“Then there’s your defense,” one of the officers replied. “You know what I’m saying? That sounds like a loophole to me.”

“Well, we can hope,” Hart said.

The officer was correct in one way: State law says that a voter has to “willfully” commit the crime — a hurdle that has forced some prosecutors not to charge ineligible voters.

In Lake County this year, for example, prosecutors declined to bring charges against six convicted sex offenders who voted in 2020.

“In all of the instances where sex offenders voted, each appear to have been encouraged to vote by various mailings and misinformation,” prosecutor Jonathan Olson wrote. “Each were given voter registration cards which would lead one to believe they could legally vote in the election. The evidence fails to show willful actions on a part of these individuals.”

DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests are being carried out by the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which is restricted by law to prosecuting crimes, including voting, involving two or more judicial circuits. Those crimes are usually “complex, often large scale, organized criminal activity,” according to its website. The statewide prosecutor is Nicholas Cox, who was reappointed by Attorney General Ashley Moody in 2019.

Oliver’s lawyer, Tampa attorney Mark Rankin, said he thinks DeSantis’ election security force chose these 20 in particular because the public would not have sympathy for people who were convicted of murder or sexual offenses. During a news conference announcing the arrests, DeSantis noted their criminal records.

“That’s not an accident,” Rankin said. “That’s a political strategy.”

Public defenders representing Hart and Patterson declined to comment.

Patterson, a registered sex offender, wondered why he was being singled out when officers showed up at his home, the recording shows.

“This happened years ago,” he told officers. “Why now? Why me?”

Even the Tampa police officer driving Patterson to the jail seemed surprised by the charges against him. En route, the officer received a phone call and appeared to briefly discuss Patterson’s case.

“I’ve never seen these charges before in my entire life,” the officer said.

Handcuffed in the back seat, Patterson, 40, stewed. He said his brother encouraged him to register to vote.

“I always listen to everybody else. Vote for this. Vote for — come on, man,” Patterson grumbled. “I thought felons were able to vote. That’s why I signed a petition form, that’s what I remember.

“Why would you let me vote if I wasn’t able to vote?”

“I’m not sure, buddy,” the officer replied. “I don’t know.”

What a horrible way to treat people!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings of Florida went on the attack last night in her first debate against Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, accusing him of being a serial liar, while Rubio criticized her for supporting President Joe Biden’s economic agenda (see highlights below).

Rubio, a two-term senator, and Demings, a three-term congresswoman and former Orlando police chief, faced questions at the West Palm Beach debate on topics including inflation, abortion, voting rights, gun violence, immigration and foreign policy.

Florida has increasingly shifted rightward in recent election cycles, giving Rubio the advantage as Republicans now lead Democrats with voter registration in the state. But Demings clearly saw the debate as an opportunity to take Rubio on forcefully as she tries to become the state’s first Black senator.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Rubio skirted a question on whether he would support a federal abortion ban with no exceptions and instead called Demings’ position extreme because she would not say what limits on abortion she would support.

“Every bill I have ever sponsored on abortion and every bill I’ve ever voted for has exceptions,” Rubio said.

“What we know is that the senator supports no exceptions,” Demings responded. “He can make his mouth say anything today. He is good at that, by the way. What day is it and what is Marco Rubio saying?”

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, Rubio has expressed his personal opposition to abortion in all cases while saying he’d back abortion-restricting statutes that include exceptions. Demings supports abortion access at least until fetal viability, saying the government should not be the one to determine that.

On gun control, Demings accused Rubio of not doing enough to change laws to prevent shootings, including mass killings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016 and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.

“How long will you watch people being gunned down in first grade, fourth grade, high school, college, church, synagogue, grocery store, movie theater, a mall and a nightclub and do nothing?” Demings said.

But Rubio defended his opposition to gun restrictions, saying some proposals would not have stopped many of the mass shootings and Americans have a Second Amendment right to protect themselves.

“Everything she is for would have done nothing to stop any of those shootings,” Rubio said. “Every one of these shooters would have passed the background check that she keeps insisting on. No one here is in favor of mass shootings and violence.”

To address inflation, Rubio said the U.S. needs to stop spending so much money, citing some pandemic relief funds, and to boost domestic oil production. He chastised the Biden administration for its decision to release more oil from the U.S. strategic reserve to help bring down prices at the pump.

“Oil reserves do not exist to win midterms,” Rubio said.

Demings said the pandemic relief money was necessary to help hurting families and businesses.

“Of course the senator who has never run anything at all but his mouth would know nothing about helping people and being there for people when they are in trouble,” Demings said.

Rubio also attacked Demings for not passing legislation in Washington, saying all she had done was get post offices named after people. Demings angrily rejected his characterization, noting the buildings were named after police officers who died in the line of duty.

“It’s embarrassing that you think that honoring a person who was a hero by naming a federal building after them is nothing,” she said.

Demings repeatedly accused Rubio of distorting her record and positions on issues.

“I am really disappointed in you, Marco Rubio, because I think there was a time when you did not lie in order to win,” she said.

Rubio maintained that Demings was simply there to support Biden’s and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s agenda, while calling himself the most effective senator.

“In the two terms I’ve been there, no U.S. senator has gotten more done than I have,” he said. “The only thing she does is vote 100% with Pelosi.”

Asked whether he would accept the results of the 2022 election, Rubio said, “Sure, because I’m going to win.”

Later, he clarified that “no matter what the outcome is, I’ll support it, because Florida has good laws. They’re not some crazy laws like they have in Pennsylvania and these other places.”

Good debate!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Ellen Schrecker, retired professor from Yeshiva university and author of The Lost Promise: American Universities in the 1960s,  has a guest essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled, “The 50-Year War on Higher Education.”  Her message is that to understand today’s political battles in academia, you need to know how they began going back to the 1960s and 1970s. 

Here are two excerpts from her essay:

“We’re under siege in Florida,” said Paul Ortiz, president of the faculty union at the University of Florida. He was responding to the recent firing of the head of the university’s honors program for no apparent reason — unless, as some people speculated, he was fired for overseeing the construction of a new honors dorm that will have gender-neutral bathrooms.

The mysterious firing was only the latest in a series of attacks on higher education in the Sunshine State pushed by its ambitious governor, Ron DeSantis. Besides the highly touted “Don’t Say Gay” law, Florida’s educators must now navigate around measures that ban teaching critical race theory and other “divisive” concepts. They also face threats to eliminate tenure and allow students to film their classes so that they can report on their professors’ political biases.

While Florida is the epicenter of the current political assault on higher education, it is not alone. Over the past two years, legislators in dozens of states introduced nearly 200 measures aimed at limiting how students are taught about racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression in U.S. history. Although primarily directed at K-12 education, colleges are experiencing the chilling effects. McCarthyism persecuted individual professors because of their politics; today’s gag rules threaten to destroy what’s left of academic freedom in public higher education, which has already been weakened by years of economic austerity and political harassment.

To understand what’s happening, you need to see how the backlash against higher education began. You need to trace its roots in the 1960s, its evolution through the culture wars of the 1980s and ‘90s, and into the current populist fray. Then you need to do something about it. Professors, administrators, students, and concerned citizens can no longer stand on the sidelines, shaking our heads and deploring the potentially devastating consequences. The simple truth is this: For decades, outside forces have — both consciously and unintentionally — undermined the integrity and quality of public higher education in America. And time and time again, a divided academic community has failed to combat them effectively. We can and must do better. Seeds of resistance are sprouting. Together, we must nurture their growth. There is no time to lose…

… Higher education might have bounced back from its troubles once the economy did in the 1980s. But a powerful coterie of wealthy businessmen and free-market ideologues sought to delegitimize the university as part of a broader campaign to shrink the state.

That plan was laid out in a widely circulated memorandum, written by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. in the summer of 1971, that called on leading businessmen to reshape America’s political culture. Believing that radical students posed an existential threat to the free-enterprise system, Powell urged corporate officials to pay particular attention to higher education. To oust the left from the main institutions of American life, the business community would have to throw vast resources into taking over the media, the legal system, and, of course, the university.

By the time Powell produced his memo, the campaign he espoused was already underway. As works like Nancy MacLean’s 2017 exposé, Democracy in Chains, reveal, a handful of conservative foundations and wealthy individuals were constructing a network of activists and intellectuals to disseminate an anti-statist ideology, while delegitimizing the liberalism that had dominated U.S. political culture since the New Deal. Hundreds of millions of dollars poured into think tanks and publications designed to supply policy makers and the media with expertise that had previously been supplied by mainstream academics.

The conservative foundations also created a shadow academy. They endowed professorships, supported free-market economics departments, and developed programs that pushed the virtues of free enterprise at dozens of universities. Brand-name colleges got their share, but so too did lower-tier regional institutions like Middle Tennessee State University and Virginia’s George Mason University. Funders sought out promising conservative students, subsidizing their publications and political organizations and sponsoring their future careers. By the 1980s, these efforts had created a chorus of seemingly respectable voices delivering a devastating critique of the traditional university.”

Schrecker is correct in her analysis.  Higher education is currently under siege from the right but the seeds started decades ago. In my opinion,  the Powell Memorandum was most instrumental in lying the groundwork for the “siege.”

Tony