Millennial Waitress Chloe Hough Schools Kansas Governor Sam Brownback

I realize that from time to time I have openly bashed Millennials -such as Abby Huntsman and "Kennedy" - mainly for being uninformed, clueless twits when they spout off  on things they don't know - such as Huntsman on Social Security and Kennedy on global warming.   At the same time it is important to give recognition to those Millennials who have demonstrated not only political insight and savvy but moxy in speaking truth to misplaced power.

Chloe Hough merits all kudos, for taking down congenital asshole and social justice antagonist, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. This is the knuckle dragging fool who actually proposed a law to prevent food stamp beneficiaries from enjoying any bit of pleasure with their SNAP monies. In other words, he's a turd and troglodyte - e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/again-why-ks-welfare-decision-is-wrong.html

But few may know that Brownback (who, god forbid, may actually be a distant cousin of mine as wifey in her ancestry.com research has turned up "Brownbacks" on the Stahl family tree in Kansas) has even dug his state into further backward holes. This concerns education  funding.

Brownback has now imposed public education cuts, which saving he plans to use to help fill the massive revenue shortfalls created by his income tax cuts for the wealthy. Under a block-grant funding scheme Brownback signed into law this winter, school district such as Topeka's are slated to lose $3.6 million in funding this year and over the next two years. This feral scheme - which could only have been conceived by a jackal -  jeopardizes a wide array of academic and extracurricular offerings; e.g. for Topeka High students. Thus, athletics programs, arts education, and foreign language courses could be on the chopping block. Other districts have cut short their school years; still others  warn they may not have enough toilet paper to last out the school year. (Or they may have to ask students to bring their own)

Enter now a politically educated millennial waitress named Chloe Hough  who  sparked a viral Internet sensation over the weekend after a chance encounter with Brownback. Working her last-ever shift at Boss Hawg’s, a popular Topeka barbecue joint, the 22-year-old posted on Facebook Saturday night:

 “You guys 911 emergency: It’s my last shift and I am waiting on our governor. What should I say to him. This is not a test. Go.”

 Her ultimate decision? On the line where customers typically include a tip, Hough marked a big “X,” writing alongside it, “Tip the schools.” A message to the dimwit, knuckle dragging Sammie that she was onto him and his scheme to bleed schools dry while filling the coffers of the rich. (A scheme, btw, cooked up by the reprobate Koch brothers who are funding Brownback. Again, difficult to process this maggot may be a distant relation!)

Officially, Brownback’s office has yet to comment, however it probably gave the indirect 'go ahead' to the egomaniacal director of the Kansas Republican Party, who denounced Hough’s “arrogant stupidity” on Monday.  Now, imagine that it's bad enough a craven political shill like Brownback would attempt this school fund cutting scheme - and not even have the cojones to directly respond to her. Instead the twerp sends this "director" on a fool's errand to complain about Chloe's "arrogant stupidity" when she was in fact a voting citizen speaking truth to power!  The pseudo-director is the one with the arrogant stupidity here because his little political peons only serve at the behest of the voter's will, voters like Chloe.

In a recent interview with Salon.com she was asked:  Why education?

Her response:

My sister is a factor. She’s lost a lot of educators, and just hasn’t had a good education experience in general. So that bothered me. She’s lost a lot of teachers and paraprofessionals, but more generally, there’s been such a lack of communication between the state government and the schools.

I met with a state legislator recently, and with the block grants, the attitude was basically, “We’re going to get this passed no matter what they want.” I think that’s ridiculous. That’s what I was more mad about.

I know a lot of people think what I did is funny, and it’s gone viral. But I honestly hope, even though this will blow over eventually, that people continue to question the way things are going.
Education is so important. But we’re in an embarrassing place. When I meet people outside of Kansas, they’re like, “So do you believe in evolution?”

Which is a damned shame! Because as my wife's ancestry searches revealed, the Stahl clan in Kansas around the turn of the last century include a stellar teacher and ‘Renaissance Man’ - Jacob Brumbaugh:

Jacob Brumbaugh, ca. 1909

  who believed the most important thing was the advancement of young minds especially encouraging them to question an array of ideas and long held beliefs via their education. If he was alive today to see what Brownback and his cronies were doing to wreck Kansas secondary school education -  well, he'd probably have a fit - then begin organizing to get rid of the little termite.

Salon.com also asked Chloe:

Would you say you’ve always been a political person, or has Brownback been the catalyst?

To which she responded:

I think [I’ve been a political person]. But he’s definitely awakened something more, because all of his policies are just backwards. He wants to take Kansas back into the Dark Ages. And it’s not just education. It’s the fact that people can get fired for being LGBT. It’s the fact that we don’t have equal opportunities. It’s all kinds of things.

To another question, there was a most telling reply:

Is there anything more you’d like to say to him?

I just don’t think it’s fair that you can essentially buy your way into politics. He has the Koch brothers funding him, and it’s not like he has any good ideas. And I don’t understand why he got reelected.

But I also want him to know that I’m not afraid of him. Because a lot of people have said to me, “You’ve done something I could never do, I work for the state or I’m a teacher and I would get fired if I said something like this.” And that’s not right. You can talk about your opinions, and you shouldn’t have to worry about being fired.

Indeed, Chloe.  But as we know, in these United States, that thing called "free speech" while hyped as some defining attribute, is really limited. You get to vocalize or write your views all right. But you are not free from blowback or being penalized for them, including firing. Ask former CU professor Ward Churchill who was terminated for his essay "On Roosting Chickens" after 9/11. (Though CU claimed it was for  "plagiarism"  based on a departmental investigation. Trouble was it had only focused on Churchill, no one else.)