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Don Moynihan @donmoyn
, 9 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
The Koch Foundation comes out swinging against radical right groups that are harassing professors and attacking higher education. Great. One problem is they have been funding some of those groups. 1/ washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost…
Koch Foundation officials specifically spoke out against Charlie Kirk's Turning Point organization, which created the McCarthyite Professor Watchlist. Turning Point is shady enough that other very conservative orgs like YAF disavow it. 2/ chronicle.com/article/Leaked…
So its good that the Koch Foundation is speaking out against Turning Point. On the other hand, Turning Point has been been given money and status by Koch-funded organizations 3/
ibtimes.com/political-capi…
The Koch Foundation is also concerned about the adoption of legislation that restricts free speech under the guise of protecting it. WI and other states adopted this legislation, based on a model bill by the Goldwater Institute. But guess who also funds the Goldwater Institute? 4
Don't doubt that Koch Foundation sincerely cares about the societal value of higher education in a way that grift troll units like Turning Point does not. But they've also created this Frankenstein of know-nothingism with their funding in the past. 5/
One possibility is that the Koch Foundation is signaling to its donor recipients and the wider conservative donor class that it no longer wants them funding organizations like Turning Point. Good, but orgs like TP aren't going anywhere 6/ threadreaderapp.com/thread/9824042…
The Koch Foundation is committing to more transparency in its direct funding on campus. Again, good, since it has not always respected the idea of academic freedom in the past. 7/ nytimes.com/2018/05/05/us/…
Koch money funds good research, especially in the criminal justice area. And their concerns about different viewpoints on campus are legitimate. But they have burned a lot of trust on college campuses b/c of past behavior & ongoing funding. 8/
To end on a positive note, I'd like to thank the Koch network for funding the Knight First Amendment Institute, who have led the legal efforts to get Trump to unblock followers. Alas, I am still waiting for legal relief. 9/
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More from @donmoyn see all

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Grover Norquist knows how marginal tax rates works. He and his organization has done more to shape our current tax system than perhaps anyone else.
The point of this tweet is to underline that much of the conservative DC brains-trust are perfectly comfortable with propaganda. 1/
For those of you unfamiliar, Norquist is the leader of Americans for Tax Reform, whose great policy contribution has been to coerce Republican elected officials into signing a pledge to never raise taxes, promising to primary anyone who doesn't sign. 2/ newyorker.com/news/news-desk…
Norquist is hugelyy influential, nominally because of his tax policy expertise. But given his obvious bad-faith arguments, why give him op-ed space? Every time he testifies in Congress, lawmakers first question should be "why should we take anything you say seriously?" 3/
Read 5 tweets
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The debate about campus speech is a lot easier to understand when you get that it is mostly driven by people who care neither about campus or speech, but instead dislike universities because they assume they foster liberal thought. And its not just the US.
Authoritarian Orban in Hungary not just shut down an independent university - the definition of state censorship. He is also obsessed with removing gender studies from higher education. 2/ edition.cnn.com/2018/10/19/eur…
In the UK, the nationalist UKIP party has also blames university-inspired political correctness for the world's problem - including the EU! 3/
Read 3 tweets
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Jazmine Headley went to a welfare office to get childcare vouchers so she could take a cleaning job. With no available chairs, she sat on the floor with her 1yr old. She was told to stand, refused. Then police came, yanked child away & arrested her. 1/ nytimes.com/2018/12/09/nyr…
Eyewitnesses said she was not blocking any entry way, but she is charged with obstruction. She is charged with endangering her child, even though it was the security officials and police who directly put the child in danger 2/
This story made me think of @jbsoss's work abt welfare encounters. I assign it to my students, who have mostly never encountered this sort of treatment by the state. Joe's work illustrates how such experiences teach citizens lessons abt their standing 3/ dropbox.com/s/7tsmsxugn7jk…
Read 11 tweets

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From @ALEC_states talking points given to members this year: "No one individual or organization makes up more than two percent of ALEC’s budget." This is what they are telling legislators to say when asked questions about its #Koch funding. It is just not accurate. #ALECInDC
(2) There are a number of big inaccuracies in these talking points. This is doing legislators a disservice if they rely on these thinking that they are accurate. ALEC surely knows they are giving legislative members inaccurate information.
(3) The statement about no single funder giving more than two percent of the budget, was provided so legislators could respond to questions about the power of the Koch brothers and other big donor over ALEC.
Read 7 tweets
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Trump and Mussolini: 11 Key Lessons from Historical Fascism

Italian fascism provides a better model for our moment than Nazi Germany—and the comparison is not encouraging.

By: @Anis_Shivani for @AlterNet
Thread ✔
1/
Fascism is a religion. The 20th century will be known in history as the century of fascism.
〰️ Benito Mussolini

2/
I’d like to draw some comparisons and contrasts between our present situation and that of #fascist Italy between 1922 and 1945. I choose fascist #Italy rather than #Nazi #Germany because it has always seemed to me a better comparison.
3/
Read 169 tweets
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Donald Trump’s day so far:

- Roger Stone witness held in contempt of court
- Trump attacks Nancy Pelosi
- Also attacks black football players
- He’s still ranting on Twitter late into the evening
- He’s trying to distract from a bombshell he knows is coming
- It’s still only 8pm
Donald Trump tips off that a major bombshell is about to land palmerreport.com/analysis/bombs…
Here’s what’s really going on with Roger Stone witness Andrew Miller being held in contempt of court palmerreport.com/analysis/conte…
Read 5 tweets
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1. #QAnon drops link to the bill that opened the door for TWITTER, FB, GOOG, etc. to CENSOR & CONTROL.


congress.gov/bill/114th-con…

reddit.com/r/greatawakeni… #Q
2. I was censored by Twitter 8/5/18 for 3 days, 3 ways. My crime: Defending POTUS by pointing out that Fusion GPS had met with the Russian lawyer, V what's her name, immediately before & after the Tower meeting on a @realDonaldTrump thread. #QAnon #Q
3. Having happen personally gives depth to what #QAnon's pointing to. Being banned that way, suddenly I'm gagged. Almost no one seeing my tweets. Once lifted (& one never knows if or when it'd be lifted), suddenly impresssions pop w/o any new activity. #Q
Read 54 tweets
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WaPo comes out swinging against Ocasio-Cortez in problematic fact check. (Thread)
Fact check 1: AOC overstepped on assertion that “everyone is working multiple jobs.”

Besides missing the forest for the trees, WaPo asserts that the number of people working multiple jobs has declined based on BLS statistics. But that’s probably inaccurate.
Fact check 2: AOC is wrong about Mercatus study that M4A would be much cheaper than the current system.

In reaching this conclusion, WaPo relies on assumptions made in the study—not simply the data.
Read 5 tweets
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Thanks, John. I hope EVERYONE reads the @ProPublica piece on Liberty with a side of #LowerEd @AlecMacGillis has done a great job showing how LowerEd is not only a #4profit phenomenon nytimes.com/2018/04/17/mag…

Let's read it together, shall we?
One thing I point out in the #LowerEd epilogue is that there is a political context to shifting legitimacy to corporate highered. The GOP isn't shy about it. It's their official policy platform. Of Liberty, Alec shows this nicely
It is the context that colleagues like @Lollardfish @ldburnett @reclaimUC have tirelessly researched, written about and archived: the culture wars never ended. They merely transformed and became more deeply ingrained in "legitimate" political discourse
Read 37 tweets

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