Quo Vadis GOP?

[Sheilbh]

What a mortifying way for this allegation to be rebutted

Darren Samuelsohn
@dsamuelsohn
NEW: Trump's 'girth would prevent him from actually getting to the steering wheel' of his SUV, former Secret Service agent says: 'I don't see this president ever being able to do that. Ever' - by @ngaudiano @PoliticsInsider

[FunkMonk]

Trump is too fat therefore he couldn't do the thing you accuse him of. Checkmate libs

[The Minsky Moment]

He's fat but agile.  If YMCA was playing on the radio, he could cha-cha to that steering wheel. no problem.

Good to see the Trumpologists are focusing on the important issues . . .

[Admiral Yi]

My understanding is the witness said he lunged for the steering wheel, not that he grabbed it.  A fat boy six inch lunge would be consistent with that.

[Admiral Yi]

My spidey sense says the hearings have done some good.

Cheney is going out in a blaze of glory.

[grumbler]

My understanding is the witness said he lunged for the steering wheel, not that he grabbed it.  A fat boy six inch lunge would be consistent with that.

Nonsense. Sheilbh is correct that never in the history of ever has anyone attempted to do something that they could not, in fact, do.

[Sheilbh]

My spidey sense says the hearings have done some good.

Cheney is going out in a blaze of glory.

Yeah. I feel it's becoming more likely it'll be DeSantis and this is part of it (and the GOP got what they needed out of Trump).

[Berkut]

Cheney should run for the GOP nomination for President. Just because.

[The Minsky Moment]

My spidey sense says the hearings have done some good.

Cheney is going out in a blaze of glory.

The RNC censure vote looks more and more ridiculous every day.

[Berkut]

My spidey sense says the hearings have done some good.

Cheney is going out in a blaze of glory.

The RNC censure vote looks more and more ridiculous every day.

Not possible.

[The Minsky Moment]

My spidey sense says the hearings have done some good.

Cheney is going out in a blaze of glory.

The RNC censure vote looks more and more ridiculous every day.

Not possible.

This one goes to 11.

[Sheilbh]

Really brings to mind the line "all political careers end in failure".

Rudy W. Giuliani
@RudyGiuliani
Great products at reasonable prices. Use code Rudy for additional savings

As Matt Sitman pointed out, in a way there's something fitting about the republic being brought down by a movement of grifters.

[Zanza]

School's out forever: Arizona moves "to kill public education" with new universal voucher law

Families who bail on public school will get $7,000 per kid in GOP's new scheme: "Every red state" urged to follow

Last Friday, while the country reeled from the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, Arizona made history of a different sort. Legislators in the Grand Canyon State passed a universal school voucher bill that, once signed by Gov. Doug Ducey, will become the most wide-reaching school privatization plan in the country.

In his January State of the State address, Ducey called on Arizona lawmakers to send him bills that would "expand school choice any way we can," and the Republican-dominated legislature obliged, delivering last Friday's bill, which will open a preexisting program for Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs) up to the entire state. In practice, the law will now give parents who opt out of public schools a debit card for roughly $7,000 per child that can be used to pay for private school tuition, but also for much more: for religious schools, homeschool expenses, tutoring, online classes, education supplies and fees associated with "microschools," in which small groups of parents pool resources to hire teachers.

[...]


And back in Arizona, the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank founded in honor of former senator and right-wing icon Barry Goldwater, celebrated the law it had done much to create as a "major victory for families wary of a one-size-fits-all approach to education," plus a cost-saving measure to boot, since the total funding parents would receive through ESA vouchers is $4,000 less than Arizona's already paltry per-pupil funding for public schools.

[...]

https://www.salon.com/2022/07/01/schools-out-forever-arizona-moves-to-public-education-with-new-universal-voucher-law/

Defunding public education seems a poor policy. The general destruction of public institutions will have a high price down the road.

[FunkMonk]

We're watching the devolution of a modern nation into a fairytale nostalgia-state in real-time.

[The Minsky Moment]

And back in Arizona, the Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank founded in honor of former senator and right-wing icon Barry Goldwater, celebrated the law it had done much to create as a "major victory for families wary of a one-size-fits-all approach to education," plus a cost-saving measure to boot, since the total funding parents would receive through ESA vouchers is $4,000 less than Arizona's already paltry per-pupil funding for public schools.

[...]

That's nonsensical. It is a virtual certainty this will blow a sizable hole in the state budget UNLESS state education is even more badly gutted then it already is.  Which of course is the real point here.

First, there are already 55,000 students currently enrolled in private schools who previously were receiving no subsidy.  That's a $385 million hit right off the bat.

Second, if say 5-10% of the public student body drops away across the board, that doesn't mean that public school funding automatically falls by that amount, because it ignores that there are substantial fixed costs in the provision of public education.  Especially given that those students that are the most costly to the system - special ed, behavioral cases, etc. are the least likely to move.