As mentioned previously here and here, after months of hand-wringing here on the Left Coast, the Temecula Valley Unified School District has finally concluded its social studies textbook adoption exercise. This post’s title gives a hint at the resolution, but skips over the outrage, so I’ll fill in the blanks right now.

This week, the TVUSD board met for a 2 hour textbook adoption workshop before their monthly open meeting where they, again, voted down adoption of what is called the TCI social studies curriculum for K-5 students in Temecula, California.

This, despite warnings from state officials that they would be, among other things, fined $1.5 million should they fail to adopt a state-approved curriculum.

Their workshop was 1 hour and 45 minutes of utter boredom that all school board workshops tend to be until the agenda item “Next Steps” came up. It was then that board member Daniel Gonzalez erupted into a homophobic hissyfit that was inflicted on half of the audience in the public meeting as seen in this YouTube video. 

The other half of the meeting’s audience cheered him on.

During this last part of the workshop, Gonzalez read a passage from a chapter in the text under consideration. Quoting:

“I want to bring up a specific note in this article that says ‘over time groups like the Gay Liberation Front and the Human Rights Campaign fought for the civil rights of gay people.’ “

At that point he jumped the track to his own research, citing a person he claimed to be a founder of the Gay Liberation Front or GLF. Quoting:

“This is a document that I was able to find online, which is the statement of purpose and the manifesto of the founder of that organization, by the name of David Thorstad, written in 1970.”

Right there, in sculpting that poorly worded screed, he departed from truth.

David Thorstad was not a founder of the Gay Liberation Front. Thorstad was one of the founders of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1970, not the GLF. I know, what’s a few letters? Besides, they’re all Gay.

But it was important to Gonzalez to conflate the GLF with the GAA because, as Gonzalez continued, Thorstad went on, in 1978, to found NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association. What could be worse than having a pedophile as a founding member of a group (i.e. the GLF) when that group is mentioned in an elementary social studies textbook? Basically, Gonzalez’ “research”, which he went to great effort to include in the workshop’s transcript, illustrated an idea born of intolerance and ignorance: that gay people are all pedophiles.

The workshop ended, and the board met, again, to reject the curriculum. Asked about the fact that Governor Newsom was paying for and sending to TVUSD the rejected materials anyway, board president Komrosky said that he would “send them back”.

Fast-forward to yesterday, Friday July 21st. In a “special meeting” the same school board met to adopt the twice-rejected curriculum. In their staring match with state government, apparently the board blinked.

Maybe they paused at having $1.6 million deducted from their state funds that would buy the curriculum materials, on top of the $1.5 million in fines that the board was promised they’d have to pay (I assume through another deduction from their state allotment).

And so, after months of bitter fighting from the vocally ignorant in Temecula Valley, the fiscal reality of the affair was clarified to the three newly-elected board members. Where reasoning failed, arm-twisting succeeded.

So all the “ado” in Temecula turned out to be “nada”.

Sometimes I am baffled as to why anyone on God’s Green Earth thinks Ron DeSantis would be an improvement over Donald Trump.

Here’s his explanation as to why we can’t have transsexual people, who he calls “cultural problems.” Couple that with how weak we are abroad now, and …

And then the audience of old white people clapped. So get your act together, people.

You can watch it yourself here if you want to, but I dunno why you would. I already did it for you. It’s like a jillion degrees here today so I figured what the hell, I can take it.

Occasionally you come upon a story that asks you to take the bait. You read a teaser and you know you should let it go, but something inside tells you to scratch that itch. The parents from the Uvalde shooting were in Washington trying to get something done on gun control. They were handing out pins. When it came to handing one to Lauren Boebert you could probably have predicted how well that would go.

There are any number of reasons why this story shouldn’t be told. The first and best reason is that this is exactly what she wants. She wants to be the center of attention. She wants a majority of the country to think she is a despicable person. It’s what trolls do. The second reason is that we know she would never vote for gun control anyway, so it really doesn’t impact our day to day lives any. It is just an excuse to become more aggrivated and upset. I wanted to throw out these two caveats before giving her exactly what she wants.

The parents of Maite Rodriguez made lapel pins of their daughter’s shoe for lawmakers to wear to honor her memory and urge them to act on her behalf and provided pamphlets asking lawmakers to act. As the story went, that was the only way they could identify her in the aftermath. Let’s be fair here. This is an obvious manipulation. Wearing the pin means you support common sense gun legislation. If you don’t and you still wear the pin then you are just being a liar to score cheap political points. What she should have done is graciously accept the pin, simply not wear it, and then discard it in her office or home.

Boebert can be clearly seen in video throwing the pin away within eyeshot of the families that were there. What she should do is be respectful of them. It’s a basic lesson we were all taught growing up. All of us have received gifts that were just hideous. We had the presence of mind and manners to say thank you and wait until we got home to discard the item.

It’s at this point where we have to move to idle speculation. Maybe Boebert wasn’t taught that growing up. We know she dropped out of school because she became a teenage mom. We know the hot water her husband and her got into earlier in life. We know her son impregnated a girl that she would only say “is older than 14.” Given all this, it is fair to ask what manners she was taught. When we consider her academic record it is also fair to say that she could have been taught but she just didn’t learn.

On the other hand, this may not be a question of manners. It may be a question of performance art. Socrates called himself a “gadfly” in Plato’s Republic and in other assorted works that described his life and work. Gadfly seems to highbrow for Boebert. We could instead call her an ass. In that world, whoever can say or do the most outlandish thing wins. Congratulations Lauren, you’ve won that label for today.

Joe Biden’s Twitter account used the words of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Turning Points Action Conference speech from last weekend where she commenced to poop all over the president’s policies but ended up making him sound terrific.

I approve this message. pic.twitter.com/f1q5giNM8j

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 18, 2023

Oh Marge Honey, go back to smoking that backwoods weed laced with Roundup and pig poop.  You’re talking about education, health care, and Medicare like they are bad things.

And while we’re here, I think the heat is taking its toll on Republican brains.  Andy Biggs out in Arizona is making up stories without a pinkie of evidence that Joe Biden’s family is stealing the silverware off your table.

House Republican Andy Biggs (R-AZ) joined Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday and accused President Joe Biden and his family of potentially taking in over $100 million – a wild corruption accusation that blows past anything other GOP politicians have levied.

“Maria, we’re talking literally, it’s not $10 million. It’s it’s well over 20, $30 million. And some estimates as high as $100 million flowing through these accounts,” Biggs declared.

“Holy moly!” exclaimed Bartiromo as Biggs spoke.

Holy moly? Is that a journalism term I missed somewhere?

Well, it’s about time.

Look, if he has two neurons still synapsing, he will not testify before the grand jury.  If we have two neurons still synapsing, he will go to prison.

I hope the big sigh of relief blows this heat wave right out of Texas.

There is an urban legend in Fort Worth circles about a guy that was pulled over. The police officer saw a mysterious package in the front seat. Supposedly, the driver said, “don’t worry officer, it’s not a bomb. It’s crack cocaine.” I seriously doubt this story is true, but we always told in Government class to illustrate a point. Some people are just stupid and you don’t want to be like them.

Well apparently the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. campaign has gotten off to an even worse start than Ron DeSantis’s campaign. Then, someone accused him of suggesting that the COVID virus was engineered and racially motivated. Then, he managed to make a statement that just cleared up everything.

The @nypost story is mistaken. I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews. I accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 15, 2023

Don’t worry officer. It’s not a bomb. It’s just crack cocaine. To put it another way, essentially Kennedy is saying, “I’m not a racist. I’m just nuts.” Is it any wonder that he is conservatives’ favorite spoiler candidate. They are hoping that you and me will overlook the crazy and just vote for him because he’s a Kennedy and because he is younger than Joe Biden.

Who knows what is motivating RFK Jr. Maybe he knows he has no chance in the world, but just wants his 15 minutes of notoriety. Maybe he is delusional enough to believe he has a chance. Maybe he knows exactly what conservatives are doing and just wants to take down Joe Biden for his own reasons. Maybe he is too dense to know he’s a tool. Maybe the tweet above is just an admission of lunacy.

Some people are just blessed without self-awareness. Let’s say his statement is 100 percent true. There are parts of it that make perfect sense. Maybe the virus was a bioweapon. Maybe it effects some people more than others. Maybe a lot of things. However, you put all of that together and it makes very little sense. Most people would know that before saying it. RFK Jr. isn’t most people.